January 2012

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

TELECOM CUSTOMERS MAY SUE OVER WIRETAPPING
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Carol Williams]
Residential telephone customers can sue the government for allegedly eavesdropping on their private communications in a warrantless "dragnet of ordinary Americans," a federal appeals court ruled. Lawyers for customers of AT&T and other telecommunications providers hailed the ruling for allowing the courts to decide whether widespread warrantless wiretapping violated their constitutional rights. "It's huge. It means six years after we started trying, the American people may get a judicial ruling on whether the massive spying done on them since 9/11 is legal or not," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was among those fighting for a day in court. The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, upheld dismissal of other cases that sought to hold the telecommunications companies liable, citing Congress' decision to grant them retroactive immunity. (Dec 29)
benton.org/node/109498 | Los Angeles Times | Associated Press
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OBAMA AND TRANSPARENCY
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jordy Yager]
Government reform groups say President Barack Obama has fallen short on several of his promises to make the White House more ethical and transparent. Overall, the groups gave President Obama a decent record on improving transparency, particularly compared to past administrations. Still, given the promises in 2008, there’s disappointment President Obama has not done more. “This is the first administration that has made a very concerted effort to enhance transparency of most aspects of the governmental process,” said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen. “We’ve seen a great deal accomplished under the Obama administration, but there has been somewhat of a letdown for those of us in the reform community because we want more.” Holman lauded the website the administration created to track how taxpayer dollars are spent under the bailout of banks and other financial institutions. He also praised the decision to disclose the names of most visitors to the White House, as well as the ban on gifts to executive branch employees. But on issues of campaign finance transparency and the promise of creating a centralized and searchable public database for all government data, watchdog groups say they’ve been starkly disappointed. “I have to give them the benefit of the doubt a little bit,” said Meredith McGehee, the Campaign Legal Center’s policy director. “There was just so many things on their plate, so many competing priorities, and it’s hard to make it all happen. That’s why I’d give them a B- on transparency. They got a good start, but it’s kind of a mile wide and an inch deep,” McGehee said. Some experts on ethics say the steps Obama has taken have been watered down in implementation. (Dec 25)
benton.org/node/109491 | Hill, The
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JOURNALISTS AND POLICE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Powell]
In late November, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, ordered every precinct in his domain to read a statement. Officers, the commissioner said, must “respect the public’s right to know about these events and the media’s right of access to report.” Any officer who “unreasonably interferes” with reporters or blocks photographers will be subject to disciplinary actions. These are fine words. Of course, his words followed on the heels of a few days in mid-November when the police arrested, punched, kicked and used metal barriers to ram reporters and photographers covering the Occupy Wall Street protests. And recent events suggest that the commissioner should speak more loudly. Ryan Devereaux, a reporter, serves as Exhibit 1A that all is not well.
benton.org/node/109547 | New York Times
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PIRACY

ATTACK ON ONLINE PIRACY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
[Commentary] By invoking the acronym SOPA right at the get-go, I may be daring many of you to check the next column over for something a little less chewy. After all, SOPA, which stands for Stop Online Piracy Act, sounds like a piece of arcane Internet government regulation — legislation that entertainment companies desperately care about and that leaves Web nation and free-speech crusaders frothing at the mouth. The rest of us? What were we talking about again? Stay with me here. SOPA deals with technical digital issues that may seem to be a sideshow but could become crucial to American media and technology businesses and the people who consume their products. The legislation is the rare broadly bipartisan piece of apple pie. The House Judiciary Committee is expected to resume hearings on it this month and all indications are that it will approve the measure, setting up a vote in the full chamber. The Senate is also expected to vote on its own version of the bill when it returns from the holiday break. Virtually every traditional media company in the United States loudly and enthusiastically supports SOPA, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for the rest of us. The open consumer Web has been a motor of American innovation and the attempt to curtail some of its excesses could throw sand in the works of a big machine on which we have all come to rely. Rather than launch into a long-winded argument about why the legislation is a bad idea — it is, as currently written — I thought it might be worthwhile to boil SOPA down into a series of questions. (Jan 1)
benton.org/node/109514 | New York Times | paidContent.org
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PROTECT IP AND SOPA
[SOURCE: Technology Review, AUTHOR: David Talbot]
Internet legislation that is scheduled for a vote in the U.S. Senate this month would aim to stop the unlicensed downloading of billions of dollars' worth of movies and music—as well as the trade in counterfeit drugs and other goods—by blocking access to certain websites, many of them registered abroad. But its basic strategies could lead to trouble on several fronts. For one thing, the crackdown may unintentionally weaken Internet security. That is because the legislation could let courts order Internet service providers, search engines, domain-name servers and others to block Web addresses or send people to addresses other than the ones they typed or clicked. That trick, called redirection, is just the kind thing security engineers want to stamp out, because it's also a key tool for committing Internet fraud. For another, song and movie traders will always be able to use widely available circumvention tools—such as Tor, a technology funded and developed by the U.S. government itself—to get around blocks and reach the desired sites. If passed, the legislation may achieve little more than an ineffectual antipiracy law recently enacted in France, which has been bogged down by its complexity and costs. Under the Protect IP Act, government prosecutors or copyright holders could seek a court order finding that a website was "dedicated to infringing activities." With such a finding, a court could order those sites blocked so as to prevent people who click the relevant links or type their domain names into a browser from actually reaching them. (Instead, the user might be redirected to a warning page.) The Senate bill is scheduled for a January 24 vote. [Dec 27]
benton.org/node/109468 | Technology Review
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GODADDY DROPS SOPA
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Timothy Lee]
Under intense pressure from an Internet-wide boycott, domain registrar GoDaddy has given the open Internet an early Christmas present: it's dropping its support for the Stop Online Piracy Act. The change was announced in a statement sent to Ars Technica:
Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" currently working its way through U.S. Congress.
"Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation—but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's newly appointed CEO, said. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."
GoDaddy's embarrassing climbdown took barely 24 hours. The boycott started on reddit (an Ars sister site), but it quickly spread to the broader Internet. GoDaddy's competitors began offering special deals with promo codes like "SopaSucks" to entice GoDaddy switchers. (Dec 24)
benton.org/node/109477 | Ars Technica | Politico | paidContent.org
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INTERNET

JUSTICE RULING ON ONLINE GAMBLING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Edward Wyatt]
The Justice Department has reversed its long-held opposition to many forms of Internet gambling, removing a big legal obstacle for states that want to sanction online gambling to help fix their budget deficits. The legal opinion, issued by the department’s office of legal counsel in September but made public on Dec 23, came in response to requests by New York and Illinois to clarify whether the Wire Act of 1961, which prohibits wagering over telecommunications systems that cross state or national borders, prevented those states from using the Internet to sell lottery tickets to adults within their own borders. Although the opinion dealt specifically with lottery tickets, it opened the door for states to allow Internet poker and other forms of online betting that do not involve sports. Many states are interested in online gambling as a way to raise tax revenue. (Dec 24)
benton.org/node/109524 | New York Times
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ROCKEFELLER VS ICANN
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) says the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is not taking the slow and steady approach to expanding generic top level domain names (gTLDs), which could have "adverse consequences" for consumers, companies and nonprofits. In a letter to Lawrence Strickling, head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, Chairman Rockefeller said he wanted Strickling to work with ICANN to make sure that the expansion, which begins with an application window that opens Jan. 12, is done in a "cautious, limited manner." Chairman Rockefeller raised similar concerns at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing earlier this month on the expansion. (Dec 28)
benton.org/node/109485 | Broadcasting&Cable
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THE YEAR OF THE WEB
[SOURCE: Technology Review, AUTHOR: Brian Bergstein]
We've been living in the age of social media for a long time, but 2011 was the year that all the information we share online began to accrete into something greater than the sum of its parts. It is creating a layer of intelligence that anyone can mine in Web searches and that content creators can use to hone their services. This is happening more readily because sharing our opinions and photos and status updates online isn't just a stand-alone application anymore—it's now an activity embedded into other things. If you're reading an article online and want to recommend it, you don't have to click over to Facebook to tell your friends you liked it; now that more and more sites are connecting themselves to Facebook's "Open Graph," you can register your approval on Facebook directly from the article's page. This means that your friends can be guided to it when they show up at the same site. Google launched something similar this year, so that you might see certain search results higher if they've been recommended by friends. That was just part of Google's efforts to improve its grasp on social networking this year. After failing last year to gain traction with a Twitter-like network called Buzz, the search giant rolled out Google+, a service that embeds information sharing into many of Google's services. At the same time, the data we generate with our sharing continues to make it easier for advertisers to target product pitches more directly. [Dec 28]
benton.org/node/109467 | Technology Review
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

VERIZON’S SPECTRUM DEALS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] AT&T’s decision to drop its bid for T-Mobile is a victory for the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission, which steadfastly opposed a deal that would have locked the wireless market into a duopoly and been bad for consumers. But the battle to defend competition in telecommunications is hardly over. As regulators moved to block the AT&T deal, Verizon Wireless was buying big chunks of spectrum from the nation’s largest cable carriers and signing agreements with them to sell each other’s services to consumers around the country. The deals could have the positive effect of putting to use spectrum that cable companies bought at auction in 2006, and encouraging Verizon to roll out new high-tech wireless services. But the potential for these agreements to curtail competition in both wireless and wireline industries is troubling, and should be examined by the Justice Department and the FCC. Verizon’s cable deals squashed hopes that cable carriers’ purchases of wireless spectrum would lead to more competition against the dominant players, AT&T and Verizon Wireless. And it puts in doubt whether FiOS will ever be a serious competitor to cable, reducing the likelihood that video transmitted over broadband could break up cable’s regional oligopolies. Verizon’s deals suggest a future in which cable carriers will get uncontested control of high-speed broadband into the home while AT&T and Verizon will get uncontested control over wireless. For consumers with expensive wireless plans, pricey bundles of cable channels and costly, slow broadband, this does not look like good news. (Dec 24)
benton.org/node/109527 | New York Times | NYT – Verizon responds 12/28
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VERIZON FEE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Ron Lieber]
Verizon Wireless bowed to a torrent of criticism and reversed a day-old plan to impose a $2 bill-paying fee that would have applied to only some customers. The consumer vitriol, which cascaded across Twitter and onto blogs and petitions all around the Web, struck a chord with a company that was clearly not expecting it. “The company made the decision in response to customer feedback about the plan, which was designed to improve the efficiency of those transactions,” Verizon Wireless said in a statement referring to the reversal. That a company with revenue of $15 billion in the most recent quarter would have to quickly change course over such a small fee suggests something particular about its business and others like it. Similar to fee-bedeviled airline passengers with little choice on many nonstop flights, or bank customers who do not want to spend hours untangling automated payments so they can switch institutions, Verizon Wireless customers have limited options because they are locked into multiyear contracts. And they apparently did not like being told that it would cost money to pay money to the company. Verizon Wireless may also been have moved to change its mind when the Federal Communications Commission put out word Dec 30 that it thought the company’s actions merited closer scrutiny. (Dec 30)
benton.org/node/109525 | New York Times | NYT – FCC | NYT – 12/29
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GAO SPECTRUM REPORT
[SOURCE: Government Accountability Office, AUTHOR: ]
Since 1994, the Federal Communications Commission has used competitive bidding, or auctions, to assign licenses to commercial entities for their use of spectrum; however, its authority to use auctions expires on September 30, 2012. Among other things, the Government Accountability Office examined 1) the extent to which FCC has made spectrum available for new commercial uses and the time taken to do so, 2) experts’ and stakeholders’ views on FCC’s plans and recent actions to meet future spectrum needs, and 3) experts’ and stakeholders’ views on the continued use of auctions to assign spectrum. GAO previously reported that auctions were effective in assigning licenses to entities that valued them the most; were quicker, less costly, and more transparent than mechanisms FCC previously used to assign licenses; and were an effective mechanism for the public to realize a portion of the value of a national resource used for commercial purposes. Experts and stakeholders responding to GAO’s survey strongly supported extending FCC’s auction authority—53 of 65 respondents supported extending FCC’s authority. However, experts and stakeholders held varied opinions on potential changes to auctions. For example, respondents generally supported actions that would provide a clear road map detailing future auctions, which could reduce uncertainty. In contrast, a proposal to require winners of auctions to pay royalties based on their revenues rather than the full amount of their winning bids up front garnered the least support. [GAO-12-118, November 23]
benton.org/node/109470 | Government Accountability Office
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WIRELESS IN 2012
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Anton Troianovski]
In 2011, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. cemented their wireless dominance by boosting their share of the industry's operating profit to 80%, according to Fitch Ratings. A ragtag band of rivals has one more shot to break it, now that AT&T has ended its nine-month battle with U.S. antitrust regulators and dropped its $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom AG. Consumers will continue to choose from among four national wireless carriers, but will the industry admit new competitors Hedge-fund-backed LightSquared Inc. has grand plans to provide cheap wireless broadband but sits on a chunk of the airwaves that government-ordered tests show interfere with GPS devices; further testing over the next few months could determine whether the company will be able to launch its service. Satellite-TV operator Dish Network Corp. expects to hear from federal regulators soon about whether it can buy a chunk of the airwaves for its own national mobile network. And struggling mobile-broadband company Clearwire Corp. will upgrade its network to a more common standard. Then it needs to find new customers. If these upstarts make their numbers work, consumers might see new options. If not, Verizon and AT&T could use 2012 to run away with the market.
benton.org/node/109545 | Wall Street Journal
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WHITE SPACES
[SOURCE: CNNMoney, AUTHOR: David Goldman]
Smartphone companies and carriers are desperate for network capacity to provide souped-up service, but they're hard-pressed to find it. The latest attempt: a government effort to use the staticky space between television channels. It's the technology equivalent of searching the couch cushions for loose change. The Federal Communications Commission opened up the light spectrum that sits between individual television channels numbered 1 through 51. Wireless communications in those "white spaces" will be permitted as of Jan. 26 in a testbed location and will be opened up nationally in the following months. Broadcasting in the white spaces means that a company like Verizon could deliver signal between channels 5 and 6, for instance. That gives it just a little extra capacity boost to give its customers faster service. The announcement comes as wireless companies are facing a spectrum crunch crisis that has already begun to reshape the industry. [Dec 29]
benton.org/node/109461 | CNNMoney
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SPRINT AND LIGHTSQUARED
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Greg Bensinger]
Sprint Nextel said Jan 1 it gave billionaire LightSquared a 30-day extension to a Dec. 31 deadline to get Federal Communications Commission clearance to operate its network. Getting FCC clearance is a condition of a 15-year fourth-generation spectrum-and-equipment-sharing accord between the two companies. LightSquared has said the Sprint accord will help it save $13 billion through the end of this decade. LightSquared has been buffeted by criticism from lawmakers, the Defense Department and device manufacturers who say the company's airwaves can jam global-positioning-system signals.
benton.org/node/109542 | Wall Street Journal
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LEAP OR METROPCS NEXT TARGET FOR AT&T?
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Ville Heiskanen]
Leap Wireless and MetroPCS may be takeover targets for bigger rivals AT&T or T-Mobile USA after the larger companies’ $39 billion merger plan collapsed, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said. The pay-as-you-go carriers could be suitable “near-term” sources of spectrum for a buyer, Phil Cusick, a JPMorgan analyst in New York, said in a note to clients. AT&T cited a need for more spectrum as a reason for its attempt to buy T-Mobile. Leap’s spectrum and certain potential cash-flow benefits following a takeover could be worth more than $13 a share to a buyer, said Cusick. MetroPCS’s airwaves and some potential cash-flow benefits could be worth more than $6 a share, the analyst said. Leap’s spectrum alone is worth $1.9 billion and MetroPCS’s airwaves $2.6 billion, he said. (Dec 29)
benton.org/node/109484 | Bloomberg
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2011 AND WIRELESS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Joshua Topolsky]
[Commentary] As far as years in technology go, 2011 was one for the record books. It wasn’t just about big battles, such as Apple vs. Samsung, Microsoft vs. Google, AT&T vs. the world or Hewlett-Packard vs. itself. It wasn’t just about the growth of apps and the ever-increasing pervasiveness of the Web in our daily lives, although there were plenty of amazing developments in both of these realms. It wasn’t just about hardware or software. And it wasn’t just about toeing the line or trying to hold onto it. It was a year of incredible innovation, progress and excitement. It was a year when — despite all the political and economic chaos around us these days — optimism ruled. And how many other industries can you say that about right now? (Dec 28)
benton.org/node/109505 | Washington Post
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PRIVACY

PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM ONLINE TRACKING
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
A coalition of public interest groups and privacy advocates has endorsed a proposal from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that would protect children from unauthorized tracking online. The groups, including the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), the Benton Foundation and World Privacy Forum, support the agency's recommended updates to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) aimed at curbing the use of cookies and other tracking mechanisms in sites targeted at children. “Given children’s limited cognitive abilities and the sophisticated nature of contemporary digital marketing and data collection, strong arguments can be made that behavioral targeting is an inappropriate, unfair and deceptive practice when used to influence children under 13,” the groups said. “At the very least, marketers should be constrained from engaging in such practices without obtaining meaningful, prior consent from parents.” (Dec 27)
benton.org/node/109488 | Hill, The
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YOUR CELL PHONE IS OUT OF CONTROL
[SOURCE: CNNMoney, AUTHOR: David Goldman]
Here's the takeaway from the Carrier IQ fiasco: Mobile phone owners have no clue what data-gathering tools are running on their devices, and little ability to control them. Carrier IQ sends innocuous data from your phone back to your carrier like when and where you sent a text message, when and where a call dropped, and what apps are draining your battery. That information helps carriers find problems. Here's what it doesn't do: It doesn't send your keystrokes, the content of your text messages or what websites you visit to your carrier. "I want to make it clear that just because I do not see any evidence of evil intentions does not mean that what's happening here is necessarily right," said security consultant Dan Rosenberg of Virtual Security Research. "Consumers need to be able to opt out of any sort of data collection," he said. "There needs to be more transparency." One option would be to require government or third-party oversight. Even Carrier IQ suggested that some regulation would be welcome. [Dec 28]
benton.org/node/109459 | CNNMoney
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GEOFENCING
[SOURCE: Oakland Tribune, AUTHOR: George Avalos]
Someone who is in a mall or near a favorite restaurant might get a message on their cell phone about a sale at a store or specials on the menu. Or they could be alerted that their child has left the school grounds. These are just a couple of the possible uses of a new generation of messages, apps and advertisements that go by the moniker geofencing. McDonald's, Victoria's Secret and Best Buy all offer ways for potential customers to get messages on their smartphones about deals or specials at nearby locations. AT&T has been testing a free ShopAlerts service that sends location-based text messages about merchant offers. San Francisco-based Twitter is devising ways for merchants to deliver city-level advertising tweets to people based on their timeline. Foursquare lets people check in and receive ads and info linked to the areas where they are.
Emeryville-based Location Labs offers alerts and online reports about the whereabouts of family members, as well as services designed to prevent young motorists from texting while driving. Both of these are based on the mobile phone knowing where people are located or how fast they are traveling. Geofencing creates a digital perimeter around a location -- which could be a building, school or entire city -- that enables merchants or others to become aware when a person's cellphone crosses an electronic boundary.
benton.org/node/109539 | Oakland Tribune
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HEALTH

TEXTING AND DRIVING LAWS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Burgess Everett]
Will 2011 be remembered as the year drivers got serious about putting down their phones? If the flurry of activity on distracted driving during the year’s final months is any indication, the answer is yes. In March, Pennsylvania will become the 35th state (plus D.C.) to ban texting while driving — and the movement is little more than five years old. The swift passage of those regulations encourages advocates and has some thinking Congress can stay on the sidelines. Texting bans are generally low-hanging fruit for legislators and the public. An October AAA survey found 95 percent of respondents consider texting or emailing while driving a serious threat to personal safety and 87 percent of those polled support laws against text messaging.
benton.org/node/109536 | Politico
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MORE ON CONTENT

E-BOKK TUG OF WAR
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Randall Stross]
Last year, Christmas was the biggest single day for e-book sales by HarperCollins. And indications are that this year’s Christmas Day total will be even higher, given the extremely strong sales of e-readers like the Kindle and the Nook. Amazon announced on Dec. 15 that it had sold one million of its Kindles in each of the three previous weeks. But we can also guess that the number of visitors to the e-book sections of public libraries’ Web sites is about to set a record, too. And that is a source of great worry for publishers. In their eyes, borrowing an e-book from a library has been too easy. Worried that people will click to borrow an e-book from a library rather than click to buy it, almost all major publishers in the United States now block libraries’ access to the e-book form of either all of their titles or their most recently published ones. Borrowing a printed book from the library imposes an inconvenience upon its patrons. “You have to walk or drive to the library, then walk or drive back to return it,” says Maja Thomas, a senior vice president of the Hachettte Book Group, in charge of its digital division. And print copies don’t last forever; eventually, the ones that are much in demand will have to be replaced. “Selling one copy that could be lent out an infinite number of times with no friction is not a sustainable business model for us,” Ms. Thomas says. Hachette stopped making its e-books available to libraries in 2009. E-lending is not without some friction. Software ensures that only one patron can read an e-book copy at a time, and people who see a long waiting list for a certain title may decide to buy it instead. (Dec 24)
benton.org/node/109520 | New York Times
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

IOWA POLITICAL ADS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ned Martel]
For all the hand-wringing about money in politics, a few Iowans spent the year hand-wringing about how little of it they were seeing. Station managers and sales teams at Iowa television stations had expected major profits but saw very little until the past few weeks, when PACs and candidate campaigns poured into their empty coffers pennies from heaven. In interviews at the top affiliates in Des Moines, the state’s largest market, sales managers said they saw the same pattern: a complete dearth of ad buys until the August straw poll in Ames, then silence on the airwaves until late November, then a complete return to fortune in the last two weeks of 2011. State officials, waiting to see how rival states might usurp Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status, did not lock in the caucus date until late in the year. Subsequently, candidates waited before purchasing airtime to sway voters. Then, after the Jan. 3 date was resolved, debates drew record audiences and candidates exploited a cost-free stage to get out their message. And after the final pre-caucus debate, in mid-December, the deluge. The last quarter brought in a combined tally of nearly $3.5 million for the state’s two top stations, WHO and KCCI, who are viewed in the industry as the major players. Campaigns focused also on three other significant markets — Cedar Rapids, Sioux City and Mason City — where airtime is less costly. (Dec 31)
benton.org/node/109503 | Washington Post
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POLITICAL ADS IN IOWA
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Ana Radelat]
After a slow start, the Republican presidential hopefuls and the political action committees that support them are saturating Iowa TV with mostly negative ads. Spending on campaign ads has reached nearly $6 million in the run-up to the state's Jan. 2 nominating caucuses. "The race is fully engaged now," said Ken Goldstein, president of Campaign Media Analyst Group, which tracks political advertising spending. In the 2008 campaign cycle, between $37 million and $42 million was spent on political advertising in Iowa. But Goldstein believes the slew of GOP debates and "dramas" such as the harassment allegations against Herman Cain prompted campaigns this year to hold off on advertising in Iowa. The lack of a contest on the Democratic side will also result in less spending in Iowa than four years ago, Goldstein said. While campaigns are spending less, independent groups have ratcheted up their involvement. According to the Federal Election Commission, Restore our Future -- a "super PAC" created to support Mitt Romney -- has bought $2.6 million worth of ads attacking Newt Gingrich. Romney's campaign is spending about $1 million in ad buys in Iowa. But Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) is the biggest spender in Iowa, buying more than $500,000 worth a week in December.
benton.org/node/109479 | AdAge
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MOBILE CAMPAIGNS
[SOURCE: ComputerWorld, AUTHOR: Matt Hamblen]
Social networks played an important role in the last U.S. presidential election, but the explosive growth in smartphone usage and the introduction of tablets since 2008 could make or break the candidates for president in 2012. As the Republican primaries heat up, the major contenders show on their official websites a strong recognition of social networking and connecting in digital ways via desktop computers. But the GOP and President Obama's campaigns are not yet making many mobile-specific connections to supporters via smartphones or tablets, analysts noted. Some campaigns have special links on their websites for getting updates via SMS to a phone, but they don't appear to have candidate-specific downloadable mobile apps on Apple's App Store or the Android Market so far. “Smartphones and tablets are much more mainstream now, and these devices are literally driving the Occupy movement and the revolutions in the Middle East,” noted Rob Enderle, an analyst for Enderle Group. “The ways we connect to one another have changed quite a bit in the last couple of years. Candidates need a good social media campaign to win, and social media done right includes mobile, because mobile allows candidates to loop in supporters in the moment and stay in touch and respond in real time. Mobile makes social networking more important.”
benton.org/node/109533 | ComputerWorld
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TELEVISION

INTERNET AND TV SYNDICATION
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Meg James]
Television production studio executives long have been wary of Hulu and other forms of Internet distribution, fearing they would lead to increased piracy and destroy lucrative secondary markets, including syndication and DVD sales. But video streaming services offered by Netflix, Hulu and Amazon are becoming an unexpected boon to the TV syndication market. By writing checks to license library content from networks, the Internet services are injecting new revenue into the TV business and breathing new life into middling shows. "The introduction of the subscription video-on-demand platform has broadened the opportunities for exploitation of product in a very positive way for consumers and studios," said Ken Werner, president of Warner Bros. domestic television distribution. "You do not need to accumulate 100 episodes of a series because 40 hours of programming is a lot, so many of these shows work perfectly well on these new services." (Dec 31)
benton.org/node/109500 | Los Angeles Times
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NEWS FROM THE FCC

FCC DOWN TO 3 MEMBERS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
With Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) blocking President Barack Obama's two nominees to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the five-member board is set to begin the new year with the bare minimum of members needed to take official action. The FCC needs the presence of three members for official agency business. "So if one of the members is out of town or disabled, the commission is unable to act," Andrew Schwartzman, policy director for public interest law firm the Media Access Project, said. Any one of the commissioners could block a vote by refusing to show up, but Schwartzman noted that would be an extreme action that he doesn't believe has ever happened at the FCC. The agency does not compile data on the number of commissioners serving at any given time, but Schwartzman said he believes the last time the commission had only three members was for a several-month period in the early 1990s. (Dec 23)
benton.org/node/109493 | Hill, The
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TELECOM

LIFELINE REFORM
[SOURCE: Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, AUTHOR: Ava Parker]
[Commentary] Lifeline, a program established by the Federal Communications Commission and administered by the states, provides small but critical assistance to our nation’s poorest families to help them establish this most basic of communications—telephone service—that the rest of America takes for granted. Lifeline’s help is available only to families of limited incomes. In most states, families qualify if they receive food stamps, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Low Income Home Energy Assistance, or public housing. Families may also qualify based upon household incomes or if they have children in the free and reduced lunch program at school. In all cases, families must provide documentation to show they qualify before receiving help from Lifeline. This system works well—as long as providers of phone service do their part by requiring documentation before signing up customers. Some cell-phone service companies, however, have neglected to do so. And it appears a few are actively abandoning these rules in order to boost their customer base. This abuse must stop. Lifeline’s assistance is vital to the poor, and every time a cell-phone provider extends Lifeline assistance to an unqualified family, that company steals the opportunity from another family truly in need. Lifeline’s resources are limited. The need far exceeds the level of support the FCC provides the program. Every dollar matters, and every dollar must be used to help only those truly in need. How to reform the program? State public utility commissions need to crack down on abusive companies. They must be diligent in deciding which service providers they approve for participation in Lifeline, and they need to weed out companies that won’t follow the rules. [Dec 27]
benton.org/node/109466 | Minority Media and Telecommunications Council
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OWNERSHIP

MEDIA DIVERSITY AND EQUALITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY
[SOURCE: Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, AUTHOR: David Honig]
[Commentary] Several obstacles stand in the way of more robust media diversity in the broadband age. The largest impediment is the low broadband adoption rate among African Americans, Hispanics, and low-income households. Although a growing number of minorities are using broadband to participate in the new media revolution, more than half of all African Americans and Hispanics remain without a high-speed Internet connection. These opportunities are only available to those who have adopted and actively use broadband at home or on a wireless device. An equally formidable impediment to more diversity in the emerging digital media sector relates to wireless broadband networks. African Americans and Hispanics are the most avid users of mobile data services, but without additional spectrum resources, carriers will be unable to provide more robust mobile connectivity. This spectrum crunch facing the nation will have a disproportionately negative impact on minorities if left unresolved. Minority participation in digital media will also be negatively impacted by a failure to address the nation’s spectrum crisis. In the 21st century, true media diversity is attainable. Digital platforms will be critical in helping to equalize minority participation in both the digital and analog media sectors. They will also assure diversity in the production, dissemination, and consumption of minority-focused content. But these opportunities are only available to broadband adopters, and many outlets for participating in the emerging minority media sector could be compromised if the spectrum crisis is not addressed immediately. Policymakers must work on several fronts to support further development of new media platforms and encourage more minority participation. Minority rights advocates must also work to ensure that more African Americans, Hispanics, and low-income households are adopting broadband and learning how to use it effectively. MMTC is doing its part as a member of the Broadband Opportunity Coalition, which has partnered with One Economy to launch a first-in-kind national broadband awareness campaign. Working together, we can achieve true media diversity in a nation that desperately needs it. [Jan 1]
benton.org/node/109464 | Minority Media and Telecommunications Council
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COMMUNITY MEDIA

LIBRARIES IN QUEENS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Joseph Berger]
The best-selling biography of Steve Jobs is flying off the shelves at libraries in Queens, which is not surprising. But in many of the borough’s 62 branches, the copies being borrowed are in Korean, Chinese or Spanish. A library branch in Astoria, responding to its own diverse readership, carries children’s books in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Russian, Portuguese and Gujarati, the official language of a western Indian state. And when branch librarians noticed an influx of yet another group, they acquired the story of “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves” in Croatian. Striving to cater to the intensifying globalization of its surrounding streets, the New York neighborhood library speaks your language as never before. The surge in immigrants patronizing the Queens system has spurred its branches to offer books, DVDs and CDs in 59 languages, more than double the total a decade ago. So important has acquiring foreign-language books become to the Queens Library’s mission that Radames Suarez, who supervises the Spanish collection, travels every year to the largest Spanish book fair in the world, in Guadalajara, Mexico. The Queens Library even has a staff demographer. As with bilingual programs that teach students in their native languages as well as in English, the internationalization of neighborhood libraries has led some to question if making foreign books easily accessible impedes or hastens assimilation. Ms. Kim acknowledged that she worried that many Korean immigrants were “reading only Korean books or watching Korean TV or interacting only with Koreans.” Still, she said, in New York “we like to keep our own cultures as well.” And other librarians argue that making books available in native languages draws immigrants into a library where they will in time browse the English texts.
benton.org/node/109531 | New York Times
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LIBRARIES AND PORN
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Some people never realized before that libraries, originally intended as great institutions of public edification through books, could be used these days as sources for viewing porn. Others were all too aware of the issue because they had seen library computers regularly used for decidedly unlofty pursuits, even when there were children around who could easily see the screens. Librarians have insisted that they are obliged to provide Internet access to pornography as a matter of their clients' free-speech rights; limiting or prohibiting access to certain kinds of information amounts to censorship, in their eyes. The reality is more complicated, though. Despite what the librarians say, libraries already restrict access to certain kinds of print material by using their scant financial resources to purchase some books and magazines rather than others. Libraries are far more likely to have copies of the New Yorker on the periodical shelves than copies of Hustler. True, Internet access to porn sites doesn't cost a library more than access to Wikipedia, but both involve making judgments about the relative worth of some materials over others.
benton.org/node/109529 | Los Angeles Times
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