If fewer campaign e-mails have been appearing in your inbox, you might be able to thank the new tabs and filtering system rolled out in Gmail. But the people sending out those emails aren’t thanking anyone. They’re scrambling to adjust.
Artist Mishka Henner was trawling Google Earth when his cursor passed over a strange sight. A pixelated, mosaic-like pattern cut clear across his screen, disrupting the lush country landscapes that had been unfolding before him. Further inspection and a few Google searches revealed what these bizarre landforms were: censored government sites.
The FCC seeks to refresh the record on cramming, the unlawful and fraudulent practice of placing unauthorized charges on telephone bills. As explained below, in light of developments and additional evidence related to cramming for both wireline and Commercial Mobile Radio Service (CMRS) consumers, the Bureau seeks to update the record in response to the Commission’s April 2012 Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
The Federal Communications Commission initiated a proceeding seeking comment on requiring:
In order to maintain a stable environment during the pendency of the rulemaking, the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau and the Office of Engineering and Technology are instituting a “freeze” on facilities applications and equipment certifications as follows:
Apple has long maintained that the proposed remedies in the U.S. Department of Justice’s e-book price-fixing case against it are heavy-handed, lambasting them as “wildly out of proportion to any adjudicated wrongdoing or potential harm.” And the DOJ’s recent revision of those remedies hasn’t much changed that position.
In a court filing, Apple berated the Department of Justice once again, calling its revised proposed remedies a “broadside masquerading as a brief” and a “transparent attempt to attack the credibility of Apple and its counsel, and obtain an injunction wildly out of proportion to the issues and evidence in the case.” And it asked the presiding court to order the DOJ to withdraw it and submit a new one that hews to issues it claims were actually adjudicated in court. According to Apple, the DOJ’s brief is predicated on arguments it ultimately abandoned at trial, and materials that never made it into evidence. And it is the company’s view that it is biased in favor of Amazon.
ABI research predicts that strong initial sales of Chromecast, the $35 Google device, will help push “over-the-top” (OTT) set-tops and dongles past 18 million units in 2013.
The initial stock of Chromecast devices at online sources such as Amazon sold out rapidly thanks to the low price ($35) and a promotion that included three free months of Netflix. Best Buy, meanwhile, expects to have a fresh stock in the “coming weeks” alongside a fresh round of Netflix promos, as long as supplies last. Meanwhile, customers who purchased the Chromecast at Amazon after the cut won’t get their hands on the product until mid-September, or longer.
Google and the Authors Guild’s eight-year legal fight over digital books is coming to a head once again, as both sides prepare to make their final case about whether Google’s scanning of more than 20 million library books is fair use under copyright law.
In documents filed in New York federal court, Google argues at length that the scanning is “transformative,” a legal term for fair use under copyright law. Both parties are invoking the publishing practices of Amazon to support their position on fair use: Google notes that Amazon’s Book Search pages can lead to a sale for the author on Amazon, and points out that Amazon’s own “Search Inside the Book” feature displays entire pages of a book. The Authors Guild, meanwhile, claims that Google Book Search pulls away customers who would otherwise buy books on Amazon.
Amazon has introduced a new way for app developers to make money: The Amazon Mobile Associates API for Android, which lets them sell both physical and digital products from Amazon’s catalog within their apps, earning up to six percent in referral fees. The Mobile Associates API is an extension of Amazon’s web-based Associates program, which lets blog owners and others earn referral fees for linking to Amazon products.
ATIS, a telecom industry association representing manufacturers and service providers, said it will partner with the National Exchange Carrier Association on a voluntary testing project aimed at identifying call completion issues.
The project, to be known as the Joint National Call Testing Project, is “designed to provide an opportunity for an originating service provider . . . to identify any call failures and for carriers on both ends of the call to troubleshoot shortly thereafter.” Calls not going through to rural areas has been an important issue for service providers serving those areas, who believe certain long-distance carriers or least-cost routers who handle calls for the long-distance carriers are deliberately failing to complete calls to rural areas as a means of avoiding the payment of per-minute access charges to the rural carriers serving the called parties. Those access charges tend to be higher in rural areas to help cover the costs of delivering service to those areas. When calls do not go through to rural areas, rural carriers say their customers put their businesses and even their lives at risk.
AT&T increased the speed available to U-verse customers in 40 markets to 45 Mbps downstream and 6 Mbps upstream.
Previously the highest speed for most customers was 24 Mbps. Included in the upgrade were some of the company’s largest markets, including Chicago, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, Atlanta, Detroit, New Orleans, Cleveland and Milwaukee. According to the company, the move was part of Project Velocity IP, a three-year investment plan announced last year to expand the company’s broadband infrastructure. The company also said it plans to upgrade top tier U-verse speeds to up to 100 Mbps in the future. But despite the lip service to Project Velocity IP, it’s likely that the move was driven in large part by a desire to better compete with cable companies, which have been offering speeds as high as 300 Mbps or more in some markets. It’s also worth noting that broadband often is sold as part of a multi-play bundle that also includes video and sometimes voice service – and recently the telecommunications companies have been outperforming the cable companies on the video front.
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