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October 2015

House votes to extend privacy rights to Europeans

The House approved the Judicial Redress Act, a bill that would extend certain Privacy Act rights to European citizens — a must-pass bill if the United States wants to finalize an agreement with European countries to share law enforcement information.

The Judicial Redress Act, which passed by voice vote, would allow European citizens to file legal action in US courts if the United States unlawfully disclosed their personal information. Technology companies have seen the bill as an important way to improve overseas trust after a series of U.S. surveillance disclosures. The United States and European countries have tentatively agreed to a privacy agreement to allow them to more easily share law enforcement information. But Europeans said no final agreement would be penned until Congress extended the Privacy Act rights to its citizens.

As US Tech Companies Scramble, Group Sees Opportunity in Safe Harbor Decision

A group of leading global privacy experts says government officials in Europe and America should use the ruling to their advantage — as a way to create better cooperation between agencies. The group, whose project is called Privacy Bridges, will publish recommendations that offer regulators a series of specific steps to help officials work better together.

“We should never waste a good crisis,” said Jacob Kohnstamm, a member of the group and the data protection regulator in the Netherlands. “We’re trying to make things a little less onerous with these practical steps.” In particular, the group wants greater cooperation between Europe’s privacy regulators and the Federal Trade Commission, the American agency primarily in charge of data protection issues. Such collaboration could reduce misunderstandings on each region’s stance toward privacy, build trust between global regulators and share the best ways to handle new tech trends like cloud computing, according to the group. The group, whose members include Daniel Weitzner, a former deputy chief technology officer at the White House, will recommend that countries give individuals greater control over how their data is used. In addition, they say, companies should be more transparent when government agencies request access to people’s online information.

Obama’s Next Broadband Blunder

[Commentary] Four recent speeches by major policy makers—Federal Communications Commission chief Tom Wheeler, Justice Department antitrust chief Bill Baer, plus two of their top deputies—were apparently written for dial-up America.

Three embryonic initiatives emerge in the speeches:

  1. To regulate programming markets on grounds that “overbuilders” won’t roll out new physical networks if they can’t obtain rights to TV shows as cheaply as the cable incumbents, with their millions of subscribers.
  2. Pressure the cable guys to overbuild each other’s turf.
  3. Government may side with Google, allied this time with Big Cable, to prevent wireless players from expanding their networks into the unlicensed spectrum used by Wi-Fi.

Keep an eye on the pending Charter-TWC deal, where some or all of these initiatives may become part of the approval negotiations. And things will only get worse if Hillary Clinton is elected, and possibly even if a Republican is elected. Be prepared to be shocked and appalled at how quickly a new age of stagnation descends over the U.S. broadband sector.

Comcast Seeks to Harness Trove of TV Data

Comcast is sitting on a potential treasure trove of data on how Americans watch TV. Now, the cable giant is working to unlock that information in ways that it hopes could save the $70 billion US television advertising market.

Comcast is seeking to harness viewing data from the set-top boxes and streaming apps used by its millions of cable-TV subscribers to create products it can license to other companies, according to people familiar with its plans. That will require organizing a vast pool of details into “dashboards” that TV networks and marketers can use to tap specific slices of data. Comcast is in talks with audience-measurement firms and television networks, including Walt Disney’s ESPN, Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting and Discovery Communications, about licensing its data to them. It already has a deal with its own NBCUniversal unit and at least one other media company, said people familiar with the deals.

Google and Yahoo sign search partnership

Yahoo has partnered with Google in an advertising pact. The three-year deal means Google will help power Yahoo's search engine and provide it with advertisements. Google will pay Yahoo a percentage of revenue from ads, and Yahoo will pay Google for requests for word or image search results. Yahoo, which is already partnered with the third of the top three search engines -- Microsoft's Bing -- said the new Google deal gives Yahoo "additional flexibility to choose among suppliers of search results and ads." Having three different search engines at its disposal "really improves search," Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said, providing the company "greater stability as well as choice and a better user experience." Yahoo has discretion to select which search queries to send to Google and will not have to send a minimum number.

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