February 2012

House Commerce Committee Leaders Pose Additional Questions to Google on Privacy Changes

Following a briefing with Google last week, Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) and Ranking Member G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) sent a letter to Google’s Chief Executive Officer Larry Page requesting additional information on the company’s recent privacy policy changes.

Reps Bono Mack and Butterfield asked the company to provide detailed responses to a series of questions regarding Google’s policies for capturing and storing users’ personal information. The letter seeks additional information regarding these policies and the effect of the policy changes effective March 1, including: (1) how Google implements user requests to delete information; (2) more detail on how a user can control what information is collected when browsing the web or conducting searches while logged into a Google account; (3) how Google’s recent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission affects the planned changes to its privacy policy; and (4) how Google’s educational campaign may be affected by questions from authorities in the United States and Europe; and (5) clarification of Google’s information sharing policies and standards for consumer consent. The subcommittee has been actively engaged in online privacy issues over the past year, holding a series of hearings to track and understand the latest developments in a rapidly changing online environment and what it means for individual users' privacy and data security.

Expansion of Net Gambling Worries Indian Tribes

A Senate committee debated a controversial Justice Department opinion that some legal experts and gambling supporters say has opened the door for states to begin offering online gambling within their borders and could harm Indian gambling operations.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee examined how any potential expansion of Internet gambling within states could affect Indian tribes that also offer gambling on their reservations. The issue has come under more scrutiny in recent months following the release in December of a Justice Department opinion that reversed the department's opinion on the scope of the federal Wire Act, a federal law prohibiting some gambling activities. The department now says that the Wire Act only applies to sports betting. Some states are moving quickly to take advantage of the department's opinion and begin offering some online gaming within their states. "The short answer to the DoJ opinion is that states are now free to do whatever they wish with respect to Internet gambling, except for, of course, sports betting," Patrick Fleming with the Poker Players Alliance told the committee. "This opens up an entire Pandora's box of possibilities."

Groups warn of privacy concerns in cybersecurity bills

Civil liberties groups were on Capitol Hill to warn of the dangers they say cybersecurity proposals could pose to privacy and other civil rights. The Senate is expected to introduce comprehensive cybersecurity legislation any day and the House has moved forward with several bills designed to increase information sharing between the government and private companies. Civil liberties groups say some of those information proposals, especially one contained in a bill approved by the House Intelligence Committee last year, could undermine privacy protections.

Since the FCC no longer listens, AT&T tries Congress

The payroll extension tax before Congress has two surprisingly technical segments related to mobile broadband that raise big mobile broadband questions — namely, will the Federal Communications Commission be allowed to set rules to promote mobile broadband competition in its next spectrum auction and can the agency can set aside some airwaves for unlicensed use? In strict consumer terms, will this limit the competition further in mobile broadband and will it kill the next Wi-Fi or Bluetooth before it’s even born. In recent weeks AT&T has gone into overdrive defending its efforts to stop the FCC from setting any rules that might limit AT&T’s attempts to bid for the hoped-for spectrum. AT&T’s machinations are puzzling, since it has managed to pick up a considerable amount of spectrum under the rules that the FCC has set in previous years for auctions, and because it actually seems like it wouldn’t want a completely neutered FCC overseeing the wireless industry, especially given the amount of partisan bickering that can hold up its favored legislation in Congress.

If 2 GB is excessive, why is AT&T selling 3-GB mobile data plans?

When AT&T first implemented its throttling policies on unlimited mobile data plans last fall, it justified the move by claiming it had to limit the “extraordinary” consumption of a few greedy smartphone customers. We’re starting now to get a glimpse of what AT&T means by extraordinary. It’s only 2 GB – a full gigabyte less than it sells its newest customers under its most-common data plan. But AT&T just overhauled its plan pricing. It’s newest mid-tier plan charges customers $30 for 3 GB. Why is AT&T inviting new customers to consume a full gigabyte more of data while telling older customers – who pay the exact same monthly fee – that 2 GB of data is excessive? My bet is that the former is really a false invitation.

Social Media Share a History Lesson

A nearly 150-year-old letter became a hot topic of conversation online last week, and in the process, illustrated many of the aspects of social media that its users find so attractive.

The website Letters of Note received more than two million views of a missive written in 1865 by Jourdan Anderson, an emancipated slave living in Ohio. Anderson was answering his former owner, who had asked Anderson return to Tennessee and work on his farm. Anderson's prose was so creative and rich it attracted wide attention and considerable discussion in a digital space Anderson could never have imagined. For the week of January 30 to February 3, Anderson's 147-year-old letter was the third-most linked-to subject on blogs, according to the tracking of social media in The New Media Index by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The discussion took several directions. Many people admired the letter for its poignancy and wit and shared it with friends. Others questioned the letter's authenticity. A handful of people took advantage of the breadth of information available online to try to verify the letter's genuineness. For others, the letter became the trigger for a complex discussion of race and slavery.

If Not Orwell, Then Huxley: The Battle for Control of the Internet

[Commentary] George Orwell published 1984 at the dawn of the Cold War, as a warning about the totalitarian possibilities of a modern industrialized state that combines centralized power, utopian ideology, and electronic media. The struggle for freedom in the Internet age is shaping up to be very different from the ideological struggles of the twentieth century.

Today's struggle is not a clear-cut contest of democracy versus dictatorship, communism versus capitalism, or one ideology over another. Human society has acquired a digital dimension with new, cross-cutting power relationships. The Internet is a politically contested space, featuring new and unstable power relationships among governments, citizens, and companies. Today's battles over freedom and control are raging simultaneously across democracies and dictatorships; across economic, ideological, and cultural lines. Internet platforms and services, made commonplace by companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter, along with a range of mobile, networking, and telecommunications services, have empowered citizens. They have empowered us to challenge government, both our own as well as other governments whose actions affect us. But the Internet also empowers governments themselves -- or at least the growing number whose police, military, and security forces understand how the Internet works and who have learned the value of employing computer science graduates. All governments, from dictatorships to democracies, are learning quickly how to use technology to defend their interests.

January Search Engine Rankings

Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in January with 66.2 percent market share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Microsoft Sites with 15.2 percent (up 0.1 percentage points) and Yahoo! Sites with 14.1 percent. Ask Network accounted for 3.0 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.6 percent. 17.8 billion explicit core searches were conducted in January, with Google Sites ranking first with 11.8 billion. Microsoft Sites ranked second with 2.7 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.5 billion, Ask Network with 527 million and AOL, Inc. with 277 million.

2012 US Digital Future in Focus

This annual report examines how the prevailing trends in social media, search, online video, digital advertising, mobile and e-commerce are defining the current marketplace and what these trends mean for the year ahead.

Facebook-Led Social Media Market is Redefining Communication in the Digital and Physical Worlds
Bing Gains Ground in Search
Online Video Boom Signals Sea Change in Video Ecosystem
Digital Advertising Enters Era of Increased Accountability as Brand Dollars Continue to Shift Online
Smartphone and Tablets Fuel the Rise of the Digital Omnivore
E-Commerce is Back and Better Than Ever

Apple and Google disagree over licensing of essential patents

Google is at odds with Apple, Microsoft, and Cisco over the licensing and litigation of patents.

While Google wants to make the most of patents it will receive if its acquisition of Motorola is approved, the others want to change the way so-called essential patents are licensed. Essential patents are part of a standard and licensed under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms or reasonable, and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms. When patent-infringement negotiations over what that means fail, Google wants to continue to be able to use injunctions to block the sale of infringing products, while the others want to remove that option. "Everybody is really taking positions which suit their own particular interest, right now," said Andrew Watson, CEO and founder of ipVA, a European intellectual property consultancy.

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