January 2012

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

YANKEE SPECTRUM CHART
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
The Yankee Group has prepared a nifty graphic that details the current spectrum holdings of the big boys in the top 10 markets as well as what Verizon could gain by buying up the cable operators licenses. The operator with the biggest spectrum chest isn’t Verizon or AT&T, but Clearwire, which has spent several years consolidating 2.5 GHz licenses across the country. It doesn’t have a 150 MHz in every market, but it has those quantities in the largest cities where they’re the most useful. With more spectrum, Clearwire can launch much higher-capacity networks without building more towers. What’s more, Clearwire’s frequencies are all earmarked for 4G, while most of AT&T and Verizon’s spectrum is in the cellular (850 MHz) and PCS (1900 MHz bands), which are tied up in their CDMA, GSM and HSPA+ networks. Verizon has the clear advantage in 700 MHz and AWS (1700/2100 MHz) with an average of 57.2 MHz in the top 10 cities – all of which it can devote to LTE. AT&T has less than 40 MHz in those same markets, which is a good indication why AT&T wanted T-Mobile’s AWS spectrum so desperately. Plus, if Verizon succeeds in buying SpecrtumCo and Cox’s licenses it will add considerably to its lead over AT&T.
benton.org/node/109670 | GigaOm
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LEVIN: INCENTIVE AUCTIONS LIKELY DOOMED
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Kim McAvoy]
A Federal Communications Commission incentive auction of broadcast television spectrum will likely "fail" if, as expected, Congress adopts Republican House authorizing legislation, according to Blair Levin, the chief architect of the FCC’s 2010 National Broadband Plan that first proposed the auction. The legislation, authored by House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), would grant the FCC authority to conduct incentive auctions — auctions in which proceeds are shared with broadcasters who voluntarily give up their spectrum. But it also contains provisions designed to protect broadcasters who hang on to their spectrum. And they are what has Levin worried. "The legislation ties the FCC’s hands in a variety of ways," said Levin, who left the FCC following release of the broadband plan and is now attached to the Aspen Institute. "It opens it up to litigation risk, which then, in conjunction with the other handcuffs, makes it difficult to pull off a successful auction. "The nature of the bill dramatically increases the probability that there will be less spectrum recovered and less money for the [U.S.] Treasury."
Levin is principally concerned about the "reasonable efforts" language, which, he said, "definitely makes the FCC more vulnerable to litigation. Nobody wants to go to an auction when there is the threat of a judge anywhere having the ability of holding it up. I believe a good lawyer could find a way to get the question of whether the FCC took all reasonable efforts in front of a judge,” he said. Moreover, Levin said he thinks some broadcasters will use the threat of litigation to their advantage. "If you are designing the auction and a big law firm shows up and says, 'If you don’t take care of my single broadcaster, we are going to find a way to get to court.' That’s a real threat.” Levin also said he believes the broadcaster compensation fund is too large and the limit on the number of auctions in unnecessary.
benton.org/node/109741 | TVNewsCheck
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CARRIERS SHOW LITTLE INTEREST IN CES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Chen]
Wireless carriers will have a lower profile than in previous years at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show, one of the largest technology conventions in the world. The carriers will have booths on the show floor at CES 2012, which will start on Jan 8 in Lost Wages (NV). But Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile won’t deliver keynote speeches. That means they are unlikely to make major announcements about handsets or their networks at the conference. Their lack of more active involvement is unusual, as each company has in the past used C.E.S. as a stage for announcements. Of the big four, AT&T will be the only major American carrier actively participating. Several executives, including Ralph de la Vega, AT&T’s chief executive, will speak at the company’s annual developers summit, which will be held at the show. The low profile of the three other big carriers suggests that they may be leaning toward smaller, more focused trade shows like the Mobile World Congress, which centers on the mobile industry, or CTIA, hosted by the Wireless Association, said Charles S. Golvin, an analyst with the research firm Forrester.
benton.org/node/109704 | New York Times
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TV TUNERS IN PHONES
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Peter Svensson]
MetroPCS Communications became the first U.S. cellphone company to announce plans for a phone that can tune in to live, local television broadcasts. The capability will be part of a Samsung smartphone coming this year. For years, TV stations have been unsuccessful in getting cellphone companies interested in such phones. Verizon Wireless and AT&T instead sold access to a broadcast network set up by Qualcomm. That network was shut down last year because of low consumer interest. Stephen Jemente, product manager for digital media at MetroPCS, emphasized that its phone will be different in that it will get local stations, with weather and traffic reports. Its customers are also usually young and consume a lot of digital media, he said. MetroPCS didn't say what the TV-capable phones would cost or if it would charge a monthly fee to access TV broadcasts. The phones will have an extendable antenna for the TV signals. It's difficult technically to get phones to tune in to regular broadcasts destined for TV sets. Instead, the Samsung phones will receive special "Mobile DTV" signals broadcast by 72 stations in 32 cities. They're usually retransmissions of their main channels, but at a lower resolution. A few portable TV sets can already receive those signals for free. However, NBC and Fox will be encrypting their signals so they can only be received by the phone app that will be on the Samsung phone, according to Salil Dalvi, co-head of the Mobile Content Venture, which organizes the TV stations using Mobile DTV technology.
benton.org/node/109678 | Associated Press
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6 BILLION MOBILE PHONE SUBSCRIPTIONS
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Lance Whitney]
In a world of 7 billion people, the number of mobile phone subscriptions has reached 5.9 billion. The International Telecommunications Union found that mobile phone subscriptions have now penetrated 87 percent of the entire world and 79 percent of all developing countries. Among all those mobile phone users, mobile broadband subscriptions number almost 1.2 billion. Such subscriptions have jumped 45 percent each year for the past four year and now outnumber fixed broadband subscriptions by 2 to 1. To push forward with mobile broadband, 159 nations across the world have kicked off 3G networks, though 2G coverage is still twice as high as 3G. Overall, people in developed countries typically use both mobile and fixed broadband, while those in less developed economies often have access only to mobile broadband services.
Switching over to fixed broadband, one-third of the 1.8 billion household around the world now have Internet access, up from one-fifth just five years ago. In developing nations, 25 percent of all homes have a PC and 20 percent have Internet access. Overall, a full one-third of the 7 billion people on the planet use the Internet, and 45 percent of them are under the age of 25.
benton.org/node/109709 | C-Net|News.com
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

INTERNET ACCESS IS NOT A HUMAN RIGHT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Vinton Cerf]
[Commentary] From the streets of Tunis to Tahrir Square and beyond, protests around the world last year were built on the Internet and the many devices that interact with it. Though the demonstrations thrived because thousands of people turned out to participate, they could never have happened as they did without the ability that the Internet offers to communicate, organize and publicize everywhere, instantaneously. It is no surprise, then, that the protests have raised questions about whether Internet access is or should be a civil or human right. But technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself. There is a high bar for something to be considered a human right. Loosely put, it must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience. It is a mistake to place any particular technology in this exalted category, since over time we will end up valuing the wrong things. Improving the Internet is just one means, albeit an important one, by which to improve the human condition. It must be done with an appreciation for the civil and human rights that deserve protection — without pretending that access itself is such a right. [Cerf is a vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google.]
benton.org/node/109742 | New York Times
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NTIA LETTER TO ICANN
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Eric Engleman]
The nonprofit group that manages the Internet’s address system needs to take steps to ease corporate concerns over a program to add hundreds of top-level domains beyond .com and .net, the Commerce Department said. Once the application period for Web suffixes ends, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers should assess the need to phase in the introduction of domains, Lawrence Strickling, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, wrote in a letter to ICANN Chairman Stephen Crocker. Strickling also urged ICANN to take steps to “minimize the perceived need” for trademark owners to defensively register new top-level domains that they have no interest in operating, and improve awareness of the “purpose and scope” of the program. Strickling runs the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Commerce Department unit that oversees the ICANN-held contract. He said his agency does “not seek to interfere with the decisions and compromises” reached during ICANN’s six-year deliberations over the expansion. ICANN appreciates that Strickling “recognizes that many of the recent concerns expressed about the new top-level domain program are more about ‘perceived’ problems than actual deficiencies,” Crocker said in an e-mailed statement today. ICANN will review Strickling’s recommendations and those of other parties “with the intent of making this program truly beneficial to the global Internet community,” Crocker said.
benton.org/node/109675 | Bloomberg | National Journal
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CHATTANOOGA
[SOURCE: PCWorld, AUTHOR: Phil Shapiro]
[Commentary] Chattanooga, a city of 170,000 persons, has the fastest Internet service in the United States. Every residence and business in a 600 square mile area has access to fiber optic Internet with symmetrical speeds up to one gigabit per second. This Internet service is not offered by one of the major telcos and is not part of Google's gigabit Ethernet project. Rather, the service is offered by the municipal electric power company, EPB (formerly the Electric Power Board), which installed the fiber as part of its smart grid electric power management plan. EPB has no shareholders. They're not in the business of creating profit. They're in the business of serving the public. The breadth of this vision comes to life when you realize that EPB's fiber optic Internet extends to residents of trailer parks as well as to some of the farms in areas surrounding Chattanooga. If you live in a trailer park in EPB's service area, you can sign up for gigabit Ethernet with a static IP address. The cost? Less than you'd pay for a T1 line in any other city in the nation. And this is symmetrical gigabit Ethernet – more than 600 times faster than a T1 line.
benton.org/node/109724 | PCWorld
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TELEVISION

BROADCASTERS AND INDECENCY
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Joe Flint]
The broadcast industry will try next week to persuade the Supreme Court to tell the government to back off when it comes to regulating content. On Jan 10, the High Court will hear arguments from News Corp.'s Fox and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC that the Federal Communications Commission's rules regarding indecent programming and the way they are enforced by the agency are both vague and unconstitutional. The Fox and ABC cases have been working their way through the courts for years. In indecency cases, the FCC typically fines the TV stations that use the public airwaves to carry the networks' programming. However, many stations are owned by networks, which usually fight the fines on behalf of their affiliates. Arguing for ABC is Seth Waxman, a partner at WilmerHale and a former solicitor general during the Clinton administration. Fox's lawyer is Sidley & Austin's Carter Phillips. Both have argued before the Supreme Court dozens of times. Carrying the ball for the FCC will be Solicitor General Don Verrilli. Interestingly, Verrilli has argued cases for the TV industry before the Supreme Court when he was in private practice and has a strong background in telecommunications and media law. The networks ideally would like to see the indecency rules tossed. A more realistic scenario, according to one network executive watching the case, is that the FCC's methods of enforcing the rules will be called into question. If that happens, the likely result would be that the FCC would be asked to clarify its rules and be more transparent in how it enforces them.
benton.org/node/109739 | Los Angeles Times
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STATE OF THE MEDIA REPORT
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Wayne Friedman]
Against all media and entertainment services, U.S. consumers consider cable TV and satellite TV programming services the most valuable. According to Deloitte’s sixth annual edition of the “State of the Media Democracy," the survey says 44% have DVR capability. That means a growing business for cable and satellite companies to sign up millions of other U.S. media consumers. “This represents a potential opportunity for cable and satellite TV providers,” stated Phil Asmundson, vice chairman and U.S. media and telecommunications sector leader, Deloitte LLP. He called the DVR an "underutilized service" that could potentially "serve as a value-add for new and existing subscribers at minimal cost to cable and satellite TV companies.” But at the same time, Deloitte noted that 9% of people have already cut the cord. Plus, 11% are considering doing so "because they can watch almost all of their favorite shows online."
benton.org/node/109667 | MediaPost
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DISNEY-COMCAST DEAL
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Peter Kafka]
Comcast has re-upped its distribution deal with Disney, which means the country’s largest cable company will continue to pipe programming from ABC, ESPN and other channels into its subscribers’ homes for another 10 years. The deal will also give Comcast customers more ways to watch those shows, including the ability to stream some of the programs live, on the go, on laptops, iPhones and iPads.
While there are digital goodies and benefits included in the new deal, this is still fundamentally about good old-fashioned TV, just like the 10-year deal that Comcast signed with CBS in 2010: It means Comcast (funded by its customers) will pay Disney an increasingly big chunk of money each year, in exchange for a big bundle of programming.
That underscores how difficult it will be for would-be Web-only “over the top” services to truly change the TV paradigm: When Disney and the other big-media companies are still able to bundle their channels together in exchange for big guaranteed revenue streams, they don’t have any incentive to break that up and offer “a la carte” programming.
benton.org/node/109703 | Wall Street Journal
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AN HOUR OF NETFLIX A DAY
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Ryan Lawler]
Netflix announced that members watched more than 2 billion hours of video on its streaming video service in the fourth quarter of 2011. Let’s do some back-of-the-envelope math and figure out what that really means. Dividing 2 billion hours by the roughly 24 million subscribers that Netflix has tells you that on average, each watched about 83 hours of video during the quarter. Divide that by the 92 days between October and December and you find that the average account streamed about 54 minutes of Netflix video each day. While that’s still just 20 percent of the five hours that the average viewer spends watching traditional TV, according to Nielsen, it tells you a little something about where the industry might be headed.
benton.org/node/109669 | GigaOm
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TV VIEWING TO DECLINE IN 2012?
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Joe Flint]
Analyst Rich Greenfield of BTIG thinks 2012 will be the year people watch less television. "We believe 2012 will be a watershed year for the media industry and serve as a historic inflection point for traditional TV consumption," Greenfield wrote. Although the saturation of cable channels trying to cater to every niche has boosted the time people spend in front of the television, Greenfield said, "we believe consumers have reached a breaking point.” So what will people do in place of zoning out in front of the boob tube? "Social gaming will become a new 'cure for boredom,'” Greenfield predicted. Going to the movies is also going to lose its luster. Already reeling from a year that saw box office attendance fall by 4%, Greenfield says, the industry will see moviegoers become even more picky when it comes to opening their wallets for Hollywood.
Greenfield thinks 2012 will see the development of what he calls virtual MVPDs (multichannel video program distributors). In other words, consumers will no longer have to get a cable box or satellite dish, but instead will be able to subscribe to cable TV via the Internet. Typically, cable operators that are also broadband providers, such as Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable, have resisted the idea of competing against each other by becoming virtual MVPDs. Greenfield thinks satellite broadcaster Dish and phone company Verizon will be the first movers.
benton.org/node/109681 | Los Angeles Times
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TWC-MADISON SQUARE GARDEN DISPUTE
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Alex Sherman]
Time Warner Cable should reimburse customers who are missing New York Knicks and Rangers games because of the carrier’s dispute with programmer Madison Square Garden, New York City Comptroller John Liu said. The clash between the second-largest U.S. cable company and MSG “does nothing more than unfairly punish” Time Warner Cable customers, Liu said. Liu has asked the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, the city agency that regulates cable franchise contracts, to “make sure” Time Warner Cable reimburses subscribers for the loss of MSG and MSG Plus. The two cable networks carry the National Basketball Association’s Knicks and the National Hockey League’s New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils. [Liu conceded that consumers might owe TWC money for making them not watch Islander games] Time Warner Cable customers lost access to MSG Network on Jan. 1 after the two sides failed to negotiate new contract terms. MSG was asking Time Warner Cable to pay a 53 percent price increase for the right to carry its programming, according to Mike Angus, a Time Warner Cable senior vice president. MSG Media President Mike Bair said the claim was a “gross mischaracterization.”
benton.org/node/109673 | Bloomberg
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CALIFORNIA PUNTS ON PEG ACCESSIBILITY
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Office of Attorney General Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) said it will wait for the Federal Communications Commission to weigh in on whether digital cable public access (PEG) channels are insufficiently accessible to the blind and deaf community. Harris’s office also said the FCC's ongoing implementation of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 is reason to hold off on a decision. The American Community Television says that the blind and vision-impaired can't access the U-Verse channels through the on-screen menus and has complained about the issue before. AT&T countered when ACT first called for AG investigations that its programming can be "easily and quickly accessed, is high quality and offers many benefits."
benton.org/node/109711 | Broadcasting&Cable | ACT
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

THE SANTORUM SURGE STORY COMES TRUE
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
If momentum in presidential politics is something that builds on itself, then Rick Santorum's last-minute surge to finish in a virtual tie for first with Mitt Romney in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses benefited from the narrative in the news media. The subject of momentum, indeed, was the biggest component of the coverage in the last two weeks before Iowa citizens voted, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. More than a quarter of all the coverage across the country (27%) was focused on polls, strategy and momentum-much of it about dark horse Santorum dramatically gaining ground in the waning days of the Iowa campaign, even though few late polls showed Santorum actually ahead. "Santorum is surging. A CNN poll of registered Iowa Republicans released Wednesday puts Santorum in third place with 16 percent of the vote-his highest share yet," said the Weekly Standard magazine on December 29. The December 29 Des Moines Register declared that "Signs that Rick Santorum is suddenly a contender in the race for the Republican nomination for president were all over Iowa on Thursday." A final average of Iowa polls going into the voting had shown Romney with a razor thin lead over Paul and Santorum a highly competitive third.
benton.org/node/109664 | Project for Excellence in Journalism
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PBS VS ROMNEY
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
PBS chief Paula Kerger wants viewers to oppose Mitt Romney's call to end funding of public broadcasting. She recognized the United States has to make tough budget decisions but defended PBS as an effective public-private partnership. Kerger says that while she can make the argument, elected officials listen to their constituents. Romney has criticized public funding for PBS while campaigning for the GOP presidential nomination. He has said he doesn't intend to "kill Big Bird" of "Sesame Street" but that public TV shows will have to become ad-supported. Kerger says that federal rules governing public broadcasting prohibit commercials.
benton.org/node/109713 | Associated Press
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ELECTIONS AND MARKETING
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson]
After the quadrennial US election ritual of polls, caucuses and primaries began in Iowa on Tuesday, filling television, tablet and smartphone screens with instant punditry, one group of executives should be watching what unfolds between now and November carefully. Media and marketing have always been heavily influenced by elections. There is the obvious boost to advertising revenues: Morgan Stanley analysts expect that half of this year’s growth in US ad spending will come from campaign money, double the impact of the Olympic Games. Moody’s estimates that political ad revenues could be up 9-18 per cent this year from 2010. News organizations hope, too, for a lift as they unveil this season’s gimmicks and multimedia advances. (CNN used holographic “Weebles” to illustrate how caucuses work, while the Washington Post is scouring Twitter to measure the mood.) More important, though, is the impact on marketing. Madison Avenue often hires campaign veterans and watches elections obsessively for insights into how big corporate campaigns should be run or troubleshooting tactics PR firms can use. For first-time candidates, election campaigns are like product launches. For incumbent presidents, they can be tricky rebranding campaigns. Early primary states are like test markets for tactics that also reflect and accentuate bigger shifts shaping the media of the day.
benton.org/node/109728 | Financial Times
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PIRACY

BOSTON GLOBE SUPPORTS SOPA
[SOURCE: Boston Globe, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] For too long, the solution to Internet piracy has been to “round up the usual suspects.’’ While the US economy loses billions because of copyright infringement every year, it seems the only people held responsible are stray hackers and unlucky college students who downloaded one song too many from their dorm room. The Stop Online Piracy Act currently before Congress would finally give law enforcement the tools to crack down on the websites that enable Internet piracy. Currently, one can use Google to quickly jump to a site that offers pirated HBO shows or bootlegs of the latest hit album, or go on YouTube and watch television shows or music videos uploaded illegally, actions for which neither website faces repercussions.
Free speech and fair use can co-exist. While the anti-piracy bill still needs further refinement to ensure that its legal wording precisely matches its legislative intent, online piracy is a major problem that imposes real economic costs. Congress needs to take action to protect American jobs from piracy. Although the proposed legislation may be imperfect, it is a strong and decisive step in the right direction.
benton.org/node/109661 | Boston Globe
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TELECOM

PETITION TO RECONSIDER USF REFORM
[SOURCE: Telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
Three organizations representing small rural telcos filed a petition for reconsideration and clarification with the Federal Communications Commission on various aspects of the Universal Service and inter-carrier compensation reform order adopted late last year. Signing the petition were the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies (OPASTCO), the Western Telecommunications Alliance (WTA) and the National Exchange Carrier Association (NECA).
Notably, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA), which often joins the other rural telco associations on joint filings, did not participate in the petition—perhaps because the NTCA is pursuing a legal challenge to the USF reform order instead.
OPASTCO, the WTA and NECA are asking the FCC to reconsider three key areas:
The order does not address how broadband Universal Service funding to rate-of-return carriers would be allocated, yet it imposes new service mandates (i.e., the deployment of broadband services). “The commission should make sure sufficient and predictable funding is in place before imposing new service mandates,” the announcement about the filing states.
The FCC should reconsider or modify plans to cap high-cost support, to establish a “reasonably comparable” rate floor and to phase out safety net additive support.
The FCC should reconsider its approach to examining petitions for waiver of new rules and support limitations and reduce the burdens on small companies associated with new reporting requirements. “Changes are needed to the commission’s method for prescribing a new interstate authorized rate of return, as well as several of the ICC provisions of the order.”
benton.org/node/109692 | telecompetitor
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NEWS OF THE FCC

FCC COMMISSIONER COPPS RETIRES
[SOURCE: Seattle Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission begins the new year without Mr. Public Interest, Michael J. Copps, an outspoken critic of media consolidation. His strong, persistent voice will be missed on a panel evermore inclined to move newspapers, radio, television and broadband toward the smothering embrace of corporate conglomeration. The impact of consolidation on opportunities for minorities to buy and manage media outlets has been a special concern for Copps. Who, if anyone, will take on his awareness of, in his words, "nontraditional stakeholders" is not apparent. Two vacancies now exist on the five-member commission. Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel and Republican Ajit Varadaraj Pai have been nominated by President Obama. Copps's tenacity and sense of urgency about media consolidation and diversity are job qualifications that must be met in the public interest.
benton.org/node/109694 | Seattle Times
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FCC WEBSITE
[SOURCE: ABA Journal, AUTHOR: Leslie Gordon]
In an irony perhaps only lawyers can appreciate, the Federal Communications Commission’s newly revamped, state-of-the-art website has, according to one expert, a major communications flaw: Information on the agency’s rule-making is as buried as a pirate’s treasure. The online location of FCC rules under consideration is simply “not obvious to the nonspecialist,” says University of Pennsylvania law professor Cary Coglianese, who authored a study about federal agencies’ use of electronic media in the rule-making process. Similarly, proposed air pollution rules—the subject of recent controversy for the Obama administration—were “nowhere to be found” on the website of the Environmental Protection Agency. Although we’re long past the days of lawyers and other interested parties dusting off the Federal Register to comment on proposed regulations, it remains just as hard for ordinary citizens to participate in the process because, according to Coglianese, federal agencies bury details of proposed rules in obscure places online.
benton.org/node/109662 | ABA Journal | Cary Coglianese
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PRIVACY

GPS MONITORING
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: David Kravets]
A Missouri federal judge ruled the FBI did not need a warrant to secretly attach a GPS monitoring device to a suspect’s car to track his public movements for two months. The ruling, upholding federal theft and other charges, is one in a string of decisions nationwide supporting warrantless GPS surveillance. The decision comes as the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the issue within months in an unrelated case. The ruling from Magistrate David Noce mirrored the Obama Administration position before the Supreme Court during oral arguments on the topic in November. In short, defendant Fred Robinson, who was suspected of fudging his time sheets for his treasurer’s office job for the city of St. Louis, had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his public movements, Magistrate Noce said.
benton.org/node/109658 | Wired
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APPS AND PRIVACY
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Wendy Davis]
Mobile app developers appear more likely to offer privacy policies now than last year, according to a recent report by the Future of Privacy Forum. The think tank recently surveyed top apps and found that 66% of the free apps and 33% of paid apps how have privacy policies. Three-quarters of the free apps with privacy policies made the documents accessible in the app or through a link within the app. Half of the paid apps with privacy policies did the same. For the more recent study, released last week, the Future of Privacy Forum examined the top 10 free and paid mobile apps across the Android, iOS and BlackBerry platforms. Jules Polonetsky, co-chair and director of the industry-funded think tank, suggests that free apps are more likely to rely on advertising, and therefore, more likely to disclose how they use data than paid apps.
benton.org/node/109698 | MediaPost
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RESEARCH

WHAT’S YOUR ALGORITHM?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Dennis Berman]
The new year will bring plenty of splashy stories about iPads and IPOs. There is a more important theme gathering around us: How analytics harvested from massive databases will begin to inform our day-to-day business decisions. Call it Big Data, analytics, or decision science. Over time, this will change your world more than the iPad 3. Computer systems are now becoming powerful enough, and subtle enough, to help us reduce human biases from our decision-making. And this is a key: They can do it in real-time. Inevitably, that "objective observer" will be a kind of organic, evolving database. These systems can now chew through billions of bits of data, analyze them via self-learning algorithms, and package the insights for immediate use. Neither we nor the computers are perfect, but in tandem, we might neutralize our biased, intuitive failings when we price a car, prescribe a medicine, or deploy a sales force. This is playing "Moneyball" at life. It means fewer hunches and more facts.
benton.org/node/109683 | Washington Post
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LABOR

SUMMER JOBS+
[SOURCE: The White House]
The White House announced Summer Jobs+, a new call to action for businesses, non-profits, and government to work together to provide pathways to employment for low-income and disconnected youth in the summer of 2012. President Barack Obama proposed $1.5 billion for high-impact summer jobs and year-round employment for low-income youth ages 16-24 in the American Jobs Act as part of the Pathways Back to Work fund. When Congress failed to act, the Federal government and private sector came together to commit to creating nearly 180,000 employment opportunities for low-income youth in the summer of 2012, with a goal of reaching 250,000 employment opportunities by the start of summer, at least 100,000 of which will be placements in paid jobs and internships.
Commitments Announced Include:
AT&T is committed to providing nearly 350 summer jobs in 2012 through a variety of summer job initiatives.
CenturyLink has had summer internship programs for more than 25 years and looks forward to participating in Summer Jobs+ in 2012.
Discovery Communications provides multiple avenues for young people to discover a summer job and a lasting career.
LinkedIn has committed to offer 200 internships in the summer of 2012.
Viacom has committed to provide internship and mentorship programs to connect youth to employment opportunities.
benton.org/node/109727 | White House, The | B&C
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STORIES FROM ABROAD/INTERNATIONAL

BELARUS INTERNET RESTRICTIONS
[SOURCE: BBC, AUTHOR: ]
A new law in Belarus will restrict access to foreign websites and force internet clubs and cafes to report users visiting sites registered abroad. The law, which takes effect on Friday, says anyone selling goods or services to Belarus citizens on the web must use the .by Belarusian domain name. That would make it illegal for firms like Amazon or eBay to sell goods to customers in Belarus. Fines for breaking the law range as high as 1m Belarus rubles (£77; $120). The law says people offering internet services to the public - whether at a cafe, club or in their own home - will face fines if their customers visit foreign websites and such visits are not properly recorded and reported. Anyone found accessing "extremist" or "pornographic" websites will also be fined, the law says.
benton.org/node/109654 | BBC
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JOURNALISTS IN TURKEY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Dan Bilefsky, Sebnen Arsu]
At a time when Washington and Europe are praising Turkey as the model of Muslim democracy for the Arab world, Turkish human rights advocates say a recent crackdown is part of an ominous trend. Most worrying, they say, are fresh signs that the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is repressing freedom of the press through a mixture of intimidation, arrests and financial machinations, including the sale in 2008 of a leading newspaper and a television station to a company linked to the prime minister’s son-in-law. The arrests threaten to darken the image of Mr. Erdogan, who is lionized in the Middle East as a powerful regional leader who can stand up to Israel and the West. Widely credited with taming Turkey’s military and forging a religiously conservative government that marries strong economic growth with democracy and religious tolerance, he has proved prickly and thin-skinned on more than one occasion. It is that sensitivity bordering on arrogance, human rights advocates say, that contributes to his animus against the news media. There are now 97 members of the news media in jail in Turkey, including journalists, publishers and distributors, according to the Turkish Journalists’ Union, a figure that rights groups say exceeds the number detained in China. The government denies the figure and insists that with the exception of four cases, those arrested have all been charged with activities other than reporting.
benton.org/node/109721 | New York Times
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GOOGLE AND THE EU
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Aoife White]
European Union regulators haven’t decided whether they should file a formal complaint against Google over possible discrimination against rivals in search results, the EU’s antitrust chief said. “The commission is to date not in a position to say whether its investigation will lead to issuing a statement of objections,” EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement published on the European Parliament’s website. “A thorough assessment of the several categories of allegations of infringements of competition rules brought forward by several complainants is necessary,” Almunia said in a written response to a question from an EU lawmaker.
benton.org/node/109717 | Bloomberg
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SPAIN’S VERSION OF SOPA
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Bobbie Johnson]
While American technology companies battle against the SOPA antipiracy bill, on the other side of the Atlantic the game is changing fast. It’s been a long time coming, but Spanish legislators have finally signed the country’s so-called “Sinde Law,” which targets online file sharers. And like any action in the controversial area of intellectual property, it is drawing both support and plenty of jeers, depending on where you look. The law is named after its sponsor, former Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, and it creates a new government body that can take action against websites it deems to be trading in pirated content. Like SOPA, the Sinde Law can force ISPs to block sites, although the extent of the enforcement will only be seen once it comes into effect in March. The law has been a hot political topic for the past two years, causing much anger among the public and consternation across the political spectrum. But José Ignacio Wert, the current culture minister and the man who was in charge of pushing the law through, has remained defiant and likened the action against piracy to the war on drugs, since the government only intends to target traffickers and not consumers.
benton.org/node/109653 | GigaOm
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HUAWEI REACTS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Erik Wasson]
Huawei pushed back against six members of Congress who are calling for a State Department investigation into the company's activities in Iran. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company’s technology is being used to track dissidents and silence dissent in Iran, in violation of a 2010 U.S. sanctions law. Huawei spokesman Bill Plummer called the allegations completely baseless. He acknowledged that Huawei set up location-based services, including those that allow police to track locations of users, but said that these are standard features on networks throughout the world. He said the company does not expect the State Department to impose any sanctions on the Chinese company and noted the firm does not have any U.S. government contracts.
benton.org/node/109701 | Hill, The
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INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MEDIA SURVEY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Somini Sengupta]
In the big cities of India and China, it seems, people can’t help being social. Nearly everyone who uses the Internet there is also active on social networks, according to a vast global survey by Forrester Research, and most of them do much more than read and watch what’s posted online. Three out of four of them write blog posts or upload pictures and music. Cultures reveal themselves online. Italians are twice as likely to visit a social networking site as Germans. The Japanese prefer anonymity and eschew Facebook, which demands real names, for the more flexible Japanese network called Mixi. Europeans and Americans seem to be equally passive: less than a fourth post any content at all. They use social media heavily, though: 86 percent among online Americans and 79 percent among online Europeans, according to Forrester. The online survey was collected from 95,000 Internet users in 18 countries. Three-fourths of Facebook users are outside the United States, as is more than half of the Twitterverse. In China, India, Mexico and Brazil – countries where Internet penetration is lower than in the United States and Europe — 93 percent of those who are online use social networks at least once a month, the Forrester report found.
benton.org/node/109714 | New York Times
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