February 2012

INTERNET/BROADBAND

YEAR OF THE VIRTUAL PROTEST
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Rebecca Greenfield]
With the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation backing off of its decision to rescind funding from Planned Parenthood and the halting of SOPA last month, 2012 is turning out to be the year of the virtual protester. After Komen made its announcement, a bunch of blog posts, tweets, and hacks helped push the cancer awareness organization to revise its position. Before social media evangelists celebrate another victory, it's worth noting that this isn't just the result of the new Internet-empowered class, but also an indication that entrenched public relations pros are scrambling to manage a new medium and a news cycle that moves faster than ever before. The year of the virtual protest has only just begun. We can see the Internet push-back followed by corporate fumbling everywhere, from Verizon Wireless' and Bank of America's reversals on new fees to the Kayak and Lowe's All American Muslim controversy. As the year goes on, we're sure to see more examples emerge. And as the Internet landscape keeps changing every day, we don't expect the PR establishment to catch up anytime soon.
benton.org/node/112341 | Atlantic, The
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SENATE CYBERSECURITY BILL
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
A developing Senate plan that would bolster the government's ability to regulate the computer security of companies that run critical industries is drawing strong opposition from businesses that say it goes too far and security experts who believe it should have even more teeth. Legislation set to come out in the days ahead is intended to ensure that computer systems running power plants and other essential parts of the country's infrastructure are protected from hackers, terrorists or other criminals. The Department of Homeland Security, with input from businesses, would select which companies to regulate; the agency would have the power to require better computer security, according to officials who described the bill. They spoke on condition of anonymity because lawmakers have not finalized all the details. Those are the most contentious parts of legislation designed to boost cybersecurity against the constant attacks that target U.S. government, corporate and personal computer networks and accounts. Authorities are increasingly worried that cybercriminals are trying to take over systems that control the inner workings of water, electrical, nuclear or other power plants.
benton.org/node/112417 | Associated Press
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IS GOOGLE ASKING FOR GIGABIT WI-FI
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
Google’s Fiber organization is asking the Federal Communications Commission for the ability to test a residential gateway that has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It’s likely Google is asking the FCC for an experimental license to test upcoming 802.11ac gigabit Wi-Fi technology inside residential gateways. However, those longing for innovation in broadband here in the U.S. can hope that there are bigger plans in the works. With a fiber to the home network and gigabit Wi-Fi Google could take a cue from the recent launches in France and in the U.S. of mobile networks that lean heavily on Wi-Fi. Then Google could build a network that offers truly ubiquitous broadband within the confines of Palo Alto (CA) and maybe later in Kansas City.
benton.org/node/112370 | GigaOm
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KANSAS CITY UPDATE
[SOURCE: Google, AUTHOR: Kevin Lo]
We’ve measured utility poles; we’ve studied maps and surveyed neighborhoods; we’ve come up with a comprehensive set of detailed engineering plans; and we’ve eaten way too much barbecue. Now, starting today, we’re ready to lay fiber. As we build out Google Fiber, we’ll be taking thousands of miles of cables and stretching them across Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. Each cable contains many thin glass fibers, each about the width of a human hair. We’ll be taking these cables and weaving them into a fiber backbone -- a completely new high speed infrastructure that will ultimately be carrying Kansas Citians’ data at speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have today. At first, we’ll focus on building this solid fiber backbone. Then, as soon as we have an infrastructure that is up and running, we’ll be able to connect Google Fiber into homes across Kansas City! As we build, we’ll be sure to post more important updates and announcements right here.
benton.org/node/112415 | Google
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CYBERFLANEUR
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Evgeny Morozov]
[Commentary] Commentators once believed that flânerie would flourish online, but the sad state of today’s Internet suggests that they couldn’t have been more wrong. Cyberflâneurs are few and far between, while the very practice of cyberflânerie seems at odds with the world of social media. What went wrong? And should we worry? In a way, we have all become such sandwich board men, walking the cyber-streets of Facebook with invisible advertisements hanging off our online selves. The only difference is that the digital nature of information has allowed us to merrily consume songs, films and books even as we advertise them, obliviously.
benton.org/node/112412 | New York Times
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

SPECTRUM DINOSAURS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: L Gordon Crovitz]
[Commentary] The disconnect between technology and Washington is as vast as the gap between rotary phones and the latest iPad. First there was the clumsy SOPA legislation against online copyright piracy, killed by objections from Web companies and users. The latest disconnect is over whether Washington can free up enough bandwidth to keep smart phones and tablets running. It's time for the Federal Communications Commission to go back to the basic lesson that Prof. Coase taught. His now-famous Coase Theorem says that without regulatory interference or high transaction costs, valuable resources will flow to their most valued use. The ownership of broadband needs to be determined by markets as quickly as technology changes, not as slowly as Washington decides who deserves to be a winner and who should be a loser.
benton.org/node/112422 | Wall Street Journal
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SPOTTY 4G SERVICE EATS PHONE BATTERIES
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Greg Bensinger]
4G smartphone users are discovering their speedy broadband service also zips through battery life. The main culprit is spotty 4G service—even in the nation's largest cities—which requires the phones to search constantly for a signal, draining their batteries. Fourth-generation service is just starting to take hold, but complaints about battery life could slow the push by wireless carriers to convert customers to the higher-speed networks. Smartphone makers, however, are working on ways to respond to the new power demands. Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. are investing billions of dollars to expand their 4G networks over the next two to three years on a technological standard known as long-term evolution, or LTE, with the promise of speeds of as much as 10 times those of the ubiquitous 3G service. The spottiness of 4G stems at least in part from the measured approach carriers have taken to it, rolling out the service city by city. There were just 6.3 million subscribers of 4G LTE in the U.S. at the end of last year out of a total of 138.4 million smartphone users, according to research firm Informa Telecoms & Media.
benton.org/node/112420 | Wall Street Journal
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AUCTION 901 AND RURAL WIRELESS
[SOURCE: JSI Capital Advisors, AUTHOR: Cassandra Heyne]
[Commentary] Rural wireless carriers, it is time to dust off your auction strategy playbook (and maybe your chief auction strategist too) because Auction 901, the Federal Communications Commission’s very first reverse auction, is coming at you on September 27, 2012. Though that seems like a long way away, any wireless carriers interested in grabbing a slice of the $300m Mobility Fund Phase I support would be wise to start planning now, as the FCC is proposing a variety of rules and procedures for these auctions that will require considerable scrutiny. Although winning Mobility Fund Phase I support could be a tremendous benefit for some small wireless carriers, the proposed rules appear chock-full of restrictions, requirements, and various pitfalls. The stakes are indeed high. By winning, rural wireless carriers could expand their footprint, obtain a competitive advantage in a new or existing service area, and gain valuable insight and experience to utilize in future reverse auctions. However, in order to play, small carriers quite literally have to “bet the farm,” have access to sufficient spectrum, and comply with a host of not-yet solidified rules, requirements and obligations. Finally, losing the auction could mean a competitor will gain the advantages mentioned above and potentially get USF support for an area you may have planned to deploy service.
benton.org/node/112335 | JSI Capital Advisors
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AT&T/DISH
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
Report after report points to AT&T marrying Dish Network after Ma Bell’s forced breakup with T-Mobile, but given the companies’ increasing belligerence, you wouldn’t think that was the case. AT&T is petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to impose network buildout conditions on Dish’s satellite spectrum –- requirements that would be passed onto AT&T if it acquired the satellite TV provider. Meanwhile, Dish insists it plans to use that spectrum to build a commercial LTE network to challenge the reigning nationwide mobile operators, including AT&T. These are hardly the actions of two companies about to tie the knot. What we’re witnessing here is some very cynical pre-nuptial gamesmanship. According to TMF Associates satellite communications analyst Tim Farrar, Dish is playing AT&T off its competitors by threatening to partner with MetroPCS to build a nationwide LTE network over its satellite broadband and 700 MHz spectrum. To muck up Dish’s plans, AT&T is insisting to the FCC that the satellite TV provider face the same strict rollout requirements the commission imposed on fellow satellite spectrum holder LightSquared: An LTE rollout covering 100 million people in 33 months and 260 million in less than 6 years.
benton.org/node/112332 | GigaOm
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COX GIVES UP ON WIRELESS
[SOURCE: Atlanta Business Chronicle, AUTHOR: Urvaksh Karkaria]
Atlanta-based Cox Communications will ax more than 100 jobs as it shutters its wireless unit next month, according to a source. The affected jobs included engineers, product development managers, and infrastructure designers. Cox announced plans to jettison its cell phone service about a year after launching it, bested by more entrenched and larger wireless companies.
benton.org/node/112338 | Atlanta Business Chronicle
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PRIVACY

SHOULD PERSONAL DATA BE PERSONAL?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Somini Sengupta]
Personal data is the oil that greases the Internet. Each one of us sits on our own vast reserves. The data that we share every day — names, addresses, pictures, even our precise locations as measured by the geo-location sensor embedded in Internet-enabled smartphones — helps companies target advertising based not only on demographics but also on the personal opinions and desires we post online. Those advertising revenues, in turn, make hundreds of millions of dollars for companies like Facebook, which announced last week that it was going public in what is expected to be the largest I.P.O. in digital history. And those revenues help to keep the Web free of charge. But there is a price: that data about our lives and wants are collected, scrutinized and retained, often for a long time, by a great many technology companies. Personal data is valuable. In the United States alone, companies spend up to $2 billion a year to collect that information, according to a recent report from Forrester Research.
benton.org/node/112407 | New York Times
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ANONYMOUS DATA ISN’T ANONYMOUS
[SOURCE: Network World, AUTHOR: Tim Greene]
Data routinely gathered in Web logs -- IP address, cookie ID, operating system, browser type, user-agent strings -- can threaten online privacy because they can be used to identify the activity of individual machines, Microsoft researchers say. At the same time, analysis of such data when anonymized can help detect malicious activity and so improve overall Internet security, they add. The researchers found that 62 percent of the time, HTTP user-agent information alone can accurately tag a host. Combine that same information with the IP address, and the accuracy jumps to 80.6 percent. If the user-agent information is combined with just the IP prefix the accuracy is still 79.3 percent, they say. The highest accuracy came when more than one user ID was linked to a single host, as would be the case in a family that shares a single computer. In such cases, multiple IDs would accurately represent that one host computer. The accuracy rate was 92.8 percent. The analysis of this seemingly benign information was based on a month - August 2010 - of anonymized Hotmail and Bing data on hundreds of millions of users. The researchers say they tried to find out whether a single piece of log data can uniquely reveal a particular host.
benton.org/node/112344 | Network World
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$10 MILLION FOR TRUSTED ONLINE IDENTITIES
[SOURCE: Government Computer News, AUTHOR: William Jackson]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is making up to $10 million available for research projects addressing the challenges of implementing a trusted online identity ecosystem. The Obama Administration released its National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace last year, a conceptual framework for a system of voluntary, interoperable credentials that could be widely accepted for online transactions. The goals of this identity ecosystem are to enable more economic activity on the Internet while ensuring consumer privacy and security. Although technology and techniques exist for verifying identify online, challenges of scalability, ease of use and reliability hinder the widespread adoption of any but the simplest and least secure solutions, such as the commonly used user name and password. This has resulted in a lack of confidence in online transactions, the need for individuals to maintain multiple sets of login credentials, and growing threats to privacy through data breaches as well as leaking and reuse of data.
benton.org/node/112349 | Government Computer News
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TELEVISION/RADIO

BROADCASTER DISCLOSURE RULE
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Harry Jessell]
[Commentary] In a recent column, former Federal Communications Commission staffer Steve Waldman asks, "Do broadcasters believe that they even have a public interest obligation anymore?" He answers “Yes,” but only if the obligation "remains devoid of meaning." Jessell’s answer: “Yes, but only if broadcasters get to decide what the public interest is just as all other media do. They don't need or want guidance from Washington. The day is long past when content regulation can be justified on one segment of a TV medium that now also includes cable, satellite and the Internet.” TV stations, Jessell argues, are perfectly transparent. If you want to know what a station is doing or not doing to serve the public interest, however you want to define it, all you have to do is turn on the TV and watch. It's all right there on the screen. No secrets.
benton.org/node/112377 | TVNewsCheck
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POLITICAL ADS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Brooks Boliek]
The Super Bowl ad has been a launching pad for new computers, soft drinks and sports cars, but this year it’s entering a new arena — as a political football. The biggest American television event of the year has historically been a politics-free zone. This year, however, candidates and coalitions are seeking to use the apolitical event to stir up political controversy. While an attempt by anti-abortion activist and nominal presidential candidate Randall Terry to get a campaign commercial featuring aborted fetuses on NBC’s Chicago station was shot down by the Federal Communications Commission, Terry said other markets would run the ads from him and other anti-abortion candidates. [Terry also has an appeal in the works. See link below.] While the FCC decided that a federal law guaranteeing political candidates access to the airwaves doesn’t apply to the Super Bowl, that hasn’t stopped supporters of other causes from targeting the game for their pitches.
benton.org/node/112416 | Politico | Politico – terry appeal
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FCC: TV CAN NIX SUPER BOWL ABORTION AD
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Brooks Boliek]
The Federal Communications Commission ruled that anti-abortion activist Randall Terry can't force a Chicago TV station to air commercials featuring graphic images of aborted fetuses during the Super Bowl. In its ruling, the FCC’s Media Bureau decided that Terry’s attempt to buy ad time during the Super Bowl or in the pregame show on Chicago’s WMAQ under “reasonable access” provisions of the law pertaining to political candidates do not extend to the Super Bowl. The FCC also found that Terry, a write-in candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in Illinois, failed to meet the qualifications as a bona fide candidate. “Terry requested time on a highly rated program that occurs only once annually — in this case typically the highest rated program of the year — and it may well be impossible, given the station’s limited spot inventory for that broadcast, including the pregame and postgame shows, to provide reasonable access to all eligible federal candidates who request time during that broadcast,” wrote Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. “Furthermore, given the lack of equivalent broadcasts, it would be reasonable for the station to conclude that it would be impossible to provide equal opportunities after the fact to opponents of candidates whose spots aired during the program,” Lake explained. “Given these factors, we do not find WMAQ’s refusal to sell time to Terry specifically during the Super Bowl broadcast to be unreasonable,” Lake concluded.
benton.org/node/112360 | Politico
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TELECOM

USF/ICC RECONSIDERATION
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
On January 12, 2012, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau released a Public Notice listing the 24 petitions for reconsideration of the Federal Communications Commission’s Universal Service Fund/Intercarrier Compensation Transformation Order. Oppositions will be due February 9, 2012, and replies to oppositions will be due February 21, 2012.
benton.org/node/112374 | Federal Communications Commission
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CONTENT

STEAL THIS COLUMN
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Bill Keller]
[Commentary] Wikipedia, while it has grown something of a bureaucratic exoskeleton, remains at heart the most successful example of the public-service spirit of the wide-open Web: nonprofit, communitarian, comparatively transparent, free to use and copy, privacy-minded, neutral and civil. So as I followed the latest battle in the great sectarian war over the governing of the Internet — the attempt to curtail online piracy — I was startled to see that Wikipedia’s founder and philosopher, Jimmy Wales, who generally stays out of the political limelight, had assumed a higher profile as a combatant for the tech industry. He supplied an aura of credibility to a libertarian alliance that ranged from the money-farming Megatrons of Google to the hacker anarchists of Anonymous. Et tu, Jimmy? The partisans of an unfettered Internet saw their moment, and seized it. They unleashed a wave of protest that included much waving of the First Amendment and an attention-grabbing blackout of Wikipedia, the company’s most conspicuous foray into protest politics. The legislation is dead, and proponents of the open Web have shown that they are the new power in Washington. The question is, how will they use their muscle now? Does this smackdown mean that any attempt to police the Web for thievery is similarly doomed? Content-makers would be crazy to let the Internet be stunted as a force for invention, mobilization and shared wisdom. It’s the sea we all swim in. At the same time, online companies would be crazy to let piracy kill off the commerce that supplies quality material upon which even free sites like Wikipedia depend.
benton.org/node/112428 | New York Times
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FACEBOOK USERS GET MORE THAN THEY GIVE
[SOURCE: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Keith Hampton, Lauren Sessions Goulet, Cameron Marlow, Lee Rainie]
Most Facebook users receive more from their Facebook friends than they give, according to a new study that for the first time combines server logs of Facebook activity with survey data to explore the structure of Facebook friendship networks and measures of social well-being. These data were then matched with survey responses. And the new findings show that over a one-month period:
40% of Facebook users in our sample made a friend request, but 63% received at least one request
Users in our sample pressed the like button next to friends’ content an average of 14 times, but had their content “liked” an average of 20 times
Users sent 9 personal messages, but received 12
12% of users tagged a friend in a photo, but 35% were themselves tagged in a photo
benton.org/node/112358 | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project
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SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: James Meikle]
Tweeting or checking emails may be harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, according to researchers who tried to measure how well people could resist their desires. They even claim that while sleep and sex may be stronger urges, people are more likely to give in to longings or cravings to use social and other media. A team headed by Wilhelm Hofmann of Chicago University's Booth Business School say their experiment, using BlackBerrys, to gauge the willpower of 205 people aged between 18 and 85 in and around the German city of Würtzburg is the first to monitor such responses "in the wild" outside a laboratory. The results will soon be published in the journal Psychological Science.
benton.org/node/112408 | Guardian, The
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NETFLIX AND TV
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Ben Fritz, Joe Flint]
Like most fresh faces that arrive in Hollywood, Netflix wanted to be a movie star. But now it's learning what many in Tinseltown have known for decades: Movies are sexy, but the real money is in television. Launched in 1997 with a goal of eliminating the drive to the video store, Netflix became a hit with consumers and helped push the movie rental chain Blockbuster into bankruptcy. By charging customers a small monthly fee for unlimited DVDs by mail, then expanding into Internet streaming in 2007, it amassed almost 25 million subscribers in the U.S. and in 2011 had revenue of $3.2 billion. For most of that time, Netflix was all about flicks. More than 80% of the discs it shipped and virtually all of its streaming content when that service began consisted of movies. Not anymore. More than 60% of the 2 billion-plus hours of video streamed by Netflix subscribers during the fourth quarter of 2011 originated on the small screen.
benton.org/node/112404 | Los Angeles Times
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WHERE’S USERS’ CUT?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Nick Bilton]
[Commentary] By my calculation, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief executive, owes me about $50. Without me, and the other 844,999,999 people poking, liking and sharing on the site, Facebook would look like a scene from the postapocalyptic movie “The Day After Tomorrow”: bleak, desolate and really quite sad. (Or MySpace, if that is easier to imagine.) Facebook surely would never be valued at anything close to $100 billion, which it very well could be in its coming initial public offering. In the company’s S-1 filing, submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission this week, Facebook boasts about its statistics: annually, people “like” one trillion things; 91 billion photos are uploaded; half a billion people use Facebook on mobile phones; and hundreds of millions are annoyingly “poked.” So all this leaves me with a question: Where’s my cut? I helped build this thing, too. Facebook laid the foundation of the house and put in the plumbing, but we put up the walls, picked out the furniture, painted and hung photos, and invited everyone over for dinner parties.
benton.org/node/112425 | New York Times
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FACEBOOK IS USING YOU
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Lori Andrews]
Facebook’s inventory consists of personal data — yours and mine. Facebook makes money by selling ad space to companies that want to reach us. Advertisers choose key words or details — like relationship status, location, activities, favorite books and employment — and then Facebook runs the ads for the targeted subset of its 845 million users. The magnitude of online information Facebook has available about each of us for targeted marketing is stunning. In Europe, laws give people the right to know what data companies have about them, but that is not the case in the United States. Ads that pop up on your screen might seem useful, or at worst, a nuisance. But they are much more than that. The bits and bytes about your life can easily be used against you. Whether you can obtain a job, credit or insurance can be based on your digital doppelgänger — and you may never know why you’ve been turned down.
benton.org/node/112424 | New York Times
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INTERNET IDENTITY
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Ki Mae Heussner]
In 1971, journalist Don Hoefler coined the name Silicon Valley. And just like every other 40-year-old Gen Xer, Silicon Valley is now having an identity crisis—about identity no less. The question: How should people name themselves online? For Facebook and Google, as well as other sites with real-name policies, the mandate is real names should be used online, and they should follow us across the Web. Out in the world, after all, names turn strangers into acquaintances and friends, and (mostly) hold us accountable for our actions. It’s why we wear name tags at conferences and news articles carry bylines. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made this policy a central tenet of his company, positioning himself, no less, on moral grounds. “Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity,” Zuckerberg told The Facebook Effect author David Kirkpatrick. “The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.” On the other side are those who believe real names can deny users freedom of expression and limit individual liberties. At the extreme, they say, it puts political activists, marginalized communities, abuse survivors and others at great risk.
benton.org/node/112413 | AdWeek
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EDUCATION

WHO BENEFITS FROM ED TECH?
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Michael Hiltzik]
[Commentary] Something sounded familiar last week when I heard U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski make a huge pitch for infusing digital technology into America's classrooms. Every schoolchild should have a laptop, they said. Because in the near future, textbooks will be a thing of the past. Where had I heard that before? So I did a bit of research, and found it. The quote I recalled was, "Books will soon be obsolete in the schools.... Our school system will be completely changed in 10 years." The revolutionary technology being heralded in that statement wasn't the Internet or the laptop, but the motion picture. The year was 1913, and the speaker, Thomas Edison, was referring to the prospect of replacing book learning with instruction via the moving image. He was talking through his hat then, every bit as much as Sec Duncan and Chairman Genachowski are talking through theirs now. There's certainly an important role for technology in the classroom. And the U.S. won't benefit if students in poor neighborhoods fall further behind their middle-class or affluent peers in access to broadband Internet connectivity or computers. But mindless servility to technology for its own sake, which is what Duncan and Genachowski are promoting on behalf of self-interested companies like Apple, will make things worse, not better. That's because it distracts from and sucks money away from the most important goal, which is maintaining good teaching practices and employing good teachers in the classroom. What's scary about the recent presentation by Duncan and Genachowski is that it shows that for all their supposed experience and expertise, they've bought snake oil. They're simply trying to rebottle it for us as the elixir of the gods.
benton.org/node/112333 | Los Angeles Times
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INTERNATIONAL ED TECH POLICIES
[SOURCE: eSchool News, AUTHOR: Laura Devaney]
A new report comparing educational technology use of K-12 students in 21 countries found that, despite global economic uncertainty, many countries are still investing in technology to improve educational systems and boost student achievement. Twenty governments said that giving students better access to the internet is a top priority, and roughly half said students need more access to computers. The January 2012 report, International Experiences with Technology in Education (IETE), comes from SRI International’s Center for Technology in Learning and was conducted at the request of the U.S. Department of Education. It seeks to identify what types of educational technology data are being collected, how technologies are being used to improve international students’ access to high-quality instruction, how technologies are being used to increase teacher effectiveness, and how other governments are tracking student progress and using those data to inform policy decisions.
benton.org/node/112373 | eSchool News
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LOBBYING

FACEBOOK AND POLITICAL INSIDERS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
Facebook is friending the feds. The company has put political veterans in key executive roles and board positions. It’s also quickly built up a powerhouse Washington lobbying operation and established a political action committee to make it easy for employees to donate to candidates. It will need those relationships, experts say, as it tries to ward off regulations and investigations over its privacy practices — which are among the greatest risks to its unbridled growth, the company revealed this week in a federal filing for its planned stock offering. Facebook has studied mistakes by older rivals, such as Google and Microsoft, and is responding quickly, experts say, by strategically hiring experienced Democratic and Republican operatives. The company has brought on key operatives from the past three administrations.
benton.org/node/112380 | Washington Post
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COMPANY NEWS

AMAZON STORES?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Streitfeld]
Much of the discussion about Amazon is focused on its digital side, yet the company is relentlessly expanding into the physical. It has announced five new United States warehouses since late December, all with more than a million square feet. It is testing out delivery lockers in New York and Seattle for those who cannot receive their goods at home. It has been experimenting with a grocery delivery service in Seattle for several years. It has expanded its Prime $79 annual shipping fee program, hoping members will order more of everything. In all sorts of ways Amazon is trying to remove the obstacles from home delivery. Does anyone remember how mail order once meant getting things a month later? Now Amazon thinks two days is too long. One major reason the retailer seems to be giving up its hard-line position on charging customers sales taxes is that it wants to build its warehouses close to major population centers. If it does that, it cannot argue that it is exempt from collecting state taxes because it lacks a physical presence in a state. But the increased business from faster delivery might be a worthwhile trade-off to charging the tax.
benton.org/node/112384 | New York Times
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GOOGLE’S BAD MONTH
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Tom Krazit]
It’s a little stunning to contemplate how wrong things have gone for Google in just the first month of 2012, as the company hopes to put a disastrous January in the rear-view mirror with perhaps another tear-jerking Super Bowl ad this Sunday. Larry Page and Sergey Brin haven’t turned into Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis or anything, but Google just endured the worst month in the company’s history and nothing will get easier as rivals and the government take aim at what used to be such a delightful fuzzy little tech success story. Google’s unlikely to have a month like that again, this year anyway. But it’s kind of shocking to contemplate just how uneasy the company has made a lot of people by its decisions around social search and privacy. Perhaps more troubling, its responses to those big questions have been tone-deaf and almost defiant, traits one did not associate with Google until recently.
benton.org/node/112350 | paidContent.org
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SHERYL SANDBERG
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Nicole Perlroth, Claire Cain Miller]
Sheryl K. Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, sees herself as more than an executive at one of the hottest companies around — more, too, than someone who will soon rank among the few self-made billionaires who are women. She sees herself as a role model for women in business and technology. In speeches, she often urges women to “keep your foot on the gas pedal,” and to aim high. Her call isn’t simply about mentoring and empowering. It is also about business strategy. A majority of Facebook’s 845 million users are women. And women are also its most engaged users. So Sandberg is playing to a powerful and lucrative demographic, as well as to the advertisers who want to reach it. Inside Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park (CA), she is considered a not-so-secret weapon for recruiting and retaining talented women as well as men. She and Mark Zuckerberg will need the best brains they can find to sustain Facebook’s astonishing growth.
benton.org/node/112405 | New York Times
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WHAT NEWS WAS

THE FACEBOOK AND MORE
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] Every week as we consider our round up we weigh delving into the week’s biggest story or shedding light on articles that may have flown below the radar. This week is no different. The biggest story of the week, by far, is Facebook taking its first step toward becoming a publicly traded company as it filed to sell shares on the stock market. In addition, there were big developments in privacy, ensuring low income Americans have affordable access to telecommunications, and spectrum policy.
http://benton.org/node/112326
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

GOOGLE WON’T DELAY PRIVACY POLICY FOR EU
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: Jennifer Baker]
Google does not plan to delay its new privacy policy despite calls from Europe's data protection watchdog. The Article 29 Working Party (A29 WP), made up of the data regulators from all European Union member states as well as the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), sent a letter to Google saying that the Internet giant should "pause" before going ahead with the planned changes to its privacy policy. In January Google announced that it would "simplify" its privacy regulations as of March 1. This would create a single privacy policy for all its services including YouTube, Gmail and Google+. However, the request is not legally binding and Google believes that any changes to its schedule would confuse users. Spokesman Al Verney also expressed some surprise at the timing of the letter: "We briefed most of the members of the working party in the weeks leading up to our announcement. None of them expressed substantial concerns at the time."
benton.org/node/112352 | IDG News Service | read Google’s letter | Washington Post
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PRIVACY CONCERNS IN INDIA
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Rama Lakshmi]
The Indian government’s recent announcement that it taps nearly 300 new phones every day has sparked a debate about privacy in a country that traditionally views such concerns as an ugly offshoot of Western individualism. Indians tend to stress identities of family and community over any others. But a growing desire for privacy and what many say is a government assault on it are creating tension in this nation of 1.2 billion people. The reasons for the shift, experts say, include changing family structures and lifestyles among the urban middle class, as well as a mass media explosion and the Internet, just as the government has begun tapping more phones and using surveillance cameras in more public places. The constitution does not guarantee a right to privacy here, nor does the country have a data protection law to guard against the misuse of personal information. But the government has proposed a wide-ranging privacy law, and a coalition of organizations and activists, including the newly formed advocacy group Privacy India, is trying to help shape it.
benton.org/node/112382 | Washington Post
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EUROPEANS VS ACTA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Jolly]
European activists who participated in American Internet protests last month learned that there was political power to be harnessed on the Web. Now they are putting that knowledge to use in an effort to defeat new global rules for intellectual property. The European activists are hoping to use similar pressure to stop the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement , or ACTA, which is meant to clamp down on illegal commerce in copyrighted and trademarked goods. Opponents say that it will erode Internet freedom and stifle innovation. About 1.5 million people have signed a Web petition calling for the European Parliament to reject ACTA, which some say is merely SOPA and PIPA on an international level. Thousands of people have turned out for demonstrations across Europe, with more scheduled for Feb 11.
benton.org/node/112426 | New York Times
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