August 2012

FTC Approves Final Settlement With Facebook

Following a public comment period, the Federal Trade Commission has accepted as final a settlement with Facebook resolving charges that Facebook deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.

The settlement requires Facebook to take several steps to make sure it lives up to its promises in the future, including by giving consumers clear and prominent notice and obtaining their express consent before sharing their information beyond their privacy settings, by maintaining a comprehensive privacy program to protect consumers' information, and by obtaining biennial privacy audits from an independent third party. The FTC vote to approve the final order and letters to members of the public who commented on it was 3-1-1 with Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch dissenting and Commissioner Maureen K. Ohlhausen not participating.

Letting Companies Settle While Denying Guilt Reconsidered by FTC

The Federal Trade Commission said it would re-examine its own practice of allowing companies to settle charges of wrongdoing while denying that they had done anything wrong.

The turnabout came in response to a blistering dissent from the Facebook settlement by one commissioner, J. Thomas Rosch, who said that allowing the company to deny charges it was agreeing to settle undermined the commission’s authority. Commissioner Rosch agreed with the general outlines of the Facebook settlement, but wrote in his dissent that the Federal Trade Commission Rules of Practice “do not provide for such a denial” of the charges. He also advocated further tightening of the commission’s rules, which in addition to outright denial allow a settling company to say that its agreement “is for settlement purposes only and does not constitute an admission by any party that the law has been violated.” That is tantamount to a denial, Commissioner Rosch said, and should be disallowed. Commissioner Rosch also dissented from the FTC’s settlement with Google and in at least one earlier case. The Google settlement allowed the company to deny charges that it misrepresented whether it would place tracking cookies on Apple’s Safari browser.

NCTA: FCC Should Exempt Program Promos From Ad-Loudness Rules

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to limit rules aimed at curbing loud TV ads -- set to go into effect this December -- to commercial advertisements and exempt TV programming promotions.

The trade group, in a filing last week, said Federal Communications Commission rules implementing the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act fail to sufficiently reduce the burden on operators for noncompliance "in a handful of respects." Specifically, the NCTA said, the FTC should limit its rules to commercial ads, rather than also including "promotional material." In addition, the group sought clarification that a cable operator will not be held liable in instances in which it has notified a network and the FCC of a network's noncompliance with CALM and the NCTA wants to ensure MSOS are not prohibited from contacting programmers when performing spot checks.

Google Faces Rising FTC Ire

Google may be wearing out its welcome with the Federal Trade Commission. Antitrust lawyers and other experts say the agency seems to be developing an institutional dislike for the company after pursuing a series of actions against it. If that's the case, it couldn't come at a worse time for Google, which is facing an ongoing antitrust investigation into the workings of its search engine.

Government antitrust lawyers as a matter of course adopt an adversarial stance toward the companies they investigate. But not every target becomes a white whale. It happened to Microsoft when government attorneys reached a point where they felt they could not believe anything the company said. Several former FTC attorneys contacted by National Journal suggested that the pileup of probes into Google could be breeding ill will among current staffers.

As Google Fiber rollouts begin, here’s what cable will watch most closely

Google knows how to make a splash in new markets. Like Search, Gmail, Maps and other innovative products from the company, Google Fiber is shaping up to be a market disruptor. This time, Google’s sights are set on the TV and Internet services industry.

Google Fiber includes so many breakthrough elements that it will serve as a learning lab not just for Google, but for its competitors in the cable industry as well. But what exactly are those competitors hoping to learn?

This is what the cable industry will be watching most closely as Google Fiber rolls out to consumers.

Business models that allow Google to increase the revenue pie
The business case for “fiberhoods”
Can Google keep payments simple?
Will the Nexus 7 tablet more deeply engage subscribers?
Where will Google take programming?
What kind of support will Google need to provide?

There’s only one truly open platform: the web

As Twitter and Facebook continue to fight a variety of skirmishes in the ongoing “platform wars,” with both companies trying to control as much of their networks as they can in order to monetize them as quickly as possible, it’s worth remembering what Sir Tim Berners-Lee did 21 years ago, when he created the first truly open internet-based platform: namely, the World Wide Web.

In an early interview about his invention, Berners-Lee confessed there was a time where he considered taking a different route and trying to profit from what he had developed, but he chose a different path. The amount of social and commercial value that has been created as a result is almost impossible to calculate. This is something that’s worth thinking about as we see the social web becoming a mainstream phenomenon, with all that implies. The choices we make when it comes to the platforms we use, and the choices those platforms make about how they choose to monetize their networks, will have far-reaching implications.

The e-book lending wars: when authors attack

[Commentary] We’ve written before about how complicated the process of lending an e-book is, and how much of this is a result of conflicting DRM locks and platforms, as well as a reluctance on the part of publishers to allow their books to be loaned. But authors can also be a roadblock when it comes to lending, and we’ve just had a classic example of how that can happen with the brouhaha over LendInk, a service that allowed readers to connect with others in order to share e-books.

The site has effectively been put out of business by a virtual lynch mob of authors claiming it breached their rights, even though what it was doing was perfectly legal. Much of the negative response to LendInk came about because of a series of misunderstandings about how the service worked, and also a lack of knowledge about how Amazon handles lending for Kindle books. But the incident also says a lot about how authors view lending of e-books to begin with — many seem to see every book loaned as a potential sale that has been lost, just as the music industry used to look down on file-sharing of music as theft. But they are just as wrong.

Attorney asks DOJ to release findings on Amazon’s “predatory” e-book pricing

Attorney and Royalty Share CEO Bob Kohn is seeking permission from U.S. District Judge Denise Cote to file an amicus brief in the Department of Justice’s proposed e-book pricing settlement with book publishers. In the brief that Kohn filed with the court, he says the DOJ’s own investigation into Amazon’s e-book pricing practices shows that the company engaged in predatory pricing. He asks the Court to demand that the DOJ turn over all documents relating to its investigation of Amazon’s e-book pricing practices. In addition, Kohn asks Judge Cote to hold a hearing on the settlement — something that the Department of Justice is opposed to — and asks permission “to participate in oral argument at any such hearing to address issues that have been raised by the Justice Department’s response to the public comments.”

FTC’s Google Fine Could Cramp Innovation. Or Not

After the federal government dealt Google a record $22.5 million fine for allegedly misrepresenting its service terms in violation of a previous privacy settlement, a free market group called the punishment a loss for citizens. Other consumer advocacy groups said the sentence was too light because the company didn’t take responsibility for its actions. And some bystanders chalked up the whole thing to a parlor game.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute described the Federal Trade Commission’s penalty as an overreaction that will chill innovation and scare startups away from the Internet. “Although Google found itself in the FTC’s crosshairs this time, the agency could have just as easily targeted any number of other Web companies for similarly minor missteps,” Ryan Radia, CEI associate director of the Center for Technology and Innovation, said in a statement, adding the settlement will benefit regulators and lawyers “at the expense of the consumers the agency is supposed to protect.”

Paul Ryan VP pick adds social media muscle

Mitt Romney didn’t just get a running mate in Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) — he inherited a robust, engaged social media apparatus that will be critical to volunteerism and conservative voter turnout.

Rep Ryan is an anomaly in the House. He’s a star politician who had more Twitter followers before the announcement than Republican House Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), and almost any other congressional figure save current House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). The tea party groups who are crucial to the GOP’s chances may be some of the most active, savvy online denizens in American politics. Romney’s social media profile is broad but not deep, meaning he has a lot of followers — almost 4 million on Facebook and more than 800,000 on Twitter — but the enthusiasm and engagement expected from such a large audience was muted.

Benton

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