February 2012

A study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism is making the rounds that suggests news companies are flubbing the digital ad game. The news sites’ struggles to figure out the digital ad market may reflect a basic competitive disadvantage: unlike technology companies, they were not raised on digital advertising.

“Google, Facebook and other tech savvy companies have that embedded in the fabric of what they are,” says Amy Mitchell, Deputy Director of the Pew Project. She notes that these firms are built to sell digital ads while news companies must constantly develop and adapt new software just to keep up. One intriguing question for the long term is whether the cash-flush tech giants will ever consider purchasing a traditional news company. From an advertising standpoint, Washington Post-style content run on Facebook or Google style software would be a game changer.

News Corporation executives could be vulnerable to individual prosecution by US anti-bribery authorities under the so-called "willful blindness" clause that holds company chiefs culpable if they chose to be unaware of any specific wrongdoing by their employees.

The FBI and other law-enforcers are probing Rupert Murdoch's media empire under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that seeks to punish US-based companies engaging in bribery abroad. News Corp is headquartered in New York. Under the Act, the company and its executives are liable to potentially severe penalties, including up to five years in prison, if it can be shown that they consciously avoided knowing about the corrupt deeds of their employees. "It's a well-established prosecutorial principle that it is no defense to close your ears and shut your eyes," said Brad Simon, a former US federal prosecutor who now defends in cases of white-collar crime.

Canada's conservative government has re-introduced an Internet surveillance bill that would allow the government to obtain information about Internet subscribers -- without a warrant.

The legislation would require service providers to provide law enforcement with IP addresses, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and other information on demand. The bill would also "require ISPs and cellular phone companies to install equipment for real-time surveillance and create new police powers designed to obtain access to the surveillance data." Members of the opposition have vowed to fight the legislation. More than 80,000 people have signed an online petition opposing the bill. Challenged by an opposition member about the proposal, public safety minister Vic Toews cited child pornography as a justification for the bill. Opponents of the legislation "can either stand with us or with the child pornographers," he said.

India's telecoms regulator, the TRAI, has recommended imposing a cap on foreign investor stakes in telecom tower owners. Currently, foreign companies are allowed to own the entire of a tower operating company, but the regulator wants to impose a cap of 74% on foreign investors - identical to the cap on the mobile networks themselves. "We plan to bring all forms of telecom services under a unified license regime. Existing infrastructure providers would be required to take new unified licenses as soon as they come into being and the conditions in the unified license will apply to tower companies too," said an official told the Economic Times.