September 2014

What to Take Away from the FCC Settlement with Verizon over CPNI

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission reached a $7.4 million settlement with Verizon over the company’s misuse of its customers’ private information (“customer proprietary network information,” or “CPNI”) for internal marketing, which violated longstanding federal privacy rules. The settlement was particularly notable for a few reasons: First, the FCC has privacy rules, and those rules are no joke. Second, this settlement wouldn’t have happened if not for Title II.

AT&T RFD-TV Deal Aims to Appease Regulators

AT&T has reached an agreement to add rural cable channel RFD-TV to its U-verse Video lineup. The move is not a surprise, considering that as of August, about half of the letters the Federal Communications Commission had received about AT&T’s planned purchase of DirecTV were from viewers who were worried that the merger would reduce availability of RFD-TV, an offering of Rural Media Group, provider of rural content for a wide range of media outlets that also include a SiriusXM satellite radio channel. The move would seem to be a relatively easy concession for AT&T to make as a means of enhancing the likelihood that its DirecTV deal will receive regulatory approval.

Digital Paywall Companies Piano Media and Press Plus to Merge

Two of the biggest companies helping news organizations set up digital paywalls merged and hired a former newspaper executive as chief. Piano Media, a three-year-old Slovakian company that helped major European news organizations charge for online content, announced that it had bought Press Plus, its American counterpart. Press Plus was founded by the former Wall Street Journal publisher L. Gordon Crovitz and the journalist Steven Brill to help companies like McClatchy and GateHouse Media set up paywalls. Kelly Leach, who recently resigned as publisher of The Wall Street Journal Europe, will run the merged company.

More than E-book vs. Print: The Concept of ‘Media Mentors’

We often get stuck on the pros and cons of e-books, especially when it comes to early literacy.

Print books offer beautiful illustrations and enable children to touch and feel the weight of the paper as they turn the pages. Devoid of backlit screens, they are easier on the eyes. Plus, they come with no distractions. “It is the book, not the e-book, that invites and sustains parent-child interaction and the personal and intimate experience of sharing and talking through reading,” argues Kathy Kleckner of the Children’s Library of Minnesota. “Books need us.“ Ebooks have the benefit of interactive features, audio read-alouds and narrative questions built into their very pages, not to mention the ability to be stored en mass and clicked open anywhere at anytime. “Such tools can support and enhance adults’ role in supporting development of the whole child,” write Maryanne Martens and Dorothy Stoltz, librarians on the board of LittleELit, a website run by librarians who examine children’s apps and ebooks. Just because a book is in print, doesn’t mean that it’s of higher quality. Print books, the authors argue, can just as easily feature “poor writing and mediocre illustrations that often function as promotional material for other branded merchandise.”

Any curbs on Comcast alliance are tough to enforce

No matter what conditions regulators place on Comcast in order to approve its merger with Time Warner Cable, they will be toothless, according to television industry insiders. That’s because the Federal Communications Commission is unable to enforce some of the conditions it sets down, the critics claim. Just look at the conditions Comcast was supposed to adhere to -- but didn’t -- to gain approval of its purchase of NBCUniversal, the critics maintain.

Five Guiding Principles for the Development of National Cyber Strategies

[Commentary] What does a national cyber strategy need to look like? Here are five principles that I believe should be central to any such endeavor:

Remember that a strategy is declaratory policy as well as a guide to action.
Focus on continuity as well as change.
Make your strategy genuinely ‘national’.
Make sure your strategy is credible.
Accept that cybersecurity is with us forever, and plan accordingly.

Univision, an early Comcast critic, signs long-term sports deal

Univision, an early critic of Comcast's bid for Time Warner Cable, agreed to a long-term deal to bring the Hispanic media firm's sports network to Comcast cable subscribers.

Univision Deportes Network, which has exclusive rights to air Mexico's Liga MX soccer matches, will be offered starting next month to subscribers of Comcast's premium Digital Preferred package or its Latino services. UDN also airs international soccer matches, Formula 1 races and NFL, MLB and NBA games for Spanish-speaking audiences. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

The History of the Mobile Phone

The many iterations the mobile phone has gone through over the decades.

The State Department’s plan to spark a global SOPA-style uprising around Internet governance

For years now, there has been a fight brewing over whether Internet governance should rest with the 16-year-old Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or be shifted to a United Nations-affiliated body. ICANN and the 150-year-old International Telecommunications Union, which has long acted as the traffic cop of global non-Internet telecommunications, might be headed to a crucial face-off next month. And so, the U.S. State Department, which wants ICANN to retain control of Internet governance, is making a bid to broaden the debate and engage an audience all over the world with a simple proclamation: "The Internet belongs to everyone." The first step in that campaign is a two-minute animated video.

Continued Evolution of the Internet Requires Open and Inclusive Collaboration

The exponential growth of the Internet, one of the greatest engineering and technical feats ever achieved, was made possible by a level of collaboration and cooperation which has few parallels in the history of technological development. Next year marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of the International Telecommunication Union. ICT evolution over 150 years -- from the telegraph to the telephone to satellites and mobile broadband and on into the information age -- has required extensive global collaboration and at ITU we are proud to have played a meaningful role where Member States, industry leaders and civil society come together to achieve consensus positions on the future of technology and take concrete action for effective digital inclusion to ensure that technology benefits everyone.

Benton

Search