April 2013

Networks are crazy with rage over Aereo, a startup that streams live broadcast content. But even as broadcasters are busy filing lawsuits against Aereo, they're also inking Web-streaming deals of their own.

Broadcasters are finally tapping into a potentially massive market, with more eyeballs and more ads. But they were generally afraid to do it until the Aereo threat loomed, argued Bernstein Research analyst Todd Juenger. "History suggests the networks and distributors can come out on top," Juenger wrote, joking that if it works out, broadcasters should "perhaps send a big 'thank you' note to Aereo, for providing the kick in the pants to motivate the industry into action." Juenger draws parallels between Aereo and TiVo, which set off a similar firestorm in 1999: After TV industry titans filed a barrage of unsuccessful lawsuits against TiVo, cable and satellite providers promptly launched DVR services of their own and ended up overtaking the market. So far, the Aereo story is quite similar.

Time Warner Cable chairman and CEO Glenn Britt said Google Fiber, the 1 gigabit per second fiber-optic service launched by the search giant may have some of the glow from its parent, but in the end it isn’t offering anything that the MSO hasn’t successfully competed against for decades.

“What they’re doing is not any different than an overbuilder,” Britt said. “And we’ve had overbuilders for the last several decades in the business.” Time Warner Cable chief operating officer Rob Marcus noted that Google Fiber is currently in front of about 4,000 homes in Kansas City (2,000 of which are TWC customers) and so far, defections to the service are “de minimus.” He added that TWC’s subscribers in Kansas City and Austin represent about 2.5% of TWC’s total video and high-speed Internet customers. “Despite the glow, the products are essentially the same as others are offering,” Britt said. “The speeds for the last little bit of the plant are faster, but they connect to the same old Internet where most of the servers are actually slower. Who knows what their intentions are; they have to speak for themselves. I would question the economics of this and therefore their motives, but we’ll have to see what they do.”

For the seventh time, Google released new numbers showing requests from governments to remove content from our services.

From July to December 2012, we received 2,285 government requests to remove 24,179 pieces of content—an increase from the 1,811 requests to remove 18,070 pieces of content that the company received during the first half of 2012. It has become increasingly clear that the scope of government attempts to censor content on Google services has grown. In more places than ever, Google has been asked by governments to remove political content that people post on our services. In this particular time period, Google received court orders in several countries to remove blog posts criticizing government officials or their associates.

Of particular note were three occurrences that took place in the second half of 2012:

• There was a sharp increase in requests from Brazil, where Google received 697 requests to remove content from our platforms (of which 640 were court orders—meaning we received an average of 3.5 court orders per day during this time period), up from 191 during the first half of the year. The big reason for the spike was the municipal elections, which took place last fall. Nearly half of the total requests—316 to be exact—called for the removal of 756 pieces of content related to alleged violations of the Brazilian Electoral Code, which forbids defamation and commentary that offends candidates. We’re appealing many of these cases, on the basis that the content is protected by freedom of expression under the Brazilian Constitution.
• Another place where Google saw an increase was from Russia, where a new law took effect last fall. In the first half of 2012, we received six requests, the most we had ever received in any given six-month period from Russia. But in the second half of the year, Google received 114 requests to remove content—107 of them citing this new law.
• During this period, we received inquiries from 20 countries regarding YouTube videos containing clips of the movie “Innocence of Muslims.” While the videos were within our Community Guidelines, we restricted videos from view in several countries in accordance with local law after receiving formal legal complaints. We also temporarily restricted videos from view in Egypt and Libya due to the particularly difficult circumstances there.

[Commentary] In a study of organizations around the world, KPMG found that more than one billion people have been affected by data loss incidents in the last five years.

The sectors that sustained the greatest amounts of data loss in 2012 were education, technology, and government. To fight back, organizations today are investing heavily to increase protection and control of data, and equipping employees with the necessary tools and education to safeguard information. One of the most effective solutions is for companies to hire their own hackers. These "white hat hackers" break into their own company's systems to find and fix vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. Stronger security measures can help entities that are striving to stay ahead of data loss threats, but organizations must be committed to continuous improvement and adaptation. Today's protection strategies are likely to be obsolete tomorrow.