August 2015

Dish and Sinclair are still going at it over carriage fees, with the former accusing the latter of “failing to negotiate in good faith as called for by Congress.” The result is what the satellite cable provider is referring to as “the largest blackout in US television history.” On Aug 26, Dish renewed its formal Federal Communications Commission complaint against Sinclair Broadcasting Group, a day after Sinclair blacked Dish subscribers out from 129 of its local channels in 79 markets across 36 states and the District of Columbia.

“We are calling on the FCC to intervene in Sinclair’s senseless blackout that needlessly punishes consumers despite an agreement on rates and all other terms for Sinclair’s local stations,” said Jeff Blum, Dish senior vice president and deputy general counsel. “Sinclair rejected every opportunity to serve viewers including our extension offer, which featured a full true-up, and has instead chosen to use innocent consumers as pawns to gain leverage for a cable channel it hopes to acquire but does not own today.”

When computer scientist Jonathan Mayer was in Washington Dulles International Airport, he logged onto an AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot and soon noticed that websites were showing a lot more ads than usual. The website of Stanford University, where Mayer conducts security and privacy research, was showing ads for a jewelry store and AT&T. "Last I checked, Stanford doesn’t hawk fashion accessories or telecommunication service. And it definitely doesn’t run obnoxious ads that compel you to wait," Mayer said.

Ad-supported news sites like The Wall Street Journal had extra ads on top of them. Federal government websites were showing ads for both AT&T and other businesses. "Curious, and waiting on a delayed flight, I started poking through web source. It took little time to spot the culprit: AT&T’s Wi-Fi hotspot was tampering with HTTP traffic," Mayer wrote. The hotspot ads are similar to ones delivered by Comcast. It's also common for free Wi-Fi networks at airports to require users to watch an ad before logging on, but they don't necessarily show extra ads on top of websites after giving the user full access to the Web. AT&T could argue that injecting ads doesn't violate the ban on throttling since customers can still view the websites. The Federal Communications Commission's transparency rules require disclosure of privacy policies, and AT&T includes a privacy policy on its Wi-Fi terms of service, though it doesn't mention ad injection.

[Commentary] The information communications technology (ICT) industry has experienced incredible growth over the past 15 years. In 2000, there were 400 million global Internet users; today there are 3.2 billion. There are more than 7 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide today, up from 738 million in 2000. In 2014, the price of a basic (fixed or mobile) broadband plan was less than 5 per cent of the average Gross National Income (GNI) per capita in 111 countries, meeting targets set out by the Broadband Commission. Personal ICTs from laptops to mobile handsets continue to innovate year-on-year.

These new figures not only show the rapid technological progress made to date, but also help us to identify those being left behind in the rapidly evolving digital economy, as well as areas where ICT investment is needed most. In order to close the growing digital divide, we must ensure that we create an enabling environment for the growth of ICTs by strengthening mutually reinforcing functions: investment in infrastructure, ICT education and training, ensuring market competition, developing robust policies and regulation, and cultivating diverse applications and content. These tasks will take on greater importance as ICTs play a significant role in achieving the post-2015 sustainable development goals as the world moves towards a digital society.

The adversarial relationship between Donald Trump and the Spanish-language news media, which has simmered publicly since he announced his candidacy in June, boiled over on Aug 25 at a news conference in Dubuque (IA) when the candidate erupted at Jorge Ramos, the main news anchor at Univision and Fusion, when he tried to ask a question without being called on. Trump signaled to one of his security guards, who physically removed Ramos from the event. Ramos was eventually allowed to return. But for the Spanish-language press, which has grown in size and influence in politics, the tense exchange was a highly public flexing of muscle against a candidate who many outlets no longer pretend to cover objectively: They are offended by Trump’s words and tactics -- and they are showing it.