May 2015

Facebook hires former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin

Facebook hired Kevin Martin, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, as vice president for mobile and global access policy, as the social network continues to build its executive ranks with former government officials.

Martin, a Republican who led the FCC between 2005 and 2009, will oversee the company's initiatives on wireless and other broadband Internet policies. He has been a consultant for Facebook for the past two years.

The company also announced the promotion of chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, to vice president of U.S. public policy and the head of Facebook's growing Washington D.C. office. She has led the creation of Facebook's privacy policy, which has evolved over the years. She will lead the company's team of federal and state lobbying and policy staffers.

Disadvantaged elders: Least likely to be online

[Commentary] Our previous article noted that only 57-59 percent of seniors currently use the Internet or go online, compared to 86-88 percent of all adults age 18+ (Pew Research Center, 2014). This age-based disparity has lessened recently, due in part to: 1) efforts throughout the nation to promote senior digital literacy, and 2) the initial “cohort effect” of tech-savvy baby boomers who began entering the age 65+ category in 2011. We also stressed the strong relationship between Internet use and socioeconomic characteristics – household income and educational attainment. Given that disadvantaged elders are a large proportion of offline seniors, special outreach efforts are required to help them cross the digital divide by addressing three major barriers: computer anxiety, assumed irrelevance of the Internet, and cost concerns. Senior Service America, Inc. (SSAI) provides one example of varied efforts around the nation to inspire seniors who are least likely to use computers. SSAI has conducted pilot projects for group “Taste the Internet” sessions using tablets. Age peers, most of whom are participants in the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), work with one or two offline seniors to show how easy it is to use tablets and to demonstrate various web-based functions and Internet content of interest to the seniors. Such sessions are labor-intensive but not necessarily costly.

[Cecilia Garcia, former Executive Director of the Benton Foundation, is a communications advisor with an extensive background in public affairs, television production and advocacy.
Bob Harootyan is the research manager at Senior Service America, Inc.]

Senate Appropriations Committee Reviews FCC’s 2016 Budget Request

The Senate Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government held a hearing on May 12 to review the Fiscal Year 2016 funding request and budget justification for the Federal Communications Commission. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler testified along with FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. A fun time was had by all.

As might be expected, network neutrality played a central role during the hearing. In his opening remarks, Subcommittee Chairman John Boozman (R-AK) said, “With the FCC’s embrace of the President’s plan for Internet regulation, the Commission moved farther and farther away from the independence, transparency, and regulatory certainty our nation deserves.” Chairman Boozman also criticized the FCC’s budget proposal which includes a transfer of $25 million from the Universal Service Fund to help offset the costs of FCC oversight of the fund. “Many people in Arkansas think the FCC has forgotten about rural America. Transferring money away from broadband deployment to offset agency spending in DC aggravates that all-too-real perception,” Chairman Boozman said.

Commissioner Pai said he believed that the panel should not provide funds for the FCC to implement new Open Internet/net neutrality rules. “The commission will spend a lot of money and time applying regulations that are wasteful and unnecessary and that are already proving harmful to the American public,” he said. Commissioner Pai also repeated his argument that the order allows the agency to regulate the rates companies can charge for services. But Chairman Wheeler replied, “Our goal is not to have rate regulation,” and the 201b interpretation that some people have said this gives us some kind of ex post authority, I would like to be able to make it clear that it is not a rate-regulation tool,” he said. He demurred when asked whether the rule would allow the FCC to regulate the so-called interconnection rates Internet providers negotiate with the companies that run the backbone of the Internet. Chairman Wheeler also declined to estimate the litigation costs associated with the net neutrality order. He said that any litigation would be handled by the agency internally, rather than by hiring an expensive outside appellate lawyer like former Solicitor General Theodore Olson.

Sixty-One US Senators Call on FCC to Modernize Support for Rural Broadband Services

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) and fellow Committee Member Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) released a letter signed by sixty-one Senators to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler calling for a modernization of rules intended to ensure that Americans in rural areas have access to affordable broadband services. Under current rules, Universal Service Fund (USF) support for broadband in rural areas is dependent on the outdated requirement that customers also sign up for traditional landline phone service. When rural customers “cut the cord” of traditional phone service in favor of wireless or Internet-based phone services, rural communities served by smaller telecommunication providers lose access to USF support for broadband deployment even if the customer continues to pay for broadband Internet service. The outdated rules create a needless link between customers signing up for services they may not want or need and broadband deployment.

FCC Changing Name of Wireless Division

Apparently, the Federal Communications Commission is planning to change the name of the Wireless Bureau's Spectrum And Competition Policy division to the Competition and Infrastructure Policy division. That is to reflect the division's increasing focus on infrastructure. and the work it already does in that area, but is not a signal of any less attention to spectrum, particularly as regards transactions and competition policy. Other divisions without spectrum in their names, mobility, broadband, auctions, have plenty to do with spectrum without including them in the moniker. Not surprisingly, PCIA-The Wireless Infrastructure Association was quick to applaud the move. " The new name reflects this Commission’s commitment to strengthening wireless infrastructure deployment," said PCIA President Jonathan Adelstein, himself a former FCC commissioner. “The move signals the recognition that wireless infrastructure is integral to America’s economic and technological future," said Adelstein.

Arthur Belendiuk: Open Internet Rules Don’t Go Far Enough

A petition for reconsideration of the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order. The petition asks the FCC to reconsider its decision, arguing that its “clear, bright line” rules are too narrow, and that its forbearance from key provisions of Title II goes too far. Specifically,

The Open Internet Order banned paid prioritization and prioritization of affiliate traffic. The rule does not address unpaid prioritization of traffic. As common carriers, however, broadband operators are responsible for transmitting content indifferently, and may not favor any sender’s content. The FCC leaves far too much to be decided on an individual case basis. On reconsideration, the FCC must adopt a clear, bright line rule outlawing all forms of preferential treatment, including the so-called “sponsored data” plans, such as T-Mobile’s Music Freedom.
On reconsideration, the FCC must provide a clear directive to broadband providers to comply with last mile interconnection requirements. In the Open Internet Order, the FCC found that broadband providers have gatekeeper control and the motivation to compromise Internet openness. The FCC effectively reversed its previous decisions that broadband is an information service, yet did not take the next step to require broadband providers to offer stand-alone transmission over the last mile to competitors.
The Open Internet Order forbears from the Truth-in-Billing rules that took the FCC years to develop. On reconsideration the FCC must reinstate these rules, which are critical to consumer protection.
The FCC’s decision to forbear from applying the Universal Service Fund (“USF”) contribution requirements to broadband providers is unsupported and \unjustified. The thousand small telephone companies that have kept broadband under tariff since 2005 for administrative convenience are required to contribute to the USF; large broadband providers must be made to share in this obligation.
The FCC’s enforcement mechanisms tailored for open Internet matters, particularly the new advisory opinion process, do not provide for participation by members of the public and therefore lend themselves to secret dealings with the large broadband providers. On reconsideration the FCC must modify these processes to include adequate public disclosure and participation.

Why the EFF is pulling its support for the USA Freedom Act

[Commentary] The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has determined in American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) v. Clapper that the National Security Agency’s telephone records program went far beyond what Congress authorized when it passed Section 215 of the Patriot Act in 2001. The court unequivocally rejected the government’s secret reinterpretation of Section 215. Among many important findings, the court found that Section 215’s authorization of the collection of business records that are “relevant to an authorized investigation” could not be read to include the dragnet collection of telephone records. The court also took issue with the fact that this strained application of the law was accomplished in secret and approved by the secret and one-sided Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court).

The EFF filed amicus briefs in this case in both the district and circuit courts, and we congratulate our colleagues at the ACLU on this significant victory. The Second Circuit’s opinion stands as a clear sign that the courts are ready to step in and rule that mass surveillance is illegal. That’s great news. The Second Circuit’s decision, however, also marks a significant change in the context of the ongoing legislative debate in Congress. Above all, it is clear that Congress must do more to rein in dragnet surveillance by the NSA.

[David Greene is a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Mark Jaycox is a legislative analyst at EFF]

Why Verizon Coveted AOL’s Ad Technology and Mobile Video

As a standalone company since 2009, AOL has become a competitor in the growing online advertising business. That transition helped attract interest from Verizon, the largest US wireless carrier, which agreed to buy AOL for about $4.4 billion. What Verizon wants is to make more money from mobile video, and the new AOL can help. AOL is now focused on online video and on so-called programmatic advertising, which uses computer algorithms rather than salespeople to buy and sell ad space on websites.

The system works like an online marketplace: a shoemaker, for example, can get a display ad on a website in milliseconds, less than the amount of time it takes a reader to load a Web page. And data gathered on people’s browsing habits helps the shoemaker reach the right consumer with the right ad at the right time. The goal is to become an automated middle man between advertisers and publishers. Last month New York-based AOL unveiled technology called ONE that helps marketers decide where to best spend their money, putting it in direct competition with two online ad giants, Google and Facebook. The technology allows advertisers to see whether consumers are buying more products after seeing an ad on a smartphone, and enables them to shift more spending to mobile devices from desktops and television.

NAACP, CWA Challenge Dish/AWS-3 Bidders

Over a half dozen petitions, including a joint filing by the NAACP and Communications Workers of America, have been filed asking the Federal Communications Commission to reject the winning AWS-3 spectrum auction bids of Northstar and SNR Wireless, the two designated entities (DE's) that bid mostly with money supplied by Dish, which has a major ownership stake (85 percent) in both.

The petitions' allegations vary, but at root is the argument that the smaller companies fronted for/colluded with Dish, which, if the FCC grants the 25 percent bidding credits DE's qualify for, would only have to pony up $10 billion for $13.3 billion in licenses. NAACP And CWA, which represents about 700,000 communications workers, said that while they applaud the DE program and the overall success of the AWS-3 auction, the financial ties between Dish and the companies means they do not qualify as DE's and giving them a $3.3 billion discount would be unjust enrichment and violates FCC rules. Also among the petitioners was the National Action Network. AT&T, the top bidder in the AWS-3 auction, has been critical of the bids, but did not petition to deny the deal, having signaled it was looking for changes to the rules going forward.

Chief Data Scientist Patil to Tech Industry: Don’t Just ‘Throw Stones’ at Government

Despite recent recruiting successes by the Obama Administration to woo top technologists to government, it’s no secret there’s been an at-times frosty relationship between the tech industry and Uncle Sam. Administration officials’ stance on privacy and encryption technologies have soured many techies on federal service. Not to mention the popular perception of government as a bureaucratic black hole. But US Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil, a recent Silicon Valley transplant himself, suggested innovative outsiders have a unique opportunity to make their voices heard inside government.

"The really cool thing that I think has happened over the last few years has been the realization that tech policy is just endemic through every single thing we do” in government, Patil said. “Those of us that are technologists out there: It's our job not just to throw stones and say, 'Hey, how come you guys can't do it this way?’” he added. “We have to get in there. We have to embrace the problem. We have to own the problem with them.” The government can handle dissenting opinions and is willing to engage its critics, Patil said. He cited the recent hiring of renowned Princeton computer scientist, Ed Felten -- a noted critic of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance -- to serve as White House deputy chief technology officer under Megan Smith, herself a recent Google transplant.

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