BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
Welcome to National Lifeline Awareness Week. Cyberwarfare also on today’s agenda http://benton.org/calendar/2013-09-09/
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Obama Administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011
NSA Can Spy on Smart Phone Data
Consumers worried about NSA intrusions have little recourse
NSA spying on Americans raises Silicon Valley questions - editorial
President Obama: US will probe reported NSA spying on Brazil, Mexico [links to web]
Yahoo says US sought data on 40,332 user accounts in 2013
NSA Code Cracking Puts Google, Yahoo Security Under Fire
Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying
The case supporting the NSA's PRISM decrypting
The US government has betrayed the Internet. We need to take it back - op-ed
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Verizon-FCC Court Fight Takes On Regulating Net
Verizon Fights FCC on Web Rule
FCC Heads to Court to Defend Network Neutrality Rules
DC Court To Release Same-Day Audio of Network Neutrality Argument [links to web]
Keeping the Net neutral - editorial
Dial-up isn't dead: Why some consumers are opting for lower Internet speeds
Mediacom Expands Usage-Based Broadband Plans [links to web]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
American Tower to Acquire Global Tower in $3.3 Billion Deal
Verizon Eats Itself (And Why It Matters) - analysis
Verizon sued by shareholder over $130 billion Vodafone deal
Good news: Boom times for Carrier Wi-Fi hotspots and Wi-Fi networks
NTIA Awards More SLIGP Grants to Assist FirstNet Planning - press release [links to web]
Sprint CEO Hesse Says Verizon-Vodafone Deal Augurs More M&A [links to web]
TELEVISION/RADIO
Bold Play by CBS Fortifies Broadcasters
CBS Retransmission Win is One for all Broadcasters - editorial [links to web]
A Quest to Save AM Before It’s Lost in the Static
More TV Viewers Tune Into Digital Video [links to web]
Video on demand reaches 60% of TV homes, Nielsen finds [links to web]
How Netflix’s Bet on Originals Is Already Paying Off [links to web]
‘PBS NewsHour’ Begins Its Overhaul [links to web]
CONTENT
Judge lays down Apple’s punishment in e-books case. It’s largely in line with what the feds wanted
JOURNALISM
Washington Post Magazine struggles with advertising relationship
Newspapers may be dying, but the internet didn’t kill them — and journalism is doing just fine [links to web]
A Journalist-Agitator Facing Prison Over a Link [links to web]
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
Politicos Seek Data Clues for 2016 from Virginia Election
HEALTH
A New Step in Promoting Safety and Innovation in Healthcare IT - press release [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
Mack Tapped for Homeland Security Civil Rights Post - press release [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Google Made New Offer to Settle Antitrust Probe, EU Says
MORE ONLINE
Worries That Microsoft Is Growing Too Tricky to Manage [links to web]
Apple devices account for 4 out of 10 online ad impressions [links to web]
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
NSA RESTRICTIONS REVERSED UNDER OBAMA
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ellen Nakashima]
The Obama Administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases. In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted US communications from five years to six years — and more under special circumstances, according to documents, which include a recently released 2011 opinion by US District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. What had not been previously acknowledged is that the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban — at the government’s request — on those kinds of searches, that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used. Together the permission to search and to keep data longer expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress. The administration’s assurances rely on legalistic definitions of the term “target” that can be at odds with ordinary English usage. The enlarged authority is part of a fundamental shift in the government’s approach to surveillance: collecting first, and protecting Americans’ privacy later.
benton.org/node/158412 | Washington Post
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NSA AND CELLPHONES
[SOURCE: Spiegel, AUTHOR: ]
The National Security Agency is capable of accessing user data from smart phones from all leading manufacturers. Top secret NSA documents that SPIEGEL has seen explicitly note that the NSA can tap into such information on Apple iPhones, BlackBerry devices and Google's Android mobile operating system. The documents state that it is possible for the NSA to tap most sensitive data held on these smart phones, including contact lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information about where a user has been. The documents also indicate that the NSA has set up specific working groups to deal with each operating system, with the goal of gaining secret access to the data held on the phones. In the internal documents, experts boast about successful access to iPhone data in instances where the NSA is able to infiltrate the computer a person uses to sync their iPhone. Mini-programs, so-called "scripts," then enable additional access to at least 38 iPhone features. The documents suggest the intelligence specialists have also had similar success in hacking into BlackBerrys.
benton.org/node/158411 | Spiegel
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LITTLE CONSUMER RECOURSE
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Dan Nakaso]
Consumers worried about the National Security Agency's ability to read even encrypted electronic data have few options, according to cybersecurity and privacy experts. And some experts said the NSA's reported actions to crack the sophisticated technology that masks data traveling over the Internet may have made that information more vulnerable, possibly exposing Web users to criminal hackers. "People understandably are frustrated because they are powerless," said Susan Grant, director of consumer protection for the Consumer Federation of America. "Even if you're the kind of consumer who is concerned enough and have the time to bother to explore how to encrypt your communications so that they're confidential, the government is obviously intent on getting around any attempt to keep your information private." The revelation about the NSA's abilities to peer into people's private information has created an even bigger opportunity for foreign governments and criminals to scoop up information on untold numbers of Americans, said Trevor Timm, digital rights analyst at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Even if you trust the NSA 100 percent, they're weakening the cybersecurity system so that it's more vulnerable," he said. "When you place back doors into services or software, that back door is there for everyone. It'll make it easier for criminals to find and for foreign governments to find."
benton.org/node/158410 | San Jose Mercury News
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SILICON VALLEY QUESTIONS
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Revelations that the National Security Agency has cracked the encryption technology that protects internet users' privacy could lead to a nightmare for Silicon Valley. Valley firms need to immediately spread sunshine on their role in NSA's work and assure consumers that their legitimate privacy concerns are being addressed by private industry, if not the government. Companies need to specifically inform users how much of the NSA's success was due to the government's investment of billions on code-breaking supercomputers to get around encryption, and how much was because NSA partnered with tech companies who provided back-door access to information. Reports so far are inconclusive. Consumer trust is at stake. If it plunges, so will the strength of Internet commerce. Tech firms need to lead the way in demonstrating that legitimate terrorist threats can be investigated while still protecting Americans' privacy. They also need to be users' No. 1 advocate in preventing unnecessary and illegal intrusions into our most private information, or else consumers will no longer want that information to be online.
benton.org/node/158409 | San Jose Mercury News
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YAHOO SAYS US SOUGHT DATA ON 40,332 USER ACCOUNTS IN 2013
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Hayley Tsukayama]
Yahoo said that it has received 12,444 requests for data from the US government so far this year that covers the accounts of 40,322 users overall. In its first government transparency report, Yahoo said it rejected just 2 percent of those federal government requests. Yahoo released the report to share some data about what governments around the world have asked the firm to disclose about its users in the first half of 2013. As with other technology companies, Yahoo said that the report includes statistics for requests made through national security letters and those made under the Foreign Intelligence Service Act, in addition to other requests from law enforcement. The company also broke down how many of those requests yielded data — 37 percent disclosed the content of Yahoo accounts, such as words in e-mails, photos or uploaded files. In about 55 percent of the requests made, the company disclosed information about its users that did not involve content but gave information such as names, location data and e-mail addresses. In six percent of cases, the requests yielded no data because, for example, “the account didn’t exist or there was no data for the date range specified by the request,” Yahoo said. Yahoo and other technology firms are working to get permission to release the exact numbers of these types of requests.
benton.org/node/158395 | Washington Post | Los Angeles Times | The Hill | GigaOm
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NSA CODE CRACKING PUTS GOOGLE, YAHOO SECURITY UNDER FIRE
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Allan Holmes]
Disclosures that the National Security Agency can crack codes protecting the online traffic of the world’s largest Internet companies will inflict more damage than earlier reports of complicity in government spying, according to technology and intelligence specialists. The agency has fulfilled a decades-long quest to break the encryption of e-mail, online purchases, electronic medical records and other Web activities, the New York Times, the UK’s Guardian and ProPublica reported. The NSA also has been given access to -- or found ways to enter -- databases of major US Internet companies operating the most popular e-mail and social-media platforms, the news organizations reported. The revelations raise fresh questions about the security of data held by companies including Google, Facebook and Microsoft just as more commerce shifts online. “This is a fundamental attack on how the Internet works,” Joseph Lorenzo Hall, senior staff technologist at the Washington-based policy group Center for Democracy & Technology, said. “Secure communications technologies are the backbone of e-commerce” including the transfer of medical records and financial exchanges.
benton.org/node/158398 | Bloomberg
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GOOGLE ENCRYPTS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Craig Timberg]
Google is racing to encrypt the torrents of information that flow among its data centers around the world in a bid to thwart snooping by the National Security Agency and the intelligence agencies of foreign governments. The move by Google is among the most concrete signs yet that recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s sweeping surveillance efforts have provoked significant backlash within an American technology industry that US government officials long courted as a potential partner in spying programs. Google’s encryption initiative, initially approved last year, was accelerated in June as the tech giant struggled to guard its reputation as a reliable steward of user information amid controversy about the NSA’s PRISM program, first reported in The Washington Post and the Guardian that month. PRISM obtains data from American technology companies, including Google, under various legal authorities.
benton.org/node/158397 | Washington Post
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THE CASE SUPPORTING THE NSA'S PRISM DECRYPTING
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Byron Acohido]
A consensus is gelling that the National Security Agency -- in using brute-force password hacking techniques, cracking into Virtual Private Networks and Secure Sockets Layer services, and taking steps to weaken certain inherently weak encryption protocols -- is simply doing what the NSA has always done, and was, in fact, created to do: keep the US competitive in the spy-vs-spy world. Dave Jevans, chief technology officer of mobile security firm Marble Security, says it's possible that with the NSA's multi-billion dollar budget and tens of thousands of employees, the agency may have discovered mathematical techniques to weaken certain cryptographic systems. "However, such fundamental mathematical research doesn't constitute back doors or other covert agendas," Jevans says. "Perhaps the NSA has discovered ways to crack these systems that have not been discovered by the smartest researchers in academia and industry. But there's no law against clever mathematicians creating new encryption schemes."
benton.org/node/158366 | USAToday
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GOVERNMENT HAS BETRAYED THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Bruce Schneier]
[Commentary] Government and industry have betrayed the Internet, and us. By subverting the internet at every level to make it a vast, multi-layered and robust surveillance platform, the National Security Agency has undermined a fundamental social contract. The companies that build and manage our Internet infrastructure, the companies that create and sell us our hardware and software, or the companies that host our data: we can no longer trust them to be ethical Internet stewards. This is not the Internet the world needs, or the Internet its creators envisioned. We need to take it back. And by we, I mean the engineering community. Yes, this is primarily a political problem, a policy matter that requires political intervention. But this is also an engineering problem, and there are several things engineers can – and should – do. To the engineers, I say this: we built the internet, and some of us have helped to subvert it. Now, those of us who love liberty have to fix it.
benton.org/node/158396 | Guardian, The
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
VERIZON-FCC COURT FIGHT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Edward Wyatt]
Few people would dispute that one of the biggest contributors to the extraordinary success of the Internet has been the ability of just about anyone to use it to offer any product, service or type of information they want. How to maintain that success, however, is the subject of a momentous fight that resumes this week in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The battle pits one of the largest providers of Internet access — Verizon — against the Federal Communications Commission, which for nearly 80 years has been riding herd on the companies that provide Americans with telecommunications services. Verizon and a host of other companies that spent billions of dollars to build their Internet pipelines believe they should be able to manage them as they wish. They should be able, for example, to charge fees to content providers who are willing to pay to have their data transported to customers through an express lane. That, the companies say, would allow the pipeline owner to reap the benefits of its investment. The FCC, however, believes that Internet service providers must keep their pipelines free and open, giving the creators of any type of legal content — movies, shopping sites, medical services, or even pornography — an equal ability to reach consumers. If certain players are able to buy greater access to Internet users, regulators believe, the playing field will tilt in the direction of the richest companies, possibly preventing the next Google or Facebook from getting off the ground. The court is set to hear oral arguments starting Sept 9 in Verizon v. FCC, which is billed as a heavyweight championship of the technology world, setting the old era against the new.
benton.org/node/158408 | New York Times | ars technica | Politico
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VERIZON FIGHTS FCC
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ryan Knutson, Shalini Ramachandran]
For the second time in three years, US regulators face a test of their ability to enforce equal treatment of traffic on the Internet, a dispute that pits long-standing practices for running the Web against the carriers' desire to find new revenue sources and better recover costs. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral arguments Sept 9 in a suit brought by Verizon Communications challenging "net neutrality" rules imposed by the Federal Communications Commission in 2011. At the heart of the case is whether the FCC has the authority to tell broadband Internet providers that they can't give priority to some Internet services or adjust fees and speeds to handle data-heavy traffic like video. The FCC argues that, except for reasonable network management, such prioritization would undermine the openness that has allowed the Internet to flourish. Verizon says the FCC is overstepping its bounds. More broadly at issue is the balance of power between Internet firms and carriers when it comes to pricing and profiting from fast-growing Web traffic.
benton.org/node/158407 | Wall Street Journal | ars technica | Politico
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FCC HEADS TO COURT TO DEFEND NETWORK NEUTRALITY RULES
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Katy Bachman]
Whether or not the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has the authority to regulate the Internet comes back in the spotlight when the DC Circuit Court of Appeals hears oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC. How the court decides could have profound implications for the Internet: whether Internet service providers will be prohibited from slowing down or blocking legal content. "The case is ostensibly about net neutrality, but what is really at stake is the FCC's jurisdiction over all things broadband," wrote Craig Moffett, senior analyst with MoffettNathanson Research. The FCC has already been slapped down once by the same court for trying to assert authority to regulate the Internet in the Comcast/BitTorrent case. If the court strikes down the rules, the FCC would have to either appeal or bank on Congress giving it new authority. The court could also just send the FCC back to the drawing boards to craft better rules.
benton.org/node/158365 | AdWeek
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KEEPING THE NET NEUTRAL
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The battle over federal "net neutrality" rules will resume when a federal appeals court takes up the challenge filed by one of the country's largest Internet service providers: Verizon. The phone company, which argues that the Federal Communication Commission's rules violate federal law and the Constitution, asserts that Internet service providers have a 1st Amendment right to edit or block the data flowing from websites to their customers. The company's stance is strange and self-contradictory, considering its long-standing efforts to be freed from liability for the "speech" that travels through its wires. The court should reject it out of hand. Verizon argues that "just as a newspaper is entitled to decide which content to publish and where, broadband providers may feature some content over others.” The Internet access that ISPs provide isn't an expression, it's a conduit. Nor is delivering data from a website to one's customers a form of legally protected speech.
benton.org/node/158394 | Los Angeles Times
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DIAL-UP ISN'T DEAD: WHY SOME CONSUMERS ARE OPTING FOR LOWER INTERNET SPEEDS
[SOURCE: Times-Standard, AUTHOR: Julio Ojeda-Zapata]
A small but significant percentage of US adults are clinging to dial-up, even as broadband becomes ubiquitous and Internet files become increasingly data-heavy and complex. Roughly 70 percent of US adults used broadband as of May, according to recently released figures from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That's up from 66 percent in April 2012. Yet about 3 percent still are on dial-up connections, Pew said. Aaron Smith, the study's author, said he can only speculate about why some US adults have stayed with dial-up even as broadband has become faster and more affordable. During the recent US economic crisis, about a third of dial-up users told Pew that they regarded broadband as too pricey, and about 1 in 5 said nothing would get them off dial-up. Broadband availability was an issue, too. About 15 percent of surveyed dial-up users lacked it. "Some people just want e-mail and do not want to participate in the greater online experience," DeAnne Boegli, communications director TDS Communications said, "It's all about choice."
benton.org/node/158360 | Times-Standard
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
AMERICAN TOWER TO ACQUIRE GLOBAL TOWER IN $3.3 BILLION DEAL
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Nick Turner, Scott Moritz]
American Tower, the biggest operator of cellular towers in the US, agreed to acquire the parent company of rival Global Tower Partners for about $3.3 billion, giving it thousands of additional wireless sites as the appetite for next-generation services grows. American Tower is buying MIP Tower Holdings, a closely held real estate investment trust that owns Global Tower Partners and related companies. The deal brings American Tower about 5,400 US towers and the management rights to more than 9,000 additional sites. Including debt, the purchase price is about $4.8 billion.
benton.org/node/158390 | Bloomberg
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VERIZON EATS ITSELF (AND WHY IT MATTERS)
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] Prior to the Verizon buyout of Vodafone, shared ownership of Verizon Wireless meant Verizon couldn't fully claim its cash and profit. Now Verizon can. Owning Verizon Wireless will mean much higher cash flows for Verizon. But if margins fall and growth falters, $130 billion could look like a very high price indeed. Many question if the US wireless market – with its slowed growth and ramped up competition – may have already peaked. Verizon is betting the answer is no; Vodafone, on the other hand, seems to believe that the value of its stake did not have much further to rise. The next step in realizing Verizon’s vision, whatever it is, is gaining regulatory approval for the deal. Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld said we should think of this FCC review “as more like a change of address notification than as a full on application” since Verizon already controlled the wireless company.
http://benton.org/node/158344
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VERIZON SUED BY SHAREHOLDER OVER $130 BILLION VODAFONE DEAL
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jonathan Stempel]
Verizon Communications has been sued by a shareholder seeking to void its $130 billion buyout of Vodafone Group’s stake in the companies' wireless joint venture on the grounds the price is too high. In a lawsuit filed in a New York state court, just three days after the transaction was announced, Natalie Gordon said Verizon shareholders are being "shortchanged" by the purchase of Vodafone's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless, the largest US mobile phone operator. Verizon, which owns the other 55 percent, agreed to pay Vodafone $59 billion in cash, $60 billion in stock and other sums. Gordon said "it is evident that Verizon has overpaid," adding that "Wall Street analysts concur" and that Moody's Investors Service downgraded Verizon's credit. She also pointed to a drop in Verizon's share price to $45.08 on September 3, the first trading day after the purchase was announced, from a peak of $48.60 on August 29, when news that Verizon and Vodafone had revived talks surfaced. The lawsuit seeks class-action status, and also names Verizon Chief Executive Lowell McAdam and 12 directors as defendants, accusing them of breaching their fiduciary duties. It seeks to force Verizon to rescind the purchase or improve the terms, and force the individual defendants to pay damages. benton.org/node/158393 | Reuters
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GOOD NEWS: BOOM TIMES FOR CARRIER WI-FI HOTSPOTS AND WI-FI NETWORKS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Om Malik]
Phone and cable companies are known to hate any new technology that threatens their existing business models. For phone companies, it is always about getting back to billable minutes. For cable companies, it is all about charging more for the bundle and channels no one really watches. This group of reluctant technology adopters also hated Wi-Fi and fought it tooth-and-nail using all sorts of nasty tricks. However, these days with growing mobile Internet demand carriers have embraced Wi-Fi, mostly because it allows them to offload traffic from their mobile networks to Wi-Fi networks. So much so, they are now building out their Wi-Fi infrastructure at a rapid clip. Every cable company and every phone company are rolling out Wi-Fi networks. European phone companies such as Free and Orange have been ahead of the curve. According to a new research report by Berg Insight, a Swedish market research company, telecom operators had deployed more than 7 million carrier-grade Wi-Fi access points worldwide at the end of 2012. By 2018, that number is going to more than double to about 15 million units, Berg Insight forecasts. We have seen many cable companies like Cox launch their own networks. AT&T too has expanded its Wi-Fi footprint. The trend is gaining momentum across the world.
benton.org/node/158362 | GigaOm
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TELEVISION/RADIO
CBS FORTIFIES BROADCATERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Bill Carter]
Leslie Moonves, the longtime chief executive of CBS, has led a shake-up in the broadcast world that could be labeled revolutionary: the issue of compensation for retransmission rights. Before almost anyone else in the business, Moonves effectively pushed for distributors to pay fees to the broadcast channels just as they do to cable networks. The result has been a windfall for all the broadcasters and a crucial lifeline as audiences continue to shrink. The most recent fight — a high-noon showdown between CBS and Time Warner Cable — ended this week the way all recent confrontations between big broadcasters and cable operators have ended, with the cable operator pulling out a checkbook instead of a gun. In the final deal, the cable provider will pay CBS a hefty increase in fees for the right to retransmit the signals of its stations in big cities like New York, Los Angeles and Dallas — a reported rise to $2 per subscriber over the next five years, more than double the network’s previous deal with Time Warner Cable. At the same time, CBS rejected demands that it give up the opportunity to sell separately its content to digital outlets like Amazon and Netflix, insuring another bountiful revenue stream, likely to be worth hundreds of millions a year. CBS projects that by 2017 it will take in $1 billion annually in retransmission payments. David Bank, an analyst with RBC Capital markets, said that the figure could easily go to $2 billion.
benton.org/node/158399 | New York Times
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SAVING AM RADIO
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Edward Wyatt]
The digital age is killing AM radio, an American institution. Long surpassed by FM and more recently cast aside by satellite radio and Pandora, AM is now under siege from a new threat: rising interference from smartphones and consumer electronics that reduce many AM stations to little more than static. Its audience has sunk to historical lows. But at least one man in Washington is tuning in. Federal Communications Commission member Ajit Pai is on a personal if quixotic quest to save AM. After a little more than a year in the job, he is urging the FCC to undertake an overhaul of AM radio, which he calls “the audible core of our national culture.” He sees AM — largely the realm of local news, sports, conservative talk and religious broadcasters — as vital in emergencies and in rural areas. “AM radio is localism, it is community,” said Commissioner Pai. Critics say its decline is simply natural selection at work, and many now support converting the frequency for use by other wireless technologies. A big sign of AM’s weakness is that one hope for many of its stations may be channeling their broadcasts onto FM. Commissioner Pai wants to eliminate outdated regulations, for example, like one that requires AM stations to prove that any new equipment decreases interference with other stations, a requirement that is expensive, cumbersome and difficult to meet. Commissioner Pai also wants to examine a relatively new technology known as HD Radio, which has allowed some stations to transmit a digital signal along with their usual analog wave, damping static. In the longer term, Commissioner Pai said, the FCC could mandate that all AM stations convert to digital transmission to reduce interference. Such a conversion, however, would cost consumers, who would have to replace the hundreds of millions of AM radios that do not capture digital transmissions.
benton.org/node/158406 | New York Times
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CONTENT
APPLE PUNISHMENT
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Laura Hazard Owen]
Judge Denise Cote issued an injunction against Apple, The Department of Justice will be happy, because the final injunction contains a lot of what it had asked for. The injunction, which is set to go into place in 30 days, will last for five years — but the court can extend it for “one or more one-year periods” after that, either on its own or at the request of the DOJ or the states. Apple may seek a stay of the injunction pending its appeal. The injunction forbids Apple from enforcing most-favored-nation clauses in any e-book publishing contracts for five years, and also forbids the company from entering into any book publishing contracts that contain them for five years. Apple had wanted this provision to be less broad, relating only to MFN clauses with the five publishers in the case who have already settled. Instead, it applies to all publishers. The DOJ had wanted to change Apple’s in-app purchase policies, and had wanted to force Apple to allow competing e-book retailers — like Amazon — to sell e-books through their apps without taking its customary 30 percent commission. Luckily for Apple, none of that is included in the final injunction.
benton.org/node/158368 | GigaOm | Department of Justice | Associated Press | Wall Street Journal
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JOURNALISM
WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE STRUGGLES WITH ADVERTISING RELATIONSHIP
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Erik Wemple]
[Commentary] The Washington Post Magazine’s Aug. 11 Education Issue did not include a couple of articles because objections from the business side of the Washington Post. “They didn’t feel it was appropriate,” says Lynn Medford, the magazine’s top editor. “They were adamant about it.” What’s noteworthy about the adjustments to the magazine’s education issue is the pre-publication intervention by the advertising folks at the Post. “They have their opinions, they express their opinions in the same ways their colleagues down here [in editorial] do, and sometimes I listen and sometimes I don’t,” says Medford. There would be no Washington Post Magazine without its revenue issues. Whether it’s education, home and design, travel or dining, this cluster of themed publications accounts for the “bulk” of magazine revenues, to use Medford’s characterization. The news industry has long since made peace with the wink-wink corruption involved in producing these money-makers. Conceived to be friendly to the relevant industry, they’re often filled with content that makes for pleasant adjacencies to advertisements from companies with a stake in the topics at hand. Editors know not get too edgy with their story choices, lest the business side lose all credibility with their accounts and the publication move closer to bankruptcy.
benton.org/node/158367 | Washington Post
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
POLITICOS SEEK DATA CLUES FOR 2016 FROM VIRGINIA ELECTION
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Kate Kaye]
Across the country and more so across the beltway, politicos are eyeing the Virginia race for governor. The reason: to find out whether the data-centric approach that helped President Barack Obama's campaign in 2012 can work for smaller election campaigns. Not only is Virginia in the backyard of Washington (DC) where campaign operatives swarm, it is a key presidential election swing state. The race for governor will help campaigns "see if what we did in thirteen or fourteen battleground areas [in 2012] can be scaled down to one state in a cost effective way," said Mike Moschella, VP of organizing at Nation Builder, a non-partisan political-campaign software firm.
benton.org/node/158363 | AdAge
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
GOOGLE AND THE EU
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Stephanie Bodoni, Flavia Rotondi]
Google gave European Union regulators a new proposal to settle an almost three-year-old EU antitrust probe into the way it operates its search services. “We received new proposals from Google in the previous week,” EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said. “If we are satisfied with the new proposals, we can advance toward an agreed solution in the coming months.” “Our proposal to the European Commission addresses their four areas of concern,” Al Verney, a Brussels-based spokesman for Google, said. “We continue to work with the commission to settle this case.” “Once we have completed our analysis, once we will check that these new proposals are able to eliminate our concerns, we will tell Google what to do,” Almunia said.
benton.org/node/158400 | Bloomberg
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