December 15, 2014 (The Great Internet Tax Hoax of 2014)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2014
Ever wonder what range of topics Headlines covers? Check it out at http://benton.org/topics
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Congress Puts to Rest the Great Internet Tax Hoax of 2014 - Free Press press release
Internet Tax Reprieve - WSJ editorial
Wider Broadband Helps Growth
7 internet policy ideas that everyone can agree on - Mercatus Center/NAF op-ed
Sen Leahy is trying to shame Internet providers for not renouncing fast lanes
The Internet’s Future Lies Up in the Skies - Christopher Mims analysis
EDUCATION
The smart choice for smarter students - Olympia Snowe op-ed
FCC E-Rate Decision Draws a Crowd [links to web]
See also: FCC Lifts E-rate Spending – Washington Reacts
Seeking coders, tech titans turn to schools [links to web]
OWNERSHIP
FCC Okays Scripps/Journal Merger
FCC Okays Media General/LIN Merger
CONTENT
Apple Heads to Court in E-Book Appeal [links to web]
Apple Should Win Its E-Book Appeal - op-ed [links to web]
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
FCC Seeks Comments on Technological Advisory Council Report on Mobile Device Theft Prevention - public notice [links to web]
FCC Gets Spectrum of Reaction on Incentive Auction Vote [links to web]
Wireless War: Consumers win, investors lose [links to web]
Telecoms Are Hit by Cellphone Cost Worries [links to web]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
Cybersecurity Legislation Passes
With hackers running rampant, why would we poke holes in data security? - Sen Ron Wyden op-ed [links to web]
Center for Digital Democracy Files Suit Against FTC
Google: We don't spy on you [links to web]
DIVERSITY
Ferguson to Silicon Valley: 'All part of the same fight' - op-ed
How to change what the tech workforce looks like - analysis [links to web]
JOURNALISM
Sony Tells Media Not to Use Leaked Documents [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Chairman Rogers confident NSA programs won’t die [links to web]
OPEN GOVERNMENT
Chairman Leahy: Speaker Boehner killed FOIA reform [links to web]
Center for Digital Democracy Files Suit Against FTC
POLICYMAKERS
'Revolving door' spins between AT&T, GSA [links to web]
Comcast PAC donations to home state senators pay off in Washington [links to web]
How Sen Chuck Schumer became Silicon Alley's closest ally [links to web]
Sen Nelson takes top Democratic spot on Commerce Committee [links to web]
GOP hits the brakes on Obama nominees [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Why Spain's Google Tax is Doomed - op-ed [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
TAX HOAX OF 2014
[SOURCE: Free Press, AUTHOR: Press release]
Congress passed the $1.1 trillion spending package, which includes a provision to extend a moratorium on local and state taxes for Internet sales and services. The Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), reauthorized through October 2015, bans states from imposing taxes on Internet access no matter how the FCC classifies it. This extension erases any concern that reclassifying Internet-access services under Title II of the Communications Act could lead to a new tax burden on consumers. Industry-backed economists from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) had claimed reclassification could lead to as much as $15 billion in new taxes -- a claim repeated in the press and in cable-industry advertising that targets network neutrality rules. The renewal of this legislation reaffirms that there is no threat of new taxes from Title II. When Congress amended the ITFA's definitions in 2004, it excluded from taxation telecommunications services used to enable Internet access. At the time, Congress sought to address the transition from the dial-up era to the broadband era, as DSL was then considered a Title II service. Free Press sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission highlighting multiple errors in PPI's analysis and further clarifying that Title II reclassification would result in no new taxes on Internet access. According to the letter, "Ignoring or omitting any reference whatsoever to the tax legislation at the crux of this debate is an odd choice to say the least, and one that destroys any credibility of the parties making this claim about new taxes. But the meaning of the ITFA is clear, and it clearly precludes state and local taxes on Internet access no matter whether the FCC classifies it as a telecommunications service.”
benton.org/headlines/congress-puts-rest-great-internet-tax-hoax-2014 | Free Press
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INTERNET TAX REPRIEVE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Buried inside Congress’s omnibus spending bill is an extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act through the end of the 2015 fiscal year. Most gratifying for consumers is that this ban on Internet access taxes has not been bundled with a separate plan to boost sales tax collections for goods purchased online. Congress should enact a clean, permanent extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act when legislators return in January.
benton.org/headlines/internet-tax-reprieve | Wall Street Journal
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WIDER BROADBAND HELPS GROWTH, BUT NOT LIKE BATTLING SOME ILLNESSES
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Alistair Barr]
Expanding broadband Internet access may produce more global economic benefit than tackling HIV or preventing deforestation, but wouldn’t match gains from improving nutrition for kids or eradicating malaria. The Copenhagen Consensus Center, a non-profit group that asks teams of economists to study global development initiatives, found that expanding wired broadband networks to reach 30 percent of the world’s people by 2030, up from 10 percent now, would generate $21 of economic benefit for every $1 spent. Earlier studies by the center found that $1 spent to alleviate childhood malnutrition would do $45 of good, while $1 spent on malaria would produce $35 of benefit. Each $1 spent to treat and research vaccines for HIV would generate $11 of gains. Expanding broadband access through wireless networks would be cheaper than building fixed wireline networks, however the benefits would be smaller, according to the group’s latest study.
benton.org/headlines/wider-broadband-helps-growth-not-battling-some-illnesses | Wall Street Journal
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7 INTERNET POLICY IDEAS THAT EVERYONE CAN AGREE ON
[SOURCE: Vox, AUTHOR: Eli Dourado, Danielle Kehl]
[Commentary] Here are seven common-sense reforms we think policy experts across the political spectrum could get behind:
1) Rein in surveillance by the National Security Agency
2) Get rid of bad software patents
3) Reduce excessive copyright protections
4) Don't weaken smartphone encryption
5) Free up more electromagnetic frequencies (spectrum) to speed up mobile networks
6) Remove government oversight of Internet names and addresses
7) Don't let the United Nations expand its role in Internet governance
[Eli Dourado is the director of the Technology Policy Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Danielle Kehl is a policy analyst at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute]
benton.org/headlines/7-internet-policy-ideas-everyone-can-agree | Vox
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Sen LEAHY IS TRYING TO SHAME INTERNET PROVIDERS FOR NOT RENOUNCING FAST LANES
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Brian Fung]
Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is calling out a number of Internet providers for their "unfortunate" failure to commit to swearing off Internet "fast lanes", otherwise known as "paid prioritization". "This is disappointing," Sen Leahy said. "I was disappointed that some Internet service providers in their responses brushed aside these concerns dismissively." Although the Internet service providers told him they didn't currently have plans to engage in paid prioritization, they declined to rule out starting such programs in the future, as Sen Leahy asked.
benton.org/headlines/sen-leahy-trying-shame-internet-providers-not-renouncing-fast-lanes | Washington Post | The Hill
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SATELLITTES AND INTERNET ACCESS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Christopher Mims]
[Commentary] The business of getting bits to people and their devices has barely begun. Most people don’t have access to the Internet, and of those who do, most are on connections you, the reader, would find unacceptably slow. The solution to the related challenges of getting Internet to the next four billion people, and making it fast, will very likely be Internet from the sky. A new generation of launch and satellite technology, plus new ideas about what constitutes a satellite, are transforming the sky above our heads into waypoints for data that could reach our mobile devices as quickly as from terrestrial networks, with the advantage of global coverage.
benton.org/headlines/internets-future-lies-skies | Wall Street Journal
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EDUCATION
THE SMART CHOICE FOR SMARTER STUDENTS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Olympia Snowe]
[Commentary] Eighteen years ago I coauthored, along with Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), a bipartisan initiative called E-rate. The E-rate program has been a resounding success, establishing basic connections to the Internet for 99 percent of our schools and libraries. Yet, basic connectivity is no longer sufficient. It is urgent we now upgrade every school and library to the gigabit broadband and Wi-Fi essential to fulfilling the promise of digital learning in the 21st century. While South Korea replaces printed textbooks with connected devices, Singapore wires its schools to gigabit broadband, and Australia and New Zealand bring high-speed fiber to their rural schools, an astonishing 63 percent of America’s schools, representing nearly 40 million students, lack the necessary broadband speeds. We cannot countenance a new digital divide creating an opportunity divide for America’s young men and women. The proposal before the Federal Communications Commission is the smart choice for smarter children, and I can think of no better investment for the next generation -- and beyond.
[Olympia Snowe served as senator from Maine from 1995-2013]
benton.org/headlines/smart-choice-smarter-students | Hill, The
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OWNERSHIP
FCC OKAYS SCRIPPS/JOURNAL MERGER
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has approved the license transfers in the Scripps/Journal Communications deal to merge their broadcast station groups and spin off their newspaper holdings into a separate company. The deal requires the divestiture of two Journal stations, a radio and TV, and for the FCC to extend a failing station waiver, which the FCC will do. Journal will have to sell one of its FM stations in Wichita (KS), whose ownership had been grandfathered.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-okays-scrippsjournal-merger | Broadcasting&Cable
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FCC OKAYS MEDIA GENERAL/LIN MEGER
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has approved the Media General/LIN Media meld and a complicated series of associated transactions that are seeing stations go to Hearst, Meredith and Sinclair to comport with FCC local ownership rules. The FCC said one of the public interest benefits of the deal was that the spin-offs would not create any new duopolies, suggesting duopoly avoidance is an FCC goal.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-okays-media-generallin-merger | Broadcasting&Cable
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SECURITY/PRIVACY
CYBERSECURITY LEGISLATION
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The House and Senate have passed cybersecurity legislation that is meant to produce consistent guidelines on protecting information online under a partnership between government and the private sector. The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014 passed both House and Senate. The bill, formerly the Cybersecurity Act of 2013, was introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D- WV) more than a year ago (it is co-sponsored by ranking member Sen. John Thune (R-S.D)). The bill 1) creates an industry-driven process for creating voluntary cybersecurity critical infrastructure standards, under the watchful eye of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), that will be "non-regulatory, non-prescriptive and technology neutral"; 2) coordinates and "strengthens cybersecurity R&D; 3) boost cybersecurity education and awareness; and 4) "advances" technical standards.
benton.org/headlines/cybersecurity-legislation-passes | Multichannel News | Sens Rockefeller and Thune
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CENTER FOR DIGITAL DEMOCRACY FILES SUIT AGAINST FTC
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Center for Digital Democracy has filed suit in US District Court for the District of Columbia against the Federal Trade Commission alleging that it has wrongfully withheld records about online safe harbor programs that CDD sought under the Freedom of Information Act. CDD is looking for annual reports to the FTC from various safe harbor programs under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. CDD says that the FTC has violated the statutory time limit for processing FOIA requests and wants the court to force the FTC to produce the requested records, disclose them with all fees waived, pay CDD's attorneys fees, and any other remedy the court thinks appropriate.
benton.org/headlines/center-digital-democracy-files-suit-against-ftc | Multichannel News
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DIVERSITY
FERGUSON TO SILICON VALLEY: 'ALL PART OF THE SAME FIGHT'
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Laura Weidman Powers]
[Commentary] Our work may not have the level of urgency around it of the work being done in Ferguson (MO) and other cities around the country, but diversifying Silicon Valley and the tech sector more broadly does have great importance, because it is all part of the same fight. It is a fight against segregation, separation and the status quo. It's a fight against devaluation, denigration and desperation. It's a fight for the future. As technology continues to become the dominant industry and skill set of the future, as founders and funders and engineers make the programs, products, and rules by which we access the Internet -- the world's store of information and platform for communication -- these same themes resonate.
[Laura Weidman Powers is the co-founder and CEO of CODE2040]
benton.org/headlines/ferguson-silicon-valley-all-part-same-fight | USAToday
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