September 2015

[Commentary] There have been significant advances in communications technology for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing since the introduction of text phones. Yet, there are still some issues to overcome if we are to achieve true equal and effective communications for all. Starting from May 2016, the Accessible Communications for Everyone (ACE) software will enable Video Relay Service (VRS) users to communicate directly with each other. Reaching VRS and Telecommunications Relay Service services using their existing mobile phones (Android and iOS) and computers (Windows and Mac OSX), users will be able to engage in simultaneous real-time video, text and voice communications.

To achieve this, ACE will use ITU and IETF standards SIP, T.140, H.263, H.264, Open H. 264, and H.265. The Federal Communications Commission has committed to updating code to operate with newly released operating systems, meaning that developers around the world will be able to design reliable communications applications based on ACE that will work with widely available consumer devices, now and in the future. This solution could mean global relay services for all, and is already linked with Sweden, France and other European countries.

[Peter Hayes is the Founder and CEO of VTCSecure]

By now, Americans are all too familiar with the ways hackers can gain unauthorized entry into their personal accounts online. But did you know that the government can currently seize many of your e-mails without even getting a warrant? That's the result of a gaping loophole in a nearly 30-year-old law known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Despite its name, ECPA doesn't do as much to protect your information as you might think. E-mails that have been sitting in your inbox for more than six months can, under the law, be seized by federal officials with little more than a request to your e-mail provider. It's a holdover from the time before cloud storage made it easy to archive your entire life online.

Now, Congress is on the cusp of finally updating the law. But one unexpected critic of the proposed changes is the agency that's become the nation's biggest privacy watchdog, the Federal Trade Commission. In Senate testimony Sept 16, the FTC cautioned Congress against going too far with ECPA reform. The FTC is concerned that recent proposals could hurt its ability to obtain certain information from Internet companies.

[Commentary] So let's talk about ad blocking. You might think the conversation about ad blocking is about the user experience of news, but what we're really talking about is money and power in Silicon Valley. And titanic battles between large companies with lots of money and power tend to have a lot of collateral damage.

The Apple vs. Google fight has never been more heated or more tense, and Facebook's opportunity to present itself as the savior of media has never been bigger -- through hey-it's-just-about-speed Instant Articles, which will almost certainly be featured higher in the News Feed, and huge things like its massive video initiative, which is a direct assault on YouTube. And oh -- Apple's new tvOS, that huge bet on bringing apps to TV? Doesn't support WebKit at all. So it's Apple vs Google vs Facebook, all with their own revenue platforms. Google has the web, Facebook has its app, and Apple has the iPhone. This is the newest and biggest war in tech going today. And the collateral damage of that war -- of Apple going after Google's revenue platform -- is going to include the web, and in particular any small publisher on the web that can't invest in proprietary platform distribution, native advertising, and the type of media wining-and-dining it takes to secure favorable distribution deals on proprietary platforms. It is going to be a bloodbath of independent media.

[Commentary] Think-tank analyst Hal Singer is a favorite hired gun of Washington’s phone and cable lobby because he delivers exactly what the industry pays him for. But a closer look at his anti-Network Neutrality claims shows a clear failure to analyze data properly.

In the most recent example  --  his analysis of 2015 broadband-industry investment  --  Singer commits multiple sins of omission and selective bias to claim that a “meltdown” in investment occurred in the wake of the Federal Communications Commission’s historic Title II decision last February. He opines that the ruling to protect the open Internet is the “best explanation” for this alleged debacle. The problem is that Singer’s analysis here and elsewhere on these topics doesn’t hold up to further scrutiny. Free Press has done the work Singer failed to do (or purposefully avoided) and found his conclusions are dangerously ignorant of the facts.

[Tim Karr is the senior director of strategy at Free Press]