Mike Wallace, CBS Pioneer of ‘60 Minutes,’ Dies at 93
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2012
Here’s this week’s agenda http://benton.org/calendar/2012-04-08--P1W/
AGENDA
Ad Rates for Politics to Hit Web
Proposed rule banning ‘cramming’ tops FCC open meeting agenda
Spam Invades a Last Refuge, the Cellphone
To Stop Cellphone Cramming, Don’t Let It Start
LOBBYING
Activists fight "cyber-security" bill that would give NSA more data
Republicans woo Silicon Valley
Comcast spent heavily in support of anti-online piracy bills [links to web]
Netflix wants to wield more influence in election season [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
House Commerce Committee: Sen Grassley Gets LightSquared Documents
Colorado Consumer Counsel Appointed to Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service - public notice [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
A Ballooning Megabyte Budget
Congress should support online sales tax - editorial
LUS Fiber Brings World’s Fastest Internet Service to Lafayette - press release
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
‘Super PAC,’ Eyeing General Election, Aims Blitz at Obama
OWNERSHIP
Newspaper Barons Resurface - analysis
LABOR
AT&T Workers to Stay on Job Without Deal on a Contract
CONTENT
Comedy Timing Is Bad as News and Film Collide
NEWS FROM ABROAD
German Courts at Epicenter of Global Patent Battles Among Tech Rivals
AGENDA
AD RATES ON FCC AGENDA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Amy Schatz]
Broadcast television stations would soon be required to disclose on the Internet the rates they charge for political TV ads under new rules circulated at the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC's commissioners are expected to vote on the new rules at an April 27 meeting. If approved, they could go into effect later this year. Broadcasters are expected to fight the change. They say it would cost them significant time and money because the new rules would require them to update their online files on political ads expeditiously in the final weeks before an election. Broadcasters have also called the proposal unfair because their competitors -- including cable channels -- wouldn't have to disclose their political-ad rates.
benton.org/node/119408 | Wall Street Journal
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CRAMMING ON FCC AGENDA
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Andrew Feinberg]
On April 6, the Federal Communications Commission released a tentative agenda for its next open meeting to be held April 27. he meeting will begin with consideration of a rule to ban "cramming," the practice of letting unauthorized third parties place charges onto telephone bills. The proposed order would "protect consumers by adopting… additional rules to help consumers prevent and detect the unlawful and fraudulent placement of unauthorized charges on their telephone bills." But the most controversial item on the agenda is likely to be the "Enhanced Disclosure Requirements for Television Stations," which would require that stations move their "public inspection file" to the Internet. The information covered would include identities of political advertisers and the rates paid by them.
benton.org/node/119407 | Hill, The
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CELLPHONE SPAM
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Nicole Perlroth]
Once the scourge of e-mail providers and the Postal Service, spammers have infiltrated the last refuge of spam-free communication: cellphones. In the United States, consumers received roughly 4.5 billion spam texts last year, more than double the 2.2 billion received in 2009, according to Ferris Research, a market research firm that tracks spam. Spread over 250 million text message-enabled phones, the problem is not as commonplace as e-mail spam. But it is a growing menace, with the potential for significant damage. “Unsolicited text messaging is a pervasive problem,” said Christine Todaro, a lawyer with the Federal Trade Commission, the consumer watchdog agency, which is turning to the courts for help. “It is becoming very difficult to track down who is sending the spam. We encourage consumers to file complaints, which helps us track down the spammers, but even then it is a little bit like peeling back an onion.”
benton.org/node/119405 | New York Times
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CELLPHONE CRAMMING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Segal]
Cramming is the unsavory act of tacking an unrequested service fee to a phone bill. It’s been a land-line scheme for years and now appears to be full-on scourge in the mobile phone world. Customers find themselves enrolled, without their consent, in a short-message service, or SMS, which delivers texts on celebrity gossip, dating and other kinds of invaluable information. The monthly fees — often in the $9 range — as well as the service come from third-party providers, which is a generic term for what are, in many instances, very shadowy companies that behave very badly.
benton.org/node/119403 | New York Times
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LOBBYING
ACTIVISTS FIGHT CYBERSECURITY BILL
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Timothy Lee]
An online activist site has collected 300,000 signatures in opposition to a pending "cyber-security" bill that critics say would allow increased government spying on the Internet. The petition focuses on a bill by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), but his legislation is one of at least four proposals now being considered by Congress. According to Jerry Brito, a researcher at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, there are four competing bills because the two parties -- and the two houses of Congress -- disagree about how best to deal with online security issues. One point of controversy is over who will take the lead on the issue, the Department of Homeland Security or the National Security Agency.
Online activists who helped sink the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) earlier this year have now turned their sights to a House cybersecurity bill, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). In recent days, posts comparing CISPA to SOPA have received thousands of "up votes" on Web forum Reddit and have reached the front page of the popular link and discussion site. Recent posts on Reddit have called CISPA the "return of SOPA," "the latest attempt by Congress to try to regulate and control the Internet" and a "draconian privacy invasion bill."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/activists-fight-cyber-se...
After killing SOPA, Internet activists take aim at a new House cybersecurity bill (The Hill)
benton.org/node/119398 | Ars Technica | The Hill
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WOOING SILICON VALLEY
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Jonathan Allen, Tony Romm]
In Silicon Valley, the Wild West of American industry, Republican “Young Guns” now dot the horizon. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) took a ride in Google’s driverless car this week, and he’s planning a trip to Microsoft later this spring. Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will be at Google’s Mountain View headquarters next week for a business roundtable with the industry trade group TechNet. TechNet also set up West Coast fundraisers this month for Reps. Greg Walden (R-OR) and Mike Rogers (R-MI), and Sens. Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Jerry Moran (R-KS). The software developers and smartphone designers may not agree with their guests on gay marriage or abortion, but they’re anxious to protect their businesses from new taxes and regulations. Republicans say it’s a natural fit: They’re younger than their Democratic counterparts in Congress, and they’re making better use of these companies’ platforms in the political sphere. Best of all, they don’t have to tailor their business message to appeal to Silicon Valley — they oppose new government regulations across the industrial landscape.
benton.org/node/119396 | Politico
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POLICYMAKERS
SEN GRASSLEY GETS LIGHTSQUARED DOCS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The House Commerce Committee turned over LightSquared-related documents to Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). "We actually shared documents today," said a committee spokesperson. "We are continuing to work together, and we will have additional updates to share as we assess the information that has been delivered and what additional documents are needed for our investigations." Sen Grassley has said that if he got the documents from the Federal Communications Commission, whether directly or through the request from the committee, he would consider lifting his hold on FCC nominees Ajit Paui and Jessica Rosenworcel, who sailed through their Senate Commerce Committee nomination hearing last fall with bipartisan support and are expected to be confirmed by the full Senate if/when they get to a vote. "We did get documents," said a Grassley spokesperson. "The hold stands pending document review."
benton.org/node/119401 | Broadcasting&Cable
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
WHAT’S A MEGABYTE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Chen]
Everyone knows how long a minute is. And your cellphone carrier keeps close tabs on how many you have used this month. Now, in the smartphone era, more people are being forced to think about how many megabytes of data they are using. But what, exactly, is a megabyte? A megabyte is, in this context, 1,000 kilobytes — or about the size of a photo taken with a decent digital camera, or roughly one minute of a song, or a decent stack of e-mail. Therein lies the problem: Counting things like minutes and text messages is fairly easy, but there is no intuitive or natural way to gauge data use. The carriers say they are doing their best to help customers keep tabs on their data diet. But the potential for confusion — and unexpected charges — is growing as people upgrade to faster devices running on faster networks. A vast majority of smartphone owners do not come near their data limits, many studies say. But data use is predicted to climb considerably over the next few years.
benton.org/node/119425 | New York Times
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ONLINE SALES TAXES
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] It's been a rough ride for local retailers for the past decade. Between the economy and the off-the-charts growth of online competitors, many have closed their doors, and many more are struggling to stay open. This has to be the year Congress finally levels the playing field for brick-and-mortar companies and their online competitors by closing the Internet sales tax loophole. Local retailers deserve equal treatment from the federal government. Today, people visit stores to see products, then go home and buy them tax-free online. States desperately need the sales tax revenue the loss of which has deepened their budget crises. The federal government can no longer justify giving online retailers in California a 10 percent advantage. Remember, this is not a new tax. The law always has required buyers to pay sales tax on online purchases, but no one has enforced it. California collected about $10 million last year from Internet sales to those rare buyers who took the time to calculate the tax and send the money to the state -- but it should be collecting more than $200 million a year. Think of the thousands of California teachers who lost their jobs in the past decade because California didn't receive $2 billion it was legally entitled to.
benton.org/node/119418 | San Jose Mercury News
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LUS FIBER
[SOURCE: LUS Fiber, AUTHOR: Press release]
LUS Fiber, the telecommunications division of Lafayette Utilities System operating the only community-owned fiber-to-the-premise network in the state of Louisiana, announced that 1 Gigabit service is now available in the Hub City. This ultra high-speed fiber optic connection is ranked with the fastest available worldwide. LUS Fiber operates one of the nation’s largest municipal fiber-to-the-premise networks utilizing the only technology capable of delivering symmetrical speeds up to 1 Gigabit per second (or 1,000 Megabits per second) to the end user. Now businesses in Lafayette will have access to speeds that are roughly 20,000 times faster than dial-up and more than 100 times faster than a typical broadband connection.
benton.org/node/119395 | LUS Fiber
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
POLITICAL AD BLITZ
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jim Rutenberg, Jeff Zeleny]
American Crossroads, the biggest of the Republican “super PACs,” is planning to begin its first major anti-Obama advertising blitz of the year, a moment the Obama re-election campaign has been girding for and another sign that the general election is starting in earnest. With an anticipated bank account of more than $200 million, officials at American Crossroads said they would probably begin their campaign this month. But they said they would focus the bulk of the first phase from May through July, which they believe is a critical period for making an impression on voters, before summer vacations and the party conventions take place. Steven J. Law, the group’s leader, said the ads would address the challenge of unseating a president who polls show is viewed favorably even though many people disapprove of his handling of the economy. Basically, Mr. Law said, “how to dislodge voters from him.” The ultimate goal of the Crossroads campaign, Mr. Law said, would be to better connect Americans’ disappointment with the economy to their views of the president, especially among crucial swing voters.
benton.org/node/119424 | New York Times
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OWNERSHIP
NEWSPAPER OWNERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
[Commentary] Many smaller community newspapers remain stable and newspapers with a large national footprint have generally done better. But quite a few of the midsize regional and metropolitan dailies that form the core of the industry have gone off a cliff: over all, the newspaper industry is half as big as it was seven years ago. So if most newspapers are an uneconomical proposition incapable of sustaining profits, let alone pay off the debt so many buyers have larded on them, who is left to own them? Rich guys. Not the merely well off, but the kind of men with who long ago separated themselves from humdrum economic realities of life. Sure there are other expensive hobbies, but how many antique cars or 19th-century landscapes can you own? Newspapers may be short on profits, but they have become a new form of ostentation. How rich is he? He can afford to own a newspaper, for crying out loud.
benton.org/node/119421 | New York Times
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LABOR
AT&T WORKERS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
About 40,000 AT&T landline employees will work this week without a contract. The workers’ contracts expired over the weekend, raising the possibility of a strike. But the Communications Workers of America and AT&T said that they would keep negotiating on a new accord. For now, the employees will continue to receive the same wages and benefits as before. If negotiations break down, they still have the option to call for a walkout. An AT&T spokesman, Marty Richter, also said talks were continuing. He said earlier that the company had been planning for the possibility for a strike for two years, and managers and vendors would step in to keep phone service running if there was a walkout. At issue in the negotiations are job protection clauses and health care premiums and co-payments. AT&T says that it wants employees to pay for more of their increasing health care costs and that it wants more leeway to downsize its shrinking landline operations. Some of its workers have contracts that guarantee them job offers at different parts of the company if they are laid off. Union organizers point to the overall financial health of the company, which reported earnings of $4 billion last year.
benton.org/node/119416 | Associated Press | WSJ
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CONTENT
NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Cieply]
In recent weeks executives at 20th Century Fox have been quietly scrambling to distance a summer comedy, “Neighborhood Watch,” starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill, from the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Martin, an unarmed black teenager, was killed on Feb. 26 by George Zimmerman, a community watch participant in Sanford (FL), who has said he acted in self-defense and has not been charged with a crime. In a phased withdrawal that began late last month Fox pre-emptively withdrew its trailers and advertising materials for the movie, which was filmed in Georgia and features Stiller, Vaughn, Hill and Richard Ayoade as four suburban watch members who save their neighborhood, and the world, from an invasion by space aliens. But the studio and its filmmaking team — including the movie’s producer, Shawn Levy, who directed “Real Steel” and “Night at the Museum”— are now left to wonder whether a news-media storm and a ferocious public debate over the shooting and its possible legal consequences have spoiled the fun of a movie that cost over $50 million to make and will cost tens of millions more to market.
benton.org/node/119414 | New York Times
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NEWS FROM ABROAD
GERMAN COURT AND PATENTS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Kevin O’Brien]
Is Germany’s system of litigating disputes over patents bad for business? Microsoft’s decision to move its European logistics and distribution headquarters to the Netherlands from Germany has generated a debate over patent law in Germany, where it is easy to block the sale of a rival’s product even before an infringement claim is verified. Microsoft cited the potential consequences of a lawsuit brought against it in Germany by Motorola Mobility as a factor in its decision to move its logistics center to the Netherlands from Düren, a small German town near the Dutch border. Motorola Mobility has asked a court in Mannheim, Germany, to stop Microsoft from distributing its Xbox game consoles and Windows 7 operating system software because they employ a video streaming technology that Motorola claims to own. The court in Mannheim is scheduled to rule on Motorola’s request on April 17.
benton.org/node/119419 | New York Times
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