November 2012

Facebook’s False Faces Undermine Its Credibility

Fakery is all over the Internet. For the world’s largest social network, it is an especially acute problem, because it calls into question its basic premise. Facebook has sought to distinguish itself as a place for real identity on the Web. As the company tells its users: “Facebook is a community where people use their real identities.” It goes on to advise: “The name you use should be your real name as it would be listed on your credit card, student ID, etc.” The fakery problem on Facebook comes in many shapes. False profiles are fairly easy to create; hundreds can pop up simultaneously, sometimes with the help of robots, and often they persuade real users into friending them in a bid to spread malware. Fake Facebook friends and likes are sold on the Web like trinkets at a bazaar, directed at those who want to enhance their image. Fake coupons for meals and gadgets can appear on Facebook newsfeeds, aimed at tricking the unwitting into revealing their personal information.

Cord-Cutting: Cable's Offer You Can't Refuse

Comcast says it is more valuable for the cable operator to pursue customers who will take multiple services than "single play" customers. There’s a debate raging in the television industry in the past few years: whether the rising cost of cable TV and growing online video options are prompting people to cut the cord of pay TV.

Quarterly subscriber numbers from pay-TV operators have done little to resolve the debate: in some periods, the industry as a whole has grown slightly, and in others, there has been a marginal decline in the number of cable TV subscribers. Several pay-TV executives say that cord-cutting is still a small trend that has largely stemmed from weak economic conditions. But one little-discussed factor is cable operators' pricing policies, which can prompt people to keep TV even if they don't particularly want it. Cable operators "recognize that their most advantaged product is broadband," said Craig Moffett, analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. "They don't want to sacrifice that advantage by giving the opportunity for customers to cherry pick their best product at a low price and take the rest of your services from somebody else. In effect, they are pricing the broadband at a price that discourages you from taking broadband only."

NBCUniversal cuts about 500 employees

In a round of year-end belt tightening, NBCUniversal is cutting about 500 employees, or about 1.5% of its total workforce. The cuts are distributed throughout the media company, which boasts nearly 30,000 employees, according to a person close to the situation who asked not to be identified discussing the sensitive topic.

UK Tories back radical BBC revamp calls

Influential Conservatives in the UK have backed calls for a radical shake-up of the BBC, endorsing a split in the director-general’s role after a day of turmoil for the national broadcaster. An internal report into the corporation’s flawed Newsnight investigation, which led to former Tory treasurer Lord McAlpine being wrongly accused of child abuse, criticized the flagship program for “unacceptable failings” and not completing basic journalistic checks. The probe by Ken MacQuarrie, head of BBC Scotland, pledged that disciplinary action against senior BBC staff would begin immediately.

Text Messaging Declines in U.S. for First Time, Report Says

In countries around the world, text-message traffic has been shrinking because Internet-powered alternatives are becoming so widely used. American carriers have fought off the decline — until now. For the first time, the American wireless market saw a decline in the total number of messages sent by each customer each month, according to a report published by Chetan Sharma, an independent mobile analyst who is a consultant for wireless carriers.

In the third quarter of this year, cellphone owners sent an average of 678 texts a month, down from 696 texts a month in the previous quarter. Though that’s a small dip, the change is noteworthy because for several years, text messaging had been steadily growing in the United States. Sharma said it was too early to tell whether the decline here would continue, but he noted that Internet-based messaging services, like Facebook messaging and Apple’s iMessage, had been chomping away at SMS usage. He said the decline would become more pronounced as more people buy smartphones. A bit more than 50 percent of cellphone owners here have smartphones.

Group launches campaign to pressure Obama not to pick Berman for State

Demand Progress, a liberal advocacy group, launched a campaign urging President Barack Obama not to pick Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) as his next secretary of State because of the lawmaker's support for controversial anti-piracy legislation.

The group warned that as the nation's top diplomat, Rep Berman would undermine Internet freedom. "If we're serious about promoting global Internet freedom, it's hard to imagine a worse pick," Demand Progress wrote in a petition to the president and the Senate. Rep Berman, a 15-term lawmaker, lost his congressional seat last week in a bitter intraparty battle with Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) in California's redrawn 30th congressional District. The Hill and other publications have reported that Berman's name is now being floated to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is expected to step down sometime next year.

Google Said to Face Ultimatum From FTC in Antitrust Talks

Apparently, Google is being pressed by Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz to offer to resolve the agency’s antitrust investigation in the next few days or face a lawsuit, two people familiar with the matter said. Google has been in discussions with the agency for about two weeks and hasn’t put any remedy proposals on the table, said the people, who declined to be identified because the negotiations are private. The FTC has told Google it won’t accept a resolution short of a consent decree and is prepared to take action in the next week or two, one of the people said.

Gotta get a gig: KC startups are buying homes to get Google Fiber

Businesses across Kansas City (KS) cheered when Google chose their municipality for its new fiber-to-the-home deployment. Access to a gigabit fiber connection is something most businesses could use — even if they couldn’t use an entire gigabit just yet. But once Google started its roll-out of fiber in both Kansas City (KS) and Kansas City (MO), the business executives and startups were disappointed.

Google Fiber was heading to residential users first. Google didn’t really explain its decision, but plenty of business people in Kansas City expressed confusion or complained about the decision in private, while lauding Google publicly. After all a $70, fiber-to-the-home connection for residents was still going to be great for the city. But the startup community wasn’t willing to settle — and since most of them worked from their homes, coffee shops or communal space anyhow, it wasn’t a big leap to decide to find a house in an area slated for fiber and move in.

Government Should Encourage 4G Network Build-Outs

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission is spending $300 million to improve access to wireless data networks around the country, but it's not enough, according to a recent GeekWire editorial by Tom Gurr, executive director of Pacific Technology Alliance. To create the wireless coverage needed, billions of dollars in additional investment is still needed. According to Gurr, Internet access creates jobs, and wireless access is a more cost-effective solution than laying fiber optic cable for a large land mass like the U.S. “Given how much is left to do to expand access to high-speed wireless connections, even after the FCC Mobility Fund announcement, the government can supplement its actions by ensuring public policy and regulations encourage private sector investment in the build-out of robust communications infrastructure,” he wrote.

Former Feds Take Vital Cyber Skills to Foreign Companies

As a major Chinese telecommunications company suspected of espionage hires former US government officials, critics are raising concerns about the adequacy of government post-employment restrictions, as well as the risk of national security threats.

Huawei, based in Shenzhen, China, has been methodically snapping up former senior federal officials, lobbyists and congressional staffers. Company officials say they are attempting to attract more US business, partly by recruiting well-respected Westerners with government and security backgrounds. The employment of more Americans at foreign firms can benefit the United States by fostering worldwide security standards and boosting stateside investments. But the unknown variable is to what degree Huawei, a multinational tech company founded by a former People’s Liberation Army member, acts on behalf of the Chinese military. A congressional investigation indicated the company might be inserting backdoors into products that can remotely siphon data or sabotage computers. The firm, which is branching out worldwide, disputes claims that it is under control of an authoritarian government or tampers with clients’ technology.

Benton

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