January 2014

US Looks At Ways To Prevent Spying On Its Spying

The US government is looking at ways to prevent anyone from spying on its own surveillance of Americans' phone records. As the Obama Administration considers shifting the collection of those records from the National Security Agency to requiring that they be stored at phone companies or elsewhere, it's quietly funding research to prevent phone company employees or eavesdroppers from seeing whom the US is spying on. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has paid at least five research teams across the country to develop a system for high-volume, encrypted searches of electronic records kept outside the government's possession. The project is among several ideas that would allow the government to discontinue storing Americans' phone records, but still search them as needed.

More Transparency Needed in DOJ Agreement on Surveillance

The Department of Justice announced an agreement that would allow US Internet companies to disclose more details about government requests for user data based on intelligence and national security authorities. While we appreciate the administration’s effort to make good on its promise of more transparency when it comes to the government’s surveillance activities, much more must be done to fully restore public trust in the Internet industry.

There is no doubt that the agreement reached is an improvement over the stifling restrictions previously imposed by DOJ. But for many small and medium sized Internet firms that make up the Internet Infrastructure industry, the devil is in the details. A more definitive and longer lasting reporting system is needed that allows companies more leeway to report on the finer details of government data requests -- allowing customers to see a complete picture about what is happening when data leaves their hands, not one that may add more ambiguity to the process.

Why the FCC’s Open Internet Order can’t ensure real net neutrality

[Commentary] The debate over the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order has scarcely registered on the New Zealand policy radar. This might seem odd, since net neutrality itself is a focal theme here as well. The reason is simple enough: the Internet has always been, and will always be, far from neutral.

The FCC’s Order, even if upheld, would not have altered many long-standing instances of unequal data treatment. Arguably, the economic effects of non-neutrality outside the last mile are likely much larger -- and more present internationally -- than the non-neutrality issues the FCC’s Open Internet Order claimed to alleviate.

ISPs have limited control over package handling
Traffic volumes are naturally asymmetric
Latency and jitter are unavoidable
The Open Internet Order does not address upload speeds
The Internet has always allowed, and will continue to facilitate, the unequal treatment of data carried over its infrastructure. The matters addressed in the Open Internet Order are dwarfed by the strategic opportunities offered by, and economic consequences of, this flexibility.

[Bronwyn Howell is general manager for the New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation]

Akamai’s state of the Internet: America gets with faster broadband, IPv6

The US has shot up rapidly in its adoption of high-speed broadband, up to 20 percent in some states, according to Akamai’s latest State of the Internet report for the third quarter of 2013. Things seem to be on the up-and-up for American broadband connections, especially after data from Akamai’s Q2 report indicated that the country might be loosening its grip at the top tier of speeds. The biggest difference can be seen in the country’s overall average connection speed, which increased to 9.8 Mbps. The boost means that 49 out of 50 states have increased their average connection speeds since Q3 2012 -- Vermont is the only exception, down almost 10 percent from 2012. Akamai attributed the increase to an uptake of high broadband (speeds over 10 Mbps) across the country, up more than 20 percent in some states. While the U.S. remains unable to crack the top 10 nations for peak speeds, the 40 percent increase in high broadband adoption means it ranks eighth in the world for broadband activity above 10 Mbps.

New fund to give $1 million in micro-grants to innovative nonprofit news and public media projects

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation will invest $1 million in a fund to encourage innovation and experimentation in nonprofit news and public media organizations.

The INNovation Fund is a partnership between Knight Foundation and the Investigative News Network (INN), a nonprofit collaborative organization made up of more than 90 nonprofit investigative journalism outlets. The Investigative News Network will select the recipients and manage the program. The $1 million will support around 30 projects during the next two years with micro-grants of around $35,000. Applications will be open to nonprofit online news outlets and public media across the United States. Recipients will use the funding to explore new innovations and revenue sources, while developing audience engagement techniques and stronger business models. The INNovation Fund is part of a $5 million Knight Local Media Initiative that aims to help nonprofit news organizations establish long-term sustainability.

The online application will be available as of Feb. 1, 2014. Applications will be due March 1, 2014. The first round of awards will be announced on April 15, 2014 and the second round of applications will be due Sept. 1, 2014.

Future of News Audiences: what’s next as young fail to become strong news consumers

Journalism executives and other participants at Poynter’s Future of News Audiences conference heard what some would have preferred not to hear: younger generations simply aren’t growing into dedicated consumers of news the way their parents and grandparents did.

As young adults age and begin families, the theory goes, they start to care more about the world around them and read the news -- a development that would help reverse the fortunes of news organizations which have seen precipitous declines in their audience numbers. But this may be a false hope -- so far there is no “life cycle” effect, at least none that can be detected. Paul Taylor, Pew Research Center executive vice president of special projects, said researchers in 2012 asked consumers how many minutes they devoted to taking in the news the day before. While the Silent Generation spent 84 minutes with the news, Boomers devoted 77 minutes and Gen Xers reported 66 minutes, Millennials said they spent just 46 minutes consuming news -- a figure that hasn’t changed appreciably since 2004.

Lavabit to have its day in federal appeals court

Lavabit, the private e-mail service that shut down in 2013 after a court order called for its private SSL (secure socket layer) keys, will make its case before a US federal appeals court.

Although tangentially related to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's activities, the case could eventually affect all Web service providers, such as Google or Facebook, in that it could set precedents for the legal scope that law enforcement agencies will have over those holding the keys to encrypted data. "This case is about protecting the encryption architecture that underwrites the security of the Internet," said Brian Hauss, a legal fellow for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Government Web Satisfaction Drops after HealthCare site Launch

Public satisfaction with government websites fell across the board in the last quarter when the troubled launch of HealthCare.gov, the Obama Administration’s online health insurance marketplace, put government website performance front and center. Satisfaction with government websites fell two points in the quarter from a score of 74 to 72 out of 100 on the American Consumer Satisfaction Index , while satisfaction with government services generally fell 3.4 percent to 66.1 on the ACSI scale.

Satisfaction with government Web and other services had grown over the past two years before rebounding this quarter. Just over one third of people polled by ACSI say they interact with the government most often online. User satisfaction with the Health and Human Services Department, which manages HealthCare.gov, dropped from 69 to 66 on the ACSI scale. The index did not specifically track satisfaction with HealthCare.gov itself.

In the War for TV Audiences, Video-on-Demand Has More Users -- But Streaming Services Win More Hearts

New research from GfK shows that, despite larger user bases, video-on-demand (VOD) offerings from pay-TV providers are losing their war against streaming services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime.

“Consumers are open to considering alternatives to Netflix; but a lack of education and of effective marketing are letting these key pay-TV assets languish in the shadows.” The report, How People Use Media: TV Everywhere/VOD, shows that 56% of consumers in homes with cable, satellite, or telco TV service say they use VOD or a “TV Everywhere”-type offering from their TV provider. By contrast, 41% of the same group say they use a subscription streaming service. In terms of customer satisfaction, however, streaming services are the clear favorite, rated “better” than VOD by 44% of those who use both; by comparison, 27% prefer VOD, and 29% say the two are equal.

How the smartest tech companies plan to autocomplete our lives

[Commentary] Just like Google autocompletes our search requests, the biggest tech companies appear to be looking to autocomplete our thoughts and actions in ways that almost seem like science fiction.

It’s not just that companies such as Amazon and Google know what your tastes and preferences are, they are now able to act on them in the real world by delivering real products and services. What’s interesting about all of this “autocomplete” business is that the most valuable Internet companies will be those that can act on our lives in the real world by delivering physical products and services. It’s a lot more valuable to know that someone enjoys a certain type of book -- and then ships that book to a person -- than it is to use that knowledge just to throw up some social ads about new book releases. That might place pressure on a company such as Facebook -- which already knows so much about our everyday connections -- to start acquiring companies that can offer what Amazon and Google promise to be able to do one day.

[Basulto works at Bond Strategy]

Benton

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