February 22, 2012 (Online privacy bill remains elusive)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2012
Cybersecurity and Spectrum on today’s agenda http://benton.org/calendar/2012-02-22/
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
White House Releases Report on the Economic Value of Increasing Spectrum - press release
The Internet won the mobile broadband war
Social messaging apps 'lost networks $13.9 billion in 2011'
Commenters Weigh In on Verizon's Cable Spectrum Deals
More competition is key to cutting excessive international mobile roaming charges, says OECD
Some Apple fans no longer on speaking terms with Siri [links to web]
Mozilla to challenge big players in mobile web
AT&T's Chief Pays for Big Deal's Failure
PRIVACY
Online privacy bill remains elusive
Privacy Report Could Be Released This Week
Pressure on Google over privacy problems mounts
Google Sued by Apple Safari-User Over Web-Browser Privacy [links to web]
Google says IE privacy policy is impractical in modern Web [links to web]
What Google's Privacy Snafu Means for Self-Regulation
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Twitter Diplomacy: State Department 2.0
Regulations.gov: Remaking Public Participation [links to web]
NIST Establishes National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence - press release
CIA to software vendors: A revolution is coming [links to web]
MEDIA & ELECTIONS
TV Stations for Truth
TELEVISION
Comcast launches minority-owned channels to meet regulatory commitments
Comcast Takes Aim At Netflix With 'Streampix'
Study Links TV Content To Ad Value [links to web]
Youth shaping future of online TV, movies, music [links to web]
CONTENT
TripAdvisor claims Google pushing services harder
Don’t Shoot The Messenger Over User Content, Courts Confirm [links to web]
HEALTH
HHS Sec Sebelius announces major progress in doctors, hospital use of health information technology - press release
JOURNALISM
Are Silicon Valley tech bloggers truly objective?
Media Groups Unite on Protecting Sources
Ecuador’s Assault on Free Speech - editorial [links to web]
Arab media make most of citizen journalism [links to web]
Why the Chicago News Cooperative is closing
CHILDREN AND MEDIA
OECD: Risks faced by children online and policies to protect them
MORE ONLINE
Silicon Valley: The rise of the adolescent CEOs [links to web]
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
WHITE HOUSE SPECTRUM REPORT
[SOURCE: The White House]
Vice President Biden met with first responders to thank them for their service and to discuss the new nationwide public safety broadband network included in the Payroll Tax Extension legislation. In addition, he announced the release of a new report from the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), The Economic Benefits of New Spectrum for Wireless Broadband, describing the substantial economic value of aggressively pursuing President Obama’s goal of nearly doubling the amount of spectrum available for wireless broadband over ten years and deploying a nationwide interoperable wireless network for public safety. The report summarizes the compelling evidence that additional spectrum for wireless broadband is needed to accommodate the surging demand for wireless data traffic, projected to increase by a factor of twenty between 2010 and 2015. The report also describes the potential for wireless broadband to play a transformative role in public safety and as a platform for innovation in many areas of the economy, and documents the substantial impact on jobs, growth, and investment that the growth of wireless broadband will have. Specifically, the report reaches the following conclusions:
The use of voluntary incentive auctions will ensure that spectrum is reassigned from the lowest value uses to the highest, and that the economic benefits are widely shared among stakeholders, including broadcasters, wireless carriers, consumers, and taxpayers. The recently passed spectrum bill gives the FCC authority to conduct these auctions.
Unlicensed spectrum is a valuable complement to licensed spectrum, and allocating new spectrum for a mix of licensed and unlicensed uses will offer the most fertile environment for future innovation. The spectrum bill gives the FCC authority to allocate more spectrum for unlicensed uses, creating new opportunities for the development of innovative wireless technologies.
Federal funding for research and development in emerging wireless technologies will have substantial public benefits, particularly to support the development of innovative technologies for use in public safety. The bill sets aside $100-300 Million for public safety network R&D, funds that will be vital to helping the public safety community build a new robust, flexible and innovative network for first responders all around the country.
benton.org/node/114845 | White House, The | Council of Economic Advisers | The Hill | National Journal
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MOBILE BROADBAND WAR
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
Mobile operators might as well give in and work with web companies when it comes to delivering services via mobile broadband. That’s the conclusion of the latest report out from Allot Communications, a company that aims to sell software and gear to companies like Verizon and AT&T. Allot’s latest mobile traffic report indicates that the big web players such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Skype are still racking up gains, while newcomers offering similar services to operators are also on the rise. Aside from predicting the future for mobile operators, Allot’s data shows how much of our present we spend surfing YouTube on mobile networks. Globally, almost one out of every four packets (24 percent) traversing the mobile network was from YouTube, and it also accounts for 62 percent of all streaming traffic. It appears from the report that the next big worry on the horizon will be HD video streaming traffic. YouTube’s HD-streaming traffic has increased by 300 percent from the first half to the second half of the year. Better and bigger screens are to blame for this boost, according to Allot, but I think faster LTE networks that are rolling out around the country play a role. Faster networks mean we can stream higher-definition content, although we may end up paying for it in overage charges later.
benton.org/node/114844 | GigaOm
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SOCIAL NETWORKS AND REVENUE
[SOURCE: BBC, AUTHOR: ]
Social messaging applications cost mobile network operators $13.9 billion (£8.8 billion) in lost SMS revenue last year, a report has claimed. Analysis firm Ovum studied global use of popular services like Whatsapp, Blackberry Messenger and Facebook chat. It concluded that mobile operators must "work together to face the challenge from major internet players." Industry experts say operators can offset any losses through effective costing plans by mobile networks. The report gathered usage statistics from the leading social messaging applications typically used on smartphones across the world. As well as well-known names from popular social networks in the Western world, the study also included apps such as MXit - a massively popular program used mainly in South Africa. Social messaging apps make use of a smartphone's internet connection to send messages rather than the usually far costlier SMS - short message service - system. However, the study did not factor in the extra income networks received from mobile data costs because of increased internet usage resulting from social messaging. The research's author, Neha Dharia, said operators must look to work closely with the big players in social messaging.
benton.org/node/114829 | BBC
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COMMENTS ON VERIZON SPECTRUM DEALS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
It was rush hour in the Verizon/SpectrumCo/Cox Federal Communications Commission docket as comments came in in advance of the midnight Feb. 21 deadline. Among the comments the FCC asked for is how it should treat the separate, exchange-of-service agreements between Verizon and the cable companies. Public interest groups and wireless competitors critical of the deal have said the FCC should pay a lot of attention to them. But the Free State Foundation, a free market think tank critical of government overregulation and too heavy a hand in merger reviews, said the commission should not include those deals in its consideration of this one. "These separate commercial agreements, which do not involve the transfer of any licenses, are not contingent on approval of the proposed transfers of spectrum licenses, or vice versa, and by their terms they do not call for commission review," said Free State in its filing. The Tech Policy Institute was all for the deal, saying that the deal "should benefit consumers and does not in itself raise antitrust concerns because the spectrum is currently not being used," according to its filing. The New Jersey rate counsel, which advocates for consumers during rate-setting proceedings for public utilities, said the FCC should block the transaction because the deal would eliminate possible competitors and enrich sellers that hoarded airwaves. Free Press filed a petition to deny, saying the transaction would tilt the playing field toward a wireless/wireline cartel of cable and telco operators via separate joint marketing agreements. "Neither the spectrum sale nor the joint-marketing agreements that are part of these transactions would succeed as stand-alone deals," said Free Press. "And while Verizon wants this spectrum, it does not need it, and we don't believe it intends to put this highly valuable resource to its most immediate and efficient use."
benton.org/node/114843 | Broadcasting&Cable | Bloomberg
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COMPETITION AND INTERNATIONAL MOBILE ROAMING CHAREGES
[SOURCE: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, AUTHOR: ]
Governments should do more to boost competition in international mobile roaming markets in order to drive down the high prices being paid by consumers and businesses, says the OECD. To help them, the OECD has laid out a series of measures that governments could take that would encourage effective competition, raise consumer awareness and protection and ensure fairer prices. The mobile phone sector is considered generally competitive in domestic markets. But for users travelling abroad, OECD analysis says roaming prices are excessive compared to the costs incurred by operators. A recent OECD report revealed that prices of up to USD 25 were being paid for downloading 1 MB of data while roaming abroad. The OECD Recommendation says that promoting transparent information on roaming prices would protect consumers and businesses. A financial limit for data roaming services would also help. It is essential to remove barriers that prevent mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) from having access to wholesale mobile services on local conditions and on fair and reasonable terms, says the OECD. These MVNOs should also benefit from regulated wholesale roaming rates between operators. If other measures are not effective, governments should consider price regulation for roaming services. Wholesale roaming services could be regulated by means of bilateral or multilateral wholesale agreements with mutually established price caps.
benton.org/node/114824 | Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development | read the recommendations
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MOZILLA APP MARKETPLACE
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Mike Swift]
Mozilla, the Mountain View nonprofit that took on Microsoft's Internet browser dominance nearly a decade ago and won, now wants to play the same transformative role with the mobile Web. Mozilla is expected to announce plans for its own app store, to be called the Mozilla Marketplace, offering mobile apps that could run equally well on an iPhone, an Android phone or a Windows Phone device. Mozilla is also working to develop a smartphone that would not be locked into the "walled gardens" of apps, operating systems and devices that are now controlled by Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and a few others.
benton.org/node/114850 | San Jose Mercury News
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AT&T’S STEPHENSON AND THE FAILED T-MOBILE DEAL
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Greg Bensinger]
AT&T's failed $39 billion bid for T-Mobile USA cost the telecommunications giant $4 billion in assets and cash. It also cost Chief Executive Randall Stephenson. AT&T ‘s board cut Stephenson's combined short- and long-term incentive payout by more than $2 million, due in part to the implosion of the deal. The company walked away from the offer in December amid regulatory resistance. Combined with a reduction in his stock option awards and the value of his pension and deferred compensation, Stephenson's total pay package fell to $22.02 million last year, from $27.34 million a year earlier. The move was the first sign of any internal fallout from the failed deal.
benton.org/node/114853 | Wall Street Journal
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PRIVACY
ONLINE PRIVACY BILL ELUSIVE
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Keith Perine, Michelle Quinn, Elizabeth Wasserman]
Congress has been mulling general online privacy laws for longer than Google and Facebook have been dot-coms. But none has passed muster. “It’s Washington’s fault,” Jeff Chester, executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer protection and privacy group, said after reports became public Friday that Google had tracked Apple Web browser users. “Regulators and policymakers have ignored the implications for consumers of the use of all this information collected and used about them.” There are several reasons for the absence of a broad online privacy law in the U.S., although the European Union has passed strict protections on how companies can collect and use consumer data, and U.S.-based companies have to comply with these laws in the EU. Just as technological advances have made it easier for companies like Google to track people online, they have also allowed firms to prosper by offering an ever-expanding list of cool, convenient ways for people to share data and get information. Consumers have willingly flocked to those online services, spending more and more time on more personally revealing social networks, such as Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. Americans have also shown a penchant for actively buying products and other goods or services that their networks of friends, family and acquaintances “like” or identify. When it comes to data privacy, a lot of people would say they are for it in the abstract. But most of them would also have to admit that they’re willing to trade their privacy in exchange for the ability to look up the nearest Italian restaurant or stay in touch with their high school friends.
benton.org/node/114854 | Politico
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NEW PRIVACY REPORT
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
The Commerce Department appears close to finally releasing its long-awaited final report outlining the Obama Administration's position on consumer privacy online. The report is likely to be released as soon as Feb 23. While the report apparently has been completed for weeks, the agency has been trying to line up some big-name support to help release it, possibly Vice President Joe Biden. The report is not expected to include any major differences from the draft report the department released in December 2010. It is, however, likely to include the Administration's previous calls for Congress to pass legislation calling for a "privacy bill of rights" that would establish basic privacy protections for consumers. Politico reports that major stakeholders in the online privacy debate are being invited to the White House on Thursday for an event about the Administration’s next steps.
benton.org/node/114842 | National Journal | Politico
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GOOGLE PRIVACY PROBLEMS MOUNT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
Pressure against Google is mounting over the company’s questionable privacy practices. The Electronic Privacy Information Center pursued its lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission — a move aimed at getting the agency to fine Google over a new policy that advocates say would violate user privacy. EPIC said that recent revelations that Google may have purposefully worked around the privacy settings of Apple’s Safari browser show the firm needs to be punished for its behavior. “The Safari hack provides more evidence that Google should be barred from making the proposed changes on March 1,” said Mark Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC. On March 1, Google plans to combine data from users’ Gmail across its 60 services to be used for behavioral advertising. Account holders to Google’s services cannot opt out of the new system.
benton.org/node/114841 | Washington Post | ZDNet
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GOOGLE AND SELF-REGULATION
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Katy Bachman]
Will Google's latest privacy misstep compromise the ad industry's self-regulation efforts? The discovery that Google and a handful of other companies were circumventing the privacy settings on Apple's Safari browser and had to recant has already brought back the privacy debate in Washington with a vengeance. Following the reports, more lawmakers raised questions and many called for the Federal Trade Commission to step in. But the controversy also could have repercussions for the integrity of the ad industry that has been working hard to convince Washington that it could self-regulate privacy policies. Just last week, days before the Google-Safari contretemps, the Network Advertising Association, of which Google is the largest ad network member, put out its annual audit confirming its members were in compliance with the organization's privacy code and guidelines. The whole incident with Google leaves the Network Advertising Initiative, a member of the Digital Advertising Alliance that is rolling out a self-regulatory program across the industry, in an awkward spot.
benton.org/node/114838 | AdWeek
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
TWITTER DIPLOMACY
[SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Michele Kelemen]
Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, is part of a new generation of diplomats using online tools such as Facebook and Twitter to get their message out. In fact, these days, U.S. diplomats take a course in what one State Department official calls "21st century statecraft" before they head out to their assignments. "I tell all our ambassadors, remember, you only have one mouth but you have two ears, so use this as a way not just of communicating with the citizens of the country where you are serving, but also understanding the point of view of people who may not be sitting at a mahogany table inside the embassy," says Alec Ross, the State Department's senior adviser on innovation.
benton.org/node/114836 | National Public Radio
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NATIONAL CYBERSECURITY CENTER OF EXCELLENCE
[SOURCE: Department of Commerce, AUTHOR: Press release]
To help organizations better protect themselves from cyber threats, the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced a new partnership to establish the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. The Center will operate as a public-private collaboration for accelerating the widespread adoption of integrated cybersecurity tools and technologies. The State of Maryland and Montgomery County (MD) are co-sponsoring the Center with NIST, which will work to strengthen U.S. economic growth by supporting automated and trustworthy e-government and e-commerce. NIST’s fiscal year 2012 appropriations provided $10 million to establish the public-private partnership to operate the center. It will include a state-of-the-art computing facility near NIST’s headquarters campus, where researchers from NIST will work with both the users and vendors of cybersecurity products and services. The center will host multi-institutional, collaborative efforts that build on expertise from industry and government.
benton.org/node/114835 | Department of Commerce
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MEDIA & ELECTIONS
TV STATIONS FOR TRUTH
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Rosenthal]
Since Citizens United, an increasing number of ads -- lying or otherwise -- don’t come from the candidates directly. They come from super PACs: Third-party groups that support a candidate but, at least in theory, don’t coordinate with his campaign. This is hardly a positive development for our republic. But the silver-lining is that, as the Annenberg Public Policy Center explains on its fact-check site, independent groups are not guaranteed the same access to airwaves as candidates for federal office. TV stations have every right to reject third-party ads. Broadcasters are not exactly printing money these days, so expecting them to turn down money from the super PACs is like expecting the politicians to turn it down. Instead of rejecting an ad outright, however, they can take a more modest step: They can insist on edits for the sake of accuracy. Shocking, right?
benton.org/node/114834 | New York Times
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TELEVISION
COMCAST LAUNCHING NEW CHANNELS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Comcast will launch four minority-owned networks, including one led by former basketball player Magic Johnson and one proposed by rapper and producer Sean "Diddy" Combs, the company announced. The channels are part of a commitment Comcast made to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last year to secure approval for its bid to take over NBC-Universal. The agreement requires Comcast to launch 10 independently-owned channels over eight years, including four African-American channels and four Latino channels. Comcast also announced El Rey, a channel proposed by director Robert Rodriguez that will feature action movies and TV shows for Latino and general audiences. BabyFirst Americas, launching in April, is aimed at young children and their parents.
benton.org/node/114833 | Hill, The
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STREAMPIX
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Todd Spangler]
Comcast -- looking to take a bite out of Netflix's hide -- is launching Xfinity Streampix, a new multiscreen subscription video service that provides movies and full series of past-season TV shows that will be included in several premium bundles and offered for $5 per month with other video packages. To launch Streampix, the cable operator has cut licensing agreements with Disney-ABC Television Group (for TV shows only), NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution and Cookie Jar. Like Netflix's streaming-video service, Streampix will be available to customers in and outside the home on multiple devices including TVs (as a subscription VOD folder), computers and mobile devices. The new service is separate from the 75,000 TV shows and movies currently available to Comcast video subscribers on VOD, on XfinityTV.com and through the Xfinity TV app.
benton.org/node/114832 | Multichannel News | Variety
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CONTENT
TRIPADVISOR WARNS ON GOOGLE
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Tim Bradshaw]
Google is getting more aggressive in prioritizing its own services in search results at the expense of independent sites, according to a senior TripAdvisor executive, even since the search engine group has come under closer regulatory scrutiny following allegations of anticompetitive behavior. “We continue to see them putting Google Places results higher in the search results – higher on the page than other natural search results,” said Adam Medros, TripAdvisor’s vice president for product, referring to Google’s local reviews and listings service which competes with TripAdvisor’s hotel and restaurant reviews site. “What we are constantly vigilant about is that Google treats relevant content fairly.” As well as Places, Google’s competition with TripAdvisor and other travel sites such as Kayak has recently intensified with its launch of a flights search tool, following its $700m acquisition of information and technology company ITA.
benton.org/node/114851 | Financial Times
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HEALTH
MAJOR PROGRESS IN HIT USE
[SOURCE: Department of Health and Human Services, AUTHOR: Press release]
Department of Health and Human Services’ Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the number of hospitals using health information technology (IT) has more than doubled in the last two years. She also announced new data showing nearly 2,000 hospitals and more than 41,000 doctors have received $3.1 billion in incentive payments for ensuring meaningful use of health IT, particularly certified Electronic Health Records (EHR). Secretary Sebelius is in Kansas City, Missouri visiting Metropolitan Community College-Penn Valley Health Science Institute to make this announcement and discuss the growth of professional jobs in the health information technology field. The announcement details information from a new survey conducted by the American Hospital Association and reported by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT which found that the percentage of U.S. hospitals that had adopted EHRs has more than doubled from 16 to 35 percent between 2009 and 2011. And, 85 percent of hospitals now report that by 2015 they intend to take advantage of the incentive payments made available through the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs. The announcement also highlights new data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) detailing $3.12 billion in incentive payments the agency has made to physicians, hospitals, and other health care providers who have started to meaningfully use EHRs to improve the quality of patient care. In January alone, CMS provided $519 million to eligible providers. EHR incentive payments can total as much as $44,000 under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program and $63,750 under the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program.
benton.org/node/114826 | Department of Health and Human Services
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JOURNALISM
ARE TECH BLOGGERS OBJECTIVE?
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Michael Hiltzik]
Technology news bloggers' curious habit of accepting investments from the very people they're presumed to be covering objectively blew up last week over what might be termed the Path Affair. Path, a San Francisco social networking company, got caught downloading users' address books from their iPhones without their permission. After New York Times tech blogger Nick Bilton picked up the story, he and his story became the target of vituperative attacks by tech bloggers Michael Arrington and MG Siegler, who happen to be investors in Path. Their reaction earned them a vituperative counterattack by Newsweek tech columnist Dan Lyons, who identified them as part of Silicon Valley's "cadre of paid apologists and pygmy hangers-on." They promptly returned fire at Lyons, in much the same vein. These exchanges spotlighted a cause for real doubt about the credibility of news sites covering the tech business. Many bloggers about technology drape themselves in the mantle of journalistic objectivity. But real journalists don't invest in companies they cover or seek investments in their own enterprises from companies they cover. Arrington and Siegler have done the former, and far too many tech bloggers in Silicon Valley are doing the latter.
benton.org/node/114852 | Los Angeles Times
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PROTECTING SOURCES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Charles Savage]
A broad coalition of media organizations — including The New York Times — urged a federal appeals court to protect an investigative reporter from being forced to testify about his confidential sources, rejecting the Justice Department’s claim that journalists have no such protections in criminal trials. At issue is whether James Risen, a New York Times reporter, must testify about the sourcing for a chapter in his 2006 book, “State of War,” detailing what it portrays as a botched Central Intelligence Agency effort to sabotage Iranian nuclear research. Prosecutors want him to be a witness in the trial of Jeffrey A. Sterling, a former C.I.A. operative charged with leaking the classified information to him. Last year, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the United States District Court in Alexandria (VA), ruled that Risen was protected by a qualified “reporter’s privilege” that allowed her to balance whether it was necessary to force him to disclose his sources. She contended that Risen’s testimony was not crucial because prosecutors could use other evidence against Sterling. The prosecutorial team, led by William M. Welch II of the Justice Department’s criminal division, has appealed that ruling, arguing that no reporter’s privilege exists in criminal trials. Prosecutors argued that if a reporter witnessed a crime — in this case, the unauthorized disclosure of classified information — then he could be subpoenaed to testify about it just like anyone else.
benton.org/node/114848 | New York Times
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CHICAGO NEWS COOPERATIVE
[SOURCE: Chicago Reader, AUTHOR: Michael Miner]
James O'Shea, founder and editor of the Chicago News Cooperative, told his staff that on February 26 the CNC would shut down. Or to be more specific, it would stop publishing in the New York Times and stop maintaining its website, the two forums in which it publicly exists. Two pieces of bad news drove this decision. O'Shea was counting on a substantial grant from the MacArthur Foundation, which had helped put CNC on its feet in the fall of 2009 and had already given it a total of a million dollars. But a problem arose. The IRS has yet to rule that CNC and similar web-based news operations in other cities deserve the not-for-profit 501(c)(3) they've applied for. This hasn't been a problem for these operations, which have been able to receive through fiscal agents — which in the case of CNC has been WTTW. But a couple of weeks ago a MacArthur staff attorney said, wait a minute. He advised the foundation that until the IRS ruled for CNC, MacArthur grants should be earmarked for specific programs rather than simply to sustain the co-op. This didn't mean that CNC had no way to use the MacArthur grant to stay afloat, but it did mean a different approval process and a longer wait for the money to arrive. O'Shea found out about the delay early this past week. He was in no financial position to wait. Meanwhile, CNC had been in conversations for several months with the New York Times, for which it has produced four pages of Chicago news a week. The Times knew that CNC's financial position was precarious. O'Shea hoped the Times would pay more for the service; but instead the Times decided not to go forward at all with a shaky partner in a publishing experiment far more important to CNC than it was to the Times. On Feb 16 the Times called O'Shea and they called off the relationship. But the closing of CNC is about more than a delayed foundation grant and a canceled contract. CNC has suffered throughout from a lack of development muscle.
benton.org/node/114825 | Chicago Reader
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CHILDREN AND MEDIA
OECD AND CHILDREN ONLINE
[SOURCE: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, AUTHOR: ]
As the Internet permeates every aspect of our economy and society, it is also becoming a daily reality in our children’s lives. While it brings considerable benefits to their education and development, it also exposes them to online risks such as access to inappropriate content, abusive interaction with others, exposure to aggressive marketing practices and privacy risks. To protect minors online, the OECD has released a new set of principles founded on evidence-based policy making and enhanced domestic and international co-ordination to improve national policy frameworks.
benton.org/node/114823 | Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
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