December 2011

Sprint says 26 million handsets have Carrier IQ; AT&T claims 900K

Documents filed in response to Sen Al Franken (D-MN) show that Sprint is by far the biggest user of Carrier IQ's software, with more than 26 million handsets featuring the controversial mobile tracking tool.

Sprint noted that it has been using Carrier IQ software since 2006 but insisted that the only information it collects and uses is related to network and device performance. AT&T, another major wireless carrier, said it has integrated the software into about 900,000 handsets, although it is collecting data only from about 575,000 of them. Sen Franken had asked the carriers for such details as how many devices had the software installed, how long they had been using the software, what they were using it for and what data was being collected with it.

Carrier IQ Response on Privacy Falls Short, U.S. Senators Say

Carrier IQ failed to adequately answer questions regarding the data that the company’s software captures from mobile phone users and shares with wireless providers, said Sens Al Franken (D-MN) and Christopher Coons (D-Delaware).

Sen Franken said he was “still very troubled by what’s going on” after reviewing information submitted this week by the company and by mobile carriers including AT&T and Sprint Nextel. “It appears that Carrier IQ has been receiving the contents of a number of text messages -- even though they had told the public that they did not,” Franken, who chairs a Senate subcommittee on privacy, said in a statement yesterday. “I’m also bothered by the software’s ability to capture the contents of our online searches -- even when users wish to encrypt them. So there are still many questions to be answered here and things that need to be fixed.”

Sean Lev Named FCC Deputy General Counsel

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the appointment of Sean Lev as Deputy General Counsel. Lev will also serve as Special Advisor to the Chairman on matters concerning the policy implications of the transition to Internet Protocol (IP) networks.

Lev comes to the FCC from the Department of Energy (DOE), where he serves as the Acting General Counsel and the Deputy General Counsel for Environment and Nuclear Programs. He has also been lead counsel in many cases involving administrative law before federal and state appellate and trial courts. Before joining DOE in June 2009, Lev was a partner at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, PLLC, where his practice focused on telecommunications, administrative law, and appellate and general litigation. Lev was also an attorney on the Appellate Staff in the Civil Division at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), where he represented a large number of federal agencies. Prior to his service at DOJ, Lev clerked for the Honorable Patricia M. Wald of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Lev graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was a Supervising Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He is also a magna cum laude graduate of Williams College, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

FTC Obtains $500,000 Penalty For Comcast Pre-Merger Reporting Act Violations

Brian L. Roberts, the Chief Executive Officer of Comcast Corporation, has agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that he violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act (HSR Act) in connection with his acquisitions of Comcast stock between 2007 and 2009. The FTC alleged that Roberts failed to file required notices before acquiring Comcast shares. The amount of the fine was limited by a number of factors, including that the violation was inadvertent and technical; that it was apparently due to faulty advice from outside counsel; that Roberts did not gain financially from the violation; and that he reported the violation promptly once it was discovered.

The HSR Act requires that under some circumstances, individuals who acquire voting securities must notify the FTC and Department of Justice and observe a waiting period before completing the acquisition. The notification and waiting period requirements apply to acquisitions that meet certain thresholds defined by the HSR Act.

In 2002, in connection with a merger agreement between Comcast and AT&T Corp., Roberts made an HSR filing which allowed him to acquire additional voting securities of Comcast until September 16, 2007. The FTC alleges that Roberts violated the notice and waiting requirements beginning in October 2007, when he failed to notify the FTC and DOJ before receiving Comcast voting securities beyond the thresholds set by the HSR Act. Roberts continued to receive Comcast securities without notifying the agencies through April 2009. In August 2009, he made a corrective filing with the agencies, according to the FTC. Roberts had admitted to inadvertent violations of the HSR filing requirements previously, in 1999 and 2000, but was not charged at that time by the FTC.

FTC Warns That Rapid Expansion of Internet Domain Name System Could Leave Consumers More Vulnerable to Online Fraud

The Federal Trade Commission sent a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that oversees Internet domain names, expressing concern that the organization's plan to dramatically expand the domain name system could leave consumers more vulnerable to online fraud and undermine law enforcers' ability to track down online scammers.

In its letter to ICANN, the Commission warned that rapid expansion of the number of generic top-level domain names (gTLDs) – the part of the domain name to the right of the dot, such as ".com," ".net" and ".org" – could create a "dramatically increased opportunity for consumer fraud," and make it easier for scam artists to manipulate the system to avoid being detected by law enforcement authorities. The Commission urged ICANN – before approving any new gTLD applications – to take additional steps to protect consumers, including starting with a pilot program to work out potential problems.

Before approving any new gTLD applications, the FTC urged ICANN to:

implement the new program as a pilot program and substantially reduce the number of generic top level domains that are introduced as a result of the first application round;
strengthen ICANN's contractual compliance program, in particular by hiring additional compliance staff;
develop a new ongoing program to monitor consumer issues that arise during the first round of implementing the new gTLD program;
assess each new proposed generic top level domain's risk of consumer harm as part of the evaluation and approval process;
improve the accuracy of Whois data, including by imposing a registrant verification requirement.

What a Hotlink Costs Advertisers in Magazine iPad Editions

How much is a hotlink worth? It seems like a small thing, but it's one of many new questions facing magazine publishers as they try to figure out best practices, policies and business models for their editions on the iPad, Kindle and Nook.

Should magazines automatically activate any web addresses mentioned in a print ad -- whether it's Folgers.com or Facebook.com/DKNY -- when the ads get digitized for tablets? Or should advertisers pony up for the privilege? Conde Nast charges $5,000 to activate each web address from a print ad. Functional links give advertisers extra value that's worth paying for, according to Conde Nast, which publishes magazines such as Vogue and The New Yorker.

The 10 biggest ed-tech stories of 2011

Research bolsters the case for 3D learning.
The ACLU spurs changes in how schools use internet filtering software.
A new spirit of labor-management collaboration helps drive important school reform.
Teachers use video podcasts to turn learning “upside-down”—with promising results.
Common Core standards change education practices in states from coast to coast.
iPads help turbo-charge the digital textbook revolution.
The demise of federal ed-tech funding puts school technology programs at risk.
Social media helps rewrite the rules of internet search.
A controversial Missouri law puts social media boundaries between teachers, students in the national spotlight.
“Bring Your Own Device” spells salvation for budget-strapped schools.

The 10 key skills for the future of work

With technology and economic developments moving so quickly, it’s hard to keep up with what’s going on today, more or less foresee what career paths will make you a winner in a decade or two. But even if betting on specific jobs is a fool’s game, the Institute for the Future believes it is still possible to say something useful about how to prepare yourself for the careers of tomorrow.

The nonprofit research center focuses on long-term forecasting and recently released a report titled “Future Work Skills 2020″ that analyzes some of the key drivers reshaping work — including WebWorkerDaily’s greatest hits like connectivity, smart machines and new media — coming up not with specific, recommended professional paths but instead with broad skills that will help workers adapt to the changing career landscape. What are they?

Sense-making. The ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed
Social intelligence. The ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions
Novel and adaptive thinking. Proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based
Cross-cultural competency. The ability to operate in different cultural settings
Computational thinking. The ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning
New-media literacy. The ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms and to leverage these media for persuasive communication
Transdisciplinarity. Literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines
Design mind-set. Ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes
Cognitive load management. The ability to discriminate and filter information for importance and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques
Virtual collaboration. The ability to work productively, drive engagement and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team

Forget wallets. What else is NFC good for?

Near-field communication (NFC) has been trashed by critics, who say it adds no value to consumers or is a technology in search of a need. But as we’ve pointed out, NFC is just a technology that can applied in a lot of different ways, apart from the digital wallet framework through which many people understand it. Increasingly, we’re seeing more and more interesting projects and applications being built that show how NFC will be deployed outside of mobile payment situations. This not only indicates how flexible the technology is but also could help propel the overall technology in adoption, as consumers become aware of NFC and learn to use it for a variety of reasons.

Viewership Steady For Cable, Broadcast Nets

Cable networks and broadcast networks appear to be performing at mostly the same pace -- with little change in viewership in the fourth quarter.

Looking at Nielsen live plus seven days viewing data through Dec. 11, the broadcast networks had no change in either 18-49 viewers (10.9 overall rating) or total viewers (12.3 rating) from the fourth quarter 2010 -- per a research report from Turner Broadcasting. Total ad-supported cable rose 1% in 18-49 to a 18.6 rating and remained unchanged in total viewership, holding at 19.1. Analyzing key top 10 cable networks, things were better. Those bigger networks climbed 7% during the period to a collective 6.9 rating, and 1% up among total viewers to a 6.4 rating. There is good news for both broadcast networks and the top 10 cable networks. Both climbed 2% in household ratings, 22.3 and 12.0, respectively. Overall ad-supported cable had no change, at a 36.7 rating.

Benton

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