May 2015

Tech giants don’t want President Obama to give police access to encrypted phone data

Tech behemoths including Apple and Google and leading cryptologists are urging President Barack Obama to reject any government proposal that alters the security of smartphones and other communications devices so that law enforcement can view decrypted data.

In a letter to be sent May 19, a coalition of tech firms, security experts and others appeal to the White House to protect privacy rights as it considers how to address law enforcement’s need to access data that is increasingly encrypted. “Strong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy’s security,” said the letter, signed by more than 140 tech companies, prominent technologists and civil society groups.

Hillary Clinton was paid millions by tech industry for speeches

Hillary Rodham Clinton has an unusually close financial ties with a broad array of industries that have issues before the government and paid millions of dollars to her and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, in the months preceding the launch of her presidential campaign.

Disclosure documents filed by Hillary Clinton last week revealed that the couple have earned about $25 million for delivering 104 paid speeches since January 2014. While Bill Clinton’s lucrative speaking career since leaving the White House in 2001 has been well documented, the new disclosures offer the first public accounting of Hillary Clinton’s paid addresses since she stepped down as secretary of state. And they illustrate how the Clintons have personally profited by drawing on the same network of supporters who have backed their political campaigns and philanthropic efforts -- while those supporters have gained entree to a potential future president. Silicon Valley is one place where those overlapping interests come together. Out of the $11.7 million that Hillary Clinton has made delivering 51 speeches since January 2014, $3.2 million came from the technology industry. Several of the companies that paid Clinton to address their employees also have senior leaders who have been early and avid supporters of her presidential bid.

Ad-blocking technology poised to make mobile Net less neutral

[Commentary] Having trouble seeing the link between the Verizon-AOL deal and the need for net neutrality regulations? Some new reporting by the Financial Times should help clear things up for you.

The FT's Robert Cookson revealed that at least one major European mobile network is planning to use technology from Shine, an Israeli startup, to block ads from showing up on mobile-phone browsers. The technology can stop ads on web pages and most apps transmitted through the cellular network. The idea is remarkably anti-competitive, not to mention disruptive to a key business model for free content online. One can only imagine the conversations between a mobile-phone operator using Shine's ad-blocking technology and a major brand or online advertising network: "That's a real nice display ad you've got there. I'd hate to see anything bad happen to it on my network." Verizon and every other major ISP is challenging the neutrality rules in court, arguing among other things that the Federal Communications Commission exceeded its statutory authority. The courts will eventually decide if it did. In the meantime, the evidence mounts that ISPs may no longer be content to deliver content to their subscribers without making their mark on it.

Why the New York Times and other papers had to partner with Facebook

[Commentary] Some of the biggest names in media have conceded that they are neither large enough nor strong enough to thrive as independent digital publishers without the help of at least one of their fearsome frenemies in Silicon Valley.

In addition to Facebook, the other frenemy, of course, is Google. Although media companies like to think that the quality of their work speaks for itself, Facebook and Google referrals steer the preponderance of the traffic to almost every news site. The Facebook deal institutionalizes as never before this long-running dependency. In addition to the trio mentioned above, the other media companies that will be funneling content to Facebook are the Atlantic, BBC News, Bild, the Guardian, National Geographic and Spiegel Online. Fearful of being left behind, it is fair to assume additional media names in the not-too-distant future will feel obliged to join too.

[Mutter is a former newspaper editor and Silicon Valley chief executive. In addition to teaching at UC Berkeley, he is a strategic consultant to global media companies.]

YouTube's toddler app full of disturbing videos, say child advocates who want FTC to investigate

Consumer groups compiled a disturbing dossier of the YouTube Kids app's content and will ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google's app for unfair and deceptive business practices, the second such complaint filed since the kid-centric video service launched in February.

"The deeper you get into this, the scarier it is in placing children at risk," said Dale Kunkel, a communications professor at the University of Arizona. "I'm astonished at the volume of inappropriate material, much of which will be harmful for kids if they see it." Google said that it works to make the app's videos "as family-friendly as possible" and takes feedback very seriously, removing inappropriate videos flagged by users. In an interview shortly after introducing YouTube Kids, its product manager, Shimrit Ben-Yair, said that the mobile app uses a "two-step process" to select kid-friendly content from the 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube each minute. The first step is to "algorithmically narrow it down to family-friendly content," she said. The second involves Google employees doing a "manual sampling for quality control, to see if it's family-friendly." But that filter is not working, according to advocates and some parents who wrote reviews on the Google Play and iTunes stores documenting how their children discovered violent, sexually explicit or other jaw-dropping content.

Will a Scramble for Airwaves Dent Talking Cars?

In 1999, the Federal Communications Commission set aside a separate band of airwaves for vehicle-to-vehicle communications, or V2V, but the auto industry has yet to use it.

Most auto makers are testing connected vehicles, but General Motors is the only auto maker to disclose a firm plan to launch one for U.S. drivers, and even then details are sparse. Now, a threat is now looming over the spectrum. Cable, telecommunications and other technology companies want auto makers to cough up a portion of these airwaves for broader use. The car companies are trying to show that they are taking action.

Lifeline -- Where Did It Come From?

[Commentary] Lifeline telecommunications services have long generated controversy, but over the last few years, critics have been especially vociferous, railing against what they have termed “Obamaphones,” wireless phones with modest free service allotments provided to low income users. (As discussed below, and as this snopes.com explainer says, the term is a misnomer in that the Lifeline program dates to the 1980's and it was expanded to wireless during the George W. Bush Administration.) In the coming weeks, the Federal Communications Commission will likely launch a proceeding considering a number of changes to its Lifeline Assistance program (Lifeline), including an expansion of its coverage to broadband services. Therefore, this is a good time to review the history and legal underpinnings of Lifeline, and how the “Obamaphone” came into being.

Facebook's Internet.org accused of creating insecure Web

Digital rights groups are piling on to criticism that Facebook’s worldwide Internet access project, Internet.org, doesn’t promote privacy or security. On May 18, 60 groups from 28 countries wrote an open letter on Facebook expressing their concerns about the project from Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg that is trying to bring basic Web services to the roughly 4 billion unconnected people worldwide. Internet.org, the groups maintained, is “threatening freedom of expression, equality of opportunity, security, privacy and innovation.”

Similar criticism started gaining traction in early May, after the social networking giant opened up the Internet.org platform to developers. The move allowed software engineers to develop third-party Internet services and apps using the website’s platform. But the platform doesn't support apps that are encrypted or traffic protected with secure hypertext transfer protocol, a common method of securing website activity. Facebook developers say the company is working to add these features soon. While Internet.org has been lauded for its aspirations, digital rights advocates have criticized it for giving Facebook developers too much control over which services are available to the unconnected community.

Cable companies could escape local rate regulation under FCC proposal

The latest controversy at the Federal Communications Commission involves cable TV competition and rate regulation, and it could end with cable companies facing fewer price restrictions in cities and towns. Local franchise authorities may regulate the rates cable TV providers charge for "basic" cable service and equipment, but only if the local cable company does not face what's known as "effective competition." Today, the burden of proof is on cable companies to show that they face effective competition, but the FCC is considering a change that would shift the burden of proof to local authorities by adopting a "rebuttable presumption" that cable operators face effective competition. While cable companies have cheered the proposal, the FCC's own Intergovernmental Advisory Committee (IAC) said that such a move "is contrary to the public interest." Besides limiting rate regulation -- which is already rare -- the proposal would eliminate other consumer protections, the IAC said.

AT&T's Stephenson: Google Fiber 'changed the game' for broadband buildout, but Title II rules could stall efforts

While AT&T's deployment of 1 Gbps fiber in Austin (TX) is going well, Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of the carrier, credits Google with making the rollout a commercial success. "When Google went into Kansas City and Austin, it changed the game for the industry … in a very peculiar way," he said. "In the past if we wanted to go into a city environment, the requirement was you build out the entire city," Stephenson explained in a keynote at the JP Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference. Doing that requires a huge capital investment, one that AT&T felt it couldn't make, he noted. Google's entry into Austin, in particular, enabled AT&T to ask the city for the same terms as Google Fiber received. "Google came in and was very targeted in where they wanted to deploy fiber, and they got municipal endorsement (on that). …We said we'll take the same deal that Google got. And we got the same deal that Google got," Stephenson said.

However, he warned, new network neutrality regulations could put a stop to the cornucopia of fiber investment. "I believe if the rules as passed were the rules of the land for next 10 years it would have a dramatic effect on investment," Stephenson said, adding that the rules as written and approved by the FCC are neither good for the industry nor sustainable. In the recent request to halt implementation of Title II-based rules, filed by several communications companies, Stephenson said that some broadband providers are already being affected. "If you read the stay you will see that several companies have broadband deployment plans and when Title II (was approved), the banks pulled down funding. So it does have an impact on investment."

Benton

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