January 2012

FTC Announces Revised Thresholds for Clayton Act Antitrust Reviews

The Federal Trade Commission revised the thresholds that determine whether companies are required to notify federal antitrust authorities about a transaction under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act.

These filing thresholds are required to be adjusted annually to keep pace with inflation, unlike the pre-merger filing fees, which have not changed in more than a decade. The HSR Act requires companies to notify authorities if – among other things – the value of a transaction exceeds the filing thresholds. The FTC is required to revise those thresholds annually, based on the change in gross national product. For 2012, the threshold for reporting proposed mergers and acquisitions subject to enforcement under Section 7 of the Clayton Act increased from $66.0 million to $68.2 million.

The FTC also announced revisions to the thresholds that trigger a prohibition preventing companies from having interlocking memberships on their corporate boards of directors under Section 8 of the Clayton Act. The Act requires that the Commission revise those thresholds annually, based on the change in the level of gross national product. The new thresholds for the Act's prohibition on interlocking directorates are $27,784,000 for Section 8(a)(1) and $2,778,400 for Section 8(a)(2)(A). In the case of each type of threshold, the vote to approve Federal Register notices announcing the revisions was 4-0. The revised thresholds under Section 7A will apply to all transactions that close on or after the effective date of the notice, which is 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register. The thresholds for Section 8 will become effective upon publication in the Federal Register.

The National Broadband Map Goes Mobile

A new feature of the National Broadband Map that will make it easier to use on your mobile device. This new feature allows anyone on the go to more easily search broadband availability, summarize and rank data, and view a map of community anchor institutions — all optimized for their mobile device.

The mobile browser version of the National Broadband Map is designed to provide a clean, intuitive experience on the screen size of a smartphone. Users swipe across panels of information and can always access additional information by sliding the footer panel up. A convenient sharing panel is also available at the top of each page. Users are now able to search for local broadband data with their smart phones’ GPS capabilities, if available. Traditional search is also supported, and the results are presented in a new format for mobile devices: in search results, just tap on a broadband provider to see further details and to access our crowdsource voting links. The Community Anchor Institutions map is the first map we are deploying for a mobile environment. Tap “Search” to enter an address and find the 25 closest facilities. The map will zoom to the request location, and each point will offer information about the facility and any known broadband service details. Watch for additional maps to be included in the future.

Tech industry hopes for more certainty in 2012

A year after President Obama called for the United States to "out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build" the rest of the world in his 2011 State of the Union speech, the tech industry sees more to be done to get the economy back on track. On the top of many companies' lists are issues like research and development tax credits, competitive tax reform, cloud computing, cybersecurity, spectrum, privacy, and intellectual property and copyright protection.

In his 2011 speech to Congress, President Obama pointed to technology as key to reinvigorating American innovation. "In America, innovation doesn't just change our lives. It is how we make our living," President Obama said, citing Google and Facebook by name.

A year later, many tech industry leaders are bracing for continued ups and downs in the economy. "The two steps forward, one step backward pattern experienced during much of 2011 has conditioned many businesses to expect a dose of bad news with any good news," said Tim Herbert, vice president of the IT trade group CompTIA. "Among IT firms, concerns about weak consumer and corporate demand; downward pressure on margins; access to capital; and government regulation continue to weigh on business confidence." CompTIA released its IT Industry Outlook 2012, which expressed "tempered optimism" about the coming year.

GPS Tracking Case Could Have Wide-Ranging Fallout

The Supreme Court’s decision on how the use of GPS surveillance violated a person’s constitutional rights may lead to public safety and financial repercussions, according to experts.

The High Court confirmed in U.S. v. Jones that the placement of a GPS device on a vehicle for long-term tracking without an extended warrant was illegal under the Fourth Amendment. But in the absence of legislation that regulates the use of GPS tracking, the narrow ruling may stunt law enforcement’s use of the technology and consequently increase personnel costs incurred during investigations. Lt. Raymond E. Foster, a retired officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, said cases that call for using GPS tracking devices might now become too expensive for departments to handle, since the technology allowed officers to collect data remotely, instead of assigning multiple people to monitor a suspect. “There’s going to be some cases where they go, ‘We don’t have enough for a warrant and we don’t want to put a team of eight to 10 people on this for the next 72 hours, so we’re not going to work this case,’” Foster said. “So yeah, that’ll happen. That’s just logical.”

Can't Buy Me Laws: Congress Must Give Back Chris Dodd's Dirty Money

[Commentary] Free Press is urging lawmakers to put their money where their mouths are. We're asking the top recipients of the Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) campaign cash to give the money back. We're hoping this will send a message to MPAA and all other corporate lobbyists that our nation's laws are not for sale.

Nielsen: Web Sites Can Increase Local TV Reach

Nielsen research indicates that stations can use their Web sites to notably expand reach of their news content, helping drive cross-platform sales. The data, which looked at the ABC affiliates in Seattle and Portland, Oregon, shows that by using one metric, each received at least a 3% bump in the 25-to-54 demo in the May 2011 sweeps period. Nielsen took the late-news performance on weekdays for the two stations, then added in reach via each station’s Web site over the full week.

FCC Fines Clear Channel For Online Contest

The Federal Communications Commission has fined Clear Channel $22,000 for failing to adequately disclose the terms of an online contest that invited users to create video ads promoting Chevrolet.

The decision, issued by the Enforcement Bureau, stemmed from a 2008 Clear Channel contest that promised a Chevy to the user who designed the best ad for the car. The promotion prompted a complaint to the FCC alleging that some Clear Channel radio stations didn't clearly state when contest submissions were due. The official contest rules, which were posted online, said that the contest ran from Feb. 11, 2008 to March 21 2008, but also said that judges would select finalists on March 10, according to the ruling. That discrepancy “may have confused listeners and contest participants,” the FCC Enforcement Bureau said in its ruling. The FCC also faulted Clear Channel for promoting the contest on-air, but only disclosing the terms online. “Licensees cannot avail themselves of alternative non-broadcast announcements to satisfy the requirement that they accurately announce a contest’s material terms,” the FCC wrote.

Well, Here’s How Amazon Publishing Will Get Its Books Into Barnes & Noble

Booksellers should not expect to be visited by a friendly Amazon Publishing sales rep anytime soon. Rather, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish the print versions of all of the adult titles from Amazon Publishing’s New York-based division, and will distribute them everywhere in North America outside of Amazon. Best of all from Amazon’s point of view: Barnes & Noble will not get a penny from the e-book sales of Amazon Publishing titles.

Got a State of the Union address query for Obama? Ask Quora

At this rate, President Barack Obama might just dispense with the formalities and tweet his State of the Union address.

Social media firms are vying to outdo each other to seize a larger role during the address and the Administration has been only too happy to oblige: the President or his staff will follow up by answering citizen questions in video chat, on Twitter and via other online platforms in the coming days. The White House has promised to answer questions submitted by users of Quora, an "intelligent discussion site." The site will hold a live stream of Obama’s address and has asked users to submit questions on domestic and economic policy. The company will select an unspecified number of questions to be answered by the White House over the next few days. Directly after the speech, a live panel of senior White House advisers will answer citizens’ questions about the speech at WhiteHouse.gov/SOTU. Questions will be funneled through Twitter, Facebook and Google+. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, a group of policy experts and advisers to Obama will participate in “office hours” on Twitter, where they’ll discuss issues presented on the microblogging site. Users can submit questions using the #WHChat hashtag. On Monday, President Obama will enter a special Google+ hangout to have a live video chat from the White House. Citizens can submit their questions on the White House’s YouTube channel.

As a result of these social media conversations, "you're just not watching the speech, you're engaged afterwards and able to really talk with us, help inform us better and answer any questions you might have about what the president proposed in the State of the Union," senior adviser David Plouffe said in a Web video encouraging people to tune in to the address.

The 3-D Printing Pirates Who Could Render SOPA Meaningless

What will happen in terms of IP rights and piracy when 3-D printed objects become commonplace?

Pirate Bay has labeled these 3-D objects "physibles," "data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical," and suggests that in the near future it's files of physibles that'll be the hottest pirated data online, in the same way music, movies, and TV shows are nowadays. That's because the file for a physible is effectively the recipe for making the final object--which could quite possibly be a handbag, a mug, or ultimately something as complex as a sneaker. The legal and intellectual wrangling goes like this: If you've got a sophisticated 3-D printer on your desk, sometime around 2020, say, pirating a physible from a site like Pirate Bay and then printing it out is almost the same as stealing the object from a store. Almost. Because no physical "theft" has happened, and you're merely borrowing the idea, the IP. Yet you are still denying the company that originally came up with the idea any payment. That argument is at the core of the SOPA/PIPA debate, and it's partly why the U.S. just crashed Megaupload's party so very enthusiastically.

Benton

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