May 29, 2014 (Maya Angelou, Lyrical Witness of the Jim Crow South)
Maya Angelou, Lyrical Witness of the Jim Crow South, Dies at 86
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY, MAY 29, 2014
FCC Workshop on the Future of Broadband Regulation – today and tomorrow http://benton.org/calendar/2014-05-29/
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Comcast-Time Warner deal may hinge on anemic low-cost Internet plan
Community Fiber in Washington, DC, Seattle, and San Francisco - research
Google Inc: Fanning the Fiber Flames - analysis
Small Market Gigabit Deployments Gain Steam with TDS, Comporium News [links to web]
Why surfing the Web could become as dreadful as flying economy class - op-ed
Report: Verizon FiOS claimed public utility status to get government perks
Meeker: As Internet User Growth Slows, the Real Driver Is Mobile Usage [links to web]
“Fans Trump Audiences”, Mary Meeker Tells Code Conference
Chamber of Commerce defends US Internet oversight shift [links to web]
Norquist: Don’t tax the Net [links to web]
EDUCATION
E-Rate Is Billions Short on Meeting Schools' Wireless-Network Needs, Analysis Finds
School groups 'cannot wait any longer' for FCC
How Better Tech Education Can Unlock a Half-Trillion Dollar Opportunity [links to web]
Mayor de Blasio Details Tech Investments in City Schools To Close Achievement Gap and Better Prepare all Students for The Workforce [links to web]
Can Student Data Improve Learning Without Compromising Privacy? [links to web]
Apple now offers education discounts on iPads. Is that because of Chromebooks? - analysis [links to web]
OWNERSHIP
The epic technological transition that explains this year’s spate of tech mergers
Hachette says more than 5,000 books have been affected by Amazon’s actions [links to web]
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Amazon - WSJ editorial
Publishers must become giants to take on Amazon - analysis
US is set for Apple’s e-book appeal, but maybe it should be looking at Amazon instead - analysis
Amazon isn't -- and likely never will be -- a monopoly - analysis
Where to get Hachette books now (other than Amazon) [links to web]
5 Reasons Why Media Execs Top CEO Pay Lists
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts: It’s time to pay the postman. (Just FYI: I am the new postman)
Comcast's Roberts: NYT Misreads Market [links to web]
Zaslav: Comcast/TWC Raises Issues [links to web]
SoftBank’s Son on US: “Regulation in This Country Is Wrong”
Apple Will Buy Beats for $3 Billion [links to web]
LABOR
Google Releases Employee Data, Illustrating Tech’s Diversity Challenge
TELEVISION
Most Cord-Cutters Are Happy They Did It: Study [links to web]
Nielsen Increases Local Sample Sizes [links to web]
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
FCC Announces the Opening of Public Testing for Google's TV Band Database System Registration Procedures - public notice [links to web]
PRIVACY/SECURITY
Privacy under attack, part II: the solution is in the hands of the people - op-ed
Deadline set for Senate action on cybersecurity [links to web]
Senate panel to examine ‘stalking apps’ [links to web]
House lawmakers want answers from eBay [links to web]
Can Student Data Improve Learning Without Compromising Privacy? [links to web]
Iran-Based Cyberspies Targeting US Officials, Report Alleges [links to web]
JOURNALISM
If Net Neutrality Is Such A Big Deal, How Come It's Not In The News?
Attorney General Holder: Journalists Won't Be Jailed For Doing Their Jobs [links to web]
CONTENT
Consumers Received 1.3 Million ‘Copyright Alerts’ in 2013 as Part of Anti-Piracy Initiative [links to web]
Lawmakers to unveil bill for pre-1972 recordings [links to web]
COMPANY NEWS
Pocket wants to be your permanent digital library, for a price [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
A Do-Nothing Congress? Well, Pretty Close
Primary Loss Means End of Era for World War II Veterans in Congress [links to web]
US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker Appoints Sue Swenson FirstNet Board Chairwoman - press release [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Facebook Seeks EU Antitrust Review of WhatsApp Deal
Egyptian TV Swayed Public Against Morsi, in Favor of Sisi
Iran-Based Cyberspies Targeting US Officials, Report Alleges [links to web]
Irish Regulator Finds Himself at Heart of Privacy Debate [links to web]
Is Estonia leading the way for cybersecurity? [links to web]
Security Insiders: Cyberspying Indictments Will Not Stop China From Hacking US Businesses [links to web]
The Chinese hacking indictments: Where’s the strategy? - op-ed [links to web]
IT firm to bring satellite broadband to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
COMCAST-TIME WARNER DEAL MAY HINGE ON ANEMIC LOW-COST INTERNET PLAN
[SOURCE: Center for Public Integrity, AUTHOR: Allan Holmes]
Comcast offered Internet Essentials shortly before its last big acquisition, when it bought NBC Universal in 2011. To ease federal approvals of the transaction, the company promised that it would offer low-priced Internet connections and computers to low-income families. But the Federal Communications Commission, which approved the merger, didn’t set any participation requirements, or metrics to define success. Now the cable and broadband giant, wants to buy Time Warner Cable, and again in an attempt to show regulators the deal is in the public interest, is offering to extend the program indefinitely and offer it to all Time Warner's customers too. The deal, if approved, will give Comcast control of about 40 percent of US Internet users. The program makes for good public relations, but its real impact on the persistent problem of low-broadband adoption rates among the poor is negligible and is a weak substitute for a national strategy, advocates say. Of the 7.2 million low-income people in Comcast’s service area, only 2.6 million are eligible for Internet Essentials, according to data compiled by the Center for Public Integrity. The program requires the participant’s household to include a child who is eligible for the federal school lunch program. Of that 2.6 million, only 300,000, or 12 percent, have signed up since Internet Essentials was launched in 2011. The low participation rate suggests that relying on merger conditions to make private companies provide what has become an essential tool to participate in society may not be the best approach to bridge the digital divide.
benton.org/node/184923 | Center for Public Integrity
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COMMUNITY FIBER IN WASHINGTON, DC, SEATTLE, AND SAN FRANCISCO
[SOURCE: Harvard University, AUTHOR: Susan Crawford, John Connolly, Melissa Nally, Travis West]
This report provides detailed accounts of planning carried out in connection with community fiber networks in Washington (DC), San Francisco, and Seattle. It includes information about existing fiber assets that the cities identified, funding mechanisms that were considered, and roadblocks that were encountered. Our hope is that this report will be helpful to other cities that are considering launching fiber optic networks. The cities profiled in this report have each approached the question of community fiber differently.
Washington, DC made concessions and arrangements that allowed it to build a robust public-safety-quality fiber network, but limitations on the use of that network have made it unavailable to residents and businesses. Additionally, prices charged non-profits for use of the network are currently too high to be competitive with incumbent products.
San Francisco has been highly innovative in expanding fiber to public housing, aggressively leasing dark fiber to community anchor institutions such as libraries and schools, and ensuring free public Wi-Fi, but has not yet cracked the nut of alternative community residential or business fiber access.
Seattle has had an extensive city fiber loop in place since 1986, but regulations limiting use of poles and approvals for cabinets have slowed the rollout of competitive last-mile service. Seattle’s recent negative experience with Gigabit Squared (which was unable to execute on its last-mile promises and subsequently vanished from the scene) casts a shadow. Seattle’s current mayor appears to be determined to ameliorate both the regulatory burdens and the information asymmetries that have dogged the city.
benton.org/node/184931 | Harvard University
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GOOGLE: FANNING THE FIBER FLAMES
[SOURCE: The Motley Fool, AUTHOR: Tim Brugger]
[Commentary] Portland (OR) is on Google's short list for its lightning-fast Fiber broadband network. Portland, along with eight other cities around the country, are taking regulatory steps to determine if signing a franchise agreement, a crucial step in the Google Fiber process, makes sense. In Portland, we'll learn what the city council has decided after a vote on June 11. If early indications from current Fiber cities are any indication, there's good reason to be excited. A door-to-door study conducted in Kansas City indicates Fiber customers are loving their $70 a month broadband access. Interestingly, most existing customers don't come close to actually using all that speed, but love it nonetheless. It's no wonder Portland, and the other cities on Google Fiber's short-list, are excited. But the upside of expanding Fiber's reach should go well beyond the nine cities, Google investor's should be just as giddy. Some investors may question if Google's self-driving cars, Loon balloons, and other off-the-charts innovations will actually generate enough revenues to warrant the time and expense: but Google Fiber isn't one of them. Customers are screaming for an alternative to service-challenged cable and telecommunications companies, and are willing to pay for it. Keep the Fiber fires burning Google, both your new customers (here's one vote for Portland) and shareholders alike will thank you for it.
benton.org/node/184929 | Motley Fool, The
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WHY SURFING THE WEB COULD BECOME AS DREADFUL AS FLYING ECONOMY CLASS
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Sarah Morris, Danielle Kehl]
[Commentary] If you want a glimpse into what the speed of your Internet connection might look like under the newly proposed Open Internet rules, take yourself back to the last uncomfortable hour of a long plane flight. You know the feeling. You're back in economy class wondering if seats have actually gotten smaller these past few years (they probably have), and amazed when you glance up front and see how appealing business class has become. That's what the Internet could look like soon. With all the talk about fast lanes and paid prioritization recently, the Federal Communication Commission's proposed rules could lead us down a path where regular and premium service levels make Internet service look a lot more like air travel. Tiered service has been common in air travel for years, with airlines offering special amenities and improved service for those who can afford to pay more, while everyone else gets crammed into regular seats. Although almost everyone would prefer to travel more comfortably and wait in faster security and boarding lines, it's often challenging for airlines to convince people to pay the premium for first class: It can cost up to ten times more to fly business instead of economy on a trans-Atlantic flight, and both seats get you to the same destination. So while airlines try to make first class more appealing with new amenities and personalized attention, they simultaneously have an incentive against improving the quality of "regular" service as a way to protect their higher-end business. And as airlines have struggled financially in recent years, it appears they may even be actively degrading economy class options. What's more, this tactic has the added benefit of increasing the appeal of premium options while still maintaining the premium price. This nuance is critical because it illustrates the incentives for airlines not only to make more seats available by reducing their size, but to increase the disparity between economy and premium seats to make the premium seats even more attractive to flyers. [Morris is the Senior Policy Counsel and Kehl is a Policy Analyst at New America's Open Technology Institute]
benton.org/node/184970 | Fortune
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REPORT: VERIZON FIOS CLAIMED PUBLIC UTILITY STATUS TO GET GOVERNMENT PERKS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
Verizon and the rest of the country's biggest Internet service providers joined forces to argue that so-called "common carrier" regulations for utilities shouldn't be applied to broadband. Such rules would force the Internet service providers (ISPs) to innovate less and spend less money than they do today on network upgrades, they argue. Yet Verizon obtains a variety of perks from the government for its FiOS Internet service by using public utility rules to its advantage, a new report drawing on public documents says. “It's the secret that's been hiding in plain sight,” said Harold Feld, senior VP of Public Knowledge and an expert on the Federal Communications Commission and telecommunications. “At the exact moment that these guys are complaining about how awful Title II is, they are trying to enjoy all the privileges of Title II on the regulated side.” “There's nothing illegal about it,” said Feld, who wasn’t involved in writing the report. However, “as a political point this is very useful.” Bruce Kushnick, telecommunications analyst, points to a New Jersey franchise agreement which states, "The construction of Verizon NJ’s fiber-to-the-premises FTTP network (the FTTP network) is being performed under the authority of Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 and under the appropriate state telecommunications authority granted to Verizon NJ."
benton.org/node/184967 | Ars Technica
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“FANS TRUMP AUDIENCES”, MARY MEEKER TELLS CODE CONFERENCE
[SOURCE: Deadline, AUTHOR: David Bloom]
Fans -- those completely entranced people who tweet and share and talk about their favorite TV shows and films and books and whatever else they care intensely about -- are increasingly far more valuable to networks and other content creators than just accreting big audiences, said Mary Meeker, the long-time Internet investment analyst. Meeker gave a brisk and broad-ranging rundown of major Internet trends as the opening speech at the 2014 Code Conference, the rebranded confab in Palos Verdes, California for Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher’s new tech-news site Re/Code. “Fans trump audiences,” Meeker said, crediting the observation to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who will speak before the show closes. “An audience changes the channel when the show is over. A fan base shares, comments, creates content” when the show is done, magnifying the show’s reach and engagement with existing and potential new audiences. That engagement with highly connected and passionate fans will become all the more important as more tablets and other smartphones are sold.
benton.org/node/184948 | Deadline | AdWeek
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EDUCATION
E-RATE IS BILLIONS SHORT ON MEETING SCHOOLS' WIRELESS-NETWORK NEEDS, ANALYSIS FINDS
[SOURCE: Education Week, AUTHOR: Benjamin Herold]
An estimated $3.2 billion in new funds are needed to realize President Barack Obama's goal of providing all students with high-speed wireless Internet connections inside their schools and libraries by 2018, concludes a new analysis by two prominent education-technology organizations. That staggering sum represents a needed investment above and beyond the $2.4 billion currently directed to schools and libraries each year as part of the federal E-rate program. It does not include the additional billions needed to provide schools and libraries with broadband connections to the outside world, nor does it account for the estimated $1.6 billion annually it would take to maintain new in-school wireless networks once they are built. The new projections come from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and EducationSuperHighway. They jointly submitted a first-of-its-kind analysis to the Federal Communications Commission, which is currently overhauling the E-rate, designed to subsidize schools' and libraries' telecommunications costs with fees raised from telecommunications companies.
benton.org/node/184917 | Education Week
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SCHOOL GROUPS 'CANNOT WAIT ANY LONGER' FOR FCC
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Julian Hattem]
More than a dozen school and library groups want the Federal Communications Commission to update its program to hook public educational facilities up to the Internet. In a letter, the groups pushed for changes to the FCC's E-Rate program, also called ConnectED, including more money. "We cannot wait any longer to increase E-Rate support. The time is now to permanently raise the E-Rate’s annual funding cap," groups including the American Library Association, American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association wrote. According to the groups, demand to access the fund is often twice the current cap of $2.4 billion, yet it "has received no meaningful funding increase since 1998." Additionally, most of the money is tied up for connecting schools and libraries to the Web, which makes it difficult to ensure that every classroom and computer within the building is connected. That is leading to "major roadblocks to students, educators and library patrons having enough bandwidth to perform online research, participate in digital professional learning classes and apply online for jobs or government services and benefits."
benton.org/node/184915 | Hill, The
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OWNERSHIP
EPIC TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSITION
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Brian Fung]
[Commentary] Now is an amazing time for mergers. Not just because they're all happening at the same time, but because they're taking place amid a grand convergence of all media onto a single platform: the Internet. Voice, video, data -- sooner or later, it will all be carried over broadband. These companies know it. And they're preparing themselves for the epic slugfest ahead. We're fast approaching the point at which multiple Web-related technologies reach maturity, enabling another major leap. While exciting, it also means the companies behind it will be forced to deal with each other in new and complicated ways. One area where this is playing out is in the cellular market. Mobile data is getting faster and faster all the time; Sprint believes that with the right investments, LTE speeds could reach a mindboggling 200 megabits per second. (For comparison, in 2012 mobile broadband speeds averaged 2.6 Mbps.) Selling Internet access is going to be a key part of the wireless industry's future. Wireless carriers are making less and less money selling their traditional product -- voice service -- and an increasing amount of money selling mobile data. If Sprint gets its way, mobile data will eventually become a real, viable alternative to fixed broadband. Meanwhile, the cable industry is eyeing a lateral jump into the wireless business. So wireless is converging with broadband. Cable is converging with wireless. And data-intensive video will increasingly be available on all three.
benton.org/node/185009 | Washington Post
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WSJ ON AMAZON-HACHETTE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Think of the Standard Oil-style abominations booksellers would perpetrate if the Justice Department's trust busters weren't on the watch. Literacy itself might be at risk. But though DoJ claimed the scalps of five major publishers and convicted Apple of price fixing, the book business still seems beset by a problem or two. There was nothing in those cases remotely approaching the exertions of market power that Amazon is now leveraging in its pricing feud with the publisher Hachette. Could it be that the feds targeted the wrong monopolist? Authors, editors and the book industry feel hostage to Amazon, but readers who want to buy Hachette books should be asking why the Justice Department's earlier intervention resulted in a de facto endorsement of Amazon's power plays.
benton.org/node/185008 | Wall Street Journal
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PUBLISHERS MUST BECOME GIANTS
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: John Gapper]
[Commentary] By forming a blatant cartel, the “big six” publishers and Apple botched their effort to resist Amazon’s dominance of e-books with the Kindle. It made the strangest antitrust cases of recent years -- the US government and the European Commission rushing to the aid of an emerging monopolist. Despite its current tactics, Amazon has been a profitable partner to publishers -- bringing innovation to a business of custom and practice. But it appears disturbingly ruthless, with a hardly disguised ambition to force other suppliers and intermediaries -- including publishers and bookstores -- out of business. It is a machine for squeezing margins, including its own, to near-zero in order to cut prices. These margins include not only publishers’ profits but royalties and advances to authors, which have been falling. There lies Amazon’s advantage -- it need not form a cartel to squeeze its suppliers because it is already large. Amazon may trigger a legal challenge over its deceptive sales practice -- telling its customers that Hachette books in the US (and Bonnier books in Germany, where it is waging a similar campaign) are “unavailable” when they can be bought quickly from its competitors. In terms of antitrust law, however, the biggest force in books is secure. There is a moral for publishers: get bigger. The question is less who wins the contest between Amazon and publishers than what benefits the reader and author, and wider society. The irony is that publishers’ efforts to set book prices themselves and treat Amazon as an agent were legal; it was the cartel that undermined them. The solution in US law is to grow into giants themselves. So much for craft industry.
benton.org/node/185006 | Financial Times
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US IS SET FOR APPLE’S EBOOK APPEAL, BUT MAYBE IT SHOULD BE LOOKING AT AMAZON INSTEAD
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Jeff Roberts]
[Commentary] The Justice Department filed its response to Apple’s appeal of a 2013 price-fixing verdict that found the iPhone maker had brokered a conspiracy among book publishers to fix the price of e-books. The government brief is 117 pages long and recounts familiar allegations: that Apple helped big publishers create a new pricing scheme in 2012 in order to get books on its new iPad device, and to wrest the e-book market from Amazon. The new brief contains rhetorical flourishes such as “publishers fear and loathe $9.99 E-book pricing,” and also makes the unlikely assertion that Apple organized the conspiracy because it “cared about iBookstore profits” and about earning a 30 percent commission (unlikely since e-book revenues are chickenfeed to a company that sells hundreds of millions of iPhones). The most interesting part of the brief, however, may be the Justice Department’s descriptions of Amazon. Even though Amazon is cast as one of the victims of the conspiracy, the brief reveals the immense power the retail giant held over the publishing world in 2011. This begs the question of why the Justice Department continues to train all of its antitrust fire on Apple, which continues to be an also-ran in the e-book market with a market share reportedly around 10 percent for most publishers. Why not investigate Amazon instead? Section 2 of the Sherman Act holds that a company violates antitrust law if it has monopoly power and uses that power in improper ways.
benton.org/node/184961 | GigaOm
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AMAZON ISN'T -- AND LIKELY NEVER WILL BE -- A MONOPOLY
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Christopher Matthews]
[Commentary] Pricing was the basis of the Justice Department's actions in 2012 against the major book publishers and Apple, who hated the fact that Amazon sold new e-book titles for less than $10, believing that Amazon was getting customers used to a price that could not sustain publishers' business models. The publishers colluded with Apple to force a model on e-book sellers where the publisher set prices for books and retailers simply took a commission. The latest tussle with Hachette is likely an extension of this battle, in which Amazon is fighting to regain its ability to dictate prices. If this is, in fact, the case, then it's highly unlikely that Amazon is up to anything illegal. Antitrust courts since the 1970s have consistently held that it's not illegal for a company to hold huge market share like Amazon does or even to use that market share as a tool in negotiations with suppliers, as long as they aren't using that power to raise prices for the end consumer. Absent this doctrine, it's easy to see how uncompetitive companies could turn to the government for shelter against competition from highly successful firms like Amazon. Instead of innovating, these companies could rely on the Justice Department to prevent their competitors from becoming too powerful.
benton.org/node/184960 | Fortune
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5 REASONS WHY MEDIA EXECS TOP CEO PAY LISTS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Ryan Nakashima]
Once again, media company CEOs are among the highest paid executives in the nation, occupying six of the top 10 earning spots according to an Associated Press/Equilar study. Compensation experts say a variety of factors are at play, including the gain in media stocks, the intangible value of talent in a hit-or-miss business, the control of shareholder power in very few hands, and the decline of the financial sector.
Stock Outperformers: Outsized stock growth boosts the value of stock and option grants. Media companies' shares have rebounded strongly since the 2008 recession, mainly because advertising spending grows in tandem with a growing economy. That means higher-priced ads and higher-priced execs.
Talent Quotient: Making it big in media means generating hits. And while top executives may not be hands-on with every decision, they are where the buck stops.
Voting Power: Control of voting power by a single shareholder can dilute the impact of "say on pay" advisory votes, experts say. A major shareholder can override other shareholders' concerns.
Other Industries' Decline: Lists in previous decades might have had more financial and banking executives. Since the Great Recession punished those companies with government bailouts, bank collapses, accounting revisions and writedowns, they have dropped in the pay rankings.
All Boats Rise: When one company boosts pay, others compensate to remain competitive.
benton.org/node/184925 | Associated Press
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COMCAST CEO BRIAN ROBERTS: IT’S TIME TO PAY THE POSTMAN. (JUST FYI: I AM THE NEW POSTMAN)
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Tom Krazit]
Faced with difficult questions about his company’s pending takeover of Time Warner Cable -- which would combine the two largest cable Internet providers in the US into a company consumers will likely hate twice as much -- Comcast CEO Brian Roberts made one thing very clear: his company is determined to sit directly in the middle of the tech world. Roberts said Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once told him that Comcast “should be the best dumb pipe,” a common sentiment in the tech industry that Internet service providers should get out of the way of the content and device industries and just provide reliable broadband service. But avoiding that low-margin fate has been a telecommunications vow for decades, and Roberts made it very clear that Comcast wants to be “the best pipe.” That means it wants to preserve a gatekeeper role. In a series of analogies, Roberts likened his company’s role to that of a postmaster, pointing out that Netflix pays hundreds of millions of dollars to mail DVDs to its customers but now expects to be able to deliver the same content over the Internet for free.
benton.org/node/184966 | GigaOm | Revere Digital | Revere Digital | B&C
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“REGULATION IN THIS CONTRY IS WRONG”
[SOURCE: Revere Digital, AUTHOR: Amy Schatz]
SoftBank CEO and Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son continued his unusual campaign to convince regulators to let him buy T-Mobile but criticizing the US wireless market, broadband speeds and regulation at the Code Conference. “Regulation in this country is wrong,” Son said, saying that telecommunications and anti-trust regulators have allowed an environment in which “the monopolist can become even more stronger.” Americans are satisfied with their Internet speeds because they don’t know any better, Son said, comparing it to Chinese people who have grown used to living under gray, smoggy skies. While the US dominated the 20th century because of its robust infrastructure -- both highway and electricity -- it’s falling behind now, he said. Although Son wouldn’t say the word T-Mobile -- he just referred to his desire to buy an American wireless carrier -- he said that regulators haven’t been very excited about talking to him about his possible deal. “They don’t want to see me,” he said. “They don’t want to talk about things like this.” One thing they might want to talk about is Son’s comment that he “provide network neutrality” on his network if he’s allowed to buy T-Mobile.
benton.org/node/184974 | Revere Digital
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LABOR
GOOGLE RELEASES EMPLOYEE DATA, ILLUSTRATING TECH’S DIVERSITY CHALLENGE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Claire Miller]
Google released statistics on the make-up of its workforce, providing numbers that offer a stark glance at how Silicon Valley remains a white man’s world. Thirty percent of Google’s 46,170 employees worldwide are women and 17 percent of its technical employees are women. Comparatively, 47 percent of the total workforce in the United States is women and 20 percent of software developers are women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of its United States employees, 61 percent are white, 2 percent are black and 3 percent are Hispanic. About one-third are Asian -- well above the national average -- and 4 percent are of two or more races. Of Google’s technical staff, 60 percent are white, 1 percent are black, 2 percent are Hispanic, 34 percent are Asian and 3 percent are of two or more races. In the United States workforce over all, 80 percent of employees are white, 12 percent are black and 5 percent are Asian, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Google’s disclosures come amid an escalating debate over the lack of diversity in the tech industry. Although tech is a key driver of the economy and makes products that many Americans use every day, it does not come close to reflecting the demographics of the country -- in terms of sex, age or race. The lopsided numbers persist among engineers, founders and boards of directors.
benton.org/node/184994 | New York Times | GigaOm | Google
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PRIVACY/SECURITY
PRIVACY UNDER ATTACK, PART II: THE SOLUTION IS IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Eben Moglen]
[Commentary] Edward Snowden has revealed problems for which we need solutions. The vast surveillance-industrial state that has grown up since 2001 could not have been constructed without government contractors and the data-mining industry. Both are part of a larger ecological crisis brought on by industrial overreaching. We have failed to grasp the nature of this crisis because we have misunderstood the nature of privacy. Businesses have sought to profit from our confusion, and governments have taken further advantage of it, threatening the survival of democracy itself. The real problem is that we are losing the anonymity of reading, for which nobody has contracted at all. We have lost the ability to read anonymously, but the loss is concealed from us because of the way we built the web. We gave people programs called "browsers" that everyone could use, but we made programs called "web servers" that only geeks could use log. In particular, the anonymity of reading is broken by the collection of metadata. Without anonymity in reading there is no freedom of the mind. Indeed, there is literally slavery. Our politics can't wait. Not in the US, where the war must end. Not around the world, where people must demand that governments fulfil the basic obligation to protect their security. [Moglen is professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is founder, director-counsel and chairman of Software Freedom Law Centre]
benton.org/node/184964 | Guardian, The
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JOURNALISM
IF NET NEUTRALITY IS SUCH A BIG DEAL, HOW COME IT'S NOT IN THE NEWS?
[SOURCE: Fast Company, AUTHOR: Sydney Brownstone]
Network neutrality is one of business and government's biggest ongoing debates. But even though our lives are increasingly influenced and determined by online interactions, many people have no idea what the phrase means. A recent Pew Research Center report put a point on how little the debate seems to be engaging the public. Out of the 203 articles that even mentioned net neutrality in 2014, 139 were in the same six papers. Twenty-five out of nearly 3,000 TV news programs discussed the issue. That's 0.8%. The story's very different on Twitter, where nearly all the 650,000 tweets on the topic expressed support for an open Internet. Then again, Twitter's not even close to a representative sample of the US population. A separate VentureBeat poll revealed similar findings. Of 714 people surveyed through Google, nearly 60% reported that they didn't even know enough about what net neutrality was. (And these are people already savvy enough to spend enough time on the Internet to take Google surveys.) So where does that leave us? Well, it leaves journalists with more of a responsibility to report on tech stuff that isn't the sexiest app or most titillating group selfie. But it's also a strong reminder: Some of the most important fights for public resources aren't made in front of the public. They're made in fluorescent-lit corporate conference rooms, on the least engaging parts of C-SPAN, or in tiny, esoteric debates that only circulate among a handful of people. And sometimes there's only mainstream news about them when it's too late.
benton.org/node/184913 | Fast Company
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POLICYMAKERS
A DO NOTING CONGRESS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Derek Willis]
After a burst of legislative activity in the past decade, representatives in the House are now proposing fewer bills. This House is on track to produce the lowest number of legislative proposals since the Clinton administration. Through mid-May, representatives introduced 18 percent fewer bills compared with the same point in the previous Congress. That’s the largest drop between Congresses in the period beginning in 1995, when Republicans overturned decades of Democratic rule in the House. The number of lawmakers who have introduced at least 25 proposals has fallen by nearly two-thirds compared with the previous Congress. The number who have produced five or fewer pieces of legislation has jumped 81 percent. The representatives who have introduced little or no legislation come from both parties and are veterans and newcomers alike. Political scientists and legislators have several theories on the slowdown.
benton.org/node/185004 | New York Times
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
FACEBOOK SEEKS EU ANTITRUST REVIEW OF WHATSAPP DEAL
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Tom Fairless]
Facebook has asked European Union antitrust regulators to examine its $19 billion deal to buy messaging service WhatsApp, in an attempt to avoid other antitrust reviews by individual countries, people familiar with the matter said. The move was unexpected because the deal already had been approved in the US and wasn't expected to face scrutiny by the European Commission, the EU's central antitrust authority. However, in light of potential reviews from different countries, Facebook is seeking one hearing that will cover the entire 28-nation bloc. "Facebook might prefer to go to the commission than go before several national regulators, which would each ask it for information," said Thomas Graf, an antitrust lawyer with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in Brussels. The commission also might be expected to take a more neutral approach than national authorities, which would face vigorous lobbying from local interest groups such as national telecom companies, experts said. The deal has raised concerns among Europe's telecom companies, which have warned that WhatsApp -- a service that acts as a replacement for text and picture messaging -- would give Facebook a dominant position in the market for instant messaging in Europe.
benton.org/node/184933 | Washington Post
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EGYPTIAN TV
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Matt Bradley]
The dramatic shift in popular opinion that is expected to lift a former army chief to president of Egypt traces, in part, to an incident outside a TV station. One night last June, long before Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Al Sisi was seen as presidential material here, the news directors of six satellite news channels huddled in an office to discuss growing protests outside by backers of Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader elected president after the Arab Spring uprising. The news directors say they were terrified. Islamists enraged at the stations' criticisms of Morsi had surrounded the office park that housed their TV offices, intimidating reporters who came and went. The news directors made a decision: From then on, their stations would refer to Muslim Brotherhood supporters as "terrorists." The protesters "were saying 'We will kill you.' They started throwing Molotov cocktails at the gate. So this was terrorism," said Albert Shafik, news director of a channel called OnTV. "So we explained this every day on air." The language in broadcasts watched by millions proved a pivot point in Egypt's circuitous development after the Arab Spring, from nascent democracy to a new embrace of leadership by former generals.
benton.org/node/184998 | Wall Street Journal
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