Turkey said it had won a long-running battle to persuade the video-sharing website YouTube to operate under a Turkish web domain, giving Ankara a tighter rein over the site's content and requiring the firm to pay Turkish taxes. Turkey, which banned the popular website for more than two years in 2008, has long come under international criticism for its restrictive internet laws and over the EU-candidate's record on freedom of expression.
For Microsoft, and Amazon, and the clutch of other companies that hope to carve out a big slice of a mobile computing business currently dominated by Apple, the future depends on people like Scott Porad.
As chief technology officer of Cheezburger Network, a popular publisher of humor websites, Porad has to make the tough calls on which mobile devices merit the development of special software, or apps, that will make the company's content shine. Developing apps for the hot-selling iPhone might be a no-brainer, but that's not the case when it comes to apps for Microsoft's new Windows 8 software, or for the various versions of Google's Android mobile operating system, or for Research in Motion's BlackBerry devices.
At the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Mixx conference, Talking Points Memo publisher and editor in chief, Josh Marshall, Cheryl Contee of Jack and Jill Politics, Facebook co-founder and New Republic editor in chief Chris Hughes, and Engage DC's Patrick Ruffini talked about how the presidency will and won't be decided by the Web.
Here are a few highlights:
Internet companies are complaining that online tax proposals, outdated consumer protection laws, and child privacy protections are the top threats to Internet services. NetChoice, a coalition that includes top companies like Facebook, AOL, eBay, and Yahoo, released its list of "iAwful" laws that companies see as standing in the way of online innovation. Three of the top six threats on the list--including number one--involve proposals to levy sales taxes on online companies. Congress is considering overturning a Supreme Court case that barred state governments from collecting sales taxes from companies that didn't have a physical presence in their states. States and brick-and-mortar stores say such changes are needed to raise revenue and level the playing field, but online companies have understandably opposed such measures. The other items topping the list, however, may have consumers scratching their heads.
The Iowa Caucus was on Jan. 3, but Internet denizens are planning a second event for Oct. 6. Called the Iowa Internet Uncaucus, organizers from the Des Moines Register, social news website Reddit, and payment service website Dwolla are creating an event that will gather thousands of Iowans in person and online to discuss ideas. The Iowa Internet Uncaucus will use technology to bring more people into political discussions and some organizers said the idea could easily be repackaged and used in other states as a way to challenge traditional political discourse.
CTIA The Wireless Association and Public Knowledge
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
1:00 - 6:00 PM
http://siliconflatirons.com/events.php?id=1203
The regulatory foxtrot - slow, slow, quick, quick, slow - means that participants in the spectrum policy dance need to keep an eye both their current and future partners. Multiple cycles line up this year: it's a century since the sinking of the Titanic and the 1912 Radio Act, ten years since the FCC Spectrum Policy Task Force Report (SPTFR), and the end of a four-year Administration that saw the FCC's National Broadband Plan, a Presidential Memorandum calling for 500 MHz of spectrum to be found for wireless broadband use, and a report of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) about realizing the full potential of government-held spectrum.
It is a time when pressure on spectrum allocations keeps growing due to the drumbeat of new broadband wireless applications, a crowded dance floor with a growing diversity and density of conflicting radio operations, and a crescendo of technologies such as smarter radios and heterogeneous networks. This presents an opportunity to look back at lessons learned, and prepare for challenges of the next four and ten, if not a hundred, years.
Panel 1: The Promise and Problems of Strategic Plans: From the Spectrum Policy Task Force to the PCAST Report
A decade ago, an intensive multi-disciplinary review culminated in ground-breaking staff report that is still often quoted. Recent years have seen similarly ambitious strategic plans from the FCC and the White House: the National Broadband Plan, the President's Memo, and the PCAST report. What lessons can be learned about strategic spectrum planning from the impact and unfinished business of the SPTFR? How should these lessons be applied to the current crop of recommendations?
Panel 2: Reforming US Spectrum Management: Sharing, Reallocation and Other Options
The FCC's National Broadband Plan and the President's spectrum initiative laid out aggressive goals for spectrum reallocation to commercial mobile broadband, and the PCAST report recommended sweeping, long-term reforms of government spectrum management. Sharing has become a serious option. What are the strengths and weaknesses of these proposals; what needs to be added or taken away? What are the prospects for improving the transition from old to new ways of using spectrum for federal and non-federal users.
Panel 3: The View Ahead: Technology opportunities
Regulatory discussions are informed by technology trends, and wireless research continues to open up new policy possibilities. What are the long-term technology trends and constraints that will drive spectrum policy over the next ten years? This panel will lay out what to expect, and when, as we move to ever-denser packing of bands.
University of Colorado Law School
Boulder, CO
Friday, January 11, 2013
http://siliconflatirons.com/events.php?id=1194
With each passing year, information privacy law becomes a larger and more important subject of legal scholarship, practice, policymaking, and popular attention. The key driving force explaining this shift is the breakneck pace of technology. Consider only a few of the fields of technology growing at an explosive rate and putting new pressures on privacy: robotics, biometrics, data analytics, smart phones, environmental sensing, facial recognition, and social networks. In every one of these areas, and more, fundamental shifts in the type and amount of information we collect has put pressure on individual privacy. New business models spring up constantly that use information in new, and newly invasive, ways. Technologists are locked in arms races between those who collect information and those who try to prevent collection.
Join us in Boulder, Colorado, on Friday, January 11, 2013, as we discuss the "Technology of Privacy." This is the Fifth Annual Silicon Flatirons conference on privacy, and it connects closely with last year's event on the Economics of Privacy. Academics, policymakers, privacy advocates, and practitioners will come together to discuss the changes in the state of the art of privacy and technology, and focus on what it means for policymaking and legal practice in particular.
Panelists and keynote speakers will consider questions such as: what are the latest cutting-edge advances in the technology of privacy, and can we forecast what will come next? How much promise does the idea of "privacy by design" hold, and how can we improve on the idea? What have we learned from the debate over the Do Not Track flag, and what do the results of that development mean for future multistakeholder solutions to privacy problems? What should we make of the rise of Big Data, and how will it raise new challenges or possibilities?
Time Warner Cable, the big broadband and cable provider, is planning to start charging customers a monthly fee of $3.95 for renting a cable modem from the company. It said in notifications mailed to customers this week that the new fee would go into effect over the next two months. Internet customers who want to avoid the monthly fee can purchase a modem of their own and have Time Warner Cable activate it. The company has published a list of approved modems on its Web site. The compatible modems cost between $50 and $137.
In a media-crit face-off this morning on Fox News, Andrea Tantaros tangled with commentator Bob Beckel, who dismissed the notion that the media is cheerleading for President Obama. That whole idea, said Beckel, is based on an outdated idea that the three broadcast networks run the media. That’s when Tantaros went off:
“Where do the broadcast networks get their news? They get their news from the New York Times, from newspapers across the country, which are mostly owned by the same media conglomerate. So it’s everyone from the Buffalo News to the Chicago Tribune — all of these editorial boards are editorializing in favor of the president or not doing their job.”
The Federal Communications Commission issued a $5 million fine against NobelTel, claiming the prepaid calling card company deceived consumers. Officials said that NobelTel advertised a $2 card that offered 400 minutes of calls to Mexico — but in reality, the card was exhausted after one 10-minute call. The company imposed various charges, such as "daily" and "hang-up" fees, which were poorly disclosed, according to the FCC. The FCC's Enforcement Bureau has cracked down on deceptive marketing for calling cards in the past year, issuing $30 million in fines against six companies. In each of the cases, the FCC said the companies targeted immigrant populations, claiming they could call their families in their native countries for just a few dollars. But officials found that the cards, which are widely available in convenience stores and gas stations, often allowed for only a fraction of the advertised minutes.
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