June 2016

A few weeks ago an unknown person walked into a mobile phone store, claimed to be me, asked to upgrade my mobile phones, and walked out with two brand new iPhones assigned to my telephone numbers. My phones immediately stopped receiving calls, and I was left with a large bill and the anxiety and fear of financial injury that spring from identity theft. This post describes my experiences as a victim of ID theft, explains the growing problem of phone account hijacking, and suggests ways consumers and mobile phone carriers can help combat these scams.

In its much-awaited transparency report the Association of National Advertisers reveals troubling specifics to bolster its accusations of the "pervasive" use of kickbacks and rebates in an ad industry where "senior executives across the agency ecosystem were aware of, and mandated, some nontransparent business practices." The 58-page ANA study, conducted in conjunction with K2 Intelligence, was released to immediate disdain from the ad industry.

While the ANA stopped short of accusing agencies of any illegal activities, the charges are no less damaging: Agencies, for instance, have made markups on media of 30 percent to 90 percent on "principal" transactions, where an agency acts as a principal and buys media on its own behalf before reselling it to a client. Media buyers also said they were sometimes pressured or incentivized by their agency holding companies to direct client spending to that media, regardless of whether that selection was in a client's best interests, according to the ANA. Agencies haven't publicly addressed the findings yet, but companies like Publicis Groupe said the ANA had "failed" the industry by issuing a "report that relies on allegations about situations involving unnamed companies and individuals." WPP's GroupM advised, "The objectivity of [the report's] authors and advisors needs to be examined carefully ... and should not be allowed to tarnish the entire industry, nor every company in it." The 4As cited the study's "immense shortcomings," and described its findings as anonymous, inconclusive and one-sided [which] undercut the integrity of its findings."

Representatives of Consumer Watchdog have talked with top counselors to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler to warn that the FCC's set-top proposal does not contain sufficient teeth to protect consumer privacy from mass data collection and monetizing by Google and others. According to an ex parte filing on the phone call, they told the FCC that it should use its authority both to require consumer-facing privacy pledges by third parties getting access to set-top content and data—so the Federal Trade Commission can enforce violations of unfair or deceptive practices prohibitions, but also use its direct authority to regulate edge privacy, an authority the FCC has suggested it does not have.

The proposal would require third parties to pledge to abide by the same privacy protections multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) must adhere to, but Consumer Watchdog says that pledge must be directly to consumers, rather than to MVPDs or the FCC. In addition, they say that the FCC has direct authority to regulate and enforce privacy itself under Sec. 629, which is the mandate to insure the availability of set-tops from unaffiliated third parties.

President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed during Modi’s June 7 visit to Washington to “deepen” their work together on cybersecurity issues and said they were committed to an open Internet. “The leaders emphasized that cyberspace enables economic growth and development, and reaffirmed their commitment to an open, interoperable, secure, and reliable Internet, underpinned by the multistakeholder model of Internet governance,” their governments said in a joint statement. “They committed to deepen cooperation on cybersecurity and welcomed the understanding reached to finalize the Framework for the U.S.-India Cyber Relationship in the near term.”

The White House said in a fact sheet on a framework between the two countries that they would share “information on a real time or near real time basis, when practical and consistent with existing bilateral arrangements, about malicious cybersecurity threats, attacks and activities.” Law enforcement in both countries will also continue to cooperate, according to the framework, and the countries will promote joint research into cybersecurity topics.