April 2013

Intel panel hopes to avoid new cybersecurity fight with President Obama

The leaders of the House Intelligence Committee are seeking to avoid another fight with the White House on cybersecurity this year.

The House Intelligence panel will mark up the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, known as CISPA, by House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) on April 10. The two lawmakers argue the bill is desperately needed to give companies the ability to receive valuable threat intelligence from the government so they can thwart the rising number of cyberattacks against their computer systems in real time. Heading into next week’s markup, the two Intelligence committee leaders are expected to propose changes to the bill that are aimed at tamping down the concerns that civil liberties and privacy advocates have raised in recent weeks. In doing so, the two are also likely aiming to avoid another repeat of last year, when the White House issued a veto threat against CISPA a day before the bill went to the House floor for a vote.

House Democrat to push for privacy change to cyber bill

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) will propose an amendment to a controversial cybersecurity bill that aims to address one of the top concerns privacy advocates have with the cyber threat-sharing measure.

Rep Schiff plans to offer the amendment during the House Intelligence Committee's closed-door markup of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). If the amendment is adopted, companies would be required to "make reasonable efforts" to strip personally identifiable information from cyber threat data prior to sharing it with the government or other businesses. The bill's authors, Reps. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), say CISPA is aimed at removing the legal hurdles that prevent companies and government from sharing information about malicious source code and other cyber threats with one another in real time, so cyberattacks can be thwarted more quickly. But the bill has sparked fierce pushback from privacy advocates that say the bill lacks sufficient protections for people's private information and would allow this information to flow directly to the National Security Agency.

An Illegal Cellphone Search

[Commentary] There is no unlimited right to search any content on a phone. Even under what the court called the Supreme Court’s “relaxed” standard for searches in a school setting, the lawfulness of a search depends on whether it was reasonable.

Sponsors Now Pay for Online Articles, Not Just Ads

Advertisers and publishers have many names for this a form of marketing — including branded content, sponsored content and native advertising. Regardless of the name, the strategy of having advertisers sponsor or create content that looks like traditional editorial content has become increasingly common as publishers try to create more sources of revenue.

Calculating what advertisers spend on such content industrywide is difficult because of the many ways the content is defined and sold. A banner ad on one home page may be comparable in price with a similar banner ad on a different site, but a series of customized articles on one Web site and a series of social media posts on another are harder to compare. Well-known online publications like The Huffington Post, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed and Business Insider all use some form of branded content. A result is a media universe where it is increasingly difficult for readers to tell editorial content from advertising.

Cable Awaits the Final Four

On April 8, millions of college-basketball fans are expected to tune into the men's NCAA final on the CBS broadcast network, as they have done annually for more than three decades. Next year, they could be watching on a cable channel for the first time.

Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting, whose TNT, TBS and truTV cable channels already televise games from the tournament's first three rounds, is discussing a possible arrangement with CBS under which it would broadcast the later rounds in 2014, including the widely viewed Final Four semifinal contests and national championship game, people familiar with the matter say. In a joint statement, Turner and CBS said they haven't made a decision on the matter and don't have a timetable. Such a move—part of a broader shift of sports from broadcast to cable—would come two years earlier than initially planned under a 14-year, joint National Collegiate Athletic Association broadcast deal struck between the two companies three years ago. And it would provide a big boost for Time Warner as it enters a round of negotiations next year with pay-television operators that carry its channels, analysts say. The company has said it expects Turner's fee revenue from pay-TV providers to increase at a double-digit annual pace between 2013 and 2016.

Digital subscriptions boost newspaper circulation revenue in 2012

After years of devastating losses, the newspaper industry has a glimmer of good news. Circulation revenue for daily newspapers grew in 2012 for the first time in a decade as more people paid to subscribe to digital editions, according to data compiled by the Newspaper Assn. of America.

The finding is noteworthy because it demonstrates that the newspaper industry, which has been hammered in recent years as consumers and advertisers migrated to the Internet, has begun to adapt its business model to a new era. Newspapers generated $10.4 billion in circulation revenue in 2012, a 5% increase over the previous year. It was the first gain since 2003, as more consumers read newspaper content on desktops, tablets and cellphones. Otherwise, the news was not so good. The growth in digital revenue in 2012 did not make up for continued declines in newspapers' traditional — and most important — sources of revenue. The NAA study found that overall revenue for daily newspapers fell 2% last year to $38.6 billion. That compared with $39.5 billion in 2011. Advertising dollars continued to shrink, declining 6% last year. Revenue for ads in printed daily and Sunday editions tumbled 9%, with national ads and real estate ads experiencing the sharpest declines. Industrywide, advertisers spent $18.9 billion on print ads in newspapers.

Digital streaming boosts music industry

Digital streaming services such as YouTube and Spotify were the fastest-growing source of revenues for the global recorded music industry in 2012, according to a new report.

Subscription and ad-supported streaming services, which allow people to listen to songs without purchasing them individually, paid $1.2 billion in royalties and license fees last year, up from $700 million in 2011. While streaming accounted for a fraction of the $16.5 billion in total industry revenues in 2012, its rapid growth highlights a significant shift in how consumers listen to music. A report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents the global recording industry, found that streaming services accounted for 20 percent of the $5.8 billion of digital revenues earned by the music industry in 2012.

Chernin makes $500 million move for Hulu

Peter Chernin, former chief operating officer of News Corp, has made a formal $500 million bid for Hulu, the online video site owned by News Corp and Walt Disney.

A person close to the owners said they were “wholly underwhelmed” by the offer and “would anticipate that Chernin’s bid could increase significantly with certain program rights attached to the sale.” The offer represents a significant drop in value for Hulu, which attracted bids approaching $2 billion when it was auctioned last year. At the time, News Corp and Disney decided not to sell because the bids did not reflect their valuation of the site.

Reuters accused of favoring clients

A former Thomson Reuters employee has claimed he was wrongfully dismissed after telling a US federal agent that the financial news and data provider had given certain clients sensitive information ahead of its wider release.

Mark Rosenblum said in a complaint filed in a New York federal court that he was sacked weeks after he alerted the FBI that certain customers received a two-second advantage over others in the bimonthly release of the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. The survey can influence bond and equity markets on release.

Myanmar opens up new telecoms frontier

Vodafone has teamed up with China Mobile to compete against more than 20 other telecoms groups including one backed by George Soros for a mobile network license in Myanmar, one of the most sought after new markets for communications in the world.

Myanmar has begun the formal process of selecting two telecoms groups to build and improve its national mobile network. The process has attracted bids from most leading global telecoms groups as well as investors keen to tap into one of the few remaining untapped telecoms markets in the world. Myanmar is particularly attractive given a large and youthful population of about 60m and an economy growing at about 5.5 per cent annually, while mobile phone usage is below 10 percent. This is significantly lower than other emerging economies, which has made the country one of the last frontier markets for global telecoms groups chasing new mobile users. The value of telecoms licenses is not known but could be more than $1.5 billion, according to regional telecoms analysts.

Benton

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