February 2012

To Get Out The Vote, Evangelicals Try Data Mining

United In Purpose is a nonprofit startup company that uses data mining to identify unregistered Christians. The company persuaded wealthy Silicon Valley conservatives to help fund the creation of a database of as many adults in the U.S. as they can find. So far, UIP has added 180 million. The company buys lists to build a profile of each citizen, and then assigns points for certain characteristics. You get points if you're on a pro-life list or a traditional marriage list. You get a point if you regularly attend church or home-school your kids.

Time Warner Cable Revives Usage-Based Internet Plan, But Now It's Optional

Three years after Time Warner Cable tried to test usage-based broadband billing -- and backed off after a furious outcry from customers and elected officials -- the MSO is launching an optional plan in southern Texas capped at 5 Gigabytes per month.

The operator is pitching the "Essentials Broadband" plan as a way to save money: Customers with Standard, Basic and Lite broadband packages will receive $5 off per month if they stay under the 5 GB ceiling. However, they could pay up to an additional $25 per month if they exceed the usage limit. TWC is offering Essentials Broadband in San Antonio, Laredo, Corpus Christi, the Rio Grande Valley and Texas's Border Corridor. TWC is positioning the metered-usage plan as the broadband equivalent of TV Essentials, the $39.99 per month stripped-down cable TV service.

Activists vow to defeat Iran’s Internet censorship

Keep Iran connected, despite any censorship efforts — that’s the goal of a small group of activists that met a few days ago in Seattle as part of the Tor developer meeting.

Developers of the Tor Project meet every six months to work on the future of the anti-censorship tool, but last week’s meeting couldn’t have been more timely: Iran is holding parliamentary elections, and the country’s government is trying to prevent a repeat of the widespread demonstrations following the disputed presidential election in 2009. Part of this effort is a renewed clamp-down on Internet access — which was a wake-up call for anti-censorship activists.

EPIC Seeks To Revive Lawsuit About Google Privacy Policy

In a last-ditch effort to halt Google's upcoming changes to its privacy policy, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed an appeal arguing that its lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission should be reinstated.

"The court must act now to prevent irreparable injury to EPIC and the public at large," the group argues in papers filed with the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. EPIC initially sought a court order requiring the FTC to sue Google to prevent it from following through on plans to revise its privacy policy. The new policy, slated to take effect on Thursday, allows Google to combine data about signed-in users across a variety of products and services, including Gmail, Android, and YouTube. Google plans to use this data for targeted advertising and personalized services. Signed-in users can't prevent Google from aggregating data about them. People can prevent Google from combining data about them by signing out of the service, or using different browsers for different purposes.

Public Knowledge Criticizes AT&T's Mobile App Plan

Advocacy group Public Knowledge is panning a new plan by AT&T to allow app developers to purchase a service it describes as a toll-free number for mobile broadband.

Public Knowledge says the plan will disadvantage developers that can't afford to pay for consumers' data. "Right now, the system works the same for every application," says Public Knowledge's legal director, Harold Feld. By contrast, he says, the new plan will necessarily favor big companies at the expense of startups, he says. "People who are trying to compete with Facebook, and operating on a shoestring, will not be able to pay." Public Knowledge says that AT&T's plan demonstrates why the Federal Communications Commission should investigate telecoms' decisions to impose data caps, as well as its 2010 shift toward tiered mobile broadband pricing. Harold Feld, legal director of Public Knowledge, said the new proposal is “is exactly the type of market manipulation we hoped the FCC’s Open Internet rules would prevent."

What You Need To Know About The Senate Cybersecurity Bill

The Senate is currently debating a key piece of cybersecurity legislation which could change the way American tech firms operate.

It is impossible to understate the need for the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2012--the United States, in the midst of a historic surge in online crime and espionage, has decided to act to reduce the problem. However, critics argue that the Cybersecurity Act is wasteful and threatens privacy. As currently written, the Cybersecurity Act could lead to massively increased costs for American tech and Internet firms. The Cybersecurity Act dramatically increases the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) role in combating cybercrime. Responsibility for commercial and civilian online security would be explicitly placed under DHS's supervision; responsibility currently lies with a host of federal, state, and local law enforcement and intelligence agencies. A new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC) would be established within DHS, and would be headed up by a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee. Information sharing between government agencies would be streamlined. And the DHS will be responsible for establishing federally mandated “cybersecurity performance requirements” for critical Internet infrastructure.

Anonymous targets lawmakers for defeat

Hacker group Anonymous released a list of lawmakers that it hopes to defeat this year. The list includes all members of Congress who supported the defense spending bill or two anti-piracy measures, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). The list is a mix of Democrats and Republicans. "We are calling on voters, activists and keyboard warriors under all banners to unite as a single force to unseat the elected representatives who threaten our essential freedoms and who were so quick to minimize our individual constitutional rights for a quick corporate profit," the group wrote. The campaign is a partnership between Anonymous and several Occupy Wall Street protest groups.

Telcos squeezed as consumers go mad for mobile Web

Consumers' increasing love of using services like Facebook and YouTube on their smartphones is leaving many telecoms carriers sidelined while bearing the costs of ever-growing demands on their networks.

As users lap up mobile Internet services, the Web giants are strengthening their relationships with consumers, while the telcos are finding their connections with customers reduced to a monthly bill and an occasional handset upgrade. More than half of Facebook's users already access the social network from a mobile device, Facebook said in its recent filing for a long-awaited initial public offering -- and that proportion is expected to keep growing. The operators complain that the Web giants are hitching a free ride on the networks in which they are investing billions, while free services like Facebook Messenger are eating into the SMS text revenues on which they have long depended.

Sprint to Raise $2 Billion Debt, May Use to Fund Clearwire

Sprint Nextel, the third- largest U.S. wireless operator, said it plans to sell $2 billion in notes to help pay for refinancing, network upgrades and possible funding for its wireless partner Clearwire.

Sprint will sell notes due in 2017 and 2020 through a private placement. The five-year notes may yield about 9.25 percent and the eight-year debt, which will be guaranteed by Sprint units, may yield 7 percent to 7.125 percent. Sprint raised $4 billion through a debt offering in November to help with network spending and financing for Clearwire. The return trip to capital markets shows Sprint is raising cash to cover the growing costs of upgrading its wireless network to higher-speed technology and selling mobile devices that require subsidies, such as Apple’s iPhone.

FCC’s Genachowski Expects Incentive Auctions to Become Worldwide Tool

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski made a pitch for more mobile and unlicensed spectrum. And while he blamed the lack of spectrum on inefficiency, he did not directly blame broadcasters, saying it was "often" not their fault. Chairman Genachowski said that he expected the FCC's just-approved authority to hold incentive auctions to pay broadcasters for giving up spectrum would become a worldwide tool. He said the FCC would take "concrete steps" in the "near future," to begin implementing the incentive auction legislation. The chairman made a pitch for more efficient use of government spectrum, saying that it was taking too long to reclaim government spectrum -- he said the traditional timetable is "untenable" -- and that serious testing of government sharing of its spectrum with commercial users needed to begin.

Benton

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