January 24, 2012 (The Web's Growing Muscle)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2012
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
T-Mobile, AT&T File For FCC Approval Of Spectrum Transfer
LTE spectrum: How much do the big carriers have?
If Comcast can’t make it in the wireless biz, who can?
Why you’ll soon love your cellphone contract - analysis
As Smartphones Get Smarter, You May Get Healthier: How mHealth Can Bring Cheaper Health Care To All [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
The High Cost of Low Bandwidth - analysis
Could the Internet Ever Be Destroyed? - analysis
PIRACY
Sen. Leahy blames GOP for scuttled vote on anti-piracy bill
House Democrat pulls support for SOPA
Door opens for Issa-Wyden online piracy bill
If the feds can shut down Megaupload, why do we need SOPA?
If Congress wants jobs, it can’t want SOPA - analysis
Why I’m fighting SOPA: We need a solution, but a better solution - op-ed [links to web]
Internet to Artists: Drop Dead - op-ed
PRIVACY
Justices Say GPS Tracker Violated Privacy Rights
Ruling Spurs Debate on Digital Tracking - analysis [links to web]
Don't Tread That GPS on Me - editorial [links to web]
EU Privacy Rules to Include Leak Disclosure Within 24 Hours
MORE ON CONTENT
The Patriot Act and your data: Should you ask cloud providers about protection?
350,000 Textbooks Downloaded From Apple’s iBooks in Three Days
YouTube hits 4 billion daily video views [links to web]
New Stats: Kids Find E-Books ‘Fun And Cool,’ But Teens Are Still Reluctant [links to web]
Rivals spar over Google+ traffic
TELECOM
FCC Must Reach Out On Upcoming Changes to Lifeline Telecom Program - op-ed
LABOR
Average Silicon Valley Tech Salary Passes $100,000
RESEARCH
NSF study raises serious concerns about US investment in technology [links to web]
JOURNALISM
Sun-Times stops making election endorsements [links to web]
ADVERTISING
Study: Consumers View Social Marketing As Invasive [links to web]
Customers Experience Better At Tech-Focused Brands Vs. Traditional Media [links to web]
Comcast ads during NFL game draw flags [links to web]
LOBBYING
Sen. Grassley Says LightSquared E-mails Smack of Improper Contact
The Web's Growing Muscle
With T-Mobile deal dead, AT&T is scaling back on lobbying force
Google's and Facebook’s fourth-quarter lobbying bills
K Street's boom goes bust [links to web]
Lobbying outlays bounce back in 4th quarter [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
DoJ Antitrust Chief Plans to Leave This Year
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Consumer Watchdog urges EU to block Google's Motorola deal
2012 Olympics will 'more than double' the normal UK wireless spectrum load [links to web]
An Assault on Democracy - editorial
MORE ONLINE
Comcast/NBCU Drives Deal Market to $52 Billion in 2011 [links to web]
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
SPECTRUM TRANSFER
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Greg Bensinger]
T-Mobile USA and AT&T filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission for approval of the transfer of $1 billion in wireless airwaves AT&T promised as a result of the failure of its $39 billion bid to take over its smaller rival. AT&T said it would turn over the airwaves, or spectrum, along with $3 billion in cash to T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom AG after pulling out of the deal as opposition mounted from the FCC, Justice Department, state attorneys general and rival carriers.
“This additional spectrum will help meet the growing demand for wireless broadband services,” said Tom Sugrue, T-Mobile’s senior vice president for government affairs. “We hope the FCC will move swiftly to approve the license assignments.”
benton.org/node/111392 | Wall Street Journal
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HOW MUCH SPECTRUM DO BIG CARRIERS HAVE?
[SOURCE: Network World, AUTHOR: Brad Reed]
The top US carriers over the past year have stepped up their efforts to grab more spectrum for 4G wireless data services needed to accommodate a seemingly insatiable and exploding population of iPhone, iPad and other mobile device users. To get a sense of just how much additional bandwidth carriers will need, consider that Ericsson's most recent Traffic and Market Data report predicted that global mobile data traffic will grow by 10 times between now and 2016. What's more, the FCC has projected the nation's wireless carriers will face a 275MHz "spectrum deficit" by 2014 if no new spectrum is opened up for use. Carriers are going to need that spectrum not only to build out nationwide LTE mobile data networks but also to support critical applications such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and eventually move to LTE-Advanced, the next generation of LTE that's projected to deliver average download speeds in the 100Mbps range. Mark Lowenstein, the managing director for consulting and advisory firm Mobile Ecosystem, says that getting significantly more spectrum would allow carriers to promote LTE not just as wireless technology for smartphones and tablets but for high-definition video services as well. Or put another way, while it would be impractical to stream Netflix movies on your Xbox using LTE right now, it might not be that impractical in the future when carriers have significantly more spectrum to play with and can thus charge less money for high data consumption.
benton.org/node/111363 | Network World
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IF COMCAST CAN’T DO WIRELESS, WHO CAN?
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
Comcast tried hard to become a mobile operator, but it failed to find a way to make the business work — at least that’s what Comcast EVP of public policy David Cohen claimed in a fascinating blog post last week describing why it and its cable buddies decided to sell their spectrum and shack up with competitor Verizon Wireless. That admission is a surprising one to say the least, and if Comcast is being forthright it also raises some troubling questions about the state of the U.S. wireless industry. If a company with a $71 billion market cap and deep roots in the telecom service provider business can’t make a go of the wireless business, what hope is there for any newcomer?
benton.org/node/111348 | GigaOm
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A NEW MODEL FOR CELL PHONE CONTRACTS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: John Wilson]
[Commentary] Cellphone contracts suck, but pretty much everyone in the U.S. still has one. For the vast majority of people, signing a contract is the only way to get the phone they want for a price they can afford. But contracts present problems: They’re 24 months long, but phones typically have issues after the first 12 months (when manufacturer’s warranties have expired); if a phone is lost, the contract still stands, yet the consumer has no phone; and newer phones that are far more desirable are released yearly or more frequently, yet consumers are stuck with the same old phone. But carriers need contracts about as much as consumers disdain them. It’s the only way to ensure that consumers will be there month after month, allowing carriers to recoup the investment they make in phone purchases. But what if all of this changed? What if consumers actually enjoyed signing contracts? What if carriers just gave away phones — all of them — for free? Carriers need to rethink the current model of phone ownership. How about the carrier owns the phone, and it must be returned after the 12 months is up. Moreover, instead of signing a two-year contract, consumers would have to sign a four- to five-year one. But, and this is a big but, when a consumer gives that 12-month-old phone back to the carrier, they’ll get a brand-new one of their choice — every single year of the contract.
benton.org/node/111347 | GigaOm
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
HIGH COST OF LOW BANDWIDTH
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Bill Davidow]
When we attempt to understand the implications of the Internet Age, the first thing we need to do is recognize that office buildings, retail stores, air travel, lecture halls, and paper are just clunky, expensive, and low-bandwidth interconnections. Allow me to explain. Many things that seem as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar are, in fact, information proxies in disguise. We can view these information proxies as two separate pieces: an information-sensitive piece, and a second piece with a valuable function that cannot be displaced by better virtual environments. The Internet peels away the information-carrying portions of these physical things and institutions. Frequently it leaves behind skeletons of little value. In the process, the Internet restructures and renders much of our physical infrastructure obsolete.
benton.org/node/111384 | Atlantic, The
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COULD THE NET BE DESTROYED?
[SOURCE: Scientific American, AUTHOR: Natalie Wolchover]
The raging battle over SOPA and PIPA, the proposed anti-piracy laws, is looking more and more likely to end in favor of Internet freedom — but it won't be the last battle of its kind. Although, ethereal as it is, the Internet seems destined to survive in some form or another, experts warn that there are many threats to its status quo existence, and there is much about it that could be ruined or lost. A vast behemoth that can route around outages and self-heal, the Internet has grown physically invulnerable to destruction by bombs, fires or natural disasters — within countries, at least. However, while it's essentially impossible to cripple connectivity internally in a country, it is conceivable that one country could block another's access to its share of the Internet cloud.
benton.org/node/111383 | Scientific American
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PIRACY
LEAHY BLAMES GOP
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) blamed Republicans for scuttling his Protect IP Act (PIPA) and said he hopes to revive the bill after a brief delay. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) canceled a cloture vote on PIPA after Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a number of Republican co-sponsors withdrew their support for the controversial bill. "I thank the majority leader for seeking to schedule that debate on this serious economic threat. I understand that when the Republican leader recently objected, and Republican senators who had cosponsored and long supported this effort jumped ship, he was faced with a difficult decision," Sen Leahy said in a floor speech.
"My hope is that after a brief delay, we will, together, confront this problem."
benton.org/node/111389 | Hill, The
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DEM PULLS SOPA SUPPORT
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
Former sponsors continue to withdraw their support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) after the controversial online piracy bill was shelved last week in response to massive outcry from the Internet community. Rep Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) became the latest lawmaker to withdraw his support for the bill on Monday by removing his name as a sponsor. “It is clear that steps need to be taken to combat online piracy, but after further review, I have decided that I can no longer support SOPA in its current form," Rep Luján said. "After listening to them and talking with folks in the district over the weekend, I took another hard look at the bill. While we need to take steps to address online piracy, we must also protect the unique qualities of the Internet.”
benton.org/node/111388 | Hill, The
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DOOR OPENS FOR ALTERNATIVE PIRACY BILL
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
The collapse in support for two anti-piracy bills last week leaves the door ajar for movement on alternative legislation offered by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA). The shelving of the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act after massive online protests might have changed permanently the landscape of lobbying on tech issues. Issa and Wyden’s OPEN Act, which seeks to stop the transfer of money to foreign websites with a primary purpose of piracy or counterfeiting, is likely to get the full scrutiny of policymakers and the tech world in the coming weeks. Although whether it can move forward remains in serious doubt.
benton.org/node/111372 | Hill, The
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WHY DO WE NEED SOPA
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Timothy Lee]
So if the US government already has the power to arrest people and seize assets in places as far away as Germany, New Zealand, and the Philippines, are the new enforcement powers sought by content companies even necessary? We posed that question to two people on opposite sides of the SOPA debate. Cara Duckworth is a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America. And Julian Sanchez is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and an occasional contributor to Ars Technica.
benton.org/node/111354 | Ars Technica
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SOPA AND JOBS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Derrick Harris]
Although the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act have been shelved, their staunchest congressional supporters are still criticizing the opposition, claiming the bills would save thousands of jobs. However, these claims look like little more than empty rhetoric. The entertainment industry — profit-hungry and change-averse — is already its own worst enemy. Meanwhile, the Internet economy that bills such as SOPA and PIPA threaten to derail is a potential job creator the likes of which Hollywood could ever be. It’s difficult to take any complaints about job losses in the television industry too seriously. Sure, networks have been better about embracing the Internet than have movie studios, but many also cling to archaic notions such as primetime programming and ever-more-expensive delivery models such as cable and satellite providers. And when television networks spotted an opportunity to cut costs with reality television, they pounced on it. According to Media Life, reality television went from practically zero percent of the big five networks’s primetime programming in 1996 to 20 percent entering the fall 2011 season (although it peaked in 2006-07). The result of the reality overload wasn’t necessarily a lack of jobs, but a lower class of jobs. Interchangeable reality television participants make far less than do cast members on scripted programs, and despite its decade of saturating the airwaves, reality television writers are still fighting to unionize like their Writers Guild of America brethren. As is, many are without standard benefits such as overtime pay and health care.
benton.org/node/111352 | GigaOm
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ARTISTS AND SOPA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Stan Liebowitz]
[Commentary] You may have noticed last Wednesday's blackout of Wikipedia or Google's strange blindfolded-logo screen. These were attempts to kill the Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act, proposed legislation intended to hinder piracy and counterfeiting. The laws now before Congress may not be perfect, and they can still be amended. But to do nothing and stay with the status quo is to keep our creative industries at risk by failing to enforce their property rights. Critics of these proposed laws claim that they are unnecessary and will lead to frivolous claims, reduce innovation and stifle free speech. Those are gross exaggerations. The same critics have been making these claims about every previous attempt to rein in piracy, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that was called a draconian antipiracy measure at the time of its passage in 1998. As we all know, the DMCA did not kill the Internet, or even do any noticeable damage to freedom—or to pirates. A balancing of competing legitimate interests is always required for good legislation. So far, the balance has favored the pirates—in spite of extravagant protests to the contrary. The real and massive losses of copyright owners need to be rebalanced against any hypothetical losses that stronger protection might impose. [Liebowitz is an economist in the Management School at the University of Texas at Dallas]
benton.org/node/111406 | Wall Street Journal
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PRIVACY
GPS RULING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Adam Liptak]
The Supreme Court on unanimously ruled that the police violated the Constitution when they placed a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a suspect’s car and tracked its movements for 28 days. But the justices divided 5-to-4 on the rationale for the decision, with the majority saying that the problem was the placement of the device on private property. That ruling avoided many difficult questions, including how to treat information gathered from devices installed by the manufacturer and how to treat information held by third parties like cellphone companies.
“We hold that the government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’ ” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion. “It is important to be clear about what occurred in this case,” Justice Scalia went on. “The government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted.”
In a concurrence for four justices, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. faulted the majority for trying to apply 18th-century legal concepts to 21st-century technologies. What should matter, he said, is the contemporary reasonable expectation of privacy. “The use of longer term G.P.S. monitoring in investigations of most offenses,” he wrote, “impinges on expectations of privacy.” Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the concurrence.
benton.org/node/111361 | New York Times | The Hill
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EU PRIVACY RULES
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Cornelius Rahn]
A European Union proposal to simplify and toughen the region’s data-protection rules will require companies to disclose data breaches within 24 hours of their occurrences, Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said. The EU will this week outline an overhaul of its 17-year- old data-protection policies addressing online advertising and social-networking sites. The bill, which includes stricter sanctions and will equip national data-protection authorities with powers to levy administrative sanctions and fines, will “become a trademark people recognize and trust worldwide,” Reding said. The legislations will require companies to obtain “specific and explicit” consent from Internet users to store information, and delete data unless there is a “legitimate and legally justified interest” to keep them on their servers, Reding said.
benton.org/node/111371 | Bloomberg
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PATRIOT ACT AND THE CLOUD
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Stephanie Overby]
Worries have been steadily growing among European IT leaders that the USA Patriot Act would give the U.S. government unfettered access to their data if stored on the cloud servers of American providers -- so much so that Obama Administration officials last week held a press conference to quell international concern over the protection of data stored on US soil. The unease over the reach of Patriot Act provision -- which expands the discovery mechanisms law enforcement can use to access third-party data -- has been amped up by the sales and marketing efforts of some European cloud providers, seeking to set apart their services as a way to keep corporate data out of the hands of the American government. The most blatant examples are two Swiss companies touting their cloud options as "a safe haven from the reaches of the U.S. Patriot Act," but it's become a popular topic at negotiating tables across the continent.
benton.org/node/111338 | InfoWorld
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IBOOKS DOWNLOADS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John Paczkowski]
Though nascent and unproven, Apple’s new textbook initiative appears to be gaining lots of momentum — and quickly, too. Within days of its debut, Apple’s iBooks textbook store had already racked up a significant number of downloads. Same thing with the company’s textbook authoring tool. According to Global Equities Research, which monitors Apple’s iBook sales via a proprietary tracking system it doesn’t much care to discuss, more than 350,000 textbooks were downloaded from the company’s iBooks Store within the first three days of availability. And there were some 90,000 downloads of iBooks Author, Apple’s free textbook-creation tool, during the same time. If those numbers are accurate, Apple’s textbook effort would seem to be off to a good start. Which is good news for everyone involved — particularly textbook publishers, who stand to make more money on books sold through iBooks than those sold at retail.
benton.org/node/111358 | Wall Street Journal
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RIVALS SPAR OVER GOOGLE+
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Richard Waters]
Google has traded blows with a group of rivals including Facebook and Twitter as each side tries to seize the moral high ground in the increasingly bitter online social networking wars. The search company won plaudits from human rights groups as it announced a policy change on its Google+ network that will make it easier for users to appear under pseudonyms. The more lenient approach contrasts with Facebook’s insistence on the use of “real names”, which activists claim exposes political dissidents to reprisals in some countries. Earlier in the day, however, Google came under fresh attack over controversial changes made to its search engine earlier this month that critics claim were designed mainly to divert traffic to its new social network, at the cost of devaluing its search results.
benton.org/node/111403 | Financial Times
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TELECOM
LIFELINE REFORM
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Olivia Wein]
[Commentary] By the end of this month, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to issue new rules aimed at reforming and modernizing the low-income Lifeline telephone program. The rules are expected to include many changes to the application process. It will also update the annual check-in which determines continued eligibility for the program. Whether the FCC succeeds in this effort will depend on whether the reform order includes an extensive education and outreach component to explain the changes. Planning must start now. [Wein is a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.]
http://benton.org/node/111321
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LABOR
SILICON VALLEY SALARIES
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Pui-Wing Tam]
Average annual salaries for Silicon Valley technology workers surpassed the $100,000 mark last year, according to a new survey, pushed higher by the strength of the region's latest boom. Tech-jobs website operator Dice Holdings Inc. said salaries for software and other engineering professionals in California's Silicon Valley rose 5.2% to an average $104,195 last year, outstripping the average 2% increase, to $81,327, in tech-workers' salaries nationwide. It was the first time since Dice began the salary survey in 2001 that the wage barometer broke the $100,000 barrier, said Tom Silver, a Dice senior vice president. The findings come amid a Web boom that has fueled companies such as Facebook, Zynga and Twitter. Last year, several of the companies—including LinkedIn and Zynga—went public, with Facebook poised for an initial public offering this year. Their success has sparked the creation of numerous new start-ups, which in turn has spurred a hiring war for software engineers and others.
In contrast, job growth elsewhere in the nation has remained relatively slow. U.S. employers added 200,000 jobs in December, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 8.5%, its lowest level since early 2009. But it is unclear how sustainable such gains may be.
benton.org/node/111405 | Wall Street Journal
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LOBBYING
GRASSLEY-LIGHTSQUARED FIGHT
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who has been seeking information from the Federal Communications Commission and others about LightSquared's waiver to launch a 4g wholesale wireless network, has written to LightSquared principal Philip Falcone to ask him to explain what the senator calls a questionable contact with the Senator's office over the issue.
In the letter, Grassley said that contact, comprising e-mails from both Falcone and a person claiming to represent LightSquared, "that intimated benefits for Grassley if he softened his inquiry of government approval of the project." Sen Grassley said Falcone's e-mail -- he supplied a redacted copy to the press -- suggested that the network could be a "win" for Grassley, while the second example -- an e-mail string with someone who Sen Grassley says also arranged a Fox News Channel booking for Falcone, "hinted" that Iowa could get a call center. According to the e-mail's, after Grassley's office signaled that they thought the suggestion was inappropriate, the representative said he was only pointing out the local connection of the issue for the Senator.
benton.org/node/111385 | Multichannel News |
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GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK LOBBYING
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Michael Liedtke]
Google's US lobbying bill more than tripled to $3.76 million in the fourth quarter as the Internet search leader fought proposed changes to online piracy laws and sought to influence a wide range of other issues that could affect its fortunes. The amount that Google Inc. spent making its political points from October through December is by far the company's highest lobbying tab for any three-month period since Google's Washington office opened in 2005. The total compared with a lobbying budget of $1.24 million during the final three months of 2010 and $2.38 million in the third quarter of 2011. For all of 2011, Google spent $9.7 million on political persuasion, nearly doubling from $5.2 million in 2010. Google's lobbying expenses have been rising steadily against a backdrop of intensified U.S. government scrutiny of the company's acquisitions and business practices. The focus has been prompted by complaints alleging that Google is abusing its dominance of the lucrative Internet search market to stifle competition and muscle its way into other markets.
Facebook spent more than $1.3 million on lobbying efforts last year, passing the $1 million mark for the first time, according to disclosure documents. In 2010, by contrast, Facebook spent less than $400,000. And Facebook's fourth-quarter spending for last year was $440,000, up from $130,000 during the same period in 2010. Facebook upped its advocacy efforts as scrutiny of its privacy policies increased.
benton.org/node/111387 | Associated Press | National Journal | C-Net
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WEB’S GROWING MUSCLE IN WASHINGTON
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Amy Schatz, Geoffrey Fowler, Erica Orden]
The Internet industry has found a rare sweet spot in Washington. With Google in the lead, the companies have begun building a strong traditional lobbying force in Washington. And, to complement that inside game, websites' millions of users have become a powerful outside weight on Congress. What's more, in a rare Washington double play, the concerns of Internet companies have found a sympathetic ear both in the Democratic White House and among Republican presidential candidates who otherwise can't agree with Barack Obama on anything. "There is no question that the influence of the Internet community is at its apex," says Leslie Harris, chief executive of the Washington-based nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology, which is backed in part by tech companies including Google and Facebook. "I believe that something profound happened," she says of last week's revolt against bills in the House and Senate aimed at combating foreign pirate sites. "It was not just the tech companies—it was the users." It isn't that traditional media and entertainment companies have abandoned the field in Washington. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, television companies, Hollywood, and the recording industry spent more than $91 million on lobbying efforts through the 2011 third quarter. But they now realize their outside game doesn't match their inside muscle.
benton.org/node/111412 | Wall Street Journal
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AT&T SCALING BACK LOBBYING
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Kevin Bogardus]
Telecom behemoth AT&T has begun shedding lobbyists in the wake of its failed merger with T-Mobile. AT&T ramped up its lobbying spending in 2011 as it tried to win regulatory approval for the $39 billion deal. That effort failed in December, when a series of setbacks forced AT&T to drop the merger and swallow a one-time, $4 billion severance payment to T-Mobile. A number of lobby firms earned big paydays working on AT&T’s behalf. At least four lobby firms that lobbied on the merger have filed termination reports this month indicating they no longer work for the phone company, according to lobbying disclosure records.
Holland & Knight earned $120,000 lobbying for AT&T during 2011, according to records, before the contract was canceled earlier this month. Former Rep. Jim Davis (D-VA) was among the lobbyists on the account.
Capitol Hill Strategies took in $140,000 last year lobbying for AT&T, but the firm’s agreement with the company has ended, according to Senate records. Consequently, Chuck Brain, president of the firm and a former senior Clinton White House aide, is no longer lobbying for the company.
Capitol City Group earned $180,00 in lobbying fees during 2011 from the company, but that contract was up last month.
And JC Watts Companies’ contract with AT&T has been terminated after earning $200,000 in lobbying fees from the company last year. Steve Pruitt, a Democratic lobbyist and a former House Budget Committee staff director, was working on the account.
A fifth firm, Patton Boggs, also filed a termination report for its lobbying contract with AT&T this month. But the firm did not report any lobbying activity on behalf of the company over the past year, while its affiliate, the Breaux Lott Leadership Group, is still under contract with AT&T, earning $480,000 in lobbying fees from the company in 2011, according to records.
benton.org/node/111410 | Hill, The
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POLICYMAKERS
POZEN LEAVING DOJ
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Brent Kendall, Gina Chon]
Apparently, Sharis Pozen, the Justice Department’s chief antitrust enforcer, is preparing to leave her post, likely as soon as this spring. Pozen, who has served as the acting head of the department’s Antitrust Division since August, is likely to return to private practice. Pozen has informed the White House of her intentions. During her short tenure, Pozen has overseen one of the department’s biggest merger challenges in a generation: its successful bid to block AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA. The leading candidate to replace Pozen is William J. Baer, head of the antitrust group at the law firm Arnold & Porter and a former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s competition bureau. Antitrust experts say that Baer would continue the government’s reinvigorated enforcement of the antitrust laws.
benton.org/node/111390 | Wall Street Journal | NYTimes
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
CONSUMER WATCHDOG OPPOSES GOOGLE-MOTOROLA
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: Jennifer Baker]
Consumer Watchdog, an independent consumer rights organization that has worked with Microsoft, has written to the European Commission asking it to block Google's deal to acquire Motorola and to launch an investigation into the Internet giant's alleged anticompetitive behavior. The commission is expected to approve Google's takeover of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion by mid-February, after requesting and receiving additional information from Google. Consumer Watchdog believes this would be bad for consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Google's Android smartphone operating system dominates the mobile market with a 38 percent share and is growing," said John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's privacy project director, in a letter to European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia. "Google controls 95 percent of the mobile search market. There is evidence it is pressuring handset manufacturers to favor Google applications when using the Android operating system," Simpson added. "Allowing the Motorola Mobility deal would provide Google with unprecedented dominance in virtually all aspects of the mobile world -- manufacturing, operating systems, search and advertising. It would be a virtually unstoppable juggernaut."
benton.org/node/111364 | IDG News Service
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AN ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] President Rafael Correa of Ecuador is leading a relentless campaign against free speech, harassing his critics, forcing independent broadcasters off the air and hijacking the nation’s courts in his bid to bankrupt the country’s largest newspaper. Latin America has a bitter history of authoritarian rule. It has struggled hard to get beyond those days. All of the hemisphere’s democratic leaders, including President Obama, need to push back against Mr. Correa.
benton.org/node/111399 | New York Times
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