March 2012

FTC shuts down telemarketer that made billions of calls

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled charges with a telemarketing firm that allegedly made more than two billion illegal phone calls. The firm, SBN Peripherals, agreed to forfeit $3 million in assets and shut down its telemarketing operations.

According to the FTC's complaint, SBN Peripherals placed prerecorded phone calls claiming that it had urgent information about the consumer's auto warranty or credit card interest rate. Consumers who pressed "1" for more information were transferred to a telemarketer selling "inferior" auto service contracts or "worthless" debt-reduction services, the FTC said.

House bill would ban bosses from asking for Facebook passwords

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) is drafting legislation that would ban employers from asking for their workers' Facebook passwords. Ryan Minto, a spokesman for Rep. McHenry, said the congressman's aides have been working with Sen. Richard Blumenthal's office to draft the legislation. Minto said Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) is also involved in writing the bill. "Requiring an individual to provide access to their personal social media account is an invasion of privacy, plain and simple," Minto said. "Congressman McHenry is considering legislation to prevent this encroachment into Americans’ private lives."

School district settles with ACLU over blocking gay advocacy websites

An eastern Missouri school district settled charges with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that it illegally blocked access to gay advocacy websites.

The ACLU said preventing school computers from accessing pro-gay-rights websites violated the First Amendment's free-speech protections. The settlement requires the Camdenton School District to stop blocking the sites, submit to 18 months of monitoring to ensure compliance and pay $125,000 in legal fees. According to the ACLU, the district's Internet filtering software blocked access to sites including PFLAG National (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), the Matthew Shepard Foundation, Campus Pride and DignityUSA, a Catholic gay-rights organization. A federal judge issued a preliminary ruling last month ordering the school district to stop blocking the websites.

FCC: We've Sent 13,000 Pages of LightSquared Documents to Committee

The Federal Communications Commission turned over 13,000 pages of LightSquared documents to the Republican leaders of the House Commerce Committee and promised continue to cooperate with the committee.

It has been a month since the Feb. 28 request by Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-FL) for information pertaining to the FCC's waiver to LightSquared, which it is now planning to rescind due to GPS interference issues. The legislators did not give the FCC a deadline, but the release of those documents is expected to trigger their vetting by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) -- the committee has signaled it will share them -- after which Sen Grassley has suggested he may lift the threatened hold on FCC commissioner nominees Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai.

Google proposes Android revenue for Oracle

Google proposed to pay Oracle a percentage of Android revenue if Oracle could prove patent infringement of the mobile operating technology at an upcoming trial, but Oracle rebuffed the offer as too low, according to a court filing late.

Oracle sued Google in 2010, claiming the Internet search leader's Android technology infringed Oracle's Java patents. A trial is set for April 16 before District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco. Oracle also sued for alleged copyright infringement. Oracle has contended that Google should pay hundreds of millions of dollars on that claim, which is separate from the patents. Judge Alsup asked both companies to come up with ways to streamline the trial, which is expected to last about 8 weeks. In response, Google proposed a deal: if Oracle succeeded in proving patent infringement, Google would not spend time fighting about damages if Oracle agreed to its figures. Google offered to pay Oracle roughly $2.8 million in damages on the two patents remaining in the case, covering the period through 2011. For future damages, Google proposed paying Oracle 0.5 percent of Android revenue on one patent until it expires this December and 0.015 percent on a second patent until it expires in April 2018.

Face time with Facebook CEO stirs concerns on Wall Street

Mark Zuckerberg wants at least $5 billion from Wall Street investors, but those investors will not be getting much face time in return.

The Facebook co-founder and CEO made that clear when he skipped the social networking company's first major briefing for analysts and bankers last week. The meeting was the first of many that will take place in the run-up to an IPO that could value the company at close to $100 billion. Zuckerberg's dismissive approach is hardly unique among elite Silicon Valley companies, but it could become an issue with investors because of the enormous control he exerts over Facebook via special shares.

News Corp. Said to Plan U.S. Sports Network to Rival ESPN

Apparently, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is taking steps to start a national US sports network on cable television aimed at challenging Walt Disney’s ESPN.

News Corp. is assembling the required rights from pay-TV carriers and sports organizations, said sources, who requested anonymity because talks are private. While a final decision to move forward hasn’t been made, the company is considering converting its Fuel action-sports network to the new channel. With a national network, Fox would join Comcast’s NBC Sports Network and CBS Corp’s CBS Sports Network in taking on the dominant ESPN. News Corp. last year secured rights to the Pac-12 Conference and Big-12 Conference games and owns 20 regional sports networks. The company in October won TV rights to soccer’s World Cup in 2018 and 2022.

2010 International Telecommunications Data

The Federal Communications Commission released an annual report regarding international message telephone, private line and miscellaneous services between the United States and other countries.

The per-minute charge to U.S. consumers for this traffic fell 19% from $0.08 per minute in 2009 to $0.06 per minute in 2010. From 2000 to 2010, the charge has decreased 87%, from $0.47 per minute to $0.06 per minute.
International “U.S.-billed” traffic – primarily traffic originating in the United States – decreased 14.5%, from 72.9 billion minutes in 2009 to 62.4 billion minutes in 2010. This is the first year there has been a decrease in U.S. – billed minutes of this magnitude.
Of the top ten countries with the most U.S.-billed minutes, India was the only country where traffic increased in 2010. U.S.–billed minutes to India increased 17% from 13.6 billion in 2009 to 15.9 billion in 2010.
Total U.S.-billed revenues for international telephone, private line and other miscellaneous services (e.g., frame relay/ATM, packet switching, switched Ethernet, TDM/TDMA, virtual private network, and virtual private line decreased collectively 30%, from $6.6 billion in 2009 to $4.6 billion in 2010.

AT&T Agrees to End Third-Party Billing on Customer Phone Bills

AT&T announced it would soon stop placing misleading third-party charges on its customers’ landline telephone bills.

“AT&T made the right decision to end cramming by August,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). “ Our Committee investigation revealed that telephone customers across the country have for years been paying for third-party services they didn’t want, use or often need. Something had to be done. And while the decisions of AT&T and Verizon are a step in the right direction, I still believe we need to pass a bill that bans this abusive practice once and for all.”

ICANN Under More Scrutiny

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the group that manages the Internet's domain name system, may have awakened a sleeping giant with its controversial program to allow for the launch of an unlimited number of top-level generic domain names.

While critics of this program may have failed in stopping or delaying the launch of the new domain name program, it is clear that they will be closely monitoring ICANN implements the program and how it carries out its business generally. ICANN began accepting applications for its new domain name program in January and will reveal the list of applicants in May. "ICANN is not the same organization that it was a year ago before we started our efforts. It's very much attuned to the notion that the entire world is watching them now," Judy Harris, a partner with the Reed Smith law firm, said at the Association of National Advertisers annual public policy conference. Harris is working with the ANA to try to address the group's concerns with ICANN's new domain name program. The ANA, which launched a coalition last year to oppose the program, made clear at Wednesday's conference that it will continue to press for changes to the program to ensure its members, which include major U.S. companies ranging from Bank of America to Cisco to Procter & Gamble, are not adversely affected.

Benton

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