1. Monthly archive
  2. April 2018

April 2018

Competition is at the Heart of Facebook's Privacy Problem

[Commentary] Americans should have rights to and control over their data. If we don’t like a service, we should be free to move our data to another. The same network effect that creates value for people on Facebook can also lock them into Facebook’s walled garden by creating barriers to competition. People who may want to leave Facebook are less likely to do so if they aren’t able to seamlessly rebuild their network of contacts, photos, and other social graph data on a competing service or communicate across services.

INCOMPAS: FCC Ignored Key Info in Net Neutrality Decision

INCOMPAS, whose members including streaming services, edge providers, and competitive carriers, has officially filed suit against the Restoring Internet Freedom order. Part of their argument is the Federal Communications Commission did not include important information in the comment record for the decision. 

Chairman Pai hasn’t finalized net neutrality repeal—here’s a theory on why

More than four months after the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal network neutrality rules, the rules are technically still on the books, and we still don't know when they will die their final death. Why are the rules still in place? There's a technical answer related to how Pai structured the repeal, and there is speculation on why Pai structured it that way.

Sens Klobuchar, Kennedy Introduce Bipartisan Privacy Legislation to Protect Consumers’ Online Data

Sens Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Kennedy (R-LA) announced privacy legislation that will protect consumers’ online data. The bipartisan legislation would require companies to make privacy disclosures clearer and more transparent, give consumers the right to control their own data by allowing people to opt-out of having their data collected, and require companies to notify consumers of a privacy violation within 72 hours. Specifically, the legislation:

Facebook reveals its censorship guidelines for the first time — 27 pages of them

Facebook for the first time published its 27 page of guidelines it calls Community Standards which gives to its workforce of thousands of human censors. It encompasses dozens of topics including hate speech, violent imagery, misrepresentation, terrorist propaganda and disinformation. Facebook said it would offer users the opportunity to appeal Facebook's decisions.  Facebook’s vice president of global policy management, Monika Bickert, explained that the company decided to make the standards public for two reasons.

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