June 2012

T-Mobile may be sunsetting 2G, but its M2M biz keeps growing

T-Mobile USA is shutting down 75 percent of its GSM capacity in order to clear its airwaves for new HSPA+ and LTE networks. You would think that such a large-scale retirement of its 2G capacity would wreak havoc on its high profit margin machine-to-machine (M2M) communications business, which leans heavily on its GSM/EDGE networks. But the opposite appears to be case. T-Mobile’s M2M services provider Raco Wireless announced today at the Connected World Conference that it has landed one of the biggest fish in the M2M industry, point-of-sale (POS) transaction manager Apriva Wireless, which processed $7 billion in sales last year through wireless payments terminals. Apriva isn’t shifting all of its business to T-Mobile. But, in a carefully worded press release, Raco, T-Mobile and Apriva said that they would be replacing the terminal SIM cards of Apriva’s current carrier in areas where that carrier is shutting down its 2G network.

Tech sector grumbles about Sen Dianne Feinstein

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) taps out messages on a BlackBerry, reads books on her iPad and is well-known in Washington for detailed command of policies from fracking to farming to patent law. Yet in her home state, there are some rumblings in tech circles about whether Sen Feinstein truly is one of them.

Techies complain she’s of a different generation, “out of touch,” “unaware” of the intricacies of tech policy — and they point out she doesn’t even send her own tweets. Seems harsh, but some in the tech sector are still sore at Sen Feinstein for siding with the entertainment sector on anti-piracy legislation, which ended in January with a Hill retreat in the face of Internet protests. It leaves Feinstein in an unusual position in the Senate, where senior members are often devoted to a home-state industry -- think Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on corn, Bill Nelson (D-FL) on NASA or Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) on coal. And the industry repays in kind. So as Internet companies and startups are finally taking an interest in Washington, they are figuring out who their go-to lawmakers are on the Hill — and Sen Feinstein isn’t one of them.

As society makes quick change, phone booths disappear

Pacific Telemanagement Services has become the largest public pay phone company in the country, with about 45,000 public pay phones, as it has scooped up AT&T and Verizon's pay phones while those companies have scouted for escape routes. Company revenue approaches $100 million. Once phones are acquired, the company removes the ones that aren't making money. It only takes about two to three calls a day to make a profit. In Florida, the state Public Service Commission doesn't track the number of pay phones. It only does on-site visits into complaints when the phones happen to be in a place officials are traveling to for some other reason. Still, industry leaders believe there is a future for pay phones.

June 12, 2012 (Debunking Rumors of an Internet Takeover)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2012

Today’s events include a conversation with AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson at Brookings http://benton.org/calendar/2012-06-12/


INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Debunking Rumors of an Internet Takeover
   Web-Savvy Lawmakers Call for Internet Bill of Rights
   Researchers find connection between Flame, Stuxnet computer viruses
   Lack of computer access a major hurdle for the poor
   Network Neutrality and Quality of Service: What a Non-Discrimination Rule Should Look Like - research
   Groups to Help Online Activists in Authoritarian Countries
   Amazon looks for sales-tax windfall from warehouses in 2 California cities [links to web]
   State regulators warn of cyber threats [links to web]

WIRELESS
   12 days in cellphone hell - op-ed

CONTENT
   French Publisher Group Strikes Deal With Google Over E-Books
   After Years of Courtship, Apple and Facebook Finally Hook Up
   Online consumers more engaged with TV programming, study finds
   Internet ad revenue is growing, but growth rate is slowing, according to IAB report [links to web]
   Net connections, movies and music are worthy expenditures despite downturn [links to web]
   How Microsoft and Yahoo Are Selling Politicians Access to You

TELEVISION
   FCC Commissioners Vote To Sunset Viewability Rule
   Broadcast Groups Petition FCC to Reconsider Political File Posting Decision
   Stations Pin Viewability Hope on FCC Commissioner Clyburn
   Boston City Council passes plan to cut satellite dish clutter [links to web]

WIRELESS & SPECTRUM
   Nearly a Quarter of Smartphone Users Are Also Tablet Users [links to web]
   Is the iPhone overcrowding the world’s 3G networks? [links to web]

ELECTIONS & MEDIA
   Will Election 2012 deliver a mobile ad breakthrough? [links to web]
   Boston: Political ad spending kicks up [links to web]

HEALTH
   mHealth: Embraced by developing world, resisted by developed countries
   Lifestyle action plan plus mobile monitoring can help patients
   Secrets And Electronic Health Records: A Privacy Concern

JOURNALISM
   Investor Group Buys Orange County Register and Other Newspapers
   New Orleans Clamors for Its Paper

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   Groups to Help Online Activists in Authoritarian Countries
   Senators Question Monitoring of Calls, E-mails
   Why is the State Department paying Amazon $16.5 million for 2,500 Kindles?
   US argues it shouldn't have to give Megaupload user his legit files

POLICYMAKERS
   Commerce Secretary Takes Medical Leave After Hit-and-Run Crash

COMPANY NEWS
   Days of Wild User Growth Appear Over at Facebook [links to web]
   Sprint says no longer Clearwire majority owner [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
These headlines presented in partnership with:

   Murdoch ‘threatened Major over Europe’
   Top politicians reveal Murdoch lobbying
   "Estonian Mafia" looking for the next generation of entrepreneurs
   Canadian tech town feels BlackBerry's decline [links to web]

MORE ONLINE
   Celluloid no more: distribution of film to cease by 2013 in the US [links to web]
   Proposed Third Quarter 2012 Universal Service Contribution Factor – 15.7% [links to web]
   Change.org Tests the Line Between Activism, Profits [links to web]
   Verizon's Reed To Head Public-Policy Outreach For Silicon Valley, Hollywood [links to web]

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INTERNET/BROADBAND

DEBUNKING RUMORS OF INTERNET TAKEOVER
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Pfanner]
This just in from Geneva: The United Nations has no plans to seize control of the Internet. The Web-snatching black helicopters have not left the hangar. Internet conspiracy theorists will be disappointed. The latest one, fueled by “open Internet” groups, Internet companies like Google and some US lawmakers, was that mouse-clicking bureaucrats at U.N. headquarters in Geneva, supported by governments suspicious of the United States, were scheming to take over the Internet itself. The plot went something like this: At a meeting in December of an obscure UN agency called the International Telecommunication Union, Russia, China and their ilk would try to wrest oversight of the Internet away from the loose collection of public and private organizations that do the job now, handing this responsibility to the ITU. All sorts of bad things, from censorship to the breakup of the Internet, would ensue. Time for a reality check. Documents prepared for the December meeting, which leaked out last week — yes, on the Internet — show that there are no proposals to hand governance of the Net to the ITU. The union insists that it has no desire to play such a role. And even if some governments would like to give the agency increased regulatory powers, the United States and other like-minded countries could easily block them.
benton.org/node/125467 | New York Times
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INTERNET BILL OF RIGHTS
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Katy Bachman]
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) called for Congress and the Internet community to adopt a digital bill of rights. Since the Internet mobilized on Jan. 18 to voice its collective opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act, the Internet community and its defenders in Congress have been looking at ways to use the Web to change the power structure in Washington (DC). "What the Internet community did [in January] was create a fear," said Rep Issa, who has posted his idea for a digital citizens bill of rights on his "Keep the Web Open" site. "Fear of being exposed is very powerful. No [congressional] member wants to be thought of as not caring about their constituency." The beauty of Jan. 18, said Sen Wyden, was that it cut out the middleman, something that is all but unheard of in Washington. "We're trying to change the power in Washington," said Wyden. "In the past, the way you got the word out was through a phone tree. What we're talking about is building a system that will create a signal throughout the community."
benton.org/node/125466 | AdWeek
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FLAME-STUXNET CONNECTION
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Researchers at a computer security firm said they found evidence that the teams who created the Stuxnet and Flame viruses worked together. The report suggests that both viruses might have been the work of the United States government. Researchers at Kaspersky Lab, a Russian firm that first identified the Flame virus, said they discovered nearly identical pieces of code in the two viruses, indicating cooperation between the developers of the viruses. Alexander Gostev, chief security expert for Kaspersky Lab, said in a statement that Flame and Stuxnet use "completely different platforms" and "have different architectures with their own unique tricks that were used to infect systems and execute primary tasks." "The projects were indeed separate and independent from each other," he said. But he concluded that the new findings prove that the virus developers "cooperated at least once." "What we have found is very strong evidence that [Stuxnet] and Flame cyber-weapons are connected," he said.
benton.org/node/125494 | Hill, The
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COMPUTER ACCESS
[SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, AUTHOR: Alfred Lubrano]
Throughout the nation, a stark divide separates those with access to computers and computer training, and those without. For low-income Americans, it's akin to being stuck yelling out a window to communicate while everyone else is using the phone. Overall, 90 percent of Americans making between $50,000 and $74,999 are online, according to a study released by the Pew Research Center in April. For those making more than $75,000 annually, it's 97 percent. Among Americans who make less than $30,000 a year, however, just 62 percent are online. And, only 43 percent of people without high school diplomas use the Internet, compared with 94 percent of people with college degrees.
benton.org/node/125493 | Philadelphia Inquirer
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NETWORK NEUTRALITY AND QUALITY OF SERVICE: WHAT A NON-DISCRIMINATION RULE SHOULD LOOK LIKE
[SOURCE: Center for Internet and Society, AUTHOR: Barbara van Schewick]
This paper proposes a framework that policy makers and others can use to choose among different options for network neutrality rules and uses this framework to evaluate existing proposals for non-discrimination rules and the non-discrimination rule adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in its Open Internet Order. In the process, it explains how the different non-discrimination rules affect network providersʼ ability to offer Quality of Service and which forms of Quality of Service, if any, a non-discrimination rule should allow.
benton.org/node/125441 | Center for Internet and Society
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WIRELESS

CELLPHONE HELL
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Harold Meyerson]
[Commentary] Have you ever heard anyone — anyone — rave about their phone carrier's service? Say, "Wow, that customer service rep solved my problem in no time flat"? If you haven't, there's a reason: The companies don't compete on service. Indeed, their service contracts are designed to keep you from jumping to other carriers unless you pony up several hundred bucks. "Phone carriers aren't trying to gain consumers through quality service," says Parul Desai, the communications policy counsel for Consumers Union. No phone company "says we'll take care of this; we'll come right over and fix it." They have no reason to: Their mandatory arbitration clauses make it all but impossible for disgruntled customers to sue them, and their early termination fees lock those customers into their contracts. [Meyerson is editor at large of the American Prospect]
benton.org/node/125514 | Los Angeles Times
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CONTENT

GOOGLE BOOK DEAL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Pfanner]
Google has reached an agreement in France that could bring back to life thousands of out-of-print works. The French Publishers’ Association and the Société des Gens de Lettres, an authors’ group, dropped lawsuits in which they contended that Google’s book-scanning here violated copyright. Google agreed to set up a “framework” agreement under which publishers would be able to offer digital versions of their works for Google to sell. “Our hope is that these path-breaking partnerships will help jump-start the emerging French electronic book market,” said Philippe Colombet, head of Google Books France. While e-book sales have surged in the United States, they have been held back in France, and across much of Europe, by disputes over rights and other issues. The deal is modeled on agreements that Google struck separately with two leading French publishers, Hachette and La Martinière. Under all of these agreements, the publishers retain control over many conditions of the book-scanning project, including which titles are made available.
benton.org/node/125464 | New York Times
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APPLE-FACEBOOK
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Mike Isaac]
Apple announced Facebook-sharing integration with its iOS mobile software at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday, thus making formal a long-anticipated pairing between two of the most-watched technology companies of Silicon Valley. “We’ve been working very closely with Facebook to make sure we’ve got the best mobile integration of Facebook around,” Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iOS Software, said. And it is a broad integration that includes a “Like” function for the App and iTunes Stores, as well as integration with Siri, and a public API so developers can more easily integrate the feature into their apps. But it’s not just restricted to mobile. Apple also baked Facebook integration deep into Mountain Lion for Macs, allowing users to share photos, links and comments from Mac desktop apps. New Facebook notifications populate Mountain Lion’s Notification Center, as well as the iOS notification bar.
benton.org/node/125491 | Wall Street Journal
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ONLINE CONSUMERS MORE ENGAGED
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Ryan Faughnder]
TV audiences who watch online and through mobile devices may be looking better to advertisers and networks. A new study by ComScore and the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement found that people who watch TV online in addition to the traditional way spend more time consuming the content. According to the study of 10,000 consumers, people who view programming through TV and online spend 25% more time viewing than those who engage only through regular television. "Consumers who build online video into their TV experience appear to be an important core constituency for media brands," the study’s authors wrote.
benton.org/node/125490 | Los Angeles Times | comScore
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MICROSOFT, YAHOO AND ACCESS TO YOU
[SOURCE: ProPublica, AUTHOR: Lois Beckett]
Microsoft and Yahoo are selling political campaigns the ability to target voters online with tailored ads using names, Zip codes and other registration information that users provide when they sign up for free email and other services. The Web giants provide users no notification that their information is being used for political targeting. In one sense, campaigns are doing a more sophisticated version of what they've always done through the post office — sending political fliers to selected households. But the Internet allows for more subtle targeting. It relies not on email but on advertisements that surfers may not realize have been customized for them.
benton.org/node/125505 | ProPublica
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TELEVISION

VIEWABILITY RULE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Despite some last-minute lobbying by broadcasters and their allies, the Federal Communications Commission members were voting on the night of June 11 on an order to sunset the viewability rules, according to sources inside and outside the FCC. "Viewability is going down," said one broadcast attorney. That means as of December, cable operators will no longer have to deliver dual analog and digital feeds of must-carry TV station signals to satisfy the FCC requirement that they be viewable to their subscribers. Instead, the FCC says that the no-cost and low-cost converter boxes cable operators offer will satisfy the still-important obligation to make must-carry stations accessible to viewers. While there had been a push by broadcasters to extend the six-month transition period beyond December, it remained six months.
benton.org/node/125507 | Broadcasting&Cable
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BROADCASTERS ASK FOR POLITICAL FILE RECONSIDERATION
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Major broadcast groups have asked the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider its requirement that they put sensitive political information online "immediately and for everybody to see," offering an opt-in alternative for broadcasters they say would expand the reporting requirement without diminishing their ability to compete in the marketplace. In a petition filed on June 11, the deadline for filing for reconsideration of the FCC's April vote requiring the posting of TV station public files online, the broadcasters against pressed for a compromise of posting aggregate political spot figures. Broadcasters signing on to the petition are Barrington, Belo, Cox, Scripps, Hearst, Gannett, LIN, Meredith, Post-Newsweek, Raycom and Schurz. [see more at the URL below]
benton.org/node/125508 | Broadcasting&Cable
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VIEWABILITY AND COMMISSIONER CLYBURN
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Kim McAvoy]
Broadcasters are hoping that Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn will set an independent course and save the FCC's viewability rule that requires hybrid, analog-digital cable systems to transmit TV broadcast signals on the analog tier so that subscribers with old analog sets can continue to receive them without having to buy a set-top box. To do so, Commissioner Clyburn will have to go against FCC Chairman and fellow Democrat Julius Genachowski, who has circulated a proposal phasing out the rule in six months. If she does, broadcasters and their Washington representatives believe that the two Republican commissioners — Robert McDowell and Ajit Pai — may go along with her, supplying the other two votes needed for an extension. With the rule set to expire June 12, a vote could come on June 11.
benton.org/node/125455 | TVNewsCheck
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HEALTH

MHEALTH EMBRACED IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
[SOURCE: HealthcareITNews, AUTHOR: Eric Wicklund]
A new study of the global mHealth market finds that consumers and developing countries are driving its growth, while physicians are reluctant to adapt. Those are some of the conclusions drawn from “Emerging Health: Paths for Growth,” published by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The 48-page report, based on two separate surveys conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and analyzing 10 nations, indicates developing nations are quicker to accept and adopt telehealth because it’s seen as a way to increase access to healthcare, while developed nations like the United States are being dogged down by regulatory hurdles and a resistance to change among providers. “Consumers are demanding and payers are willing to pay, but providers aren’t willing to provide,” said Christopher Wasden, PwC’s global healthcare innovation leader. “What we are going to need to do is get providers to think and act differently.” “To what extent are physicians in their country willing to adapt?” he asked.
benton.org/node/125442 | HealthcareITNews
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MOBILE HEALTH MONITORING
[SOURCE: American Medical Association, AUTHOR: Christine Moyer]
Prevention medicine specialist Bonnie Spring, PhD, says physicians can feel overwhelmed by the limited time they have to help patients change unhealthy lifestyle behaviors. But she said doctors can help with improvements by recommending that patients eat more fruits and vegetables, decrease their sedentary leisure time and then monitor their progress using mobile technology, such as a smartphone. That approach led patients to improve healthy behaviors and sustain those changes after 20 weeks, said a study in the May 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. Spring was lead author. The message for physicians “is that this can be done. You don’t have to be hopeless about it,” said Spring, a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. If further research supports the study’s findings, using mobile technology to help monitor and change patients’ lifestyle behaviors could potentially revolutionize what can be accomplished in medicine and public health, said William T. Riley, PhD, program director in the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
benton.org/node/125445 | American Medical Association
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SECRETS AND EHRs
[SOURCE: Kaiser health News, AUTHOR: David Schultz]
Does your orthodontist or opthamologist need to know what you tell your psychotherapist in order to provide you with quality care? In the age of electronic medical records, a whole range of health care providers may have access to this information whether you want them to or not. The issue of how to ensure that psychotherapy notes remain private, even from other doctors, was one that troubled many at the second annual Health Privacy Summit in Washington. “Psychotherapists are often the canaries in the coal mine” when it comes to health privacy, said James Pyles, an attorney who specializes in health law at the firm Powers, Pyles, Sutter and Verville PC. Here’s what many say is the problem: If a mental health specialist types up his or her notes from a therapy session and puts them into a patient’s electronic medical record, that file can be shared with any doctor the patient sees within their health system. And, because of a loophole in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, there’s nothing a patient can do to stop this from happening.
benton.org/node/125485 | Kaiser Health News
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JOURNALISM

FREEDOM PAPERS SOLD
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Christine Haughney]
An investor group that previously expressed interest in buying The Boston Globe has agreed to purchase The Orange County Register in California and six other newspapers, the latest deal in an industry being reshaped by economic pressures and shifting consumer habits. Aaron Kushner, 39, an entrepreneur based in the Boston area, is leading the group buying the papers from Freedom Communications. Freedom, based in Irvine (CA) has been selling its properties since it emerged from bankruptcy in 2010. The deal includes The Register; The Gazette in Colorado Springs; The Porterville Recorder in Porterville, Calif.; The Desert Dispatch in Barstow, Calif.; The Appeal-Democrat in Marysville, Calif.; The Daily Press in Victorville, Calif.; and The Yuma Sun in Yuma, Ariz.; and some specialty publications.
benton.org/node/125517 | New York Times
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NEW ORLEANS AND THE TIMES-PICAYUNE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Cameron McWhirter]
New Orleans business and community leaders are pressing the publisher of their city's only daily newspaper to reverse its decision to reduce print publication to three days a week. They also are talking with investors, media companies and journalists about setting up print and digital alternatives, should the publisher go ahead with its plan for the Times-Picayune. The decision by closely held Advance Publications Inc. to no longer publish the Times-Picayune seven days a week has prompted protest from loyal New Orleanians, given the paper's prizewinning coverage of Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill, and other events. Critics of the move leaped in with a "Save the Times-Picayune" rally on June 4 and restaurants mixing cocktails such as "Picayune Punch" to raise money to fight the change. Advance's plans, disclosed publicly on May 24, would make New Orleans the largest city in the country without a daily print newspaper. Assuming the plan remains in place—as Advance says it will—the 175-year-old Times-Picayune beginning this fall will be printed only on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
benton.org/node/125516 | Wall Street Journal
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

GROUPS HELP ONLINE ACTIVISTS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Scott Shane]
From Egyptian bloggers to Russian Twitterati, activists around the world have turned the Internet into a tool for political change, even as governments have learned its usefulness for surveillance. Now two small American human rights groups, one co-founded by a 30-year-old State Department official turned Google executive and one by an 89-year-old veteran activist who once championed Soviet dissidents, are joining forces to support online activists in authoritarian countries. Google has no direct involvement in the venture, but intends to donate money, with the amount still being discussed, according to a company official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The merger involves Movements.org, co-founded in 2008 by Jared Cohen, now the director of Google Ideas, the company’s research arm, and Advancing Human Rights, created two years ago by Robert L. Bernstein, a retired publishing executive who started Human Rights Watch in 1978. Their age difference gives the combination an intergenerational character that both men said added to its appeal.
benton.org/node/125521 | New York Times
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SENATORS QUESTION MONITORING OF CALLS, E-MAILS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jennifer Valentino-DeVries]
It isn’t “reasonably possible” to say how many Americans have had their emails and phone calls reviewed as part of a four-year-old counter-terrorism law, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The law lets U.S. agencies monitor the communications of foreigners outside the US. But two senators are questioning whether a loophole allows the storage and search of messages from Americans that are picked up inadvertently while foreigners are being monitored. The intelligence community has repeatedly said it takes steps to minimize the data collected on Americans. Among the senators’ concerns: that the administration hasn’t been able to estimate how many people in the U.S. have had their information reviewed under the program. “We have sought repeatedly to gain an understanding of how many Americans have had their phone calls or emails collected and reviewed under this statute, but we have not been able to obtain even a rough estimate of this number,” Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) wrote in a minority response to a Senate Intelligence Committee report. The senators said in the report that the Director of National Intelligence had told them it was not feasible to come up with such a number.
benton.org/node/125460 | Wall Street Journal
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STATE DEPT AND KINDLE
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Laura Hazard Owen]
The State Department has signed a no-bid, $16.5 million one-year contract with Amazon to provide Kindle Touches -- 2,500 of them to start, preloaded with 50 titles each -- for its overseas language-education programs. So why has the government decided the Kindle is the best e-reader — and what is Amazon providing for all that money? In a document justifying the no-bid contract, the State Department says it’s identified “the Amazon Kindle as the only e-Reader on the market that meets the Government’s needs, and Amazon as the only company possessing the essential capabilities required by the Government.” It has international 3G, text-to-speech features and a long battery life, which “other e-readers such as the Barnes and Noble Nook, the Sony Reader Daily and Kobe [sic] e-Reader cannot provide.” Less clear is why 2,500 Kindle Touches are worth $16.5 million. The Kindle Touch 3G is $189; multiplied by 2,500 (which is the figure to start in the first year), that’s $472,500. I’ve asked the State Department for elaboration, but according to the agreement, Amazon is responsible for shipping the Kindles overseas, providing 24/7 customer service (something a smaller company, including Barnes & Noble, might have had trouble handling), sharing data on how the Kindles are used to access content and pushing serialized content to the Kindles regularly. Amazon is also responsible for disabling “standard features, as requested by DoS, for the device such as individual purchasing ability.”
benton.org/node/125487 | paidContent.org
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US SAYS IT DOESN’T HAVE MEGAUPLOAD FILES
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
Out of all the Megaupload customers who used the file sharing service for perfectly legitimate reasons, one has become a poster boy for those who lost access to data when the federal government shut Megaupload down. Kyle Goodwin, an Ohio videographer who runs a business taping high school sporting events, went to court seeking return of his files. The Electronic Frontier Foundation backed him, and even the Motion Picture Association of America said it would be OK with seeing files returned to users if they weren't illegally downloaded copyrighted material. But in the case's most recent development, US attorneys and the US Department of Justice argued in a brief that Goodwin has no right to demand his files back from the government. The government never actually seized his property, the US argued in a brief filed in US District Court in Eastern Virginia. "The government did not seize any of the Megaupload-leased servers. Instead, pursuant to the warrants, the government copied certain data from the servers," the US brief states. "While the search warrants were being executed, servers belonging to Carpathia and leased by Megaupload were taken offline so that they could be properly forensically imaged." The US government does not possess any of Goodwin's property, and it would be impractical to retrieve all user data from Megaupload servers, the brief argues.
benton.org/node/125453 | Ars Technica
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POLICYMAKERS
   Commerce Secretary Takes Medical Leave After Hit-and-Run Crash

SEC BRYSON ON MEDICAL LEAVE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Adam Nagourney, Helene Cooper]
Commerce Secretary John E. Bryson informed the White House that he would be taking a medical leave of absence to undergo tests and evaluation and that Deputy Secretary Rebecca M. Blank would assume his duties. “The president’s thoughts are with Secretary Bryson and his family during this time,” said Jay Carney, the White House spokesman. “Secretary Bryson assured the White House that the Commerce Department staff will not miss a beat in their work helping America’s businesses compete.” The White House said Sec Bryson had suffered a seizure. But officials there and at the Commerce Department declined to offer details on Bryson’s medical history, including what might have caused the seizure, and took pains to say they were not saying the seizure caused the episode. They said that this was the first such seizure he had suffered. “The commerce secretary was alone,” Carney said. “He had a seizure. He was involved in an accident.” White House officials said Sec Bryson had told them that he did not recall the events leading to the episode. Sec Bryson passed a breathalyzer test at the scene and submitted to a blood toxicology test, said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. He said that if the report came back negative, Mr. Bryson would not be charged.
benton.org/node/125519 | New York Times | WSJ | LATimes | The Hill
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
These headlines presented in partnership with:

   Murdoch ‘threatened Major over Europe’

MURDOCH AND MAJOR
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Ben Fenton]
Rupert Murdoch sat at John Major’s dinner table before the 1997 election and threatened that unless the Conservative government changed its policy on Europe, it would lose the support of News International papers, the former prime minister told the Leveson inquiry. In a strong attack on News Corp’s influence on UK life, Sir John said that parts of Murdoch’s media empire, an apparent reference to The Sun, had “lowered the general quality of the British media.” “I think that is a loss. I think that it is evident which newspaper I am referring to and I think they have lowered the tone. Its interaction with politicians has done no good to press or the politicians. The sheer scale of the influence he [Mr Murdoch] is believed to have, whether he actually exercises it or not, is an unattractive facet of British national life.” He said he thought it was more likely that sensible legislation to control concentration of media ownership was “infinitely more likely to be enacted” if the major political parties put aside partisanship to unite rather than try to court the favor of media owners who might not like those measures. He pointed out the irony that in a “country that prides itself on one-man, one-vote, we should have a man who can’t vote with a large collection of newspapers and a large share of the electronic media outlets.”
benton.org/node/125504 | Financial Times
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MORE LEVESON TESTIMONY
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Ben Fenton, Hannah Kuchler]
Two leading politicians told the Leveson inquiry of the scale of lobbying by News Corp to change the landscape of the UK media. George Osborne, the chancellor, suggested that James Murdoch, then chief executive of News Corp in Europe, had privately urged the government to “dismantle” the television license fee that supports the BBC. Earlier, Gordon Brown, told the inquiry how the Murdochs and their News International executives had pressed him to neuter the BBC, declaw Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, and pursue a campaign to further their commercial interests.
benton.org/node/125503 | Financial Times
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ESTONIAN MAFIA LOOKING FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF ENTREPRENEURS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Cyrus Farivar]
While Estonia’s prowess in cyberconflict and cyberdefense has grown in recent years, so too has its startup scene. After all, Skype was created in Estonia in 2003 and was acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion last year. Its success has inspired a new generation of Estonian startups, often collectively referred to on Twitter as the #estonianmafia, which were pitching themselves at the Latitude 59 conference held last week at Tallinn University of Technology. This university campus is also the location of Küberneetika, the Institute of Cybernetics, a Soviet-founded facility that dates back to the 1970s and became the first home of Skype decades later. AngelList, a site that aims to link startups with venture capital, currently has 52 Estonian entries, which on a per capita basis, puts it as the number two country after the United States—not bad for a country with just 1.3 million people.
benton.org/node/125501 | Ars Technica
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Groups to Help Online Activists in Authoritarian Countries

From Egyptian bloggers to Russian Twitterati, activists around the world have turned the Internet into a tool for political change, even as governments have learned its usefulness for surveillance. Now two small American human rights groups, one co-founded by a 30-year-old State Department official turned Google executive and one by an 89-year-old veteran activist who once championed Soviet dissidents, are joining forces to support online activists in authoritarian countries.

Google has no direct involvement in the venture, but intends to donate money, with the amount still being discussed, according to a company official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The merger involves Movements.org, co-founded in 2008 by Jared Cohen, now the director of Google Ideas, the company’s research arm, and Advancing Human Rights, created two years ago by Robert L. Bernstein, a retired publishing executive who started Human Rights Watch in 1978. Their age difference gives the combination an intergenerational character that both men said added to its appeal.

Commerce Secretary Takes Medical Leave After Hit-and-Run Crash

Commerce Secretary John E. Bryson informed the White House that he would be taking a medical leave of absence to undergo tests and evaluation and that Deputy Secretary Rebecca M. Blank would assume his duties.

“The president’s thoughts are with Secretary Bryson and his family during this time,” said Jay Carney, the White House spokesman. “Secretary Bryson assured the White House that the Commerce Department staff will not miss a beat in their work helping America’s businesses compete.” The White House said Sec Bryson had suffered a seizure. But officials there and at the Commerce Department declined to offer details on Bryson’s medical history, including what might have caused the seizure, and took pains to say they were not saying the seizure caused the episode. They said that this was the first such seizure he had suffered. “The commerce secretary was alone,” Carney said. “He had a seizure. He was involved in an accident.” White House officials said Sec Bryson had told them that he did not recall the events leading to the episode. Sec Bryson passed a breathalyzer test at the scene and submitted to a blood toxicology test, said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. He said that if the report came back negative, Mr. Bryson would not be charged.

Investor Group Buys Orange County Register and Other Newspapers

An investor group that previously expressed interest in buying The Boston Globe has agreed to purchase The Orange County Register in California and six other newspapers, the latest deal in an industry being reshaped by economic pressures and shifting consumer habits.

Aaron Kushner, 39, an entrepreneur based in the Boston area, is leading the group buying the papers from Freedom Communications. Freedom, based in Irvine (CA) has been selling its properties since it emerged from bankruptcy in 2010. The deal includes The Register; The Gazette in Colorado Springs; The Porterville Recorder in Porterville, Calif.; The Desert Dispatch in Barstow, Calif.; The Appeal-Democrat in Marysville, Calif.; The Daily Press in Victorville, Calif.; and The Yuma Sun in Yuma, Ariz.; and some specialty publications.

New Orleans Clamors for Its Paper

New Orleans business and community leaders are pressing the publisher of their city's only daily newspaper to reverse its decision to reduce print publication to three days a week. They also are talking with investors, media companies and journalists about setting up print and digital alternatives, should the publisher go ahead with its plan for the Times-Picayune.

The decision by closely held Advance Publications Inc. to no longer publish the Times-Picayune seven days a week has prompted protest from loyal New Orleanians, given the paper's prizewinning coverage of Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill, and other events. Critics of the move leaped in with a "Save the Times-Picayune" rally on June 4 and restaurants mixing cocktails such as "Picayune Punch" to raise money to fight the change. Advance's plans, disclosed publicly on May 24, would make New Orleans the largest city in the country without a daily print newspaper. Assuming the plan remains in place—as Advance says it will—the 175-year-old Times-Picayune beginning this fall will be printed only on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

12 days in cellphone hell

[Commentary] Have you ever heard anyone — anyone — rave about their phone carrier's service? Say, "Wow, that customer service rep solved my problem in no time flat"? If you haven't, there's a reason: The companies don't compete on service.

Indeed, their service contracts are designed to keep you from jumping to other carriers unless you pony up several hundred bucks. "Phone carriers aren't trying to gain consumers through quality service," says Parul Desai, the communications policy counsel for Consumers Union. No phone company "says we'll take care of this; we'll come right over and fix it." They have no reason to: Their mandatory arbitration clauses make it all but impossible for disgruntled customers to sue them, and their early termination fees lock those customers into their contracts. [Meyerson is editor at large of the American Prospect]

Net connections, movies and music are worthy expenditures despite downturn

Over the next five years, growth in U.S. consumer spending on Internet access, movies, music, books and video games is expected to outpace that of the gross domestic product.

That's the finding of a report from consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Digital delivery of movies, music and other media is driving the spending swell, says PwC partner Stefanie Kane. "Entertainment is a little bit like comfort food … it is really attractive even in a down economy," she says, "now that you can get it at the right time, price and place." Spending on entertainment and media in the U.S. is expected to grow about 5% annually over the next five years, from an estimated $490 billion this year to more than $597 billion in 2016. Meanwhile, the GDP is expected to grow 4.8% over the five-year period. Global spending on entertainment is expected to hit $2.1 trillion. As consumers glom onto all things digital — spending for Internet access at home and on the go will hit $81.5 billion in 2016 — advertisers are following. Digital spending in the U.S. will account for 30% of all entertainment spending in 2016, Kane says, up from 20% in 2011.