BROADCASTING
House Clears Bill To Curb Plans For FM (NYT)
Up For Auction: Wireless Phones In A New Britain (NYT)
INTERNET
Microsoft Acknowledges Its Engineers Placed Security Flaw in
Software (WSJ)
ECOMMERCE
Auction Dispute Centers on Question of Control Over Data
(CyberTimes)
JOURNALISM
Owner's Taboos Shape the News (WP)
BROADCASTING
HOUSE CLEARS BILL TO CURB PLANS FOR FM
Issue: Radio
The House approved legislation that would curtail the FCC's plans to open
the FM airwaves to hundreds of low-power stations for churches, community
groups and schools. The legislation was approved by a vote of 274 to 110.
Officials of the FCC said the legislation was the first time in the agency's
history that a house of Congress has denied the Commission the authority to
oversee radio spectrum. The bill will now move to the Senate where a similar
version has gained support. "This is a reasonable common sense compromise.
It will protect the broadcasters, it will protect the licensees, and above
all else, it will protect listeners of the FM radio spectrum." said
Representative John Dingell, Democrat (MI).
[SOURCE: New York Times (C1), AUTHOR: Stephen Labaton]
(http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/radio-fcc.html)
UP FOR AUCTION: WIRELESS PHONES IN A NEW BRITIAIN
Issue: International/Wireless
In Britain, an auction for licenses to operate the next generation of mobile
phones is taking on majestic proportions. The value of the five licenses is
now at $30.5 billion, up considerably from the $800 million at which it
started. However, the numbers do not tell the whole story. The real story is
that there are five licenses up for auction. Four are available to anyone
with seven or eight billion dollars, but the fifth is available only to a
companies which is new to the mobile phone market. This fifth license allows
the British government to prevent the market from being carved up between
the existing companies.
[SOURCE: New York Times (C1), AUTHOR: Alan Cowell]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/biztech/articles/14auction.html)
INTERNET
MICROSOFT ACKNOWLEDGES ITS ENGINEERS PLACED SECURITY FLAW IN SOFTWARE
Issue: Internet
Microsoft acknowledged yesterday that engineers had placed a secret password
- a phrase calling rival Netscape, "weenies" - into the computer file
"dvwssr.dll" contained in Microsoft Frontpage 98 Internet server software.
Steve Lipner, manager of Microsoft's security-response center, described the
backdoor as a security risk for hundreds of thousand of Internet sites.
Lipner also said that the practice was "absolutely against [Microsoft's]
policy" and would be a firing offense if the employee who wrote the code
could be identified. The company planned to warn customers by e-mail and a
bulletin on its web site. The bug is apparently three years old and is not
known to have been used to exploit any web pages; it is still considered a
serious flaw, however. Microsoft is urging customers to delete the
dvwssr.dll file. John Mittelhauser, one of Netscape's original engineers,
called the hidden insult "classic engineer rivalry."
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A3), AUTHOR: Ted Bridis]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB955657934787818042.htm)
ECOMMERCE
AUCTION DISPUTE CENTERS ON QUESTION OF CONTROL OVER DATA
Issue: Ecommerce/CyberLaw
Today lawyers for eBay and a Web site called Bidder's Edge will debate the
merits of a practice known as "spidering." Bidder's Edge is an "auction
aggregator" - a Web service that allows visitors to search online auction
sites through a single Web site. Bidder's Edge uses a spider software
program that visits Web auction sites such as eBay; extracts the data; and
then returns that information for display at the Bidder's Edge site. While
the information is not copyrighted, eBay is claiming that the spidering
process amounts to an unauthorized trespass of its computer system. In
addition, eBay said that the spidered listings on the Bidder's Edge Web site
are incomplete and misleading - thus harming eBay's business. Bidder's Edge
has countersued. Today, Judge Ronald M. Whyte of the United States District
Court in San Jose will be asked for a preliminary injunction barring
Bidder's Edge from accessing and using eBay's auction listings, pending a
full trial. The decision of the case could help determine the extent of
control Internet company's have over non-copyrighted information made
publicly available on its site. More importantly, the case represents a
choice between two competing models of the Internet. The first model is
that the Internet is like a library, full of publicly accessible
information. The competing model is the retail model, where Web sites are
individual storefronts - the private property of store owners, although
publicly accessible.
[SOURCE: CyberTimes, AUTHOR: Carl Kaplan]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/cyber/cyberlaw/14law.html)
JOURNALISM
OWNER'S TABOOS SHAPE THE NEWS
Issue: Journalism
In San Luis Obispo, Calif. last year, David Weyrich, a rich developer and
vineyard owner spent a whole bunch of money to create a network of
high-quality community newspapers called the Gazettes. He hired experienced
journalists to write and edit them. Then Weyrich banned any of the
newspapers from publishing anything but negative stories about the gay
community after reading a notice in one of the papers announcing a meeting
for parents and families of gays. What followed is enough to rekindle one's
faith in journalism. One after another, experienced journalists in all
sections of the papers walked out. "Just about everybody has left in some
offices," said Kathy Johnston, a feature writer who is now among the
unemployed. "It was a tough but obvious decision. To me, there was no other
choice. These were supposed to be community newspapers-and that means
everyone." The Gazette has vowed to keep its policy, and claims that many of
the reporters who left have been replaced.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (A3) AUTHOR: Rene Sanchez]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11385-2000Apr13.html)(http://wsj
.com/)
--------------------------------------------------------------
KT sends apologies for the "Early Morning Edition." - Jpl
(c)Benton Foundation 2000. Redistribution of this email publication -- both
internally and externally -- is encouraged if it includes this message.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Benton Foundation's Communications Policy and Practice (CPP)
(www.benton.org/cpphome.html) Communications-related Headline
Service is posted Monday through Friday. The Headlines are highlights
of news articles summarized by staff at the Benton Foundation. They
describe articles of interest to the work of the Foundation -- primarily
those covering long term trends and developments in communications,
technology, journalism, public service media, regulation and philanthropy.
While the summaries are factually accurate, their often informal tone does
not represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by
Kevin Taglang (kevint( at )benton.org), Rachel Anderson (rachel( at )benton.org),
Jamal Le Blanc (jamal( at )benton.org), and Nancy Gillis (nancy( at )benton.org) -- we
welcome your comments.
The Benton Foundation works to realize the social benefits made possible
by the public interest use of communications. Bridging the worlds of
philanthropy, public policy, and community action, Benton seeks to shape
the emerging communications environment and to demonstrate the value of
communications for solving social problems. Through demonstration
projects, media production and publishing, research, conferences, and
grantmaking, Benton probes relationships between the public, corporate,
and nonprofit sectors to address the critical questions for democracy in
the information age. Other projects at Benton include:
Connect for Kids (www.connectforkids.org)
Open Studio: The Arts Online (www.openstudio.org/)
Destination Democracy (www.destinationdemocracy.org/)
Sound Partners for Community Health (www.soundpartners.org/)