September 2012

Dish Said to Be in Talks With Viacom About Internet TV

Dish Network is talking to networks such as Viacom’s MTV about offering their channels over the Internet, a service that could shift the economics of the pay-TV industry, five people familiar with the plan said.

In addition to Viacom, the negotiations involve the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications Inc. and Scripps Networks Interactive, owner of the Food Network and HGTV, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. The companies would offer an online product known as an over-the-top service, charging a lower price for a smaller bundle of channels viewable on a computer or tablet. Dish’s service would change the dynamics of the pay- television business, breaking up the bundles that force customers to pay for channels they don’t watch. It also gives Dish a way to avoid its biggest programming expense: sports. Walt Disney’s ESPN gets as much as $5.13 each month for every cable and satellite subscriber, compared with the industry’s average of 26 cents, according to SNL Kagan.

Privacy groups seek investigation of Facebook's retail data sharing

Two privacy groups, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy, have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Facebook's new plan to help advertisers judge the effectiveness of their ads by cross-referencing them with customers' offline retail purchases.

They claim that Facebook has failed to provide its users with proper notice as required by last year's settlement of an FTC privacy investigation. "Facebook did not attempt to notify users of its decision to disclose user information to Datalogix," the groups charge in their letter. "Neither Facebook’s Data Use Policy nor its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities adequately explains the specific types of information Facebook discloses, the manner in which the disclosure occurs, or the identities of the third parties receiving the information." Indeed, the groups note, Facebook's only disclosure of its relationship to Datalogix is buried at the bottom of the "Interacting with Ads" page on the site. "This page requires at least five actions to reach from the Facebook.com home page and simply directs users to the Datalogix privacy policy," the groups write. That, they say, does not comply with Facebook's obligation under the settlement terms to proactively disclose when and how user data will be disclosed to third parties. The groups are unimpressed with Facebook's argument that the sharing is kosher because user information is anonymized before it is shared with Datalogix. They note that the FTC itself has written that "hashing is vastly overrated as an ‘anonymization’ technique." The groups argue that the FTC needs to supervise the use of anonymization techniques to ensure they are done correctly. Finally, EPIC and CDD charge that "the method offered by Facebook and Datalogix for consumers to opt out of the data-sharing," involving the placement of an opt-out cookie, is "confusing and ineffective."

Agencies not taking Steps to Avoid Redundant IT Spending, Report finds

Federal agencies are not taking full advantage of technology spending plans that can reduce duplication in government programs, a new study finds. The Government Accountability Office report recommends agencies utilize “enterprise architecture,” which GAO defines as “a blueprint that describes how an organization operates in terms of business processes and technology, how it intends to operate in the future, and how it plans to transition to the future state.” To get the most from the blueprints, GAO said in its new report that agencies must not only create their plans but also report on the “outcomes and benefits” of using them. Of the 27 agencies that GAO audited, only five -- the International Development Agency and the Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Treasury departments -- had fully or partially reported on the results of their enterprise architectures.

Romney abandons blame-the-media strategy

Mitt Romney said that he doesn't worry about liberal bias in the mainstream media, yet another sign that the campaign is distancing itself from the blame-the-media strategy it began to court just a few weeks ago.

"I think we have a system of free press. People are able to provide their own perspective based upon their own beliefs. I think there are some people who are more in my camp, there's a lot of people who are more in his camp, and I don't worry about that," Romney said when asked by CBS News's Jan Crawford if he thought the "mainstream media" was "in the tank" for the president. "I don't think anybody in my business thinks they wouldn't like to rewrite the stories, and write the media accounts in a way that's more favorable to them," he said. "But I don't worry about that." Romney's comments came on the same day that his senior adviser Ed Gillespie told Fox & Friends the campaign had a "no whining rule" about media coverage. "We think that big choice will overcome all of this horse race political analysis you see in the media on a day-to-day basis,” Gillespie said. It was not always thus.

New Justice Department Documents Show Huge Increase in Warrantless Electronic Surveillance

Justice Department documents released by the ACLU reveal that federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring Americans’ electronic communications, and doing so without warrants, sufficient oversight, or meaningful accountability.

The documents, handed over by the government only after months of litigation, are the attorney general’s 2010 and 2011 reports on the use of “pen register” and “trap and trace” surveillance powers. The reports show a dramatic increase in the use of these surveillance tools, which are used to gather information about telephone, e-mail, and other Internet communications. The revelations underscore the importance of regulating and overseeing the government’s surveillance power.

In Changing News Landscape, Even Television is Vulnerable

The transformation of the nation’s news landscape has already taken a heavy toll on print news sources, particularly print newspapers. But there are now signs that television news – which so far has held onto its audience through the rise of the internet – also is increasingly vulnerable, as it may be losing its hold on the next generation of news consumers.

Online and digital news consumption, meanwhile, continues to increase, with many more people now getting news on cell phones, tablets or other mobile platforms. And perhaps the most dramatic change in the news environment has been the rise of social networking sites. The percentage of Americans saying they saw news or news headlines on a social networking site yesterday has doubled – from 9% to 19% – since 2010. Among adults younger than age 30, as many saw news on a social networking site the previous day (33%) as saw any television news (34%), with just 13% having read a newspaper either in print or digital form. These are among the principal findings of the Pew Research Center’s biennial news consumption survey, which has tracked patterns in news use for nearly two decades. The latest survey was conducted May 9-June 3, 2012, among 3,003 adults.

Lawmaker Pitches New FDA Office Of Mobile Health

There are already tens of thousands of mobile health applications available for download on smart phones and tablets, allowing consumers to do anything from count calories to monitor their blood sugar level and fight depression. But it can be hard to know which ones actually deliver on their health claims and provide accurate information. The Food and Drug Administration, the agency in charge of regulating mobile health apps, has evaluated a few apps so far, but it still has not made clear which apps will require approval. Some app developers have raised concerns about whether the FDA can keep up with the fast-paced innovations of Silicon Valley. But a bill set to be introduced in the House of Representatives later this month aims to smooth the agency’s evaluation process. The Healthcare Innovation and Marketplace Technologies Act (HIMTA) would establish a special Office of Mobile Health at the FDA to provide recommendations on mobile health app issues. It would also create a mobile health developer support program at the Department of Health and Human Services to help app developers make sure they are operating within privacy regulations, including the federal law HIPAA that sets privacy standards.

A New Google App Gives You Local Information — Before You Ask for It

Google has created a new mobile app that gives people facts about the places around them — unprompted, without the need to even ask for the information. The app, Field Trip, offers historical trivia about a park, an architectural factoid about a building or reviews of a nearby restaurant. Google says it’s like having a local friend with you as you make your way through a city. While the app might seem small, it reveals a lot about the big directions Google wants to go. Google, along with other companies and researchers, dreams of so-called ubiquitous computing or ambient intelligence — computers woven into the texture of life as opposed to being separate machines. Eventually, the theory goes, computers will be part of the environment, know where people are and anticipate what they want to know. The Field Trip app is a small step in that direction, and an example of what Google is capable of doing.

Apple-Google Maps Talks Crashed Over Voice-Guided Directions

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says Apple should have continued to use Google’s mapping application in iOS 6 instead of swapping it out for its poorly received home-brewed replacement, and given the sour reception Apple’s Maps app has been given, he may have been right. But multiple sources familiar with Apple’s thinking say the company felt it had no choice but to replace Google Maps with its own, because of a disagreement over a key feature: Voice-guided turn-by-turn driving directions.

Spoken turn-by-turn navigation has been a free service offered through Google’s Android mobile OS for a few years now. But it was never part of the deal that brought Google’s Maps to iOS. And sources say Apple very much wanted it to be. Requiring iPhone users to look directly at handsets for directions and manually move through each step — while Android users enjoyed native voice-guided instructions — put Apple at a clear disadvantage in the mobile space. And having chosen Google as its original mapping partner, the iPhone maker was now in a position where an archrival was calling the shots on functionality important to the iOS maps feature set.

FCC Commissioner McDowell: Broadcasters Weighted Down With Legacy Regulations

In a speech to the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, Federal Communications Commission member Robert McDowell said that so long as broadcasters are weighed down by the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership ban and other legacy 20th century regulations, investment will flow primarily to less regulated new media.

Commissioner McDowell told his audience that it was time to "largely -- if not completely -- eliminate the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership ban." While he has argued that an increasingly competitive marketplace suggests the presumption should be that the rule go away. He also pointed out that the record is still open -- the FCC has not completed studies on the impact of its rules on diversity. "It might be possible to have a presumption that the rules should go away, but if someone wants to file evidence that would harm a diversity of voices in a market, we would consider it."

Benton

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