August 15, 2012 (Diversity Denied)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2012
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OWNERSHIP
Diversity Denied - op-ed
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Chairman Bono Mack Urges Senate Action on Net Resolution
US broadband growth slows to a trickle with only 260,000 new connections
Justifying the Ends: Section 706 and the Regulation of Broadband - research
Broadband battle hits rural areas
GOP senators slam Democrats on cybersecurity stall [links to web]
XO fulfills its fiber fantasies with 100-gigabit long-haul network [links to web]
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
The coming wireless spectrum apocalypse and how it hits you
66 Unanswered Questions and Issues of Wireline-Wireless-Cable Connections and Collusion - op-ed [links to web]
Carrier data confirms it: Half of US now owns a smartphone
AT&T Calls on Nation's Drivers to Pledge: Never Text and Drive - press release [links to web]
Payments Network Takes On Google [links to web]
MEDIA AND ELECTIONS
How the Presidential Candidates Use the Web and Social Media - research
Voters turn on but tune out political ads
Advocacy group urges parties to include Internet freedom in platforms
Smartphone campaigning has its pitfalls, privacy group says
Political Ad Spend On Hispanics Trails Political Clout
Union campaigns to bring call centers back to US [links to web]
PRIVACY
Hulu Faces Privacy Test in Court
Smartphone campaigning has its pitfalls, privacy group says
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Verizon details errors in derecho, calls response to 911 outages ‘insufficient’
CONTENT
Should we trust Google when it comes to piracy and search? - analysis
Google opens prior-art patent search to the entire web [links to web]
Marketers Suing Google Can Appeal Class-Action Denial [links to web]
Google can appeal class certification in Books case [links to web]
RADIO/TELEVISION
Liberman pulls protested program
FCC: Expanded Basic Cable TV Rates Climbed 5.4% In 2010
HEALTH
Privacy laws complicate exchange data-sharing: Pritts [links to web]
Cities to join mobile health initiative [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Appeals court okays warrantless tracking
Police Sought Cellphones for Video of Times Square Shooting
POLICYMAKERS
Rep Cliff Stearns trailing newcomer in Florida primary
Public Knowledge Hires Chris Lewis and Bartees Cox to Fill VP and Communication Roles - press release [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Official: Iran to File Lawsuits against Cyber Terrorists [links to web]
Social Media Helped Drive Olympic TV Viewers [links to web]
MORE ONLINE
A High-Tech Fix for Broken Schools - press release [links to web]
OWNERSHIP
DIVERSITY DENIED
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Michael Copps]
[Commentary] I recently had an opportunity to address the annual Minority Media and Telecommunications Council Conference in Washington, DC. MMTC has for years toiled mightily to enhance the role of minorities in our telecom and media enterprises. But the current woeful state of diversity in our media goes beyond the ability of any single organization to resolve. Any proposal for truly meaningful remedies runs head-long into special interest opposition in the private sector and, more often than not, lack of interest in the public sector. Both sectors are at fault; both sectors are in default. The bottom line is that minorities have been grievously short-changed; diversity in all its many forms has been largely abandoned as a regulatory objective; and our civic dialogue has been diminished just when it most needs to be nourished. I want to expand upon my remarks at MMTC because we have to develop a sense of national urgency about this problem. Our country is now nearly one-third minority—yet minority issues and cultural contributions receive shockingly sparse attention in our media. When minorities are covered, it is too often in stereotype, too infrequently based on facts. Who at this moment can really claim there is anything approaching equitable, real-world coverage of minorities and their concerns? Why are there so few programs with a minority focus? With minority lead characters? Why are so many news interviews conducted with white males instead of people of color—or women, who are actually a majority of our population? At last report, people of color own about 3 percent of full-power commercial TV stations! And the numbers are only getting worse.
http://benton.org/node/132169
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
BONO MACK URGES SENATE ACTION
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
After the House unanimously passed a non-binding resolution opposing international efforts to regulate the Internet, the measure's author called on the Senate to take swift action to take up the legislation. The resolution, which passed the House earlier this month on 414-0 vote, calls on U.S. officials to work to "implement the position of the United States on Internet governance that clearly articulates the consistent and unequivocal policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet today." In a letter, Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) -- chairman of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade -- called on Senate leaders to take up her resolution when the Senate returns from its August break. Many lawmakers and other U.S .government officials have voiced concern about proposals being floated by some countries ahead of December's International Telecommunication Union conference in Dubai that would give the United Nations agency more authority over the Internet. At the Dubai conference, the ITU is set to consider changes to its international telecom treaty.
benton.org/node/132228 | National Journal
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US BROADBAND GROWTH SLOWS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Om Malik]
US broadband is growing – albeit much more slowly according to data collected by Leichtman Research Group, a market research company. During the second quarter of 2012, US added 260,000 broadband subscribers, down sharply from 350,000 broadband subscribers added during the second quarter of 2011. According to Leichtman, “the net broadband additions in the quarter were the fewest of any quarter in the eleven years LRG has been tracking the industry.”
Top cable companies added about 330,000 subscribers. In the second quarter of 2011, they had added 271,000 new subscribers.
The top telephone companies lost about 70,000 subscribers versus a gain of about 80,000 in 2Q 2011. AT&T and Verizon had fewer net broadband adds in Q2 2012 than in any previous quarter in the past eleven years
AT&T and Verizon added 669,000 fiber subscribers in the quarter (via U-verse and FiOS) and had a net loss of 763,000 DSL subscribers.
Comcast now has 18.74 million broadband subscribers, making it the biggest broadband provider in the US.
benton.org/node/132173 | GigaOm
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SEC 706 AND THE REGULATION OF BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Phoenix Center, AUTHOR: George Ford, Lawrence Spiwak]
Over the past several years, the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Julius Genachowski has argued that because broadband is not universally ubiquitous, the agency may use the “reasonable and timely” standard contained in Section 706 in the Communications Act as an independent source of legal authority to impose regulation over advanced services. The Phoenix Center looks at the agency’s own data and finds that there is a profound defect with the FCC’s argument. Specifically, the Phoenix Center demonstrates that FCC’s own financial analysis—conducted as part of its National Broadband Plan—shows that the cost of ubiquitous availability via terrestrial means (i.e., wired and wireless) exceeds any plausible measure of the benefit. In fact, the agency’s National Broadband Plan explicitly recognized that the cost of ubiquitous coverage of terrestrial broadband could not be justified, and recommended the use of “satellite broadband” as an alternative since it is ubiquitously available. Obviously, if the agency wanted to use Section 706 as the foundation for an aggressively regulatory agenda, then it needed to exclude satellite Internet service from the definition of broadband. Not surprisingly, the FCC did so. By ignoring its own evidence and by carefully defining broadband service, the FCC has successfully rigged the game to permit expansive broadband regulation under Section 706.
benton.org/node/132211 | Phoenix Center | Press release
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BROADBAND BATTLE
[SOURCE: Star Tribune, AUTHOR: Jim Spencer, Larry Oakes]
Cable companies weren't interested when the federal government dangled millions of dollars to expand broadband Internet service in Lake County. But they didn't want anyone else to build a system, either. That would mean competition in small parts of the county they already serve, even if it would leave thousands of northeastern Minnesota residents and businesses without broadband. So in 2010, when Lake County applied for federal stimulus funds to build a countywide network, it ran straight into a challenge from industry giant Mediacom and the Minnesota Cable Communications Association. The conflict that ensued is part of a national struggle. Public officials and some of their constituents argue that rural broadband is like rural electrification: It's a lifeline for small-town America that the free market will not extend. "We've been ridiculously underserved in this area for years," said Andy Fisher, who owns a Lake County bed-and-breakfast and a rural cross-country skiing lodge. The cable companies "are working in the interest of their profits. But if they're not going to serve this area, what are we going to do?"
benton.org/node/132217 | Star Tribune
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
THE COMING SPECTRUM APOCALYPSE
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Marguerite Reardon]
In the wireless industry, it seems, you can never have too much spectrum. Even AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which together control about 70 percent of the wireless market, say they need more of it. But even if you have enough spectrum, the big guys can use their leverage with suppliers to make it darn difficult for you to use it. Can you imagine what would happen if the industry giants further solidified their hold on the market by hoarding even more spectrum? Bad things, those underdogs would assure you, starting with higher costs for consumers and fewer innovations. And that, they say, is why regulators and judges need to intercede. But how many competitors are needed in a market? Are two enough, or perhaps three? It's this question that the Federal Communications Commission is trying to answer as it looks at some of the biggest in front of it today.
benton.org/node/132221 | C-Net|News.com
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HALF OWN A SMARTPHONE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
For the first time, more people in the US own a smartphone than a regular talk and text devices, according to a new report from Chetan Sharma Consulting. Smartphone penetration exceeded 50 percent in the second quarter, making the feature phone a shrinking minority among US mobile users. A Nielsen study found in May reached similar conclusions, revealing that 50.4 percent of US subscribers surveyed owned a smartphone, up from a mere 18 percent in 2009. But while Nielsen’s number are based on polling data, Sharma’s come from the operators’ quarterly reports.
benton.org/node/132220 | GigaOm
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MEDIA AND ELECTIONS
HOW THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES USE THE WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR:]
If presidential campaigns are in part contests over which candidate masters changing communications technology, Barack Obama on the eve of the conventions holds a substantial lead over challenger Mitt Romney. A new study of how the campaigns are using digital tools to talk directly with voters-bypassing the filter of traditional media-finds that the Obama campaign posted nearly four times as much content as the Romney campaign and was active on nearly twice as many platforms. Obama's digital content also engendered more response from the public-twice the number of shares, views and comments of his posts. Just as John McCain's campaign did four years ago, Romney's campaign has taken steps over the summer to close the digital gap-and now with the announcement of the Romney-Ryan ticket made via the Romney campaign app may take more. The Obama campaign, in turn, has tried to adapt by recently redesigning its website. These are among the findings of a detailed study of the websites of the two campaigns as well as their postings on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube-and the public reaction to that content-conducted by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Obama's campaign has made far more use of direct digital messaging than Romney's.
The campaign is about the economy, but what that means differs depending on to whom one is listening.
The economy may have dominated both candidates' digital messaging, but it was not what voters showed the most interest in.
Neither campaign made much use of the social aspect of social media.
Campaign websites remain the central hub of digital political messaging.
benton.org/node/132249 | Project for Excellence in Journalism
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VOTERS TUNE OUT ADS
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Emily Steel]
US voters are becoming oblivious to the political ads dominating the airwaves during this election campaign, according to a study of media consumption habits. Nearly a third of likely voters had not watched live television in the past seven days, according to a June poll conducted by Say Media, a digital publishing company, in conjunction with two political advertising consultancies and two pollsters that represent both Democrats and Republicans. Respondents watched an average of 20 hours of video a week, but nearly half of that time was on platforms that make it easy to avoid commercials, such as the web or digital video recorders. Of respondents who own DVRs, 85 per cent said they skipped ads at least three-quarters of the time. The 2012 campaign has seen a surge in political advertising paid for by super-political action committees and other outside groups enabled by the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United ruling in 2010. But the study’s findings illustrate how changing habits of media consumption are making it harder for candidates to reach voters with TV ads alone.
benton.org/node/132248 | Financial Times
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INTERNET FREEDOM AND THE ELECTION
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Demand Progress, a progressive advocacy group, launched a campaign to urge the Republican and Democratic parties to include a commitment to protecting Internet freedom in their party platforms. "It's about time for the Democratic and Republican parties to stand up for Internet Freedom — and to do it in writing," the group wrote. "2012 has been a landmark year for those who believe in the right of Americans to share information and communicate with each other free from censorship and surveillance."
benton.org/node/132226 | Hill, The
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SMARTPHONE CAMPAIGNING AND PRIVACY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Hayley Tsukayama]
Smartphones may be the coolest new tool for Election 2012, but users should think twice before taking advantage of the technology, privacy advocates say. A report from the Electronic Privacy Information Center said that campaigns and voters should be aware of the security and privacy issues that can accompany the next generation of political campaigning. One thing voters should be careful of when interacting with political campaigns, the group said, is keeping a clear line of separation between their work and personal devices. While voters may feel comfortable sharing certain information with the campaign of their choice, they may not feel as comfortable seeing the information posted somewhere else, or in an easier-to-access format.
benton.org/node/132182 | Washington Post
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POLITICAL AD SPEND ON HISPANICS
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Erik Sass]
Hispanic voters are wielding more power at the ballot box, but political campaigns have lagged in their use of media targeting Hispanics, including Spanish-language media. With that in mind, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which represents the interests of Hispanic businesses, announced a new initiative to track and analyze Spanish-language political ad spending in 10 key states with large Hispanic populations in the run-up to the November elections. The USHCC project, called “Speak Our Language,” will attempt to highlight the disparity between Hispanic voting power and political spending on Hispanic media, as well as the correlation between Spanish-language ad spending and positive electoral outcomes. It hopes to “hold 2012 campaigns accountable for their commitment to the country's Hispanic communities,” according to USHCC president and CEO Javier Palomarez.
benton.org/node/132214 | MediaPost
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PRIVACY
HULU FACES PRIVACY TST IN COURT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Somini Sengupta]
Can a privacy law passed in the era of videotape rentals be applied in the era of Internet streaming? Hulu, the online video content provider, is about to face the test. A lawsuit filed in a federal court in California says Hulu violated its users’ privacy by sharing their viewing history with companies that could in turn offer them tailored advertisements. The case rests on a 1988 law, the Video Privacy Protection Act, intended to protect the privacy of video rental records. It was passed by Congress after a newspaper obtained records of what movies the conservative Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork had rented, and published an article based on them. Hulu sought to have the case dismissed, noting that it is not a video rental business. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler concluded that the law did not preclude application to “new technologies for prerecorded video content” and allowed the case to go ahead. Next comes the discovery of evidence and arguments. The judge has not yet ruled on the merits of the case.
benton.org/node/132201 | New York Times
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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
VERIZON REPORT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Mary Pat Flaherty]
Verizon officials did not know that 911 emergency service was out in Fairfax County during June’s derecho storm until the county called to tell them, according to a Verizon executive and a company report to be released to local governments. The report, to be presented August 15 to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, for the first time acknowledges widespread failures in Verizon’s 911 emergency backup systems during the storm. It also admits significant problems with Arlington County’s 911 service that Verizon had previously denied. In addition, the report says drained batteries, faulty generators and the failure of a technician to thoroughly explore the cause of troubles extended the delays in restoring full 911 service to nearly 2.3 million residents in Fairfax, Arlington and Prince William counties and Manassas and Manassas Park.
benton.org/node/132225 | Washington Post
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CONTENT
SHOULD WE TRUST GOOGLE?
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Mathew Ingram]
Google recently announced that it will start filtering its search results based in part on the number of copyright-takedown requests that have been filed against a site: according to a blog post from the search giant, it will tweak its algorithms to rank a website lower if it has a large number of “valid copyright-removal notices.” And how does Google know whether a copyright-removal notice is valid or not? The short answer is that it doesn’t — which is part of the reason why YouTube in particular sees so many bogus takedowns. So how do we know that this filtering of search results won’t adversely affect some websites that are perfectly legitimate? Google’s response so far seems to be “trust us.” But should we? The search company says it decided to make the change because it will help users “find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily,” but some critics of the move have a different theory: they figure Google has essentially caved in to pressure from media and content companies — the same kind of pressure that led the U.S. government to push for legislation such as SOPA and PIPA, which would have allowed copyright holders to remove offending websites from the internet completely based on just an allegation of infringement. While Google’s changes won’t do this, being pushed down in the search results of the web’s dominant search player can have a serious impact.
benton.org/node/132176 | GigaOm
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RADIO/TELEVISION
LIBERMAN PULLS PROTESTED PROGRAM
[SOURCE: Radio & Television Business Report, AUTHOR: Dave Seyler]
“José Luis Sin Censura” is no longer on the Liberman programming menu, exiting after an 18-month campaign led by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), which objected to content frequently featured on the program. Objecting to defamatory language, much of it anti-gay or anti-Latino, the organizations had filed formal complaints about the program with the Federal Communications Commission, and had also led to the withdrawal of advertising by accounts including AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Western Dental.
benton.org/node/132209 | Radio & Television Business Report
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BASIC CABLE RATES
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Todd Spangler]
The average monthly price of expanded basic cable TV rose 5.4% in 2010, to $57.46, according to the Federal Communications Commission's annual report on cable industry rates -- while for the third consecutive year, the FCC found that cable rates in "competitive" markets were higher. The FCC noted that the overall increase in cable rates was higher than the 1.6% in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for 2010. From 1995 to 2011, the price of expanded basic service increased at a compound average annual growth rate of 6.1% whereas the CPI increased at a CAGR of 2.4%. On a per-channel basis, however, the cost of cable TV has risen slower than the pace of inflation, according to the FCC. In fact, the price per channel for subscribers purchasing expanded basic service decreased by 2.1% for the 12 months ended Jan. 1, 2011, to 57 cents per channel. Over the past 16 years, the increase in price per channel was 0.9% annually.
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association declined to comment on the report. In the past, the trade group has called the FCC's cable rates survey findings "largely irrelevant."
benton.org/node/132177 | Multichannel News
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
APPEALS COURT OKs WARRENTLESS TRACKING
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
A federal appeals court ruled that police do not need a warrant to track the location of a suspect's phone. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that the Drug Enforcement Administration did not violate the constitutional rights of Melvin Skinner when they collected his phone's GPS data. Skinner's lawyers argued that the police violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches by collecting his phone's GPS data without first obtaining a warrant. But the appeals court ruled that Skinner has no reasonable expectation of privacy for his cellphone's location data. "When criminals use modern technological devices to carry out criminal acts and to reduce the possibility of detection, they can hardly complain when the police take advantage of the inherent characteristics of those very devices to catch them," Judge John Rogers wrote in his opinion for the panel.
benton.org/node/132200 | Hill, The
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POLICE SOUGHT CELLPHONE VIDEO
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Wendy Ruderman, Aaron Edwards]
Dozens of bystanders grabbed their cellphones and hit the record button as a knife-wielding man skipped backward through Times Square. Some witnesses, holding their cellphones above their heads to capture the action, ran alongside police officers as they pursued the man down Seventh Avenue with guns drawn. The dramatic scene, which unfolded on a sunny afternoon at the crossroads of one of the world’s busiest tourist destinations, ended as two officers confronted the man, Darrius H. Kennedy, 51, and fatally shot him when, the police say, he lunged at them. Minutes after the shooting, video of the episode, which included audio of hammerlike gun shots, shouts of officers ordering the crowd to “move back,” and cursing from stunned spectators, was all over the Internet. Several witnesses posted their video on YouTube or Facebook and provided it to television stations. Viewers were riveted. The video also caught the attention of law enforcement officials. In the age of the ubiquitous smartphone, it is increasingly common for crimes, shootings involving the police and catastrophes to be captured on video, often prompting investigators to seek the video as evidence to help them piece together what happened. But the quests also raise questions of what rights the police have to witnesses’ smartphones and whether police officers make clear that bystanders are not legally obligated to turn over their phones.
benton.org/node/132246 | New York Times
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POLICYMAKERS
STEARNS LOSES PRIMARY
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Bob King]
Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) -- chairman of the House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations -- was refusing to concede late August 14 to a veterinarian who has never held elected office. But by all appearances, Florida voters had delivered a stunning defeat to Rep Stearns who put the White House on the hot seat over Solyndra and helped trigger this year's Komen-Planned Parenthood blowup. Political novice Ted Yoho, leading by 829 votes out of 63,690 counted with all precincts reporting, wasn't waiting to celebrate victory. It's possible that still-to-be-counted provisional ballots and overseas absentee ballots could eat into Yoho's lead, or even reverse the outcome. For now, though, Yoho's margin is 1.3 percent, outside the 0.5-percent margin that Florida law sets for an automatic recount. Yoho had 34.4 percent of the vote to Stearns's 33.1 percent in a four-candidate field. Still, the outcome was an unexpected rebuke for Stearns, an incumbent whose $2.1 million campaign war chest far outweighed Yoho's $129,500 as of late July — and who, as recently as March, appeared to be a rising Republican rock star. Rep Stearns was battling in a newly redrawn North Florida district under a voter-approved redistricting system that was aimed at reducing gerrymandering. He also suffered a number of self-inflicted injuries, including incidents in which he questioned whether Obama's birth certificate was “legitimate,” admitted he had wrongly accused the White House of withholding Solyndra-related emails, and incorrectly boasted that his probe of the failed solar company had led to “the first subpoena issued to the White House since the Watergate era.”
benton.org/node/132242 | Politico
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