October 2013

Brazil's anti-spying Internet push could backfire, industry says

President Dilma Rousseff's plan to force Internet companies to store user data inside the country will not fix Brazil's security concerns and could instead send costs soaring and hurt future investments in a key emerging market for companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter, industry executives and analysts say. "It could end up having the opposite effect to what is intended, and scare away companies that want to do business in Brazil," said Ronaldo Lemos, a professor at Rio de Janeiro State University who has helped draft Internet legislation in Brazil.

Argentine Media Says Kirchner Quashes Critical Voices

Argentina's leading dailies, like a lot of newspapers in the US, are locked in a fight for survival amid declining ad sales. The troubles of Clarín and La Nación, however, aren't due just to circulation declines and online competition, but also to a government-led attack, the newspapers say.

In recent years, President Cristina Kirchner's government has slashed state advertising in both newspapers as it lavishes money on smaller rivals, radio and television stations that support her, according to court rulings and government data on ad spending. This year, the government, facing a weak economy and falling approval ratings, convinced retailers to pile on, the newspapers and others familiar with the matter say. In February, Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno—whose sweeping powers include regulating prices and imports—told supermarkets and electronics retailers, who make up the bulk of newspaper ad spending, to stop advertising with Clarín, La Nación and a smaller paper, Perfil.

Shelton, Kramer, Cyril Honored at 31st Annual Everett C. Parker Lecture

Inspiring media justice advocates were honored as a breakfast audience of media executives, faith leaders and advocates gathered at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington for the 31st Annual Everett C. Parker Ethics in Telecommunications Lecture. Hilary O. Shelton, head of the Washington office of the NAACP and this year’s Parker Lecturer, noted that this was the 50th anniversary of key events such as the March on Washington that occurred in 1963, “a year in which, thanks to the media, which was really beginning to really cover our struggles, we were able to take our cause to a much bigger audience.” But, he cautioned, “Although much has changed, much has also stayed the same.” Shelton cited several examples were continued vigilance is needed. Besides recognizing Shelton’s advocacy for diversity in the media and his instrumental role in the passage of key pieces of federal legislation, today’s event also honored two other advocates for the public interest in telecommunications.

Albert H. Kramer received the Everett C. Parker Award, recognizing an individual whose work embodies the principals and values of the public interest in telecommunications. Among other achievements, he founded the Citizens’ Communication Center and spent 20 years on the board of directors of the Media Access Project and the Communications Consortium Media Center.

Malkia Amala Cyril, founder of the Center for Media Justice and co-founder of the Media Action Grassoots Network (MAGNet), received the Donald H. McGannon Award, given in recognition of special contributions in advancing the roles of women and persons of color in the media, and in Cyril’s case, the media reform movement.

The House is divided over almost everything. But FISA Court reform might be able to unite it.

While the government remains shut down because Congress can't agree to keep it funded, a Democrat and a Republican are asking their colleagues to support legislation to bring more transparency to the process for approving NSA surveillance programs. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent a letter to their colleagues asking them to join in co-sponsoring companion legislation to the FISA Court Reform Act (S.1467) introduced in the upper chamber by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) this summer.

Their legislation would create an Office of the Constitutional Advocate led by a citizen's advocate appointed by the judicial branch who would argue for civil liberties in the FISA Court process. It was also incorporated into the bipartisan proposal introduced by Blumenthal and Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Mark Udall (D-CO) and Ron Wyden (D-OR). "The basic idea behind the bill is that both sides of an argument should be represented before the FISA court," explained Van Hollen. "We believe the FISA court should head the position advanced by the intelligence agencies, but they should also hear from a citizen's advocate whose main purpose is to determine if individual's rights are being adequately protected." Similarly, Jordan argued that an "adversarial" approach with checks and balances was an appropriate reform approach for the FISA Court consistent with the "American system."

These charts show Comcast acting more and more like a monopolist

Comcast's service really has been getting faster. But there's a striking pattern to Comcast's upgrades: while every tier of Comcast service is faster than it was a decade ago, the rate of progress has been dramatically higher for customers who pay the most.

Comcast's entry-level "Performance" tier has seen much slower speed increases in recent years than higher tiers. That seems like a sign of declining competition at the high end of the broadband market. A decade ago, Comcast was competing directly with incumbent phone companies. Their DSL services offered speeds roughly comparable to cable, and they were beginning investments in next-generation fiber infrastructure. That gave cable companies a strong incentive to provide all of their customers with the fastest broadband they could manage. Today, in contrast, Comcast is the undisputed speed king in many parts of the country. That has freed the cable giant to focus on maximizing its own profits, without worrying very much about improving the experience of the average customer. Comcast is engaging in what economists call price discrimination. Different customers are willing to pay dramatically different amounts for broadband connectivity. So offering different tiers of service, with dramatically different speeds, helps to maximize Comcast's profits.

House privacy talks with tech companies should be open, advocates say

Lawmakers meeting with tech companies to talk online privacy should open those meetings to the public, privacy advocates told the working group.

In a letter, six advocacy organizations told the House bipartisan Privacy Working Group’s leaders -- Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Peter Welch (D-VT) -- that the group’s meetings should be open to the public and the press. The organizations applauded Blackburn and Welch for examining “the enormously important issue of consumer privacy” but said “there is simply no reason for your task force to hold closed-door session.” The working group should follow congressional rules regarding “open meetings and hearings” because the privacy meetings appear to be similar to traditional congressional hearings, the letter said.

Shutdown of US government websites appears bafflingly arbitrary

At midnight on the morning of Oct 1, the American federal government shut down operations as a result of the Congressional budget impasse. Currently there's no immediate end in sight, so a mish-mash of government agencies are open and closed.

National parks and museums are off, but mail is still being delivered to American households. Ars took a quick look at which US government agency websites would be going dark during the shutdown. Those included the Federal Trade Commission, the Library of Congress, and the National Park Service sites. They all planned to go dark and have done so. The federal court system is remaining open, as it has a financial reserve that should last around two weeks. Similarly, the United States Patent and Trademark Office could stay open for approximately four weeks. However, Ars has conducted a more thorough examination of 50-plus different .gov websites. What emerges is a rather bizarre picture. Nearly all of the agencies we looked at are up, even those with a message about the shutdown.

FCC’s Pai: Time To Let Noncoms Raise Funds For Third Party Charities

Federal Communications Commissioner Ajit Pai says it is time for the FCC to give noncommercial stations the ability to use some of their airtime to raise money for third parties.

Currently, noncoms can raise funds for themselves, but not others, though the commission under former chairman Julius Genachowski last year that proposed loosening those restrictions by allowing stations to use up to one percent of their airtime for third-party nonprofit fund-raising. The FCC has issued a number of waivers of the limitation for disaster relief efforts. Pai said the FCC should approve the proposal. The commission voted unanimously to make the change in an April 2012 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking but has yet to vote out an order. No one was available at the shuttered FCC to comment on that delay.

New router combines your home and mobile networks into one faster pipe

A new cloud-connected router using the same type of multipath technology that Apple put in the iPhone might solve your bandwidth problem.

The idea of aggregating mobile and wired signals in the home is an old one. But it certainly hasn't become commonplace, and Multipath Networks takes advantage of the new Multipath TCP protocol that's used in the iPhone to let Siri switch between Wi-Fi, 3G, and LTE quickly and seamlessly. One caveat: The router requires a $5-per-month cloud service, potentially introducing latency or privacy and security concerns.

Upgrading to a new cell phone? A government shutdown means you could be waiting a while.

If the federal government stays closed for more than a couple weeks, new wireless devices may take longer to get to market, disrupting the economy in the process. That's because the Federal Communications Commission is charged with testing and approving new wireless products. And the people who work there were forced to stay home, along with thousands of other federal employees. Industry analyst Jeffrey Silva said that a brief shutdown probably won't cause many problems. But he added that a prolonged shutdown "could very well lead to a backlog and delays in the equipment approval process, a far more troublesome scenario for manufacturers and other stakeholders."

Benton

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