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  2. April 2014

April 2014

US takes Philippines off intellectual property watch list

The Obama Administration says that the Philippines has fixed its problems protecting intellectual property enough to take it off of a special watch list on the issue.

“Although significant challenges remain, the commitment of Philippine authorities and the results achieved merit this change in status,” said the Office of the US Trade Representative. “The United States will continue to engage with the Philippines to address unresolved and future challenges.”

The Philippines had appeared on the watch list or the priority watch list continually since 1994, and was first added in 1989. Countries on the list, which include nations from India to Russia to Canada, are considered to have a weak record of defending or enforcing intellectual property rights, or close off market access to people relying on intellectual property.

The Obama Administration said that the Philippines had enacted “a series of significant legislative and regulatory reform” to protect intellectual property rights in the country.

Terrell McSweeny Begins Term at Federal Trade Commission

Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Edith Ramirez welcomed Terrell McSweeny as she began her official duties as an FTC Commissioner.

President Barack Obama named McSweeny to a term that ends on September 25, 2017. She was confirmed by a 95-1 vote in the US Senate on April 9, 2014.

Before joining the FTC, McSweeny served as Chief Counsel for Competition Policy and Intergovernmental Relations for the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division. She joined the Antitrust Division after serving as Deputy Assistant to the President and Domestic Policy Advisor to the Vice President from January 2009 until February 2012, advising President Obama and Vice President Biden on policy in a variety of areas, including health care, innovation, intellectual property, energy, education, women’s rights, criminal justice and domestic violence.

McSweeny’s government service also includes her work as Senator Joe Biden’s Deputy Chief of Staff and Policy Director in the US Senate, where she managed domestic and economic policy development and legislative initiatives, and as Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she worked on issues such as criminal justice, innovation, women's rights, domestic violence, judicial nominations and immigration and civil rights. She also worked as an attorney at O'Melveny & Myers LLP. Commissioner McSweeny is a graduate of Harvard University and Georgetown University Law School.

Reshape our media landscape and say no to Comcast-Time Warner deal

[Commentary] Five months into his term, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has arrived at a critical juncture. The proposed Comcast-Time Warner merger, a court’s rejection of the FCC’s network neutrality rules and the looming deadline for the commission’s media-ownership review provide an opportunity for Wheeler and the commission to begin reshaping our media landscape.

That landscape, now dominated by a few large players, needs to reflect the dynamism and vibrancy of our nation’s diverse multitudes. Here are some ideas on how the FCC should proceed:

  • Say no to the outrageous Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal. We need more competition, not less, in the cable and broadband industries. This merger isn’t the way to deliver it.
  • Answer the US Court of Appeals decision that struck down its open Internet, aka net neutrality, rules with a set of new rules that guarantee it -- this time in a way that will pass muster in the courts.
  • Resist pressures to leave loopholes open and further relax media-ownership rules. If it permits a few billionaire moguls to monopolize the airwaves, the commission will do the nation a tremendous disservice.
  • Take a hard, new look at what is keeping African-American, Hispanic and other minority entrepreneurs and women out of broadcasting and what help is needed for media to better reflect the diversity of the country

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[Copps was a Federal Communications Commissioner from 2001 to 2011 and currently heads the Media & Democracy Reform Initiative at Common Cause, a nonpartisan nonprofit in Washington, DC]

Energy Department Releases New Guidance for Strengthening Cybersecurity of the Grid’s Supply Chain

The Energy Department has released new guidance to help US industry strengthen energy delivery system cybersecurity.

Developed through a public-private working group including federal agencies and private industry leaders, the Department’s Cybersecurity Procurement Language for Energy Delivery Systems guidance provides strategies and suggested language to help the US energy sector and technology suppliers build in cybersecurity protections during product design and manufacturing.

The new guidance focuses on helping utilities and other energy sector organizations purchase technologies that include cybersecurity protections and features -- improving the overall reliability and security of energy delivery systems and ensuring that the testing, manufacturing, delivery, and installation of new technologies emphasize cybersecurity requirements.

This energy delivery systems guidance builds on the Cybersecurity Procurement Language for Control Systems guidance developed in collaboration between industry, the Energy Department, its Idaho National Laboratory, and the Department of Homeland Security in 2009.

Benton Statement on Network Neutrality Proceeding

Submitted by benton on Mon, 04/28/2014 - 14:49

On April 24, 2014, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler released a statement, “Setting the Record Straight on the FCC’s Open Internet Rules,” saying that a draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking follows the roadmap established by the D.C. Court as to how to enforce rules of the road that protect an Open Internet and asks for further comments on the approach. The following may be attributed to Benton Foundation Director of Policy Amina Fazlullah:

The FCC's 'Reasonable' Internet Plan

[Commentary] Imagine if businesses had to go to after every sale so a federal agency could pass judgment on whether the deal is "commercially reasonable."

Readers in heavily regulated industries may say they already do. But it's not the way to prosperity and it's not the model that has allowed the Internet to become an engine of the US economy. Yet new Chairman Tom Wheeler previewed the Federal Communication Commission's latest attempt to enforce "net neutrality" rules on Internet service providers. These are the companies like AT&T and Comcast that run wires into homes and businesses to deliver Internet connections.

A long-standing dream among liberal activists is to prevent these firms from charging higher prices to heavy consumers of Internet bandwidth. The most zealous promoters of this idea don't even believe that capacity hogs like Netflix or Google's YouTube should pay extra for all the video they send over digital communications networks (though the companies themselves have more nuanced positions). The net-neuts also want new rules preventing networks from blocking or discriminating against websites -- say, by slowing down connections to websites that aren't affiliated with the network.

Although Congress has never appointed the FCC to run the Internet, Chairman Wheeler will now try a third time to sneak this idea past the judiciary and fulfill a 2008 campaign promise from President Obama. Chairman Wheeler will likely present his proposal, which he briefly described in a blog post, as a compromise between free markets and the heavy-handed regulation that the FCC has always applied to the traditional telephone system. And our liberal friends are already howling that to allow any variable pricing will relegate average customers to an endless Internet traffic jam while well-heeled companies take the fast lane on a private cyber toll road.

Amazon phone reportedly coming with “Prime Data” mobile broadband

Amazon’s smartphone could be an AT&T exclusive and come with a feature called “Prime Data”.

The leaked information was published on the Boy Genius Report, which also provided some of the reported first looks of Amazon’s handset, expected to launch in September.

What is Prime Data? That’s a good question, but if you think about Amazon’s business model, you can get an idea of what it might be. The company has long subsidized products in order to boost engagement on its shopping and services sites, hoping to spur more sales.

The data feature would likely be some amount of mobile broadband included with the phone each month at no charge. It’s possible that Amazon could even add more data to a monthly account based on product purchases or Amazon Instant Video rentals.

Eric Cantor outlines House’s spring agenda

House Republicans will take up several 2015 spending bills in the coming weeks but have no plans to move forward on immigration reform or a minimum-wage increase -- key priorities for President Barack Obama and Democrats. In a memo sent to all House Republicans, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) also said the full House will take up a contempt resolution against former IRS official Lois Lerner.

Lerner is the center of an alleged scheme by IRS employees to target conservative non-profit groups for special scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. Lerner has refused to testify before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. That panel has already voted to hold her in contempt.

The House is currently scheduled to be in for three weeks - a total of 12 legislative days - during May, according to the official calendar maintained by Cantor’s office. Cantor said that House Republicans will move forward on bills allowing states to use federal funds for charter schools, as well as six legislative initiatives designed to combat human sex trafficking, and issue with huge bipartisan support. In addition, Cantor said the House would move on a tax extenders package that includes a permanent extension of a research and development tax credit.

Net Neutrality Misunderstandings

Below we correct a number of key misunderstandings that continue to persist about proposed network neutrality rules despite Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler’s clarifications.

  • Internet “Throttling” -- There is no reason to think that broadband ISPs have any interest in actively slowing Internet traffic, and even less reason to think such a practice would be allowed under the proposed rules. “Pay-to-play” would not be allowed -- no one would have to pay a fee in order to get their content or service to consumers. What would be allowed is “pay-to-improve” -- under these proposed rules, Internet services would only be allowed to get better, not worse.
  • Prioritized Content -- Many reports indicate that ISPs will require payment for access to their “fast-lanes” and any type of traffic that gets stuck in the “slow-lane” will suffer. This is inaccurate. The vast majority of Internet traffic will not have a need to be prioritized and will continue to enjoy the current “best efforts” Internet.
  • Favoring some traffic means shunting other traffic to the slow lane. The past and present Internet treats all packets the same. Advocates of net neutrality stress, correctly, that differentiated Type of Service, a piece of information within each packet that could enable the network to know what type of application the packet is for, has not been a major element, in practice, of carriage agreements among network operators.
  • Consumer Harm. Again, if ISPs were found to be abusing these rules to hurt consumers, the rules would be very clearly designed to give the FCC authority to step in and stop any business practice that would actually hurt consumers or competition.
  • Squash Innovation -- The types of prioritization arrangements that would pass muster under a “commercially reasonable” test would be overwhelmingly welfare maximizing, potentially unlocking totally new services.
  • The complaint process will be arduous --The Commission would probably want to handle complaints internally. Furthermore, with sharp glare of the media spotlight and millions of consumers concerned about these issues, legitimate grievances will surface very quickly and demand swift resolution.
  • Better to go back to Title II -- Rather than accept innovation in the core network, opponents of the rule would like to ban it, returning broadband to Title II classification. Title II classification would necessitate an abandonment of inter-modal competition and force providers into an arcane rate setting process inevitably reducing investment in our networks and the potential for innovative new broadband technologies. Moreover, Title II would likely be worse at protecting consumers from anti-competitive practices than the proposed rule.

Teens drift away from 'traditional' social networks

Teenagers are moving away from ‘traditional’ social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in favour of mobile messaging apps like WhatsApp and WeChat.

According to the latest GlobalWebIndex report, the percentage of teens active on Facebook dropped by 9 per cent during 2013. Falls were also recorded for YouTube (7 per cent), Twitter (3 per cent) and Google+ (4 per cent).

This does not mean that mainstream social networks are dead and buried -- Facebook is still the leading app for teenagers, and by the end of 2013, 66 per cent of teens were members of the site. However, Jason Mander, head of trends at GlobalWebIndex, said that teenagers are using these networks less actively, and for fewer things. At the same time, the report, based on interviews with 170,000 users in 32 counties, detected a rise in newer social networks like Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr, along with mobile messaging services.

Snapchat is the fastest growing social media app among teens, with this demographic more than twice as likely as others to be using it. Mander said that messaging apps are popular among teens because they are more convenient and cheaper than text messaging. However, Mander said that these apps are particularly attractive to teenagers because they are more private than traditional social networks, and this generation is increasingly concerned about its digital footprint.

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