January 2013

State of the Internet: The broadband future is faster, but still unevenly distributed

The latest data from Akamai shows that the number of broadband connections over 10 Mbps -- what Akamai dubs “high broadband” -- has grown by 73 percent from the third quarter of 2011 to the third quarter of 2012.

The country has also see a 20 percent overall increase in average speed to 7.2 Mbps over the past year, but the number of people who have adopted broadband (measured at anything above 4 Mbps) was 62 percent, which puts the U.S. at No. 12 in the worldwide rankings when it comes to adoption and No. 9 when it comes to average speeds. The rest of the world is faring well, too, in terms of boosting speeds. The fastest countries in the world when measured by average speeds are South Korea and Japan. And as you can see from the chart below, South Korea has managed to get over half of its population buying speeds of 10 Mbps or more. The U.S. is more in line with the global average, but has seen a significant boost in high broadband adoption. What the latest version of the Akamai report shows is how much difference there can be in broadband quality even within countries.

Keeping the Internet Safe From Governments

Even before the World Conference on International Telecommunications took place last month in Dubai, Internet activists anticipated trouble. So did Congress, which issued a resolution calling it “essential” that the Internet remain “stable, secure and free from governmental control.” The worries proved prescient.

The conference, which supposedly was going to modernize some ancient regulations, instead offered a treaty that in the eyes of some critics would have given repressive states permission to crack down on dissent. The United States delegate refused to sign it. Fifty-four other countries, including Canada, Peru, Japan and most of Western Europe, voted no as well. The OpenNet Initiative estimates that about a third of Internet users live in countries that engage in “substantive” or “pervasive” blocking of Internet content. They tended to be among the 89 countries that signed the treaty, including Russia, Cambodia, Iran, China, Cuba, Egypt and Angola. Those in favor of a free and open Internet have long had a problem with the International Telecommunication Union, the affiliate of the United Nations that ran the conference. They see the I.T.U., which dates back to 1865, as longing for the pre-Internet era, when its influence and fortunes were greater. As a result, activists think, the I.T.U. has become aligned with, and a tool of, countries that desire more governmental control over public speech. In the wake of the Dubai meeting, there are renewed calls to scale back United States financing of the I.T.U. drastically. The logic is, why are taxpayers supporting an organization whose motives they oppose?

Chairman Walden: FCC Title II Move Would Disrupt Relationship With Congress

If the Federal Communications Commission were to try to classify Internet access service under title II common carrier regulations, it would be a "major disruption in the relationship between Congress and the FCC," House Communications Subcommittee Greg Walden (R-OR) warned.

"I hope they would not proceed down that path." Speaking to reporters at a press conference, Chairman Walden was responding to a question about what the FCC would do if a federal court overturned the FCC's current open Internet rules. While the FCC did not pursue Title II classification in that compromise order, the docket remains open and Walden, along with a number of other Republicans and industry execs, believe that is so it remains an option if the court rules in favor of Verizon's challenge to the rules. He said for the FCC to classify the Internet as a common carrier would open the door for states to do the same thing. Chairman Walden said no bill to give the FCC power to regulate the Internet would come out "on his watch."

Joint hearing planned on international Internet regulation

Two House subcommittees will hold a joint hearing next month to examine international efforts to regulate the Internet. Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman of the House subcommittee on Communications and Technology, told reporters that his panel will hold the hearing on Feb. 5 with the House Foreign Affairs Committee's subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade. Chairman Walden said he is "very concerned" about the outcome of the International Telecommunications Union conference in Dubai last month. He said the hearing will examine "what the American policy should be going forward to make sure the Internet is free from legacy regulation and from countries that have a different view about democracy and freedom."

Transparency Report: What it takes for governments to access personal information

Google released new data for the Transparency Report, showing that the steady increase in government requests for our users’ data continued in the second half of 2012, as usage of our services continued to grow. We’ve shared figures like this since 2010 because it’s important for people to understand how government actions affect them. We’re always looking for ways to make the report even more informative. So for the first time we’re now including a breakdown of the kinds of legal process that government entities in the U.S. use when compelling communications and technology companies to hand over user data.

From July through December 2012:

68 percent of the requests Google received from government entities in the U.S. were through subpoenas. These are requests for user-identifying information, issued under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA”), and are the easiest to get because they typically don’t involve judges.
22 percent were through ECPA search warrants. These are, generally speaking, orders issued by judges under ECPA, based on a demonstration of “probable cause” to believe that certain information related to a crime is presently in the place to be searched.
The remaining 10 percent were mostly court orders issued under ECPA by judges or other processes that are difficult to categorize.

Google Vision Opposes AT&T as U.S. Looks to Sell Spectrum

US regulators preparing to auction airwaves craved by wireless providers to meet demand from data-hungry smartphones are facing a divisive choice: how much to devote instead to mobile service that can be free. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, who has pushed for broader access to high-speed Internet, backs a vision shared by Google and Microsoft of setting aside spectrum for mobile services not yet invented. He’s accused opponents of waging a “nascent war on Wi-Fi,” the aerial Internet connection found globally in coffee shops and offices. Airwaves withheld from the auction and allocated to new uses would mean fewer frequencies for established carriers. “The largest holders of spectrum have no interest in seeing new competition,” said Cathy Sloan, vice president of government relations with the Computer & Communications Industry Association.

Google removes obstacle for Netflix (and more) on Samsung Chromebooks

App developers that couldn’t enable their software to run on the latest Samsung Chromebook are now able to do so: Google added ARM architecture support to Native Client (NaCl), the solution that lets native applications run in the Chrome browser. Without this, the Samsung Chromebook, which runs on a type of chip typically used in smartphones, couldn’t run some apps that other Chromebooks could.

The New Power Class Who Will Profit From Obama's Second Term

The advent of President Obama’s second term marks a new era in American power politics.

Whereas the old left-wing definition of “who rules” focused on large corporations, banks, energy companies and agribusinesses, the Obama-era power structure represents a major transformation. This shift stems, in large part, from the movement from a predominately resource and tangible goods-based economy to an information-based one. In the past, political struggles were largely fought over how to divide up the spoils generated by the basic productive economy; labor, investors and management all shared a belief in the ethos of economic growth, manufacturing and resource extraction. In contrast, today’s new hegemons hail almost entirely from outside the material economy, and many come from outside the realm of the market system entirely.

Information wants to be free, but the world isn't ready

[Commentary] To some extent, both Jaron Lanier’s turn against ”free culture” and the insane, heavy-handed prosecution of Aaron Swartz stem from an inability to come to terms with the reality that in the digital age, it’s easy to share stuff for free with everybody, but people still want and need money.

The larger tragedy is that lots of people (not just middle class creative professions) will eventually be rendered economically superfluous. The hope is that this will result in a critical mass of folks demanding a solution. The solution, which seemed obvious to people when they discussed the coming “cybernetic revolution” in the 1970s, is to find a way to (or an excuse to) distribute wealth to those rendered economically obsolete. This notion has been rendered taboo by a decades-long reactionary campaign to instill a visceral horrified response to any claims that displaced people should be “entitled” to anything. But this is a big subject that requires another essay questioning the legitimacy of a whole series of political and economic paradigms, so I’ll have to leave it there for now. In the meantime, I’m convinced that with the slightest loosening of the economic pressure cooker — and even better, a modicum of slack — this techno-juggernaut will start to look again like the marvelous garden of intriguing possibilities that it did to some of us back in the day, when we enthused and dreamed an expansive and delightful future.

[R.U. Sirius was editor-in-chief of Mondo 2000 and a columnist for San Francisco Examiner and Artforum International]

Facebook pours $4M into lobbying efforts

Facebook spent nearly $4 million trying to influence Washington policymakers in 2012, the most the social networking company has spent on lobbying in its short history.

The company, which has come under increased scrutiny from regulators and Congress on its handling of users’ personal information, spent $1.4 million on lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2012. That's more than three times the amount Facebook spent during the same period a year ago, when the company’s lobbying spending totaled just $440,000. In total, Facebook nearly tripled the amount it spent on lobbying in all of 2012, up from $1.3 million in 2011. In the fourth quarter, Facebook lobbied lawmakers and federal agencies on a range of online privacy issues, such as protecting children's safety online and "Do Not Track" privacy policies, as well as high-skilled immigration reform, international regulation of software companies, cybersecurity and educating lawmakers on online advertising. Facebook also lobbied on issues regarding restrictions on Web access in foreign countries and protecting freedom of expression online.

Benton

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