BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
Future of Music Summit 2012 ends today http://benton.org/calendar/2012-11-14/
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Sen Reid: Cybersecurity and defense authorization bills are next in the Senate
A Free Internet, If You Can Keep It - op-ed
Shutting Down The Phone System Gets Real: The Implications of AT&T Upgrading To An All IP Network. - analysis
Charlotte has highest Internet prices in the nation [links to web]
Google Fiber is live in Kansas City, real-world speeds at 700 Mbps
High-Speed Internet Spawns Prairie Startups
FTC chief: Kids' Internet privacy rules done by year's end
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
Commissioner Rosenworcel at “Looking Back to Look Forward: The Next Ten Years of Spectrum Policy”
Padden Heading Spectrum-Sellers Coalition
Wireless Taxes and Fees Continue Growth Trend - research
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
What happened, anyway?
BUDGET
Tech CEOs urge Obama, Congress to steer clear of 'fiscal cliff' [links to web]
CONTENT
Sen Wyden tackles Internet royalty bill criticism
Pandora founder rejects criticism of Internet royalty bill
With A Single Tweet, President Obama Revealed How To Become A Powerful Social Brand
TELEVISION
Who's afraid of a little live TV? Why streaming service Aereo scares the broadcast industry - analysis [links to web]
Nielsen: Netflix Users Watch Less Regular TV [links to web]
Alas it’s true, broadcast is wilting [links to web]
Sky Angel Files Suit Against C-SPAN [links to web]
HEALTH
Top 10 Health IT Hazards for 2013 [links to web]
EDUCATION
College Credit Eyed for Online Courses [links to web]
JOURNALISM
BBC news scandal: How big of a threat to British journalism? [links to web]
What happens in a news drought? - editorial [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Google Transparency Report: Government requests on the rise
Chinese Authorities Putting Pressure on Businesses to Help Censor the Web
Petraeus Investigation Highlights Fight Over Digital Surveillance Laws
Online Privacy Issue Is Also in Play in Petraeus Scandal
5 Gmail lessons from Petraeus affair - analysis [links to web]
Cash-strapped feds eye tech startups [links to web]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
What Sandy Has Taught Us About Technology, Relief and Resilience - op-ed
When Good Intentions Aren't Enough: How to Improve Sandy Relief - op-ed
POLICYMAKERS
Changes at the FTC - press release [links to web]
COMPANY NEWS
Grossman Joins Twitter; Grego Named New Editor-in-Chief of 'B&C' [links to web]
AT&T Takes Aim at Sprint’s Remaining Nextel Customers [links to web]
Universal Music Group nearing its digital tipping point [links to web]
MORE ONLINE
Do We Need Cyber Cops for cars? [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
CYBERSECURITY BILL ON AGENDA
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Ramsey Cox]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced the Senate would hold a vote on cybersecurity legislation before leaving for Thanksgiving break. Sen Reid also said he’d like to move onto the Defense Authorization bill, but doesn’t expect to hold a vote by Thanksgiving. Sen Reid said he spoke with President Barak Obama about the need for a cybersecurity bill, earlier in the day. “The President believes the cybersecurity bill is one of the most important things facing this country now,” Sen Reid said. The Senate tried to pass the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 this summer, but several Republicans pulled support for the bill after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce complained that it put too many requirements on the private sector. Sen Reid said he hoped that Republicans and the Chamber of Commerce have changed their minds now that the election is over.
benton.org/node/139469 | Hill, The
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A FREE INTERNET, IF WE CAN KEEP IT
[SOURCE: Tech Crunch, AUTHOR: Rep Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)]
[Commentary] It was nearly a year ago that the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). Millions would raise their voices to successfully oppose this legislation, which was viewed as one of the greatest threats to a free and open Internet ever to come before Congress. But the defeat of SOPA should be more than cause for pride — it must also prompt action to secure the future of the Internet. That is why I recently introduced two bills to protect Internet freedom. With just a few weeks left this 112th session of Congress, it’s unlikely the bills will be acted upon this year. I introduced the bills as a starting point for the next session of Congress – to launch a serious discussion about what Congress should do to help ensure a free and open Internet. We need to do more than just halt bad legislation, we also need to improve existing laws and make government work in the interests of innovation and Internet freedom. The two bills I introduced – ECPA 2.0 and the Global Free Internet Act – were designed to do just that. The principles embodied in ECPA 2.0 and the Global Free Internet Act would protect Internet users’ free expression and privacy, preserve user trust in online services, and reaffirm the open and decentralized structure of the Internet. Through policies like these, we can ensure the Internet remains a thriving and vibrant engine for innovation, expression, and economic growth for decades to come.
benton.org/node/139453 | Tech Crunch
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SHUTTING DOWN THE PHONE SYSTEM GETS REAL
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] I believe AT&T’s announcement last week about its plans to upgrade its network and replace its rural copper lines with wireless is the single most important development in telecom since passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It impacts just about every aspect of wireline and wireless policy. I thank AT&T for beginning with an offer to talk. At the same time, I’m mindful we need to get the key elements of the new framework down over the next year or two – which is practically nothing given the complexity of the issues and the number of stakeholders involved. It puts a premium on communities working quickly to come to internal consensus and on trying to bring as many allies to the table as possible. Ideally, we would set universal rules for all IP networks, but this would meet fierce resistance from existing IP-providers. Nevertheless, AT&T raises a valid point of concern if the rules for the TDM to IP apply only to it and other Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) upgrading their networks. The FCC must balance these concerns about competition and fairness with the broader questions of what happens when our 100-year-old copper safety net gets replaced by an essentially unregulated IP-based networks.
benton.org/node/139426 | Public Knowledge
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GOOGLE FIBER IS LIVE
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Mike Demarais]
After months of fanfare and anticipation, gigabit home Internet service Google Fiber finally went live in Kansas City. The search giant is offering 1 Gbps speeds for just $70 per month—significantly faster and cheaper than what any traditional American ISPs are offering. "We just got it today and I’ve been stuck in front of my laptop for the last few hours," said Mike Demarais, founder of Threedee. "It’s unbelievable. I’m probably not going to leave the house." He lives in a four-bedroom house run by "Homes For Hackers" on Kansas City’s Hanover Heights neighborhood, just on the state border with Missouri. The house has become one of the hubs for the KC Startup Village, an informal group of entrepreneurs who have clustered around homes immediately eligible for Google Fiber. Meanwhile, Demarais said that on an Ethernet connection, he’s seen consistent Google Fiber speeds of 600 to 700 Mbps, with Wi-Fi topping out around 200 Mbps. Even at the slower wireless speeds, that’s more than an order of magnitude faster than what most Americans have at home.
benton.org/node/139468 | Ars Technica
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PRAIRIE START-UPS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jack Nicas]
Google chose Spring Valley and Hanover Heights, a strip of homes just south of the University of Kansas Medical Center, as the first neighborhoods to receive a fiber-optic broadband network that boasts speeds up to 150 times as fast as the average online feed in the US. Since the September announcement, a handful of players from the local technology scene have come together to turn the old antique district into Kansas City's "startup village." By the time Google began installing its Fiber service on Nov 13, nearly a dozen startups had moved into a six-block radius—about half packed into two houses—including companies building a search engine for social-network data and security software for smartphones that identifies users by vein patterns in their eyes.
benton.org/node/139467 | Wall Street Journal
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NET PRIVACY RULES BY YEAR’S END
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR:]
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz said the agency will likely finish a long-awaited update to rules protecting children's online privacy by the end of the year. The original rules were developed when most computers were large beige boxes sitting under office desks instead of smartphones slung into backpacks and permeating most aspects of daily life. Chairman Leibowitz said the agency was moving forward on two issues: self-regulatory "do not track" guidance, and regulations to update the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. The law requires that website and online service operators obtain verifiable consent from parents before collecting information about children. Under revised rules, the FTC would make websites, mobile apps and data brokers all responsible for getting parental consent before collecting data about children aged 12 and younger. Currently it is unclear who has the responsibility.
benton.org/node/139471 | Reuters
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
COMMISSIONER ROSENWORCEL
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel]
In remarks delivered at a policy conference in Washington (DC), Federal Communications Commission member Jessica Rosenworcel set out her perspectives on several of today’s top spectrum debates, including guiding principles for incentive auctions, a new approach for federal spectrum, a way forward using model rules for facility siting, and the need for a comprehensive look at network reliability.
1) Her guiding principles for incentive auctions are: Simplicity, Fairness, Balance, Public safety and Expedition. 2) Concerning federal spectrum she said traditional clearing as well as sharing proposals can maximize access to the spectrum in the long run. Commissioner Rosenworcel added that federal users need incentives such as proceeds from spectrum auctions, especially in light of upcoming budget cuts. 3) She addresses network reliability in the “wireless and digital age” saying it is a time for honest conversation that includes ways to keep consumer equipment powered up during a disaster as well as access to fuel, priority under the Stafford Act, maintaining backhaul, and harmonization of laws at all levels of government.
benton.org/node/139421 | Federal Communications Commission | B&C | The Hill
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SPECTRUM-SELLERS COALITION
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: ]
A group of anonymous television station owners interested in selling spectrum through the Federal Communications Commission's planned incentive auction have formed a coalition to represent them in the FCC proceeding that is forging the rules for the auction. “This coalition’s sole focus is to advocate for the success of the voluntary incentive auction of broadcast spectrum," said Preston Padden, the former Fox and Disney lobbyist who has been hired to head the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition. "The FCC has only one shot to get it right. The coalition is dedicated to ensuring we have the rules and procedures in place to maximize the auction’s chance to succeed.” "Incentive auctions will offer significant opportunities for broadcasters -- both those that will take advantage of a once in a lifetime financial opportunity, and those that will choose to continue to be a part of a healthy and diverse broadcast marketplace," said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in response to the creation of the coalition. "I welcome the participation of the new Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition in our rulemaking process as the Commission engages all stakeholders in a manner that is open, transparent and data-driven."
benton.org/node/139415 | TVNewsCheck | B&C
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WIRELESS TAXES AND FEES
[SOURCE: Tax Analysts, AUTHOR: Scott Mackey]
The tax and fee burden on wireless consumers continued its steady upward march between 2010 and 2012. The average burden on consumers increased from 16.26 percent in July 2010 to 17.18 percent in July 2012, a 5.5 percent increase in just two years. Wireless consumers now pay the highest combined tax and fee burden since I began tracking rates in 2003, more than 3 percentage points above the 14.13 percent rate in 2007, which marked the low point for wireless taxes and fees during the last decade. Wireless customers now pay taxes, fees, and surcharges nearly two and a half times higher than the average 7.33 percent general sales tax rate imposed on other taxable goods and services.
benton.org/node/139447 | Tax Analysts | CTIA
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ELECTIONS & MEDIA
WHAT HAPPENED, ANYWAY?
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Walter Shapiro]
Shortly after 11 p.m. (Eastern) on Election Night—with the polls still open only in Alaska—Mitt Romney aides were pleading with Fox News not to call Ohio for Barack Obama. That delicious detail, buried in a New York magazine article by Gabriel Sherman about Karl Rove’s on-air meltdown, tells you all you need to know about how spin is embedded in the psyches of major political operatives. Not a single relevant vote was still up for grabs, but Romney insiders believed in their mind-clouding powers to bend reality to fit their preconceptions. The entire episode might be titled: “King Canute Calls Fox News.” That night, of course, Republicans accepted the indisputable nature of Obama’s victory and recognized that the only way they would ever experience a Romney administration would be on a conservative remake of West Wing. That didn’t stop the spin, however, although its purpose dramatically changed. As we wait for detailed post-election analysis by political scientists and reflective reporters, a tentative case can be made that one set of Super PAC ads (maybe the only ones in the entire 2012 cycle) did do the job. The early anti-Bain TV commercials by the pro-Obama Super PAC, Priorities USA Action did help create a persuasive anti-Romney narrative.
benton.org/node/139401 | Columbia Journalism Review
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CONTENT
WYDEN ON INTERNET RADIO BILL
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said the laws governing Internet radio have fallen behind the times and favor incumbent players in the music industry. "Music is still dominated and controlled by a couple of multinational corporations who, in effect, act like a duopoly to maximize their profits, not maximize the compensation of artists and not maximize musical choice," Sen Wyden said during a keynote at the Future of Music Summit. Sen Wyden argued that current royalty rules discriminate against Internet radio services because they're placed on a different royalty-setting standard than cable and satellite radio stations. He is the lead Senate sponsor of a bill that proposes to put Internet radio services on the 801(b) standard of the Copyright Act, which is the same standard used by the Copyright Royalty Board to set the royalty fees paid by cable and satellite radio. "It is the job of policymakers to ensure that the law and public policy doesn't favor one business model over another, and particularly, that it doesn't favor incumbents over insurgents," Sen Wyden said. "We've got to make sure that the past doesn't get a leg up on the future."
benton.org/node/139463 | Hill, The
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INTERNET ROYALTY BILL
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
Pandora founder Tim Westergren pushed back against claims that an Internet royalty bill pending in Congress would take money away from musicians and recording artists. Westergren is a vocal proponent of the Internet Radio Fairness Act, which proposes to put Internet radio services on the same royalty-setting standard as satellite and cable radio stations. The Pandora founder has argued that Internet radio stations unfairly pay higher royalty fees than other digital radio services because they're placed under a different standard. Critics of the bill, such as musicFIRST, have said that Pandora is more interested in its bottom line than fairly compensating artists. Speaking at the Future of Music Summit, Westergren said those charges are false and emphasized that the bill does not set royalty rates for Internet radio services. "That's a huge misnomer. It's really important for artists to try to parse the rhetoric around this. That is not true," Westergren said. "What this legislation proposes to do is to provide us with the same rate-setting standards so when the Copyright Royalty Board considers our situation, they get to consider that evidence under the same sort of rubric," he said. "It doesn't set a rate. It's been unpredictable in the past. It wouldn't even bet on what the outcome would be. It allows us to operate on a level playing field." However, Westergren said the hope is that the bill would lead to lower royalty fees for Internet radio services like Pandora.
benton.org/node/139417 | Hill, The
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POWERFUL SOCIAL BRAND
[SOURCE: Fast Company, AUTHOR: Simon Mainwaring]
"Four more years." Three simple words that could have been written by any Democratic supporter but in this case they came from the President of the United States himself to announce his second term. This tweet is notable for several reasons, not the least of which is that it has now entered the history books as the most re-tweeted tweet of all time. In fact, as of this writing, it has been re-tweeted almost 900,000 times and "favorited" by almost 300,000 people. But what it reveals about social branding is far more telling. A social brand is an organization that engages in a real-time dialogue with its community using social, mobile, and gaming technologies to build its reputation, profits, or social impact. In this case, the brand was the president and the message he chose to send was three short words that gave expression to his supporters' voices rather than congratulating himself. And by being so succinct, it was readily shareable (given Twitter's 140-character limit), even leaving room for people to add their own comments as they re-tweeted the message. As such, this seemingly simple message was a powerful example of using social media in a community facing rather than self-centered way to leverage the powerful emotions sweeping the country to amplify the message.
benton.org/node/139405 | Fast Company
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
GOOGLE TRANSPARENCY REPORT
[SOURCE: Google, AUTHOR: Dorothy Chou]
Google released an update to its Transparency Report with data about government requests from January to June 2012. This is the sixth time Google released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise. Government demands for user data have increased steadily since Google first launched the Transparency Report. In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts. The number of government requests to remove content from our services was largely flat from 2009 to 2011. But it’s spiked in this reporting period. In the first half of 2012, there were 1,791 requests from government officials around the world to remove 17,746 pieces of content.
benton.org/node/139399 | Google | GigaOm | LATimes
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CHINESE WEB CENSORSHIP
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jonathan Ansfield]
As the Chinese cyberpolice stiffened controls on information before the Communist Party leadership transition taking place this week, some companies in Beijing and nearby cities received orders to aid the cause. Starting earlier this year, Web police units directed the companies, which included joint ventures involving American corporations, to buy and install hardware to log the traffic of hundreds or thousands of computers, block selected Web sites, and connect with local police servers, according to industry executives and official directives obtained by The New York Times. Companies faced the threat of fines and suspended Internet service if they did not comply by prescribed deadlines. The initiative was one in a range of shadowy tactics authorities deployed in the months leading up to the 18th Party Congress, which is scheduled to end on Nov 14, in an escalating campaign against information deemed threatening to party rule.
benton.org/node/139470 | New York Times
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PETRAEUS INVESTIGATION HIGHLIGHTS FIGHT OVER DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE LAWS
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Josh Smith]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s digital detective work not only brought down Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus, it also provided rare insights into the bureau’s latest methods for tracking people across cyberspace and the fight over government surveillance. “Anyone more alarmed by FBI snooping through a journalist's emails & investigating the sex life of CIA Dir. than who Petraeus was schtupping?” New Yorker Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza tweeted. The first round of e-mails was provided by a Florida woman who complained to the FBI after receiving anonymous threatening messages. According to The Wall Street Journal, investigators used “metadata footprints left by the e-mails” to determine where the messages were sent from and link the e-mails to Broadwell. Officials also checked what other e-mail accounts had been accessed from the same computer address, according to The New York Times. It’s not clear how officials obtained that metadata, but if it involved cooperation from one or more e-mail service providers, a warrant may not have been needed under current law.
benton.org/node/139423 | nextgov
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ONLINE PRIVACY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Scott Shane]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation that toppled the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and has now entangled the top American commander in Afghanistan underscores a danger that civil libertarians have long warned about: that in policing the Web for crime, espionage and sabotage, government investigators will unavoidably invade the private lives of Americans. There has been a cascade of unintended consequences. What began as a private, and far from momentous, conflict between two women, Jill Kelley and Paula Broadwell, David H. Petraeus’s biographer and the reported author of harassing e-mails, has had incalculable public costs. The CIA is suddenly without a permanent director at a time of urgent intelligence challenges in Syria, Iran, Libya and beyond. The leader of the American-led effort to prevent a Taliban takeover in Afghanistan is distracted, at the least, by an inquiry into his e-mail exchanges with Kelley by the Defense Department’s inspector general. For privacy advocates, the case sets off alarms. “There should be an investigation not of the personal behavior of General Petraeus and General Allen, but of what surveillance powers the FBI used to look into their private lives,” Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said. “This is a textbook example of the blurring of lines between the private and the public.”
benton.org/node/139473 | New York Times | Financial Times
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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
SANDY AND TECHNOLOGY
[SOURCE: Forbes, AUTHOR: Deanna Zandt]
[Commentary] Nerds in the aftermath of Sandy sprang into action: We’ve seen some innovative technology solutions address many aspects of the fallout of the storm. It got me poking around at what’s working and what isn’t, and starting to look at communications solutions we can start to put in place before the next storm, disaster, revolution or what-have-you. In the end, we need to take the lessons we’ve learned about last-mile organizing, disaster relief elsewhere, ideas for technologies that include traditional, commercial infrastructure and ad-hoc deployment, and roll them up into one big package. Not simple. And we’re of course not sure whose responsibility this all is, or should be. Given that climate change is not just an idea, but a clear reality, getting to work on resilience now is the only way we’re going to be able to take care of each other.
benton.org/node/139452 | Forbes
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HOW TO IMPROVE SANDY RELIEF
[SOURCE: Forbes, AUTHOR: Deanna Zandt]
[Commentary] It’s worse that you think in New York. Much, much worse. I’ve come to several stark realizations about the nature of grassroots relief organizing, especially from the perspective of being a volunteer, and not my usual role as a coordinator or facilitator.
One, and I can’t stress this enough, grassroots relief is critical when institutional services fail.
Two, the technology we default to in everyday circumstances is woefully unprepared and likely not very useful for those in the most dire circumstances. It is also of shockingly little use to those who are in the middle ground of relief: sustaining no damage, but without power for a week.
Three, natural disasters create radically different circumstances from neighborhood to neighborhood, not just region to region.
Four, the type of loose organizing I witnessed was not as focused initially on the last mile as it needed to be.
benton.org/node/139450 | Forbes
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