December 2011

SPECTRUM/WIRELESS

HOUSE AND SENATE SPECTRUM BILLS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) accused House GOP lawmakers of ignoring his efforts to find common ground on spectrum legislation. “I’m disappointed that the House has unilaterally stopped negotiating with us on spectrum, but I’m not giving up," he said. "It’s my hope that we can include a compromise in the final year-end package. Although I don’t care to negotiate this publicly, we remain open to any good idea." The spectrum legislation would incentivize television broadcasters to give up their airwaves for the government to auction to wireless companies. "One area I won’t compromise on though is the urgency of building a nationwide interoperable network for our first responders and the public safety community," Chairman Rockefeller said. "It’s a bipartisan idea, a national priority and a plan well within our reach. Frankly, the rest of the spectrum debate is secondary to the needs of our firefighters, cops, and emergency workers.”
“The House yesterday passed spectrum legislation that pays down the deficit, creates hundreds of thousands of jobs, and delivers a nationwide interoperable network for public safety," Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), sponsor of the House spectrum bill and chairman of the House Commerce subpanel on Communications and Technology, said. "We look forward to the Senate taking their turn to act on these important priorities for all Americans.”
benton.org/node/107223 | Hill, The | B&C | AdWeek
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VERIZON-LEAP SPECTRUM DEAL
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
Verizon Wireless and Leap Wireless have filed a series of applications at the Federal Communications Commission seeking approval to assign spectrum licenses. The Applicants request consent to assign the 700 MHz Lower Band Block A license for the Chicago BEA from Verizon Wireless to Leap Wireless. In addition, Leap Wireless will assign to Verizon Wireless 23 PCS licenses and 13 AWS-1 licenses in full; disaggregated portions of one PCS license and one AWS-1 license; and partitioned portions of three AWS-1 licenses.
The Applicants state that the assignment of licenses will enable Verizon Wireless to add spectrum capacity in some markets that will help address the rapidly growing demand of its customers for broadband wireless services. The Applicants also state that Leap Wireless is in need of the additional spectrum in the Chicago area to expand its service offerings and to deploy LTE network technology, which will allow it to offer improved broadband data services and to continue to compete with other carriers in that market. Finally, the Applicants explain that the proposed transactions involve the sale of excess spectrum in the subject markets, and the transactions will not affect the existing operations of either carrier or involve any customer transition issues. Preliminary review of the applications indicates that the proposed transfer of licenses would result in Verizon Wireless acquiring between 10-30 megahertz of spectrum in 204 CMAs. Leap Wireless would acquire 12 megahertz of spectrum in 13 CMAs.
Petitions to Deny the transaction are due December 28; Oppositions to those petitions are due January 9, 2012; Replies are due January 17, 2012.
benton.org/node/107192 | Federal Communications Commission
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VERIZON-US CELLULAR DEAL
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
Verizon Wireless and US Cellular have filed an application seeking consent to the proposed assignment of the cellular Block B license KNKN800 and associated common carrier fixed point-to-point microwave licenses from US Cellular to Verizon Wireless. The proposed assignment of license involves two counties in one CMA in Pennsylvania. The Applicants state that Verizon Wireless will transition the customers acquired from US Cellular to Verizon Wireless’s service within a period of nine to twelve months after closing. The Applicants assert that the proposed assignment will serve the public interest because it will enable Verizon Wireless to enter this market, which it currently does not serve, as a new competitor offering voice and 3G services, and that this entry into the market will enhance the breadth of wireless product and service offerings to US Cellular’s customers. The Applicants also state that the existing cellular operations will be supplemented by Verizon Wireless’s planned deployment of 4G LTE in the market in the near future.
Preliminary review of the application indicates that in the two counties, Verizon Wireless would hold, post-transaction, 59 megahertz of spectrum below 1 GHz.
Petitions to deny the transaction are due December 28, 2011; Oppositions to the petitions are due January 9, 2012. Replies are due January 17, 2012.
benton.org/node/107207 | Federal Communications Commission
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PUBLIC SAFETY BROADBAND NETWORK ENABLING ACT
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
Reps Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), members of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, introduced a bill that would provide $300 million to research the creation of a national public safety broadband network. The Public Safety Broadband Network Enabling Act would fund the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for research, development and standards activities to enable the creation of the public safety network. NIST would be authorized to research and help develop technologies that would improve the safety of the public safety network, document the operational requirements and help develop national, voluntary standards addressing those requirements.
benton.org/node/107195 | Hill, The
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CONSUMER PROTECTIONS AND MOBILE PAYMENTS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Andrea Chang]
Most cellphone and tablet users can purchase digital goods and charge them to their monthly bill or prepaid phone account, but buyers may not get the protections they need if something goes wrong with the transaction, a new report says. According to an analysis by Consumers Union, the protections that consumers receive vary depending on their wireless carrier's policies and what's in their cellphone contract. "We found that consumer rights can vary widely between wireless carriers, and the protections carriers claim to provide are often nowhere to be found in consumer contracts," said Michelle Jun, senior attorney for Consumers Union, the nonprofit advocacy branch of Consumer Reports. Jun said consumers using mobile payments should get the same "strong protections" that they receive when making purchases with a credit or debit card. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless said that they provided ample protections for consumers, but Consumers Union "found that the protections these carriers provide fall short" of what consumers get when they use credit cards and debit cards or when California consumers report a disputed charge on their phone accounts. In addition, Consumers Union said, many of the protections that wireless carrier representatives described are not disclosed in customer contracts, making it difficult to know whether consumers can count on these safeguards when problems arise.
benton.org/node/107197 | Los Angeles Times
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LIGHTSQUARED INTERFERENCE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The government technical group reviewing tests of LightSquared's impact on cell phones and GPS devices says its preliminary analysis shows that the LightSquared signals caused harmful interference to the majority of general purpose receivers. Meanwhile, a separate analysis by the FAA found interference to a system that warns pilots of approaching terrain -- like mountains and the ground. The tests found no significant interference to cell phones, however. The National Telecommunications & Information Administration will use the final report to make recommendations to the Federal Communications Commission on whether to lift the hold on the service. The FCC conditioned the waiver it gave LightSquared to launch a wholesale broadband wireless network on that network not interfering with GPS service. Those preliminary findings were presented to a group representing the nine federal agencies that make up the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, which will complete the analysis.
benton.org/node/107217 | Broadcasting&Cable | WSJ | Washington Post
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

ICANN HEARING
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Lawmakers on the House Communications Subcommittee urged the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to re-consider its plan to open up the Internet to hundreds of new domain endings. "I don't think this is ready for prime time," Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), the subcommittee’s top, said. Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA) echoed the same point. Dan Jaffee, vice president of government relations for the Association of National Advertisers, called the plan a "reckless experiment." Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) said ICANN hasn't proven that there is any problem with the current system. Kurt Pritz, a senior vice president at ICANN, said the group will only grant new top-level domains "that meet stringent technical and financial criteria." He said allowing for any new domain that meets the strict criteria will prevent ICANN from having to pick winners and losers. It is unclear whether Congress can do anything to stop the rollout of new domains. ICANN is an independent, international nonprofit.
benton.org/node/107209 | Hill, The | AdWeek
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PRIVACY

FEDS PROBING CARRIER IQ
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Sari Horwitz]
Federal investigators are probing allegations that Carrier IQ software found on about 150 million cellphones tracked user activity and sent the information to the cellphone companies without informing consumers, according to government officials. Executives from Carrier IQ traveled to Washington and met with officials at the Federal Trade Commission, which is responsible for protecting consumers and enforcing privacy laws. The executives also met with the Federal Communications Commission.
benton.org/node/107199 | Washington Post
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CARRIER IQ
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
As more and more information comes out about Carrier IQ’s phone monitoring software, it’s becoming more difficult to sort out exactly what data its IQ Agent collects, records and ultimately sends the its operator customers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, however, has prepared a handy infographic to help the more coding-challenged of us grasp IQ Agent’s complexity. Carrier IQ released detailed information about what IQ Agent can and cannot do, revealing its software can track information ranging from URLs to the frequency of application and SMS use, depending on how far down Agent is implemented in the OS. In its most embedded form, IQ Agent can even monitor radio-signaling data. Carrier IQ, however, vehemently denies that IQ Agent tracks keystrokes, contrary to the original findings of whistleblower Trevor Eckhart. This infographic, designed by the EFF’s Parker Higgins, shows keystrokes actually being logged in some devices with IQ Agent installed.
benton.org/node/107189 | GigaOm
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WEB GIANTS TAGGED FOR PRIVACY AUDITS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
Tired of waiting for Congress to pass a law protecting consumer privacy online, cyber advocates have persuaded federal regulators to take matters into their own hands: They’ve sentenced Web giants like Facebook and Google to 20 years of privacy audits and other sanctions. The Federal Trade Commission’s proposed settlement with Facebook last month is the latest example of the watchdog agency protecting privacy online under long-existing trade rules. Facebook allegedly mishandled sensitive data from more than 800 million users, and the FTC crafted a lengthy punishment to fit the crime. The FTC has been buoyed by online privacy advocates, who have brought the initial complaints that some of the biggest Web companies had violated their own privacy policies by failing to safeguard user data or sharing it against consumer wishes with other users, advertisers or third-party apps. Privacy advocates have chalked up countless examples of Internet giants crossing the line with tools that surreptitiously track users’ locations, recognize their faces and recall their personal interests. But while members of Congress have discussed online privacy at countless hearings and drafted a number of bills over the years, a mix of congressional politics, a difficult calendar and industry lobbying has prevented legislation from making it to the floor. The onus for online privacy protections has instead fallen to federal agencies, which have advanced the conversation with their own policy papers, public statements and enforcement actions. Chiefly pushing the envelope is the FTC. Amid work on a final set of online privacy guidelines, the agency has handed down landmark settlements targeting the Internet’s biggest names — including Google and Facebook this year, and Twitter in 2010 — as well as a bevy of smaller advertisers and smart phone apps.
benton.org/node/107214 | Politico
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FTC TALKS COPPA
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Federal Trade Commission Chairman John Leibowitz said that his agency's key recommendations for updating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act were expanding the definition of personally identifiable information (PII), and to add cookies to the watch list. While he pointed out the FTC was still getting comments on its proposals -- the deadline is Dec. 15 -- he signaled his support for expanding the definition of PII to include geolocation information, photos and videos, and for a parental opt-in regime for "persistent IDs" like cookies, so that behavioral advertisers who wanted to target kids would have to get their parent's permission. He was preaching to the choir at a Hill forum on children and teen online privacy. The co-hosts were Reps Ed Markey (D-MA) and Joe Barton (R-TX), the co-chairs of the congressional privacy caucus who co-sponsored do-not-track kids legislation that would limit how kids could be marketed to online, including making behavioral advertising off limits. Their bill, which Rep Markey plugged during the event, would require an opt-in regime for kids and teens, requiring companies to get consent from parents before they collect info from kids and from the teens before they collect their info. It would also allow kids, teens and parents to delete personal info with a so-called "eraser button," define behavioral marketing to kids as inherently unfair and deceptive, which means the FTC could prevent it, and require clear and concise privacy.
benton.org/node/107215 | Broadcasting&Cable
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PIRACY

SMITH ANSWERS CRITICS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Mike Zapler]
In a blistering statement, House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) accused a cast of star tech execs criticizing his Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) of not understanding the bill — and he singled out Google’s opposition to the measure as “self-serving.” “Companies like Google have made billions by working with and promoting foreign rogue websites so they have a vested interest in preventing Congress from stopping rogue websites,” Chairman Smith said. “Lawful companies and websites like Google, Twitter, Yahoo and Facebook have nothing to worry about this bill,” he added. Tech executives wrote that the bills would “undermine security online by changing the basic structure of the Internet.” Nonsense, responded Chairman Smith. The manager’s amendment that he unveiled this week, Chairman Smith said, addresses the major criticisms of SOPA. The revision “narrows the scope of the bill to ensure that it only applies to foreign rogue websites,” Chairman Smith said. The changes also clarify the definition of rogue sites “as foreign websites primarily dedicated to the sale and distribution of illegal or infringing material or foreign websites that market themselves as websites primarily dedicated to illegal or infringing activity,” he said. Chairman Smith said critics have ignored his attempts to address their issues. He charged that they are “spreading lies about the legislation in an attempt to stall efforts by Congress to combat foreign rogue websites.”
benton.org/node/107204 | Politico
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ANTIPIRACY BILLS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Edward Wyatt]
Type “download movies for free” into Google, and up pops links to sites like the Pirate Bay, directing users to free copies of just about any entertainment — the latest “Twilight” installment, this week’s episode of “Whitney,” the complete recordings of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. For years, pirated movies, television shows and music have been on the Internet. And for just as long, Hollywood and the entertainment business have been trying and failing to stop it. But with more and faster broadband networks as well as powerful and speedy computers, the playing of illegally copied music and movies is booming as are sales of counterfeit goods from auto parts to pharmaceuticals. Because most pirate sites are abroad, beyond the reach of United States law enforcement, companies have been left with a Whac-a-Mole approach to shutting them down. Now, however, two bills, broadly supported on both sides of the political aisle, aim to cut off the oxygen for foreign pirate sites by taking aim at American search engines like Google and Yahoo, payment processors like PayPal and ad servers that allow the pirates to function. Naturally the howls of protest have been loud and lavishly financed, not only from Silicon Valley companies but also from public-interest groups, free-speech advocates and even venture capital investors. They argue — in TV and newspaper ads — that the bills are so broad and heavy-handed that they threaten to close Web sites and broadband service providers and stifle free speech, while setting a bad example of American censorship.
benton.org/node/107221 | New York Times
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TELEVISION

SEACREST TO TODAY?
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: James Rainey]
As the gap between pop culture and the culture writ large seems to narrow with each passing day, the possible ascendancy of Ryan Seacrest to a plum network news assignment marks another notable watershed. Can a purveyor of Top 40 radio and the next singing sensation (not to mention another round of Coke) on "American Idol" command the television stage in a national crisis? That's just one of the questions making the rounds inside NBC headquarters at Rockefeller Center in New York, where executives are said to be discussing whether to make Seacrest the next host of the "Today" show. The talks have been kept under tight wraps but NBC Broadcasting Chairman Ted Harbert has made it clear that he thinks the versatile Seacrest is capable of making the switch to what was once known as a news show, sources said.
benton.org/node/107198 | Los Angeles Times
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NEW NFL DEALS
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Michael Hiestand]
The National Football League hit the jackpot in renewing with existing television outlets CBS, Fox and ESPN -- as the league's overall national media rights fees jumped more than 60%. The NFL now gets about $4.3 billion in rights fees from national media. But with the new deals, including the $1.8 billion annually from ESPN's recent renewal through the 2021 season, total rights fees could come close to an estimated $7 billion. Among the programming changes: NBC will get the primetime Thanksgiving game starting next season and, starting in 2014, will get a divisional playoff game each year from Fox or CBS and in return lose one wild-card game, which presumably will go to ESPN. And there will be a new scheduling that will allow flex-scheduling that could move games between CBS, which has the AFC NFL TV package, and Fox, which has the NFC package. The NBC Sports Network, the cable TV being renamed from Versus next month, will add a Sunday morning NFL pregame show, possibly running at 10-noon a.m. ET. The NFL also keeps the opportunity to add more Thursday games beginning next year on NFL Network.
benton.org/node/107211 | USAToday | TVNewsCheck | B&C | MediaPost
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POWELL ON CABLE, BROADCAST REGULATIONS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The good news for broadcasters is that National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Michael Powell championed broadcast deregulation. The bad news is that he said that should happen because broadband was poised to supplant broadcasting as the best use of the nation's spectrum. Powell said technology was going to force the government to reconsider its deregulatory models, even if that is short of a complete overhaul of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. "Congress and the FCC are on the verge, perhaps for the first time, of declaring that the highest and best use of spectrum is not broadcasting, but broadband," he said in a speech to the Media Institute in Washington. While a speech about communications and jobs is common these days, Powell's was linked to Steve Jobs and his mantra of simplicity. Like the less-is-more approach to Apple products' elegant functionality or rail thin TV sets, regulators should also look to pare back, he suggested. Powell was echoing another former FCC chair, Reed Hundt, who said back in 1994 that the Internet would become the common medium of the nation. Powell said that the two cornerstones on which the Act was built -- the public trustee model of broadcasting and the common carrier regime in telephony -- were "cracking badly."
benton.org/node/107216 | Broadcasting&Cable
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ELECTIONS & MEDIA

FOX HELPING OBAMA?
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Jonathan Freedland]
[Commentary] Even though the US economy is slumped in the doldrums, some of the country's shrewdest commentators make a serious case that President Barack Obama could be heading for a landslide victory in 2012. How to explain such a turnaround? In the United States, at least, there is one compellingly simple, two-word answer: Fox News. By any normal standards, President Obama should be extremely vulnerable. Not only is the economy in bad shape, he has proved to be a much more hesitant, less commanding White House presence than his supporters longed for. And yet, most surveys put him comfortably ahead of his would-be rivals. That's not a positive judgment on the President – whose approval rating stands at a meager 44% – but an indictment of the dire quality of a Republican field almost comically packed with the scandal-plagued, gaffe-prone and downright flaky. And the finger of blame for this state of affairs points squarely at the studios of Fox News. It's not just usual-suspect lefties and professional Murdoch-haters who say it, mischievously exaggerating the cable TV network's influence. Dick Morris, veteran political operative and Fox regular, noted the phenomenon himself the other day while sitting on the Fox sofa. "This is a phenomenon of this year's election," he said. "You don't win Iowa in Iowa. You win it on this couch. You win it on Fox News." In other words, it is Fox – with the largest cable news audience, representing a huge chunk of the Republican base – that is, in effect, picking the party's nominee to face President Obama next November.
benton.org/node/107186 | Guardian, The
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TELECOM

TELEPHONE SUBSCRIBERSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
As of July 2011…
The telephone subscribership penetration rate in the U.S. was 95.6%, a decrease of 0.4% over the rate from July 2010. This decrease is not considered statistically significant.
The telephone penetration rate for households in income categories below $20,000 was at or below 94.7%, while the rate for households in income categories over $75,000 was at least 98.9%.
Among the states, the penetration rates ranged from a low of 91.4% to a high of 98.5%.
Penetration rates ranged from 93.8% for households headed by a person under 25 to at least 95.9% for households headed by a person over 55.
Households with one person had a penetration rate of 93.5%, compared to a rate of 96.5% for households with four or five persons.
The penetration rate for unemployed adults was 95.1%, while the rate for employed adults was 96.7%.
benton.org/node/107191 | Federal Communications Commission
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OWNERSHIP

AMAZON BACKLASHES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Streitfeld]
If Amazon had a secret agenda in 2011 to fuel a backlash against itself, the retailer has scored another triumph. Its refusal to collect sales tax in California despite a new law compelling it to do so prompted some well-publicized criticism not only from politicians but the tech community. Its hiring of ambulances at its Pennsylvania warehouse to wait for workers to keel over in the summer heat conjured up a Dickensian sweatshop. The retailer apparently brought its Kindle Fire tablet to market before it had all the kinks out, disappointing some of its biggest fans. Now there is the Price Check flap, where Amazon asked customers to go into physical stores, scan the prices with a special app on their smartphone and then buy from Amazon. Although the campaign was geared more against Wal-Mart and Best Buy than independent bookstores — anyone who does not know that the price of any book in a bookstore is significantly more than the Amazon price has been napping for 10 years — it was the bookstores that voiced their outrage. Americans love efficiency. Anyone who has spent 45 minutes waiting in line at a post office this holiday season could only hope that Amazon would take over that moribund institution and knock some reforms into it. But all of Amazon’s efficiency, all of its selection and low prices, comes at a cost. The retailer’s continued success will be determined by whether people are willing to pay it.
benton.org/node/107201 | New York Times
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MORE ON CONENT

IPAD’S SUCCESS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Joshua Topolsky]
[Commentary] I believe that hardware specs — speed, memory, screen size — do make a difference in hardware, but that difference can only take you so far. Although CPU speed and RAM might dictate what’s possible to do with a gadget, developers and designers now have to actually deliver on those promises. Take, for example, the disparity between the iPad 2, which has a 1GHz CPU, and most new Android tablets, which run far faster than that. Would anyone who has used both devices argue that the experience of the Android tablet is superior to that of the iPad 2? Doubtful. The more I thought about this question of hardware versus software, the more intrigued I became with thinking about the future of our technology, and how it will develop over the next five or 10 years. As the importance and relevance of great applications grows for our devices, the divide between the great experiences and the ones that leave you wanting is becoming clearer with each passing day. In fact, you could almost argue there’s a kind of fundamental split between the platforms that have been tailored to provide a consistent, elegant experience and those that have been left more open. The more advanced our products get, the more subtle and sophisticated our software has to be. Today, we’re just starting out with touch screens and voice recognition. Tomorrow, everything we touch might be an experience waiting to happen. Let’s hope the computer makers touting specs today learn this lesson for the future: It’s the software, stupid.
benton.org/node/107200 | Washington Post
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DUPING SOCIAL MEDIA USERS
[SOURCE: Technology Review, AUTHOR: Tom Simonite]
A trawl of Chinese crowdsourcing websites -- where people can earn a few pennies for small jobs such as labeling images -- has uncovered a multimillion-dollar industry that pays hundreds of thousands of people to distort interactions in social networks and to post spam. The report's authors, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, also found evidence that crowdsourcing sites in the U.S. are similarly dominated by ethically questionable jobs. They conclude that the rapid growth of this way of making money will make paid shills a serious security problem for websites and those who use them around the world. A paper describing their results is available on the Arxiv pre-print server. Ben Zhao, an associate professor of computer science at UCSB (and a TR35 winner in 2006), started looking into the largely uncharted crowdsourcing industry in China after working closely with RenRen, a social network that is sometimes called the "Facebook of China," to track malicious activity on the site. Zhao was intrigued to see a lot of relatively sophisticated attempts to send spam and promote brands by users that appeared to be working with specific agendas.
benton.org/node/107183 | Technology Review
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NEW PEW REPORT
[SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Lee Rainie, Kristen Purcell, Amy Mitchell, Tom Rosenstiel]
People looking for information about local restaurants and other businesses say they rely on the internet, especially search engines, ahead of any other source. Newspapers, both printed copies and the websites of newspaper companies, run second behind the internet as the source that people rely on for news and information about local businesses, including restaurants and bars. And word of mouth, particularly among non-internet users, is also an important source of information about local businesses. Some 55% of adults say they get news and information about local restaurants, bars, and clubs. When they seek such information, here are the sources they say they rely on most.
benton.org/node/107182 | Pew Internet & American Life Project
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E-BOOK STICKER SHOCK
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Trachtenberg]
Cheap new e-readers are expected to be one of the hottest gifts this holiday season. But new owners of Kindles and Nooks may be in for sticker shock on Christmas morning: The price gap between the print and e-versions of some top sellers has now narrowed to within a few dollars—and in some cases, e-books are more expensive than their printed equivalents. When Amazon introduced its first Kindle e-reader back in November 2007, the $9.99 digital best seller was a key selling point. Today, the price of a Kindle has plummeted to under $100 -- from $399 back then. But e-book prices for some popular titles have soared. The digital price increases are the result of a decision by the six biggest publishers to set their own consumer e-book prices, a move that effectively bars retailers from discounting their e-books without permission. No such agreement exists for printed books—where retailers are free to set their own prices. So while a best-selling e-book price is often less than half of the hardcover price, heavy discounting of the print version closes the gap.
benton.org/node/107220 | Wall Street Journal
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AMAZON MONOPOLY
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: John Gapper]
[Commentary] Whoever thought up Amazon’s latest idea for squeezing other retailers – offering money off to people who scanned prices in US stores with its smartphone app and then bought the goods on Amazon – deserves an award for bad timing. Amazon’s $5 offer is a textbook example of why the Supreme Court changed US antitrust laws four years ago to discourage free-riding by discounters. It has caused outrage among retailers and politicians at a time when Amazon needs all the political support it can get. While Amazon is blithely using its rivals’ property as a storefront, it wants antitrust authorities in Europe and the US to help it control the e-book market. The European Commission and the Department of Justice have launched twin probes, provoked by deals under which publishers set prices for their e-books rather than letting Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble do so. The chances of the European Union abolishing such “agency” deals as an illegal form of price-fixing are significant but it should hold back. As the US accepts – and the e-reader case shows – it can be good for consumers if suppliers price their products as they wish rather than giving a distributor free rein.
benton.org/node/107219 | Financial Times
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HEALTH

DISTRACTED DOCTORS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Matt Richtel]
Hospitals and doctors’ offices, hoping to curb medical error, have invested heavily to put computers, smartphones and other devices into the hands of medical staff for instant access to patient data, drug information and case studies. But like many cures, this solution has come with an unintended side effect: doctors and nurses can be focused on the screen and not the patient, even during moments of critical care. And they are not always doing work; examples include a neurosurgeon making personal calls during an operation, a nurse checking airfares during surgery and a poll showing that half of technicians running bypass machines had admitted texting during a procedure. This phenomenon has set off an intensifying discussion at hospitals and medical schools about a problem perhaps best described as “distracted doctoring.” In response, some hospitals have begun limiting the use of devices in critical settings, while schools have started reminding medical students to focus on patients instead of gadgets, even as the students are being given more devices.
benton.org/node/107222 | New York Times
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POLICYMAKERS

COPPS RETIRING
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Brooks Boliek]
The Federal Communications Commission is losing its rock star regulator. At 71, Commissioner Michael Copps is retiring after 10 years, and while he may not look like a glamour boy, few regulators have received a standing ovation like he did at the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis in 2007. The FCC is defined by whoever is chairman. The chairman is the Mick Jagger; he has the mic and controls the policy agenda. The commissioners are the bandmates and over the past 10 years Commissioner Copps has often been the heart and soul — the Keith Richards — of the panel. Media consolidation was and still is Copps’s policy anthem. He reminisced with POLITICO recently about how the issue took him on the road and brought him face to face with thousands of people across the country. The Copps Road Show made him a hero to what the Occupy Wall Street protesters refer to as “the 99 percent.” “I believe in taking this commission out on the road so that the American people can see us and get to know us and we can get to know the American people and see more of them,” he said. “It’s so important as we transition to our media to the digital realm.”
benton.org/node/107203 | Politico
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
These headlines presented in partnership with:

MORE THAN 100 MILLION EU CITIZENS HAVE NEVER SURFED WEB
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Claire Davenport]
Almost a quarter of the European Union's 500 million people have never used the Internet and there is a widening division between the web-savvy north of Europe and the poorer south and east. More than half the population of Romania and just under half of those in Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal do not have Internet access at home, according to the figures from Eurostat, the EU's statistical agency. As well as highlighting geographic disparities across one of the world's most-developed regions, the figures underline the lack of opportunity people in poorer communities have to take part in advances such as the Internet that have delivered lower cost goods and service to millions of people.
benton.org/node/107180 | Reuters
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ASIAN CARRIERS MOVE AWAY FROM UNLIMITED DATA PLANS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Lorraine Luk]
Some of Asia's mobile-phone operators are moving away from offering unlimited data plans as they launch fourth-generation wireless services in an effort to increase revenue and recoup billions of dollars spent to upgrade networks. Limiting data use and charging subscribers for excessive Web browsing on mobile devices may help boost carriers' return on their investment at a time when many operators in the region have seen their earnings pressured due to falling voice revenue and hefty smartphone subsidies. With the shift to charging subscribers for extra data usage, the region's carriers are hopeful that they can boost their revenue. Currently, most Asian operators offer unlimited data for third-generation mobile services. But as carriers move to offer speedier services on their 4G networks to keep up with a surge in demand for online services such as music and video streaming, excessive data usage has strained their capacity. 4G networks can handle three times more data than current 3G networks.
benton.org/node/107179 | Wall Street Journal
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SMARTPHONE PENETRATION
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Ingrid Lunden]
Smartphone penetration is slowly approaching the tipping point where it will be more common to have a smartphone than a feature phone among the general population. Ofcom says the UK and Japan are among the countries leading the way to that milestone as consumers turn away from PC usage—a trend with wider implications for the digital content market as a whole. Some 46 percent of consumers in the UK are using smartphones, giving it the highest smartphone penetration in Europe, with Spain in second position at 45 percent. Japan, meanwhile, can boast that some 93 percent of its consumers are using devices with 3G connections across smartphones and high-end featurephones (that figure is only 48 percent in the UK, since some feature phones will have 3G access but many do not). Given that mobile penetration in the UK is now 130 percent (some people have more than one device), it effectively means that nearly half the population is using a smartphone now.
benton.org/node/107187 | paidContent.org
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December 2011

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