January 2014

BROADBAND/TELECOMMUNICATIONS

WHAT DID THE FCC WIN?
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] In losing a battle, did the Federal Communications Commission win a war? In the aftermath of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit striking down key elements of the FCC’s Open Internet rules (commonly known as network neutrality), C|Net’s Marguerite Reardon raises important issues concerning the court’s finding on the FCC’s statutory authority to regulate the Internet: Before this decision was handed down from the court, there was some haziness about the true role of the FCC in regulating the Internet; but since the court's decision, it's crystal clear: the FCC -- and even state public utility commissions -- can now impose regulations on the Internet. How far does that authority go?
http://benton.org/node/173078
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

ANDROID SOFTWARE
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Charles Arthur, Samuel Gibbs]
The idea that Google’s Android mobile software is both “free” and open-source is so often repeated that it is virtually an article of faith online. There’s only one problem: neither is strictly true. While the basic Android software is indeed available for free, and can be downloaded, compiled and changed by anyone, it doesn’t include the apps that make up Google’s mobile services - such as Maps, Gmail, and crucially Google Play, which allows people to connect to the online store where they can download apps. Without them, a device has only minimal functionality. To get the key apps, a manufacturer needs a “Google Mobile Services” (GMS) license. GMS licenses are issued on a per-model basis. While Google does not charge a fee for the license, one of the integral steps in the license-application process requires payment to authorized Android-testing factories. These factories, which include Foxconn and Archos, charge a fee for carrying out the testing required to obtain a GMS license, which the Guardian understands is negotiated on a case-by-case, per-manufacturer basis. The Guardian understands that in one example, testing costs $40,000, payable 50% up front and 50% at the completion of testing for a model with an expected run of at least 30,000 units. The source said Google and its testing partners were being intentionally vague about the fact that a cost is associated with acquisition of a GMS license, even if the license itself is free.
benton.org/node/173161 | Guardian, The
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

STEPPING UP TRANSPARENCY IN POLITICAL SPENDING
[SOURCE: Roll Call, AUTHOR: Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Michael Copps]
[Commentary] The Supreme Court’s wrongheaded Citizens United ruling in 2010 unleashed billions of dollars of unaccountable, anonymous spending on our campaigns. Each election season since has brought more smears from groups whose vague names tell the electorate little of their agendas or backing. Voters should know if groups with names like Citizens for Clean Waters are real grass-roots activists or disguised fronts for the chemical industry, bent on dumping waste in the Potomac River. This is not a theoretical problem. Nearly three years ago, the Media Access Project asked the Federal Communications Commission to step up and bring accountability to political ad spending. The FCC chairman at the time, Julius Genachowski, chose not to act on this common-sense reform. More recently, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) nearly derailed Tom Wheeler’s confirmation to replace Genachowski as FCC chairman over this issue. With Wheeler now at the helm, the FCC has a renewed opportunity to act, and it should. In the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.”
benton.org/node/173155 | Roll Call
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EDUCATION

E-RATE MODERNIZATION UPDATE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler]
My fellow Commissioners and I have the responsibility of ensuring the E-Rate program meets today’s needs. The E-Rate of yesterday -- which has focused on providing schools and libraries with basic connectivity -- needs to be updated to support today’s Gigabit fiber and Wi-Fi connectivity. Modernizing E-Rate is critical for our students and teachers. As part of our top to bottom review of E-Rate, the opportunity has opened to use existing funds to immediately begin to expand E-Rate funding targeted to high-speed connectivity to students in schools and libraries. These additionally available funds will begin to be put to work this year for schools and libraries. This will be done without affecting the program’s existing structures and the 2014 program application process that is now underway. We will soon bring to the Commission a detailed plan to achieve these objectives. As we move forward, there will be many voices and perspectives. They will all be heard and respected. I look forward to building on the ongoing activities of my colleagues and working with all parties interested in modernizing E-Rate to build on the success of the past, and to make sure American students get the 21st Century education they deserve.
benton.org/node/173169 | Federal Communications Commission
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REMARKS OF COMMISSIONER JESSICA ROSENWORCEL
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel]
I think we need to resist the easy temptation to dismiss the possibilities of so many new screens, connections, and technologies. Because the fundamental issue is the same. It is not a question of whether or not children will learn from these new digital platforms. They will. The question is what could they learn? We need to seize the possibilities for good in these new media platforms. Just like what was done with television more than four decades ago. Think about how the work of the Carnegie Commission spurred the development of Sesame Street. Think about how that made quality preschool programming viable -- and widely available. Think also about how the Children’s Television Act spurred the development of more educational programming by requiring a minimum of three hours per week on stations using the airwaves. And then ask what we can do now to stimulate more quality digital age educational content -- and make it more widely available. I think the E-Rate reform effort and the interests of quality educational content collide -- in the best possible way. By bringing really high-speed broadband to every school in every community across the country we will create new opportunities for educational content at new scale. This scale has the potential to stimulate a new market for digital educational media.
benton.org/node/173138 | Federal Communications Commission
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CONTENT

APPLE MONITORING
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Christopher Matthews]
The Department of Justice urged a federal appeals court to allow a court-appointed attorney to resume monitoring Apple 's e-book pricing reform efforts. The Second US Circuit Court of Appeals granted Apple a short-term stay from the monitorship. The court will hear arguments on Feb 4. on whether to give Apple a more substantial reprieve while it considers the company's appeal of a trial judge's decision last week to keep the monitor in place. Justice Department lawyers said no such stay was warranted given that the trial judge who appointed the monitor had the authority to do so, and that Apple couldn't show any "irreparable harm" that would result from the monitor performing his duties. "Apple's true complaint is that it 'does not control the monitorship'," the lawyers wrote in a 21-page motion. "Of course not -- a 'monitor' controlled by the party to be monitored is no monitor at all."
benton.org/node/173177 | Wall Street Journal
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PATENTS

PATENT DEAL
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Min-Jeong Lee]
Samsung and Google have signed a long-term cross-licensing deal on technology patents that cover a broad range of areas. The agreement will cover both the two companies' existing patents and those that will potentially be filed over the next 10 years. "By working together on agreements like this, companies can reduce the potential for litigation and focus instead on innovation," said Allen Lo, deputy general counsel for patents at Google. benton.org/node/173181 | Wall Street Journal | Reuters
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PRIVACY/SECURITY

HOW OUR CULTURE OF SURVEILLANCE DICTATES OUR LIVES
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Byron Acohido]
[Commentary] We live in a culture of surveillance, one few of us can escape. Our predicament is one of our own making. Long before the National Security Agency took center stage, we were deploying ever more sophisticated ways of keeping a close watch on each other. Often enhanced by the use of new information, visual, communication, and medical technologies, these surveillance strategies are not ushered in with dramatic displays of state power nor do they appear as challenges to constitutional democracy. Rather, these are the quiet, seemingly innocuous techniques -- what I call the "Tiny Brothers"-- that appear in the workplace, the school, the community and the home. For example:
Most major employers engage in the electronic monitoring of workers, tracking their email, Internet use, and whereabouts with GPS devices.
School districts deploy Student Information Systems that help them collect minute details of a student's performance, attendance, and behavior that is made available to administrators and parents in real-time over the web.
Parents purchase inexpensive hair testing kits to tell if their kids are using drugs and track their college-age offspring's whereabouts through their cell phones.
Police cars scan and store millions of license plate numbers and in many cities, public buses have sophisticated audio listening systems. Even small communities bristle with surveillance cameras.
Corporations' data mine the books we read and the music we listen to for clues about how to pitch ads to us.
Add to these the numerous other "data sponges" we encounter in our daily lives and it's clear that our actions and behaviors are being systematically noted. In this sense, "mass surveillance" arrived some time ago.
benton.org/node/173127 | USAToday
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

RNC CONDEMNS NSA SURVEILLANCE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Julian Hattem]
The Republican National Committee has formally renounced the “dragnet” surveillance program at the National Security Agency (NSA). During its winter meeting in Washington, the committee overwhelmingly approved a measure calling for lawmakers to end the program and create a special committee to investigate domestic surveillance efforts. The resolution, which declared that “unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights,” among other condemnations, passed the committee on a voice vote with near-unanimous support. Only a small minority of the 168 RNC members dissented. The committee criticized the government’s bulk collection of records about all phone calls. That NSA effort “is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the RNC said in the resolution. The RNC also called the NSA’s classified “PRISM” program, which mines data from the servers of major Internet companies, “the largest surveillance effort ever launched by a democratic government against its own citizens.”
benton.org/node/173133 | Hill, The
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GOOGLE PUSHES BACK AGAINST DATA LOCALIZATION
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Claire Miller]
The big technology companies have put forth a united front when it comes to pushing back against the government after revelations of mass surveillance. But their cooperation goes only so far. Microsoft suggested that it would deepen its existing efforts to allow customers to store their data near them and outside the United States. Google, for its part, has been fighting this notion of so-called data localization. “If data localization and other efforts are successful, then what we will face is the effective Balkanization of the Internet and the creation of a ‘splinternet’ broken up into smaller national and regional pieces, with barriers around each of the splintered Internets to replace the global Internet we know today,” Richard Salgado, Google’s director of law enforcement and information security, told a congressional panel in November. Microsoft and other tech companies are trying to prevent foreign customers from switching to services outside the United States. In the next three years, the cloud computing industry could lose $180 billion, 25 percent of its revenue, because of such defections, according to Forrester, a research company. Yet even though Google faces these same risks and requests from foreign customers, its policy position is for surveillance reform instead of data localization, according to a person briefed on Google’s policy who would speak only anonymously.
benton.org/node/173153 | New York Times
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BIG BLOCK OF CHEESE DAY
[SOURCE: The White House, AUTHOR: Erin Lindsay]
On January 29th, with a nod to history (and maybe the TV show the West Wing), the Obama Administration is hosting the first-ever virtual "Big Block of Cheese Day," during which dozens of White House officials will take to social media for a day long 'open house' to answers questions from everyday Americans in real-time on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and via Google+ Hangout. On February 22, 1837, President Jackson hosted an open house featuring a 1,400-pound block of cheese that sat in the main foyer of the White House. This original "Big Block of Cheese Day" opened the doors of the White House to thousands of citizens to interact with cabinet members and White House staff – and carve off a slice of the four foot by two foot thick slab of cheddar.
benton.org/node/173163 | White House, The | WH
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS FAST-TRACKS UK MASS SURVEILLANCE CASE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: David Meyer]
The British government may be doing its best to ignore the surveillance scandal, despite the relatively full official response it’s elicited in the US, but thanks to a coalition of privacy campaigners it seems the tactic won’t work for much longer. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has asked the government to justify the legal grounding and proportionality of its intelligence services’ mass surveillance activities. The coalition that prompted this, Privacy Not Prism, takes in a variety of other UK activist groups, including Big Brother Watch, Open Rights Group, and English PEN, as well as German campaigner Constanze Kurz, a spokeswoman for the Chaos Computer Club. The campaigners say mass surveillance is disproportionate and illegal under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which gives everyone a right to privacy that cannot be interfered with by public authorities “except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
benton.org/node/173119 | GigaOm
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AT&T DENIES VODAFONE SPECULATION
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Costas Paris]
AT&T said it doesn't intend to make an offer soon for Vodafone Group, after months of speculation in the telecommunications industry of a potential multibillion-dollar deal. AT&T said it was responding to speculation regarding a potential transaction with the British company after the UK Takeover Panel asked AT&T to clarify its position. AT&T is now restricted from making a takeover bid for Vodafone for six months under UK takeover rules. Vodafone's shares fell more than 5% in early London trading. A European telecommunications executive with knowledge of the matter said there was strong speculation that AT&T was continuing to lay regulatory, legal and financial groundwork for a Vodafone bid. "The AT&T statement has further fueled the talk that it plans a bid for Vodafone in the second half of the year," the executive said.
benton.org/node/173185 | Wall Street Journal
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AT&T SOUNDS OUT EU ON IMPACT OF NSA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Laurence Norman, Thomas Gryta]
AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson met with the European Union's top telecom regulator in Davos, as the giant US carrier continues to look into a possible acquisition in the region. He asked Commissioner Neelie Kroes how revelations of data-gathering programs conducted by the National Security Agency would affect the ability of companies like AT&T to do business in Europe, people familiar with the conversation said. Commissioner Kroes replied that US companies, like AT&T, face a trust problem in Europe as a result of the spying disclosures and it is in the interests of all the parties to get that resolved. The scandal is likely to be a live issue as the continent gears up for EU-wide European Parliament elections in May.
benton.org/node/173183 | Wall Street Journal
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VKONTAKTE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Olga Razumovskaya]
The founder of Russia's largest social network said he sold his stake in the company to a partner of Russia's richest man, Alisher Usmanov. The deal was the latest in a series of moves in recent weeks that included installing executives from Usmanov's companies in key positions at the social network, VKontakte. VKontakte's founder, Pavel Durov, said he sold his shares as part of an effort to reduce his possessions, and that he planned to stay on as chief executive. "What you own sooner or later begins to own you," said Durov, 29 years old. "Over the past several years I have been actively getting rid of [my] possessions, giving away and selling everything that I have had.…To reach the ideal I needed to get rid of the biggest part of my property, the 12% share in VKontakte." Analysts said the stake could be valued at up to $420 million.
benton.org/node/173175 | Wall Street Journal
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LIBERTY-ZIGGO
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Robin van Daalen]
Liberty Media has agreed to buy Dutch cable company Ziggo for €6.9 billion ($9.44 billion), in US media mogul John Malone's latest advance on the European telecommunications industry. Liberty Global, Malone's international cable holding company, already owns 28.5% of Ziggo and had been in talks with the company since August. Under the terms of the agreement, which has the full support of Ziggo's management and supervisory board, Ziggo shareholders will get €11 in cash and 0.2282 Liberty Global Class A ordinary shares and 0.5630 Liberty Global Class C ordinary shares. Based on Liberty Global's share price on Jan. 24, 2014, the offer implies a price of approximately €34.53 per Ziggo share. Including debt the deal values Ziggo at €10 billion. Liberty Global will merge Ziggo with its wholly owned Dutch cable operator, UPC, creating a stronger domestic rival for Dutch telecommunications company Royal KPN NV. The combination of Ziggo and UPC will have around €2.5 billion in revenue.
benton.org/node/173173 | Wall Street Journal | |
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GOOGLE’S DEFAMATION CASE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: R Jai Krishna]
An Indian Supreme Court hearing on whether the local unit of Google is liable for allegedly defamatory comments posted on its blogging site will help decide how Internet companies do business in the growing South Asian market. The Supreme Court is scheduled to start hearing arguments from the company in a case brought by Visaka Industries Ltd., a construction-materials company based in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. Visaka says an activist used Google's blogging site, Blogspot.com, to spread false information about the company. Google India challenged the charges at the High Court in the state of Andhra Pradesh and lost in 2011. It appealed to the Supreme Court, saying it shouldn't be held responsible for everything on its sites, as it cannot control what users post.
benton.org/node/173171 | Wall Street Journal
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January 2014

Cambodian Police Crack Down On Rally For Independent TV Station

T-Mobile Says Sprint Deal Could Help Crack Wireless Duopoly

Apple’s Tim Cook on NSA, What’s Next as Mac Turns 30

Comcast eyes Time Warner Cable's East Coast markets: source

‘Just the Facts, Ma’am’ No More

Today's Quote 01.27.2014

January 27, 2014 (What Did the FCC Win?)

AT&T Denies Vodafone Speculation