October 2013

Why Is Uber Fighting a Regulatory Battle That It Already Won?

Remember when tech startups like Lyft, Sidecar and Uber fought California regulators and won, getting designated as a new class of transportation that was deemed legal? UberTurns out Uber didn’t like that. It filed a petition for rehearing with the California Public Utilities Commission, saying the transportation regulator shouldn’t have jurisdiction over technology companies.

What’s going on here is that Uber is trying to play the long game. The previous decision may have been harmless enough, but Uber being Uber, it doesn’t want the CPUC to get the idea that it can tell Uber what to do. More specifically, in September the CPUC established a new category called “transportation network companies,” where drivers use their personal vehicles to provide rides for pay. That applied to the peer-to-peer businesses of Lyft, Sidecar and Tickengo, and to Uber’s own competitor in that space, UberX. It was a highly important decision that helps legitimize the larger idea of a sharing economy, where non-professionals share their resources and time for a fee. And it was hailed as such by the peer-to-peer companies.

Sexism a problem in Silicon Valley, critics say

Speaking before a gathering of women in technology, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg recalled an uncomfortable exchange with two men on a different stage discussing the scarcity of women in the industry.

One commented that he would like to hire more young women but not all are as competent as Sandberg. The other said he, too, would hire more young women but his wife fears he would sleep with them and, he confessed, he probably would. Sandberg's husband, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dave Goldberg, told her later that the men did her a favor with their honesty. "A lot of men think that," he told her. "They gave you a chance to address it." It's no secret that the tech industry has a shortage of women. What's less well known is that the industry famous for its bravado about changing the world still lags decades behind other industries in its treatment of women, many of whom say they routinely confront sexism in the companies where they work and at the technology conferences they attend. Many blame the industry's growing gender gap on a "brogrammer" culture, a hybrid of "bro" and "programmer" that's become a tongue-in-check name for engineers.

Judiciary Republicans ask FTC for clarity on competition policy

House and Senate Judiciary Republicans have asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to clarify what it considers to be anti-competitive behavior. A group of eight Republicans -- including House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Senate Judiciary ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) -- echoed those calls in a letter, saying the FTC would help the business community by issuing more guidance on anti-competitive behavior. Without a clear policy statement from the FTC, businesses are left with an uncertainty that “acts as a deterrent to innovation and creativity, which are critical drivers of the American economy and are vitally important in today’s challenging environment,” the letter said.

Coalition of E-Reader Manufacturers Petition for Class Waiver

On October 22, 2013, the Federal Communications Commission’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau announced that the FCC needs more time to review a petition requesting a waiver from the FCC’s advanced communications accessibility requirements for certain e-reader devices. The petition was filed by a Coalition of E-Reader Manufacturers. The Bureau granted the temporary waiver until January 28, 2014. During this temporary waiver period, the FCC will evaluate the merits of the petition and decide whether to grant or deny the waiver request. A number of commenters have expressed opposition to this Petition. For example, the NFB Coalition maintains that e-readers are designed to use ACS as a primary purpose and are marketed as such.

FCC Announces New Study Examining Hispanic Television Viewing

The Federal Communications Commission will conduct a study of the relationships among Hispanic television station ownership, Hispanic-oriented programming, and Hispanic television viewing. According to 2012 Census data, 17 percent of the total US population – or 53 million people – are of Hispanic origin, representing the largest ethnic/racial minority in the country. The study will be the FCC’s first systematic examination of the Hispanic television market and will be one of the first that will incorporate comprehensive data from the FCC’s recently improved 323 ownership form.

To examine characteristics of television viewing by this important and growing population segment, and to ensure it has better data to inform its policies, the Commission will study, among other things:

The impact of Hispanic-owned television stations on Hispanic-oriented programming and Hispanic viewership in selected local television markets;
The extent of Hispanic-oriented programming on US broadcast television; and
The role of digital multicasting in increasing the amount of Hispanic-oriented programming.

New banner ads push actual Google results to bottom 12% of the screen

Google has started adding banner ads to its search result pages, SearchEngineLand reported. And they're not just skinny banner ads abutting the top edge of a page. In at least one case, users are treated to a big honking sponsored box dominating the site.

ACA Pushes For More Time To Comply With CVAA Accessibility Mandates

As the Federal Communications Commission prepares to release its implementation order on user guide accessibility rules the Communications and Video Accessibility Act, the American Cable Association is pushing the FCC for deadline waivers for more of its members, which are small and mid-sized cable operators.

The FCC already signaled it was likely to give two extra years to comply to cable systems with 400,000 or fewer subs run by small operators, and systems serving 20,000 or fewer subs run by all but the top two MSOs. But ACA says midsized operators -- with 2 million or fewer subs -- are "not more able to insure compliance" than those smaller operators. ACA said that as with the smaller operators, the midsized operators do not manufacture and/or develop software and are also dependent on whether vendors make products available in time. "[I]t is unfair to hold these mid-sized operators to the same timetable as larger operators that have the means to manufacture hardware and develop software solutions for their systems in the normal course of business," said ACA.

The Role of News on Facebook

On Facebook, the largest social media platform, news is a common but incidental experience, according to an initiative of Pew Research Center in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Overall, about half of adult Facebook users, 47%, “ever” get news there. That amounts to 30% of the population. Most US adults do not go to Facebook seeking news out, the nationally representative online survey of 5,173 adults finds. Instead, the vast majority of Facebook news consumers, 78%, get news when they are on Facebook for other reasons. And just 4% say it is the most important way they get news. However, the survey provides evidence that Facebook exposes some people to news who otherwise might not get it. While only 38% of heavy news followers who get news on Facebook say the site is an important way they get news, that figure rises to 47% among those who follow the news less often. “If it wasn’t for Facebook news,” wrote one respondent, “I’d probably never really know what’s going on in the world because I don’t have time to keep up with the news on a bunch of different locations.” These are some of the findings of the survey, examining the role of news on Facebook and other social media platforms.

Among other key findings in this report:

Facebook news consumers still access other platforms for news to roughly the same degree as the population overall.
News consumption on Facebook does not replace other activities.
Roughly half, 49%, of Facebook news consumers report that they regularly receive news on six or more different topics.
Liking or commenting on news stories occurs almost as frequently as clicking on links, though back and forth discussions are less common.
News outlets rank low in the reasons Facebook news consumers click on news links.
Facebook news consumers who “like” or follow news organizations or journalists show high levels of news engagement on the site.
As with US adults overall, only a minority of Facebook news consumers say they prefer news that shares their point of view.
Among US adults, the desktop/laptop computer is still the primary way most adults access Facebook.

Samsung fined $340,000 for astroturfing in Taiwan

It has often been suggested that some of the comments critical of Apple on US social media are posted by paid Samsung shills. But there is no proof, and Samsung has certainly never owned up to it. Samsung's subsidiary in Taiwan admitted in April 2013, however, that it had done just that to HTC, hiring students to post fake benchmark reviews of HTC's latest smartphone and reporting -- falsely -- that they were "constantly crashing." According to the AP, Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission fined Samsung's subsidiary 10 million Taiwanese dollars ($340,000) for defaming a rival. Samsung got off cheap. The fines for such activity in Taiwan can run as high as 25 million Taiwanese dollars ($836,000).

USDA Announces Funds to Provide Broadband in Unserved Rural Communities

The Department of Agriculture announced 14 awards for projects to bring broadband to unserved rural communities. USDA is providing $20.3 million in grants through the Community Connect Grant program.

For example, in Tennessee, Scott County Telephone Cooperative has been selected to receive a $2.6 million grant to build a network that will provide free broadband service to essential community facilities such as schools and libraries. The Cooperative also will establish a center where local residents will have access to free Internet service for two years. These are the first awards made under the Community Connect program's new guidelines that now allow applicants to fund broadband infrastructure for more than one community, and raise the minimum required speed. Projects funded must deliver broadband at five megabits per second (Mbps). States slated for the USDA funding award (if they meet eligibility requirements) are Alaska, Kentucky, Navada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Benton

Search