November 2012

US ambassador: Russia's proposals for telecom treaty are 'shocking'

The proposals Russia submitted for a global telecommunications treaty being negotiated could allow governments to review content flowing over Internet networks and open the door for online censorship, said U.S. Ambassador Terry Kramer.

Kramer called Russia's submission of treaty language "the most shocking" out of all the proposals submitted by countries participating in the treaty conference. He said Russia's proposal aims to give governments more control over the management of the Internet and how Web traffic is routed, which he argued runs counter to the focus of the treaty conference. Kramer said Russia's proposal would let governments "review [Web] content and say that's purely a national matter," raising concerns over online censorship. He said the proposal would also disrupt the current governance structure of the Internet. Kramer the U.S. also takes issue with proposals from some African and Arab nations that would force Web companies — such as Google's YouTube or Netflix — to pay network operators to deliver their data-heavy Web content abroad.

Verizon: Free Speech at Heart of Network Neutrality Case

Verizon’s court challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules has sparked a battle between two views of the First Amendment.

As part of its lawsuit over the rules, which govern how Internet companies can restrict or block content on their networks, Verizon says that the regulations infringe on its First Amendment rights. “Just as a newspaper is entitled to decide which content to publish and where, broadband providers may feature some content over others,” Verizon and MetroPCS attorneys argued in a joint brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. But that assertion was disputed at a Capitol Hill briefing organized by top Democrats on the House Commerce Committee. Calling Verizon’s argument “troubling,” House Commerce ranking member Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Doris Matsui (D-CA), and Mike Doyle (D-PA) organized the meeting to brief staffers on the “startling constitutional arguments being made in the D.C. Circuit and how the role of Congress in enacting communications policy could be radically undermined.”

“This idea that the Internet can be closed, or blocked, or managed by private parties is the exact opposite of America’s foreign policy,” said former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt, pointing to the Obama administration's Internet freedom advocacy. “The Internet is a common medium.” Hundt dismissed Verizon’s view that it is somehow similar to a newspaper. “Verizon is like paper, not a newspaper,” he said.

Leveson’s stick and carrot for wary press

The final words of Lord Justice Leveson’s summary of his proposals for reforming and regulating an “outrageous” press that has lost sight of the responsibilities that go with its rights and freedoms are an appeal to the public and to politicians. Lord Justice Leveson tells the public that he has done what “I believe is fair and right for everyone.” He tells politicians that he expects them to treat his recommendations to provide the press with its first truly effective self-regulatory body in the same cross-party spirit that arose from the outrage over the phone hacking scandal in July 2011.

He says: “This is not, and cannot be characterized as, statutory regulation of the press.” That the judge felt the need to do this shows how hard his task has been, in the face of powerful lobbying by newspaper groups talking up a potential threat to press freedom. His recommendations for an “independent, self-regulating body” ought to – on the face of it – put those fears to rest because he stresses that independence of the government and politicians is as important as independence from newspaper owners. However, in order to ensure both that media organizations want to join the body, and that rich individuals will choose to use it rather than the courts to settle disputes, he has had to suggest an “underpinning” with law that many opponents will focus on. He says legislation will also create a duty on governments to uphold the freedom of the press, which seems an odd construction in a democracy, and unlikely to persuade those who see a slippery slope to an over interventionist state.

PM fails to back Leveson on UK press law

An enquiry into the culture and ethics of the British press called for sweeping new regulation backed by legal statute reigniting a visceral battle between proponents of free speech and defenders of the individual right to privacy. Concluding a nine-month investigation sparked by a scandal over the hacking of thousands of mobile phones by journalists, Lord Justice Leveson said the government should legislate to enshrine, for the first time, the freedom of the press in the UK. His report, which rejected an industry proposal for stronger self-regulation, excoriated the press, in particular the tabloids, and politicians for fawning on them, and divided the political establishment.

While welcoming the Leveson inquiry’s outline of a system to tighten regulation of the UK’s rumbustious press, Prime Minister David Cameron refused to back the proposal to underpin a new regulatory system with law. Speaking to the House of Commons, the prime minister said he had “serious concerns and misgivings” about the proposal.

The British Press Already Has a Regulator: The British Press

[Commentary] Lord Justice Leveson released proposals for new, voluntary regulation of the UK press. Well, sort of voluntary. Leveson: “[I]f a newspaper publisher who chose not to subscribe to the regulatory body was found to have infringed the civil law rights of a claimant, it could be considered to have shown willful disregard of standards and thereby potentially lead to a claim for exemplary damages.” So it’s voluntary in the same way that buying into your local mobster’s protection racket is voluntary.

Nice newspaper company you got there; it’d be a shame if anything bad happened to it. But as Emily Bell notes, there’s a bigger disconnect here. These are proposals for fixing the press as it existed in 1992, not in 2012 — unless perhaps Lord Leveson intends for everyone with a Twitter or Tumblr account to subscribe? Really, the whole frame of “fixing the press” ought to be discarded. It’s not broken.

For all the lip service he pays to self-regulation, Leveson’s proposal overlooks the extremely effective form of self-regulation that already exists: the gleefully aggressive reporting that British news outlets do on each other.

Senate panel votes to require warrant for police e-mail searches

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted overwhelmingly to require police to obtain a warrant before reading people's e-mails, Facebook messages and other forms of electronic communication.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the author of the bill and chairman of the committee, said he does not expect the full Senate to vote on the measure, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), until next year. He called the committee vote an important step forward and said he plans to negotiate with the House to guide the bill to passage during the next Congress. All of the committee members voted for the legislation except for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who was not present but recorded a "no" vote. The committee attached the e-mail privacy legislation to H.R. 2471, a House bill that loosens video privacy requirements. That bill, which cleared the House last year, would allow users of Facebook and other social media sites to opt in to automatically share which online videos they have watched.

Solving the Challenge of Online Captioning

By next March 30, 2013, television stations must provide captioning for the hearing impaired of any full-length newscasts that they simulcast online live or stream within 24 hours of their original broadcast. A number of vendors are working on solutions to this difficult task and say they’ll be ready by the spring deadline.

FCC Extends Comment Period for Incentive Auctions Proceeding

The Federal Communications Commission has extended the public comment period on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on the broadcast television spectrum incentive auction process. Comments are now due January 25, 2013; reply comments are now due March 12, 2013.

Now It’s a Race: ComScore Adds Up Web, Mobile and App Eyeballs for the First Time

Big news for Web publishers whose users are increasingly visiting them on their phones: They’re going to start getting credit for those eyeballs, via a new scoring system from comScore.

How much that credit is worth is an open and important question for Web publishers. Because right now most of them have to offer advertisers a very steep discount on mobile eyeballs — as much as 80 percent off of desktop rates. But addressing that problem will take some time, and at the very least this is an important first step. And for some sites and services that exist predominantly on mobile sites, the new comScore ratings are going to be a big help. Because they’ll help them justify their pitch — hey, we may not be that big on the Web, but we’re huge on phones — to advertisers.

This App Uses Cell Phone Data To Track How You’re Feeling

It turns out that the way you use your phone is a huge window into how you’re feeling--emotionally and physically. Ginger.io is using that data to help people track their moods, and help doctors track the health of their patients.

Benton

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