Digital Content

Google came up on the losing end of a previously-undisclosed third showdown with the federal government over demands for data stored overseas, a federal court in Washington has revealed. The disclosure of yet another court fight over the issue comes as the US Supreme Court is preparing to decide as soon as Oct whether to weigh in on the question of whether U.S. law permits authorities to use U.S. courts to obtain electronic records kept outside of the country.

Court filings made public show that in July Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected Google's challenge to a search warrant seeking company data stored abroad. Judge Howell agreed to hold the company in contempt for defying her order and to fine the firm $10,000 a day. However, the arrangement is largely symbolic, since a contempt order is needed to appeal such a ruling and she suspended the fine pending such an appeal. In fact, the firm and prosecutors jointly proposed the arrangement.

The rise of online streaming services such as Netflix and HBO Go has dramatically altered the media habits of Americans, especially young adults. About six-in-ten of those ages 18 to 29 (61%) say the primary way they watch television now is with streaming services on the internet, compared with 31% who say they mostly watch via a cable or satellite subscription and 5% who mainly watch with a digital antenna, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in August. Other age groups are less likely to use internet streaming services and are much more likely to cite cable TV as the primary way they watch television. Overall, 59% of U.S. adults say cable connections are their primary means of watching TV, while 28% cite streaming services and 9% say they use digital antennas.

Facebook’s enormous audience has long been catnip to advertisers. But the company’s vast ecosystem has come under scrutiny in 2017 from major brands, which are increasingly sensitive to the possibility of inadvertently showing up next to objectionable content. In response to those concerns, Facebook released a new set of rules that outline the types of videos and articles that it will bar from running ads. It also said it would begin disclosing new information to advertisers about where their messages appear on the platform and on external apps and sites it is partners with.

The rules, which will be enforced by a mix of automation and human review, restrict ads from content that depicts, among other topics, real-world tragedies, “debatable social issues,” misappropriation of children’s show characters, violence, nudity, gore, drug use and derogatory language. Facebook is extending the guidelines immediately to videos — which the company hopes will become an increasingly lucrative part of its business — and, in the coming months, to articles.

President Donald Trump is a symptom of a media environment based on short attention spans that is making the world stupider, one of the founders of Twitter has said. Evan Williams, one of the co-founders of the network, said Trump’s election highlighted a wider issue about how social media platforms were helping to “dumb the entire world down” and undermining our sense of truth. Earlier in 2017 President Trump said he would not be president if it “wasn’t for Twitter”. Williams was asked whether President Trump’s prolific use of Twitter had given him pause for thought, during an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He replied: “The much bigger issue is not Donald Trump using Twitter that got him elected, even if he says so; it is the quality of the information we consume that is reinforcing dangerous beliefs and isolating people and limiting people’s open-mindedness and respect for truth.”

[Commentary] Generally speaking, there are two kinds of corporate players on the internet: companies that build infrastructure through which content flows, and companies that seek to curate content and create a community. Internet service providers like Verizon and Comcast, domain name servers, web hosts and security services providers like Cloudflare are all the former — or the “pipe.” They typically don’t look at the content their clients and customers are putting up, they just give them the means to do it and let it flow.

Because of the precise nature of Cloudflare’s business, and the scarcity of competitors, its role censoring internet speech is not just new, it’s terrifying. What makes Cloudflare an essential part of the internet is its ability to block malicious traffic from barraging clients’ websites with requests that take them offline. Cloudflare is one of the few companies in the world that provide this kind of reliable protection. If you don’t want your website to get taken down by extortionists, jokers, political opposition or hackers, you have to hire Cloudflare or one of its very few competitors. Social media platforms like Facebook are the latter. They encourage their users to create, share and engage with content — so they look at content all the time and decide whether they want to allow hateful material like that of neo-Nazis to stay up. While there have long been worries about internet service providers favoring access to some content over others, there has been less concern about companies further along the pipeline holding an internet on/off switch. In large part, this is because at other points in the pipeline, users have choice.

Private companies can make their own rules, and consumers can choose among them. If GoDaddy won’t register your domain, you can go to Bluehost or thousands of other companies. But the fewer choices you have for the infrastructure you need to stay online, the more serious the consequences when companies refuse service.

[Kate Klonick is a lawyer and doctoral candidate at Yale Law School who studies law and technology.]

Google is planning to end its “first click free” policy that enables users of its search engine to bypass paywalls on news websites, a move that could help publishers boost subscriptions, News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said.

Google for years has encouraged publishers to be part of the program, which allows search users to access a limited amount of content on subscription-based news sites free of charge. Some publishers say the policy has hurt subscription growth and say their sites are penalized in Google’s search rankings if they don’t participate in the program. The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp, opted out of the program in 2017 and saw its traffic from Google search fall 38% and from Google News fall 89% compared with a year earlier because its stories were demoted in search results, a spokesman said. Now, Google is ready to end the first-click-free program and allow publishers to choose how users access their sites from its search results. People familiar with the situation said Google will still enable subscription-oriented publishers to give search users a free sample of their stories if they choose to, but they won’t be penalized if they don’t.

The massive data breach at credit reporting firm Equifax has put the company in the cross-hairs of congressional committees and one of the nation’s most aggressive attorneys general, while fueling a new push for stronger protections on Americans’ personal information. Even the Trump administration, which has advocated slashing government rules, has indicated new regulations might be needed. The revelation that a hack of Equifax’s computer system exposed the Social Security numbers and birth dates of as many as 143 million people also could scuttle Republican efforts to limit the liability faced by credit reporting companies and other financial firms in disputes with consumers. The scale of the latest in a series of high-profile data breaches has refocused attention on the role of the three major credit reporting companies — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — as repositories of a trove of sensitive data. “This debacle should be a wake-up call to both consumers and policymakers about the industry's broad reach,” said Rohit Chopra, a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America.

A new Pew Research Center survey explores these five broad dimensions of people’s engagement with information and finds that a couple of elements particularly stand out when it comes to their enthusiasm: their level of trust in information sources and their interest in learning, particularly about digital skills. It turns out there are times when these factors align – that is, when people trust information sources and they are eager to learn, or when they distrust sources and have less interest in learning.

There are other times when these factors push in opposite directions: people are leery of information sources but enthusiastic about learning. Roughly four-in-ten adults (38%) are in groups that have relatively strong interest and trust in information sources and learning. About half (49%) fall into groups that are relatively disengaged and not very enthusiastic about information or about gaining more training, especially when it comes to navigating digital information. Another 13% occupy a middle space: They are not particularly trusting of information sources, but they show higher interest in learning than those in the more information-wary groups.

[Commentary] Some political TV advertising can be misleading, especially those super PAC (political action committee) commercials. You’re not sure where they come from or who is behind it. But what Facebook found out is worse: A Russian-backed "troll farm" bought $100,000 worth of advertising space on Facebook through fake accounts, according to the company. The shadowy entity had a history of pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda. The new state of media carries specific problems, such as how you can buy advertising. In particular, reports suggest the Russian “troll farm” was using Facebook’s automated, self-service ad-buying tool. All that means way less oversight. And in some cases, social media wants to take a big hands-off approach.

If you want to be happier, you might want to ditch your phone. It may be common knowledge that spending too much time on social media leads to disappointment with yourself, but according to data from Moment, an iPhone app that tracks app usage, there isn’t a single app that makes you feel good for spending more, rather than less, time on it.

Weekly, Moment asks users whether they’re happy with the time spent on each of their apps. The ratings are then used to compare the amount of time that “happy” users and “unhappy” users spend on each app. Apps for which “happy” users spend more time on than “unhappy” users meet the criteria for “time well spent.” Moment publishes the list of apps that make the cut each week. It usually includes things like Google Calendar, Podcasts, Spotify, or Reminders—apps that help users stay organized, focused, or informed. But an analysis of app ratings aggregated over 2017 shows that, ultimately, no app that received 1,000 ratings or more actually made the time-well-spent criteria. In other words, all apps have diminishing returns over the long run.