June 2012

Bill would ban third-party charges on telephone bills

Sen Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) introduced legislation that would ban most third-party charges on landline telephone bills. Under pressure from Sen Rockefeller, AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink announced earlier this year that they would ban most third-party charges, a practice known as "cramming." Rockefeller's Fair Telephone Billing Act would require all wireline telephone providers to block the charges. The bill would make exemptions for certain third-party charges, such as collect calls and "bundled" services like satellite television, sold with the telephone service.

Sen Rockefeller also sent letters to the major wireless carriers on asking the companies to explain what they are doing to prevent customers from being charged for unwanted third-party services. Sen Rockefeller expressed concern that crammers are now migrating to the wireless industry. He said in recent months, wireless customers have increasingly complained about being charged for unwanted services, such as celebrity gossip, horoscopes, sports scores or diet tips. Sen Rockefeller said the scams are "remarkably similar" to the scams his committee uncovered in its investigation of wireline cramming. He noted that consumers are receiving conflicting advice about how to avoid the unwanted charges. Some people say consumers should text "STOP" or "CANCEL" to opt out of the information texting services, but others say that texting anything will only confirm to the crammer that they have reached a working phone number. Sen Rockefeller asked the four national carriers — Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile — to explain what steps they have taken to avoid charging their customers for unwanted services and what consumers should do to opt out of the programs.

Cable Operators: OVDs Are Not MVPDs

Cable operators told the Federal Communications again that it should define MVPD as the combination of multiple video programming streams and the transmission path, which would mean legacy regulations like program access and carriage and exclusivity would not apply to online video distributors (OVDs).

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association made that point clear in its initial comments to the FCC May 14, and nothing in the ensuing comment period has changed its mind. In its reply comments, filed Wednesday, NCTA said that the definition of MVPD depends on the definition of channel -- NCTA's response is to the FCC's request for comment on the definitions of both as they related to a program access complaint filed by over-the-top provider Sky Angel against Discovery.

NBC News, Telemundo Partner on Election Coverage

NBC News is teaming up with Telemundo for coverage of the presidential election under its "Decision 2012" banner. The companies, which are both owned by NBCUniversal, will combine newsgathering assets and journalists, giving Telemundo access to NBC News' political content and giving NBC News the benefit of Telemundo's expertise in the Hispanic community. The partnership gives Telemundo access to the resources of a major English-language news organization.

C-SPAN, National Journal Team for Coverage

C-SPAN will start regularly using National Journal reporters and editors in its congressional campaign coverage. That will include appearances on Washington Journal, adding context to simulcasts of over 100 Senate and House debates on local TV stations, and revealing the latest National Journal poll results on C-SPAN's air.

CPB Funding for the Online Video Engagement Experience

The Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) unanimously approved a resolution authorizing funding to the Independent Television Service (ITVS) for the expansion of the Online Video Engagement Experience, or OVEE.

OVEE is a digital engagement platform that allows public broadcasting stations, local organizations, educators, and other key public broadcasting constituents to conduct live, online screenings of most PBS programs while interacting with participants live and in real time. CPB support will increase the flexibility of OVEE, allowing stations to take advantage of the rapid growth of tablet and smart phone use, and extend the impact of the online PBS video library.

Retired judge joins fight against DoJ's "outrageous" Megaupload seizures

Abraham David Sofaer, a former New York federal judge, recently was presenting a paper at the National Academy of Sciences about deterring cyberattacks when he learned the feds had shut down Megaupload, seizing its domain names, in a criminal copyright infringement case. Troubling him more than his paper on global cybersecurity was learning that the government had seized the files of 66.6 million customers as part of its prosecution of the file-sharing site’s top officers, and was refusing to give any of the data back to its owners.

“It’s really quite outrageous, frankly,” the 74-year-old President Jimmy Carter appointee said. “I was thinking the government hadn’t learned to be discreet in its conduct in the digital world. This is a perfect example on how they are failing to apply traditional standards in the new context.” A former State Department legal adviser, Sofaer has teamed up—free of charge—with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in urging a federal court to set up a system to allow Megaupload users to get back their legal content.

Education Program Will Train Future Cybersecurity Leaders

Northrop Grumman and the University of Maryland announced June 11 that they are partnering to create an honors education program that will train the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.

This endeavor, the Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES), will teach students about the ever-changing and evolving aspects of cybersecurity under the guidance of corporate and government mentors. According to the press release, computer science, engineering, business, public policy and social sciences students learn forensics, reverse engineering, coding, criminology, law and public policy. They’ll also have the option to intern with Northrop Grumman and prepare for security clearance. Northrop Grumman and the University of Maryland plan to train a crop of students who will meet America’s growing demand for cybersecurity pros. Northrop Grumman will supply a $1.1 million grant for the program initially, which the university will match. The program is set to begin in fall 2013.

US Cities Don’t Bite on New Domain Extensions

A long list of world-class municipalities have applied for top-level domains.

New York, Stockholm, Moscow, Kyoto, Barcelona, Rio and Quebec are just a few destinations that will likely add another self-named Web extension to their online presence. Las Vegas, like New York City, has gathered much local support for Dot Vegas Inc., with many prominent government and tourism groups on board. Other cities showing up on the list are Miami and Boston, although their applications don’t appear to be affiliated with their city governments. It remains to be seen whether government officials from these cities will challenge the applicant’s right to stake a claim on these specific domains.

Amazon Publishing makes some e-books available to other retailers

Amazon is selling at least two Amazon Publishing e-books in other digital bookstores. Until now, it has sold its e-books exclusively through the Kindle Store.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which is publishing the print versions of all the titles from Amazon Publishing’s New York imprint, is also listed as the publisher of the non-Kindle e-book editions. Amazon previously announced that it would sell James Atlas’s upcoming “Amazon Lives” series of mini biographies through all digital retailers, but didn’t say at the time whether it would expand that policy to other titles too.

Internet Governance: The Way It Works Now

[Commentary] There has been a lot of talk recently about the ITU getting involved with regulating aspects of the Internet. But some of you may be wondering how the Internet is governed now. If you don’t have multiple hours to devote to the rabbit warren of Wikipedia articles on the subject, read on for a brief explanation of the current organizations involved in Internet governance. These organizations can be roughly divided into two major categories: international technical standards organizations and governance organizations. The technical standards organizations tend to deal with standards on a physical level: how to make a computer chip, for example. The governance organizations deal more with permissions and protocols: what are appropriate identifiers for computers on a network, or how to write a webpage that all computers will understand. But this is not a perfect rule, and there is significant overlap between the two groups.

Benton

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