September 2013

Facebook Privacy Change Is Subject of FTC Inquiry

Facebook, which has repeatedly tripped over its own feet when changing its privacy practices, has stumbled yet again.

The Federal Trade Commission said that it had begun an inquiry into whether the social network’s proposed new privacy policies, unveiled two weeks ago, violated a 2011 agreement with regulators. Under that agreement, the social network is required to get the explicit consent of its users before exposing their private information to new audiences. Facebook’s new policies make clear that users are required to grant the company wide permission to use their personal information in advertising as a condition of using the service. Facebook says the language was in part required by a federal court. In August, a judge approved some of the wording as part of a settlement in a class-action suit brought by users upset at seeing their names and photos used to endorse products in Facebook ads sent to their friends.

Record Labels Sue Sirius XM Over the Use of Older Music

Feb. 15, 1972 is when federal copyright protection began to apply to recordings. But a recent string of lawsuits argue that licensing issues tied to that date may be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to singers and record labels. If the suits are successful, they could also bring a headache of liability to satellite and Internet radio services.

The three largest record companies — Sony, Universal and Warner, along with ABKCO, an independent that controls many of the Rolling Stones’ early music rights — sued Sirius XM Radio in a California court, saying that the satellite service used recordings from before 1972 without permission. Even though federal copyright protection does not apply to these recordings, the suits say that they are still covered by state law. The suit is the third major complaint filed against Sirius XM in five weeks. The band the Turtles — whose song “Happy Together” was a No. 1 hit in 1967 — and the royalty agency SoundExchange filed similar suits last month, each seeking as much as $100 million in damages. The suit filed on Sept 11, in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages and a declaratory judgment about the rights involved in pre-1972 recordings.

Apple-Google Lawsuit Show Signs of Life

Apple could get another opportunity in court to press claims that Google's Motorola Mobility unlawfully copied iPhone patents. A US appeals court suggested that an influential Chicago-based federal judge went too far last year in throwing out Apple's lawsuit.

The judge, Richard Posner, made waves in June of last year when he tossed a dispute between the companies out of court. Appearing before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Apple lawyer E. Joshua Rosenkranz argued that the iPhone maker had stronger patent claims than Motorola. The panel appeared receptive to notable parts of his case. Chief Judge Randall Rader suggested that Judge Posner made "significant" errors in interpreting at least one of Apple's patents and in concluding that its patents involved minor phone features that competitors could easily design around. All three judges appeared to question whether Judge Posner was too quick to throw out Apple's damages claims. It was less clear, however, whether the court believed Apple should get another chance to seek an injunction barring the sale of certain Motorola devices.

Time Warner Cable Says It Lost Customers in Blackout

Time Warner Cable Chief Operating Officer Rob Marcus said the cable operator lost customers as a result of the recent month-long blackout of CBS’s programming on its systems in some major markets.

Marcus said the blackout, which ended Sept. 2, suppressed sign-ups of new customers and "increased disconnects of existing customers." He declined to provide a specific figure on the customer losses. He said the cable operator incurred costs during the dispute as it added replacement programming and gave out freebies to customers such as antennae to pick up over-the-air broadcasts and gift cards. "While those are short-term hits that are not insignificant, we felt that it was justified based on the goal of achieving longer-term objectives," Marcus said. "We ended up in a much better" place, he said.

Verizon Sells a Record $49 Billion Worth of Bonds

Verizon’s $49 billion bond offering sparked a frenzy across Wall Street as investors clamored to buy a piece of the largest corporate debt sale in history. Lured by what many saw as a bargain price, buyers placed orders for about $100 billion of the new bonds, and trading in the market afterward was frenetic. Verizon bonds were the most-traded for the day, with billions of dollars' worth changing hands.

Zuckerberg says US 'blew it' on NSA spying

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lashed out at the US government, saying that authorities have hurt Silicon Valley companies by doing a poor job of explaining the online spying efforts of US intelligence agencies.

"Frankly I think the government blew it," Zuckerberg complained during an onstage interview at the tech industry conference known as Disrupt, a weeklong event where Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and other prominent tech executives also spoke out publicly and expressed frustration in person, for the first time, since a series of news leaks revealed the government's controversial surveillance programs. "It's our government's job to protect all of us and also protect our freedoms and protect the economy, and companies," said Zuckerberg, "and I think they did a bad job of balancing those things." He went on to say: "They blew it on communicating the balance of what they were going for."

New iPhones could change commerce

Apple's iPhone event was largely devoid of surprises, but the company's new phones have several features that could significantly alter the way people shop online and in the physical world. But not quite yet.

The most widely noted feature of the new phone was its fingerprint scanner. For now the utility of the scanner is limited. It can allow users to bypass the use of a password when they want to unlock their phones or buy things from iTunes. This is kind of neat, and could prove to be a modest benefit for Apple in the corporate market, where users often have to enter long passwords to unlock their phones. For now, though, its most important distinction is that it's a feature that Samsung phones don't have (yet).

Senate to hold hearing on FCC, FTC picks

The Senate Commerce Committee is beginning to move on two of President Barack Obama's nominees to regulatory commissions that oversee the technology industry. The committee will hold a hearing Sept 18 on the nominees to the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission. Michael O'Rielly, a staffer to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), would fill the second Republican spot on the FCC. Terrell McSweeny, a Justice Department official and former aide to Vice President Biden, would be the third Democratic FTC commissioner. The hearing will be the first public opportunity to hear the nominees' views on the hot-button issues before the agencies.

Conservative poll: Internet tax bill unpopular

A poll conducted for a pair of conservative groups finds most voters opposed to federal Internet sales tax legislation and suggests that lawmakers who vote for it could face attacks in the midterm elections.

The results of July surveys for the National Taxpayers Union and R Street show that 57 percent of “likely” voters oppose changing the system for how states collect sales taxes from Internet purchases. One-third support it. Mercury, the public affairs firm that conducted the poll for the groups that oppose the Marketplace Fairness Act, found that majorities of suburban voters, women and independents oppose the measure. In a separate poll specifically of Republican voters, 66 percent opposed changing the system.

Why Broadcast TV Lost Its Edge After ‘NYPD Blue’

When “NYPD Blue” made its debut 20 years ago, some of the predictions were nothing short of apocalyptic. The New York Times wondered whether the boundary-pushing police drama would put network standards-and-practices execs out of business under the headline, “What’s a network TV censor to do?” Flash forward, however, and producers Steven Bochco and David Milch’s creation didn’t revolutionize television — at least, not in the way many foresaw.

And while the program’s history and success over 12 seasons merit analysis and even celebration, the real revelation is that two decades later, the groundbreaking series remains an outlier for broadcast TV — where almost nothing, even now, is bluer than “Blue.” That’s not to say “NYPD Blue” didn’t contribute to changes in television. It did, from perceptions regarding audience tastes to the way in which advocacy groups orchestrated lobbying campaigns targeting sponsors and stations. In many ways, though, the crystal ball pertaining to the show proved fuzzier than the carefully framed images of cast members grappling. And if the series was conceived, as Bochco recalls, to provide a broadcast response to the greater creative latitude available on cable, then just like efforts to prevent more explicit fare from becoming widely accepted, its impact didn’t play out in the way many envisioned.

Benton

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