December 18, 2012 (Sen Daniel Inouye)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2012
Follow us on Facebook for one good story per day http://www.facebook.com/bentonfoundation
POLICYMAKERS
Daniel Inouye, Hawaii’s Quiet Voice of Conscience in Senate, Dies at 88
Leadership Changes at FTC - press release
House Commerce Committee Marks 217th Anniversary - press release [links to web]
VIOLENCE AND MEDIA
Sen Rockefeller: Violence in media, video games 'must be addressed'
TV Should Lead Push to Reduce Violence - editorial
Gun Violence Petition Continues to Break Records on We The People
Rupert Murdoch Wants Stricter Gun Laws After Newtown, But Fox News Doesn’t Get the Memo
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Capping the Nation’s Broadband Future? - research
Let's take the Internet back from the ISPs - analysis
Coming soon: Fiber for five more Google fiberhoods - press release [links to web]
Outgoing Rep Lungren hopes to remain engaged in cybersecurity efforts [links to web]
Public Private Partnership Confronts Cybersecurity [links to web]
Moving Beyond WCIT: The Necessity of the Multistakeholder Model - analysis [links to web]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Spectrum Policy Must Continue to Ensure Equality of Opportunity - editorial
Brave New Spectrum World: Proposal Would Accommodate Many More Users in a Sensitive Band - analysis
Deployable Radio Frequency Data Backbone to Match Fiber Optic Capacity - press release [links to web]
Judge Denies Apple's Request for Ban of Some Samsung Products in US
CHILDREN AND MEDIA
Digital devices engage tots, but some experts discourage use before age 2
Developers worried about new rules for phone apps [links to web]
Privacy watchdog group calls on FTC to investigate 'SpongeBob' mobile app
SpongeBob Game Removed From App Store After Complaints [links to web]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
FCC Establishes Schedule for Ex Parte Meetings Regarding Accessible Emergency Information and Apparatus Requirements for Emergency Information and Video Description [links to web]
CONTENT
87% of US magazine and newspaper publishers have an iPad app, survey says [links to web]
Nielsen and Twitter Establish Social TV Rating - press release [links to web]
Fox asks appeals court to stop Dish's ad-skipping DVR, right now [links to web]
TELECOM
Prison Phone Justice Movement Finds Champions at the FCC and in Hollywood [links to web]
HEALTH
EHRs May Turn Small Errors Into Big Ones [links to web]
ADVERTISING
US mobile advertising to triple this year fueled by Facebook, Google [links to web]
GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
Census Bureau to Offer American Community Survey Internet Response [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
A Narrow Internet Escape - editorial
As Europe Presses Google on Antitrust, US Backs Away
Microsoft Scrutinized by EU Privacy Watchdogs for Policy Changes
China tightens 'Great Firewall' internet control with new technology
Iranian computers targeted by new malicious data wiper program [links to web]
Argentina Declares Media Law Constitutional, Begins Process To Break Up Grupo Clarin
Softbank, satellite making phone for use in earthquakes [links to web]
Spectrum Costs Put KPN Recovery on Hold [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
DANIEL INOUYE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Robert McFadden]
Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), who went to Washington at the birth of his state in 1959, dominated public life in the Hawaiian islands for more than 50 years and became a quiet voice of national conscience during the Watergate scandal and the Iran-contra affair, died on in Bethesda (MD). He was 88. A hero of World War II who lost his right arm in combat in Europe, Sen Inouye served two terms in the House of Representatives early in his career and was first elected to the Senate in 1962. He was the first Japanese-American elected to both the House and the Senate. After the death of his West Virginia colleague Robert Byrd in June 2010, Sen Inouye became the Senate’s senior member, with a tenure nearing 48 years, and president pro tempore, making him third in the line of presidential succession, after the vice president and speaker of the House. Mr. Byrd’s death also made him the highest-ranking public official of Asian descent in United States history. Months later, he was elected by another overwhelming margin to his ninth consecutive six-year term
benton.org/node/141914 | New York Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top
LEADERSHIP CHANGES AT FTC
[SOURCE: Federal Trade Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz today announced that David C. Vladeck, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, is leaving the agency on December 31 to return to a faculty position at Georgetown University Law Center, and that Charles A. Harwood, who has been a Deputy Director in the Bureau for the past three years, will serve as Acting Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. Chairman Leibowitz also announced that Eileen Harrington, the agency’s Executive Director, will retire at the end of year, and that Pat Bak, who currently serves as Deputy Executive Director, will serve as Acting Executive Director. The Office of Executive Director is responsible for the administration and management of the Commission, including its human capital, information technology, financial management, administrative services, and legal document processing and records management activities.
During Vladeck’s tenure, the agency also has taken decisive action against scams on the Internet, including stopping nearly $1 billion in online marketing fraud by shutting down bogus “free trial” offer schemes. Vladeck also created the Mobile Technology Unit to coordinate the agency’s mobile enforcement actions and policy work and established an undercover Mobile Technology Lab to investigate and capture evidence. In addition, during Vladeck’s tenure, the agency developed a comprehensive framework for privacy protection and brought a number of landmark enforcement actions to protect consumer privacy, including cases against Google and Facebook.
benton.org/node/141877 | Federal Trade Commission
Recommend this Headline
back to top
VIOLENCE AND MEDIA
VIOLENCE IN THE MEDIA
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) called for tougher regulations to protect children from violent images on television, the Internet and in video games. Sen Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newton (CT) is a "wakeup call" for federal action. "While we don’t know if such images impacted the killer in Newtown, the issue of violent content is serious and must be addressed," he said. He said that by the time most children are 18 years old, they have already been bombarded by tens of thousands of violent images in the media. "As parents, research confirms what we already know — these violent images have a negative impact on our children’s well-being," he said.
benton.org/node/141913 | Hill, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top
TV SHOULD LEAD PUSH TO REDUCE VIOLENCE
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Harry Jessell]
[Commentary] Twenty-seven killed, including 20 children. As President Barack Obama said: “We have been through this too many times.” By the end of this week, National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith, National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Michael Powell and Motion Picture Association of America President Christopher Dodd have to sit down to figure out what they can do to help curb the gun violence like that in Newtown (CT) that stunned the nation. They have to pledge that the TV business is going to step up and become part of what should be a national, multipronged effort to stop such killing. (Dodd, a former Connecticut senator, should also rally the movie industry to the cause.)
benton.org/node/141911 | TVNewsCheck
Recommend this Headline
back to top
GUN VIOLENCE PETITION CONTINUES TO BREAK RECORDS ON WE THE PEOPLE
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Joseph Marks]
A petition advocating stricter gun regulations that was posted to the White House’s We the People website shortly after a deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown (CT) Dec 14 had been signed over 150,000 times by the afternoon of Dec 17. That easily makes it the most popular petition ever posted to the 16-month old White House site. Several thousand new signatures were still being added to the petition each hour. The petition asks President Obama to “Immediately address the issue of gun control through the introduction of legislation in Congress.” The president pledged to use “whatever power this office holds” to prevent future mass gun violence during a memorial ceremony for Sandy Hook victims Sunday night but has yet to offer specific plans. The most popular We the People petition prior to the Sandy Hook shootings was from a Texas resident asking permission for his state to secede from the union. It has been signed by 120,000 people. Similar petitions from residents of all 50 states were posted in the days following President Obama’s November reelection.
benton.org/node/141909 | nextgov
Recommend this Headline
back to top
NEWS CORP AND GUN LAWS
[SOURCE: New York, AUTHOR: Gabriel Sherman]
At 7:58 p.m. on Saturday evening, gun control’s newest advocate took to Twitter to call for stricter firearm legislation. “Nice words from POTUS on shooting tragedy,” wrote News Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch, “but how about some bold leadership action?” Around the same time at Fox News, one of Roger Ailes’s deputies was sending a very different message. According to sources, David Clark, the executive producer in charge of Fox’s weekend coverage, gave producers instructions not to talk about gun-control policy on air. "This network is not going there,” Clark wrote one producer on Saturday night, according to a source with knowledge of the exchange. The directive created a rift inside the network. According to a source, one political panelist e-mailed Clark that Bloomberg was booked on Meet the Press to talk about gun control. Clark responded, “We haven't buried the children yet, we're not discussing it.” During the weekend, one frustrated producer went around Clark to lobby Michael Clemente, Fox’s executive vice-president for news editorial, but Clemente upheld the mandate. “We were expressly forbidden from discussing gun control,” the source said. Clark's edict wasn't universal: On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace talked with Democratic Senators Joe Lieberman and Dick Durbin about gun control, and later in the program, panelists Bill Kristol and Fortune editor Nina Easton weighed in on the issue. Certainly Fox’s decision to avoid widespread policy talk could be seen as an editorial impulse to keep the focus trained on the tragedy’s human dimension. But Fox’s coverage also highlights the growing chasm between Rupert Murdoch and Ailes.
benton.org/node/141908 | New York
Recommend this Headline
back to top
INTERNET/BROADBAND
CAPPING THE NATION’S FUTURE
[SOURCE: New America Foundation, AUTHOR: Hibah Hussain, Danielle Kehl, Benjamin Lennett, Patrick Lucey]
A growing number of Americans are being forced to cap the amount of data they use, both on their cell phones and even at home, or face expensive overage charges. A new report from the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute [OTI] found these increasingly costly and restrictive data caps are serving little purpose other than to raise the already high profit margins of broadband providers. Internet service providers argue data caps are necessary to manage growing traffic and maintain quality of service on their networks. But the report, “Capping the Nation’s Broadband Future?” explains the monthly caps rarely serve that purpose — instead, they are the product of an uncompetitive broadband marketplace where providers use data restrictions to increase revenues and protect legacy services such as cable television from online competition. More services are moving online and into mobile applications, but the report warns that Americans who are worried about their data usage may be hesitant to use them. Broadband data caps affect not only activities such as streaming TV shows or making video calls, but also limit the use of an increasing number of online education courses for both adults and children.
benton.org/node/141907 | New America Foundation
Recommend this Headline
back to top
TAKE INTERNET BACK FROM ISPs
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Paul Venezia]
Try to imagine the United States today without interstate highways. With no way to get from one state to the next without driving local roads, interstate commerce would be slow, aggravating, and problematic, as it would be unfeasible to ship parts and equipment around the country quickly and easily. It would be a far cry from the United States of today, and I shudder to think of how it would work if we had regional monopolies building and controlling those roads. Perhaps we should start to think about the future, much as Eisenhower did, and determine that a ubiquitous, extremely high-speed Internet is an absolute requirement to continue our economic and scientific growth. Based on recent history, we should determine that an interstate Internet system has to be funded by the taxpayers and built by private contractors. Admit it: Bringing gigabit fiber to every doorstep would be far cheaper than a decade, or even a year of war -- and vastly more rewarding.
benton.org/node/141905 | InfoWorld
Recommend this Headline
back to top
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
SPECTRUM POLICY AND EQUALITY
[SOURCE: Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, AUTHOR: David Honig]
[Commentary] It is important to remember how critical mobile wireless services are to providing health, educational and economic opportunities to people of color. Thanks to its affordability, wireless is the first technology in history for which people of color are the lead adopters. It is a pathway to what the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC) calls “first class digital citizenship.” But that pathway will disappear if the spectrum shortage forces wireless providers to use price to mediate demand that exceeds supply. To facilitate continued mobile wireless innovation and deployment of high speed broadband service to minorities, Congress should require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move rapidly to establish an incentive auction process that will facilitate the voluntary transfer of licensed broadcast spectrum to consumer broadband services. Broadband companies that win more licensed spectrum at auction will have the incentive to commit to new investment to build out the high-speed next-generation mobile broadband networks that consumers want and need. This investment will ignite new waves of wireless innovation across the country and help bring digital equality and new opportunities to more consumers, wherever they are. For the benefit of minority communities nationwide, Congress should also urge the FCC to accelerate its review and authorization of pending secondary market transactions involving spectrum between broadband service providers. Not only will this serve minority mobile consumers by rapidly putting spectrum to its highest and best use, it will enable broadband companies to deploy and/or expand mobile broadband services to consumers using what is presently underutilized spectrum.
benton.org/node/141868 | Minority Media and Telecommunications Council
Recommend this Headline
back to top
BRAVE NEW SPECTRUM WORLD
[SOURCE: CommLawBlog, AUTHOR: Mitchell Lazarus]
The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a set of rules that look innocuous enough, and would apply only to a single, underused band. But they may herald a new way of managing spectrum – a suite of techniques having the potential to vastly increase the number of users that can share a given range of frequencies. All of the radio spectrum is occupied – at least, all of the most useful parts, below about 60 gigahertz. But the demand for spectrum continues to increase. What the FCC needs most is a way to squeeze new users into spectrum that is already in use, without causing interference to either the incumbents or the newcomers. Current spectrum management relies on “allocating” each band of frequencies to (usually) several categories of users. Those categories, in turn, come in three different priorities. Those designated as “secondary” may not cause harmful interference to, and must accept all interference from, those called “primary.” Unlicensed users, permitted in most bands, must protect all other users (except each other) from interference, and must accept all interference that comes their way. A few bands, like that used for GPS reception, have only one active user category; a few have as many as seven or eight. Three to five is about typical. Yet even supposedly occupied spectrum is quiet in most places, for much of the time. Some services, like those using two-way radios, occupy their frequencies only sporadically; others, like some types of satellite earth stations, operate only at wide separated locations. All such users, however, vigorously resist letting others into their bands. A police officer at the scene of an accident, picking up his microphone to request an ambulance, hopes to find an empty channel to make the call. The satellite operator may want the option of installing earth stations at new locations, without interference from other kinds of transmitters nearby. As we explain below, the FCC thinks it can fully protect all such users while still letting new entrants share the same frequencies.
benton.org/node/141866 | CommLawBlog
Recommend this Headline
back to top
JUDGE DENIES APPLE, SAMSUNG REQUESTS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Yun-Hee Kim]
Judge Lucy Koh denied Apple's request to seek a ban on the sale of some Samsung Electronics products in the US market. "The fact that Apple may have lost customers and downstream sales to Samsung is not enough to justify an injunction," she ruled in a court filing. "Apple must have lost these sales because Samsung infringed Apple's patents. Apple has simply not been able to make this showing." The judge also denied Samsung's request to seek a new trial citing alleged juror misconduct.
benton.org/node/141929 | Wall Street Journal | FT | LATimes | AP | Bloomberg
Recommend this Headline
back to top
CHILDREN AND MEDIA
DIGITAL DEVICES AND THE YOUNG
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Rachel Saslow]
If there’s one toy guaranteed to captivate toddlers this holiday season, it’s the iPad. What’s more appealing to a tot than blinking lights, fun sounds and touch screens that allow them to move things with the swipe of a tiny, sticky finger? A 2011 survey of parents by Common Sense Media, an organization that provides media education for families, found that 39 percent of 2-to-4-year-olds have used digital media such as smartphones and iPads. James Steyer, chief executive and founder of the group, is confident that number has risen in the past year. To make things easier on parents, kids and the iPad itself, Fisher-Price has a line of iPad and iPod protectors. But Steyer has stern advice for adults considering buying toddlers their very own iPads this Christmas: “No. Ridiculous idea.” Among parents and experts, the idea of giving a toddler an iPad is a fraught subject. There are some obvious drawbacks. For one thing, they’re expensive — as much as $829 for the most recent version. They’re also fragile. But the science on how the iPad affects young children isn’t yet clear, and while some experts see them as developmentally inappropriate, others see some benefits to the technology — and not just in keeping a parent’s sanity (if not guilt) in check.
benton.org/node/141902 | Washington Post
Recommend this Headline
back to top
SPONGEBOB APP
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate a "SpongeBob SquarePants"-themed mobile app game by Nickelodeon and mobile game developer PlayFirst, claiming that it violates online child privacy rules. In its complaint, the privacy watchdog group says the "SpongeBob Diner Dash" game asks kids to submit some of their personal information, including their full name and e-mail address, without obtaining parental consent or providing a notice to parents first. CDD charges that this information collection violates the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), even though the app claims that it complies with the privacy law. CDD says the app also doesn't provide a description of the personal information it collects, or how it uses that information.
benton.org/node/141881 | Hill, The | AdWeek
Recommend this Headline
back to top
STORIES FROM ABROAD
A NARROW INTERNET ESCAPE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The good news is that last week the U.S. walked out of a United Nations confab in Dubai to regulate the Internet. The not-so-good news is that the movement by unsavory governments to control the Web now has an official U.N. imprimatur, which can only lead to trouble. The Administration's mistake was in playing along with the ITU in the first place. This White House and State Department have an undying faith in multilateral diplomacy, even when the rest of the world wants to use it to harm U.S. interests. Autocrats rightly see the open Web as a threat to their political control, which is precisely why it is in the U.S. interest to keep the U.N.'s hands off. Given the ITU's Dubai double-cross, the U.S. has good cause to quit the agency. If that's too much, then perhaps the next Secretary of State will make it a theme of his tenure to preach the virtues of an unregulated Internet.
benton.org/node/141930 | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top
EUROPE PRESSES GOOGLE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: James Kanter, Steve Lohr]
Google seems on its way to coming through a major antitrust investigation in the United States essentially unscathed. But the outlook is not as bright for Google in Europe, as the European Union’s top antitrust regulator prepares to meet with Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission appears to be ready to back off what had been the centerpiece of its antitrust pursuit of Google: the complaint that the company’s dominant search engine favors the company’s commerce and other services in search queries, thwarting competition. Yet in a statement last spring, Joaquín Almunia, the competition commissioner of the European Union, placed the contentions about search bias at the top of his list of concerns about Google. And in a private meeting this month, Almunia told Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the FTC, that European antitrust officials remain focused on that issue, according to two people told of the meeting, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak about it. Almunia’s tougher bargaining stance, antitrust experts say, is not merely a personal preference. European antitrust doctrine, they say, applies a somewhat different standard than United States law does. In America, dominant companies are given great leeway, if their conduct can be justified in the name of efficiency, thus consumer benefit. Google has consistently maintained that it offers a neutral, best-for-the-customer result. In Europe, antitrust experts say, the law prohibits the “abuse of a dominant position,” with the victims of the supposed abuse often being competitors. “The Europeans tend to use competition law to level the playing field more than is the case in the United States,” said Herbert Hovenkamp, an antitrust expert and law professor at the University of Iowa.
benton.org/node/141925 | New York Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top
MICROSOFT FACES EU SCRUTINY
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Stephanie Bodoni]
Microsoft’s policy changes for its Internet products including Hotmail and Bing are being formally examined by European data protection regulators for potential privacy issues. Updates to Microsoft’s services agreement, which took effect Oct. 19, are being formally reviewed, EU privacy regulators wrote to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer and the head of Microsoft Luxembourg. Luxembourg’s and France’s data protection commissions are leading the examination, according to the Dec. 17 letter. “Given the wide range of services you offer, and popularity of these services, changes in your Services Agreement and the linked Privacy Policy may affect many individuals in most or all of the EU member states,” wrote Jacob Kohnstamm, who leads the association of EU data protection commissioners. They “decided to check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of these individuals in a coordinated procedure.” The review will verify whether the changes could entail new risks for users’ privacy. The examination is also checking whether Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft’s privacy policy meets European standards on notifying users and allowing them a choice of services, Gerard Lommel, head of the Luxembourg privacy regulator, said in an interview in October.
benton.org/node/141923 | Bloomberg
Recommend this Headline
back to top
CHINA TIGHTENS ‘GREAT FIREWALL’
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Charles Arthur]
China appears to be tightening its control of internet services that are able to burrow secretly through what is known as the "Great Firewall", which prevents citizens there from reading some overseas content. Both companies and individuals are being hit by the new technology deployed by the Chinese government to control what people read inside the country. A number of companies providing "virtual private network" (VPN) services to users in China say the new system is able to "learn, discover and block" the encrypted communications methods used by a number of different VPN systems. China Unicom, one of the biggest telecoms providers in the country, is now killing connections where a VPN is detected, according to one company with a number of users in China. VPNs encrypt internet communications between two points so that even if the data being passed is tapped, it cannot be read. A VPN connection from inside China to outside it also mean that the user's internet connection effectively starts outside the "Great Firewall" – in theory giving access to the vast range of information and sites that the Chinese government blocks. That includes many western newspaper sites as well as resources such as Twitter, Facebook and Google.
benton.org/node/141858 | Guardian, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top
ARGENTINA DECLARES MEDIA LAW CONSTITUTIONAL
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Almudena Calatrava]
Argentina's government told the country's largest media conglomerate that it has begun a process to break up the company and auction off its media licenses. Grupo Clarin has battled with President Cristina Fernandez for years. Fernandez argues that it is a corporate monopoly and has funded a network of pro-government newspapers and stations to challenge Clarin's dominance. Grupo Clarin has called Fernandez's bid to break it up an illegal attempt to silence one of the government's leading critics and to stifle press freedom. Martin Sabbatella, the head of the government media regulation body, said that the government will make the conglomerate and other companies comply with the law, which bars any company from owning too many different media properties.
benton.org/node/141890 | Associated Press
Recommend this Headline
back to top