May 2015

ABC News’s Stephanopoulos donated $75,000 to Clinton Foundation

ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos made three contributions to the Clinton Foundation, ABC confirmed, in an apparent conflict with his duties as a journalist.

Stephanopoulos contributed $25,000 in 2012, 2013 and again last year to the charitable organization headed by former president Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea. “PBS NewsHour” co-anchor Judy Woodruff also said that she had made a one-time donation to the charity — $250 in 2010. Stephanopoulos, ABC’s chief political correspondent, was already regarded warily by Republicans because of his long association with the Clintons. He was a key adviser to Bill Clinton during his campaign in 1992 and served as a senior White House aide during Clinton’s first term. Republicans and media ethicists said the contributions raised questions about his objectivity and neutrality, particularly since he is likely to cover Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. ABC said that Stephanopoulos has decided not to moderate a Republican debate sponsored by the network and the Republican National Committee scheduled for Feb. 6.

Google Expands Data on Government Requests in Report

Google expanded the information it discloses in its report on government requests for data, as the company seeks to balance the demands of law-enforcement agencies with its need to protect user privacy. The company will now include all countries’ emergency disclosure requests, which come from agencies seeking information to help a person in danger.

Previously, it listed such requests only from the US. It also will show requests to set aside information relating to a user’s account -- preserving data while the authorities go through the steps to get to a formal request. In the six months that ended Dec. 31, Google received 30,138 requests globally for information about more than 50,585 users or accounts. The number of requests fell 4.9 percent from the first half of 2014, while the number of users or accounts involved rose by 4.1 percent.

FCC To Hold Open Commission Meeting Thursday, May 21, 2015

The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on Thursday, May 21, 2015; here’s the agenda. The FCC will consider:

An Order to extend the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program and a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to permanently extend the program. The program provides up to $10 million annually from the Interstate Telecommunications Relay Service Fund to support programs that distribute communications equipment to low-income individuals who are deaf-blind.
A Second Report and Order and Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to extend accessibility rules for emergency alerts to “second screens,” including tablets, smartphones, laptops, and similar devices. The proposal would take additional steps to make emergency information in video programming accessible to individuals who are blind or visually impaired.

Ruling in Royalty Case Gives BMI a Victory Against Pandora

Pandora lost a battle with Broadcast Music Inc (BMI) over how much it should pay the licensing agency in royalties.

BMI sued in 2013 to raise the rate that Pandora pays to play the millions of songs in the BMI catalog. Pandora’s rate was set at 1.75 percent of its revenue; BMI asked the court to raise that to 2.5 percent, and Pandora argued for a rate as low as 1.7 percent. Judge Louis Stanton of United States District Court in Manhattan ruled for BMI, setting the rate at 2.5 percent. The full decision remains under seal, but the overall rate was disclosed by both parties. While the ruling is a victory for the music industry, which has fought bitterly against Pandora over royalty issues, the ultimate outcome in the case is unclear. A federal appeals court affirmed a ruling that had kept Pandora’s rate for Ascap, a rival licensing agency, unchanged at 1.85 percent, rejecting Ascap’s arguments to raise it.

Why Facebook’s News Experiment Matters to Readers

[Commentary] Facebook’s new plan to host news publications’ stories directly is not only about page views, advertising revenue or the number of seconds it takes for an article to load. It is about who owns the relationship with readers.

Tech companies have always stepped on one another’s toes to try to become people’s gateway to the digital world — the only place people need to go to get what they want. It’s why Google, a search engine, started a social network and why Facebook, a social network, started a search engine. It’s why Amazon, a shopping site, made a phone and why Apple, a phone maker, got into shopping. Now, their reach is extending wider, to nontechnology companies like newspapers and magazines. Or, put another way, all kinds of companies are now becoming tech companies.

The Dilemma of Digital Free Trade

A lot of international trade takes place over the Internet, where digital goods and services are bought and sold across national borders. But international trade policy is still catching up. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation agreement the Obama administration hopes to complete this year, will contain new types of rules governing digital commerce in a bid to ensure governments don’t block bits and bytes the way they’ve slowed down trade of physical goods with tariffs.

At the heart of those rules is an effort by the US to persuade countries to do away with laws requiring data be stored on local servers. Leading that push is Robert Holleyman, a deputy US trade representative and former software industry lobbyist. It’s his job to head off the kinds of measures that make moving data harder and more expensive.

Mobile operators plan to block online advertising

Several mobile operators plan to block advertising on their networks, setting the stage for a battle with digital media companies such as Google, AOL and Yahoo.

One European wireless carrier said that it has installed blocking software in its data centres and planned to turn it on before the end of 2015. The software prevents most types of advertising from loading in web pages and apps, though it does not interfere with “in-feed” ads of the kind used by Facebook and Twitter. The blocking technology was developed by Shine, an Israeli start-up whose shareholders include Horizon Ventures, the investment fund of Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest person. Li also controls Hutchison Whampoa, one of the world’s largest telecoms groups. “Tens of millions of mobile subscribers around the world will be opting in to ad blocking by the end of the year,” said Roi Carthy, chief marketing officer of Shine. “If this scales, it could have a devastating impact on the online advertising industry.”

Ofcom tells BT its rivals need better superfast broadband access

Businesses could benefit from improved access to superfast broadband in Britain under proposals from Ofcom, the UK telecommunications regulator, to further open up BT’s fibre network for rivals to use.

Ofcom said that BT would need to give rival providers of business broadband the ability to take full control of services using its UK-wide fibre network. The proposals would mean that they need to pay less money to BT to use the network under wholesale rates, and could bring the cost to customers down if the savings were passed on. Ofcom is also proposing more stringent targets for BT to install business broadband lines. The regulator said the measures were designed to promote competition and innovation in the £2 billion market for “leased lines” — dedicated, high-speed data links used by large businesses and mobile and broadband operators to transfer data on their networks. Leased lines also provide vital, high-capacity links for schools, universities, libraries and other public bodies.

Accountability for Enforcement Penalties & Fines

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission’s enforcement procedures and actions have been receiving attention of late, but there is a deficiency in the process that has not been mentioned. To the extent that the FCC has rules in an area, applicable parties are required to comply. Those who don’t are subject to enforcement actions, with due process rights for alleged violators, including the option of settling the matter through a consent decree. For the enforcement process to work, however, all of its steps must be carried out efficiently and swiftly from beginning to end.

One problem with the current process -- and another area for the newly formed Process Review Task Force and/or Congress to examine -- is that the FCC has no idea whether parties are actually satisfying the terms of its enforcement actions, particularly those that go to the forfeiture stage. Under the current structure, the Commission does not have a process in place to know whether entities actually pay the fines or penalties assessed pursuant to an enforcement action. In other words, once a Forfeiture Order is finalized, it somehow seems to drop off the FCC’s radar. Even if the FCC’s enforcement fines and penalties are appropriate, if the collection remains unknown, overall enforcement will suffer. The potential discrepancy between issuing an enforcement action and collecting any financial fine or penalty needs to be addressed. To the extent that the Enforcement Bureau needs assistance facilitating the necessary relationships with the Treasury and Justice Departments, I would be happy to help in any way I can.

Some companies are tracking workers with smartphone apps. What could possibly go wrong?

When Myrna Arias discovered that her employer could track her movements even when she was off duty, she disabled the GPS-enabled app on her company-issued smartphone. That got her fired, according a suit filed by Arias. In the lawsuit, Arias, a former sales executive for international wire-transfer service Intermex, claims that her boss "admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty" and even bragged about being able to track her driving speeds. She was "scolded" for disabling the app and fired not long after despite strong performance in other parts of her job, according to the lawsuit. The privacy implications of that kind of 24/7 monitoring "would be highly offensive to a reasonable person," according to the lawsuit, which was filed in the Superior Court of California.

Companies are increasingly using GPS-enabled technology to track their employees when they are not in the office. This type of tracking is common in vehicles, but is increasingly being used through smartphones, too. "Employers have legitimate reasons for monitoring their workers, but all too often we see that kind of tracking spilling over into the private parts of their lives," said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union. There currently aren't many guidelines for when it is appropriate to track employees physical location, he said, but the information that can be pieced together from constant monitoring can be incredibly personal.

Benton

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