Daily Digest 7/5/2018 (Gutting antitrust law)

Benton Foundation

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Broadband/Internet

Kentucky's Statewide Broadband on Track for 2019-20

The Kentucky Wired plan has been delayed and survived a near-death experience during the 2018 legislative session, but the “middle mile” broadband network plan now intends to roll out within 18 to 24 months with its original intent and focus – putting gigabit-speed internet service nodes into every commonwealth county. Originally, the 120-county Kentucky Wired program was to be complete by September 2018 at a cost of around $324 million, most of that coming from Australia’s Macquarie Capital in a public-private partnership deal. It was and still is envisioned as a crucial economic development stepping stone for Eastern Kentucky. The 3,200-mile construction project fell behind initially due to delays in getting pole-attachment agreements from both AT&T and Windstream, said Phillip Brown, executive director of the Kentucky Communications Network Authority (KCNA). With cost overruns climbing to more than $180 million, and KCNA needing to pay out nearly $70 million it did not have in the coming two years, there was a sentiment among legislators and some public policy groups to kill the project. It got no funding in the budget bill sent to Gov. Matt Bevin, who vetoed it due to concerns that it spent too much and lacked enough emergency funding.

Spectrum/Wireless

Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act Annual Progress Report for 2017

The  Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act (CSEA) requires annual reporting on federal agencies’ progress to relocate radio communications systems from spectrum or share spectrum that has been reallocated to commercial use. This report provides details on two separate spectrum auctions conducted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that included: 1) the 1710 to 1755 megahertz (MHz) band, and 2) the 1695-1710 MHz and 1755-1780 MHz bands. This report covers the period from January through December 2017.

There's an unlimited number of unlimited plans

The good news is that, after years of having to pay per gigabyte, unlimited plans are now the norm at all of the major US wireless carriers. The bad news is that, somehow, those same companies have managed to create different categories of unlimited. At the low-end, some have data caps before speeds are throttled. At the high-end, many come with premium video services (the latest battleground).

  • AT&T: The biggest challenge with AT&T's unlimited plans is that the options and combinations keep changing.
  • Sprint: The nation's No. 4 carrier, which is in the process of trying to sell itself to T-Mobile, has been experimenting with all kinds of promotions and offers, though most are limited-time plans.
  • T-Mobile: T-Mobile's plans are probably the simplest to understand.
  • Verizon: In its latest ad campaign, Verizon actually boasts about the fact that it now has a bunch of unlimited plans and you can now mix and match them within a family plan.
via Axios
Ownership

The Supreme Court just quietly gutted antitrust law

[Commentary] The Supreme Court recently delivered the most significant antitrust opinion by the Court in more than a decade --  Ohio v. American Express -- one that made it extraordinarily more difficult for the government to rein in certain companies that abuse their market power. In it, the Court dealt a huge blow to the ability of government and private plaintiffs to enforce existing antitrust laws, making it easier for dominant firms — especially those in the tech sector — to abuse their market power with impunity. In practice, the Court has shielded from effective antitrust scrutiny a huge swath of firms that provide services on more than one side of a transaction — and, in today’s digital economy, there are many. Worse yet, the Court left unclear what kinds of businesses actually qualify for this new rule. What kinds of companies might have more freedom to exert pressure on customers, as a result of this decision? Not newspapers, the Court said: Readers are “largely indifferent” to the number of advertisements on newspaper pages, even though advertisers are looking to reach readers. So someone suing a newspaper on antitrust grounds (say, for prohibiting advertisers from doing business with other newspapers) would not have to prove that a newspaper’s conduct harmed both readers and advertisers. On the surface, the Court’s language suggests that the special rule would apply to Amazon’s marketplace for third-party merchants, to eBay, and to Uber — but not to Google search or Facebook. For decades our courts have constructed an antitrust regime at odds with the values that Congress articulated when passing the antitrust laws. American Express marks a continuation of that abnegation. While the judiciary has claimed for itself significant authority over shaping the substantive content of antitrust policy, it’s time for both the antitrust agencies and lawmakers to reassert their power. The time for a robust and muscular antitrust regime is now.

[Lina Khan is director of legal policy with the Open Markets Institute]

via Vox

AT&T promised lower prices after Time Warner merger—it’s raising them instead

AT&T is raising the base price of its DirecTV Now streaming service by $5 per month, despite promising in court that its acquisition of Time Warner would lower TV prices. AT&T confirmed the price increase said it began informing customers of the increase this past weekend. "The $5 increase will go into effect July 26 for new customers and varies for existing customers based on their billing date," an AT&T spokesperson said. The $5 increase will affect all DirecTV Now tiers except for a Spanish-language TV package. That means the DirecTV Now packages that currently cost $35, $50, $60, and $70 a month will go up to $40, $55, $65, and $75. "To continue delivering the best possible streaming experience for both new and existing customers, we're bringing the cost of this service in line with the market—which starts at a $40 price point," AT&T said. Just two months ago, AT&T said in a court filing that buying Time Warner would allow it to lower TV prices. 

How AT&T could use Time Warner shows and movies to compete with Disney and Netflix

Imagine if, ahead of HBO’s next “Westworld” premiere, AT&T sent a 5-minute video recap to millions of users it knows watch science fiction. The mobile giant could target young women with the latest trailer of Warner Bros.’s upcoming romantic comedy “Crazy Rich Asians.” Or analyze users’ interests to create customized CNN news clips for customers to watch on their lunch breaks. That’s just a sample of the ways AT&T could push the $85-billion Time Warner acquisition to its more than 100 million wireless subscribers and 25 million pay-TV customers. As it faces a saturated wireless market and declining satellite subscriptions from its DirecTV unit, AT&T hopes to entice mobile customers by streaming WarnerMedia content to people’s mobile devices, including smartphones. The goal is to take advantage of AT&T’s direct connections with millions of Americans and the user data previously unavailable to entertainment companies.

Sinclair station sales risk new scrutiny as part of Tribune deal

Sinclair Broadcast Group’s bid to purchase Tribune Media hinges on spinning off TV stations to comply with US limits on broadcast ownership. Yet its proposals to sell stations from Pennsylvania to California are drawing fresh scrutiny as critics, including business rivals, say some of the transactions are designed to evade the ownership rules. In one case, two Texas stations are to be sold to a partner company that until recently was controlled by the estate of the mother of Sinclair’s controlling shareholders. And the flagship Tribune station in Chicago, WGN-TV, is going to an automobile executive who’s a business partner of Sinclair Chairman David Smith. “They’re not really arm’s-length. They’re not really divestitures,” Chris Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax Media, which offers TV news that competes for viewers with Sinclair, said in an interview. “It’s just really an insult to the public, to the rules, and to fairness.”

Labor

Chairman Pai Statement on Proposal to Improve Enforcement of Equal Employment Opportunity Rules

On July 3, 1968, the Federal Communications Commission first concluded that equal opportunity in employment was essential to the public interest, and committed to ensuring that the national policy against discrimination in hiring applied to broadcast licensees. To mark the 50th anniversary of this decision and to improve the Commission’s enforcement of its equal employment opportunity (EEO) rules, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai shared with his colleagues a proposal to shift agency staff responsible for enforcing the FCC’s EEO rules from the Media Bureau to the Enforcement Bureau. Earlier in 2018, numerous civil rights organizations, including the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, NAACP, National Urban League, LULAC, and Rainbow PUSH Coalition, recommended that the Commission take this step so that the Commission’s EEO rules could be enforced more effectively.

 

Facebook ramps up hiring of DC engineers

Facebook is hiring more engineers in Washington (DC) as it tackles problems, like countering online extremism and foreign election meddling, that have received attention from policymakers.  The plan to “quintuple” the social network’s DC engineering force underscores how the company’s future is more intertwined than ever with decisions made in the nation’s capital. The expansion comes after Facebook moved into a new 75,000 square foot Washington office that can accommodate the new workforce, with features that include a cafe serving multiple free meals a day similar to those in its California headquarters.

via Axios
Privacy

Privacy policies of tech giants 'still not GDPR-compliant'

Privacy policies from companies including Facebook, Google and Amazon don’t fully meet the requirements of th European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according to the pan-European consumer group BEUC. An analysis of policies from 14 of the largest internet companies shows they use unclear language, claim “potentially problematic” rights, and provide insufficient information for users to judge what they are agreeing to. “A little over a month after the GDPR became applicable, many privacy policies may not meet the standard of the law,” said Monique Goyens, BEUC’s director general. “This is very concerning. It is key that enforcement authorities take a close look at this.” 

The identified problems include:

  • Not providing all the information which is required under the GDPR’s transparency obligations. For example companies do not always inform users properly regarding the third parties with whom they share or get data from.
  • Processing of personal data not happening according to GDPR requirements. For instance, a clause stating that the user agrees to the company’s privacy policy by simply using its website.
  • Policies are formulated using vague and unclear language, which makes it very hard for consumers to understand the actual content of the policy and how their data is used in practice.
Security

Rural Broadband Associations Come Out Against Proposed FCC Moves Against Huawei

The Competitive Carriers Association (CCA), the Computer & Communications Industry Association,  ITTA – The Voice of America’s Broadband Providers (ITTA), and NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association (NTCA) have filed joint reply comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in opposition of the Commission’s proposed rule to prohibit the use of money distributed from the Universal Service Fund (USF) to purchase or obtain equipment or services from any providers identified as posing a national security risk to communications networks or the communications supply chain. The FCC proposal will impact Huawei, and perhaps others, by not allowing funds from the USF to be used to purchase or maintain equipment from them. The groups said they fully support efforts to protect the United States’ telecommunications supply chain from malicious threats, but the FCC’s proposed rule is not the best way to combat the problem. Instead, the associations recommended that the FCC and other expert agencies should focus on the national telecommunications network’s challenges from overarching national security threats.

The US won’t let China Mobile operate in the country, citing risk to national security (Vox)

Ex-congressional IT staffer reaches plea deal that debunks conspiracy theories about illegal information access

Federal prosecutors concluded an 18-month investigation into a former congressional technology staffer on July 3 by publicly debunking allegations — promoted by conservative media and President Donald Trump — suggesting he was a Pakistani operative who stole government secrets with cover from House Democrats. As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Imran Awan pleaded guilty to a relatively minor offense unrelated to his work on Capitol Hill: making a false statement on a bank loan application. U.S. prosecutors said they would not recommend jail time.

But the agreement included an unusual passage that described the scope of the investigation and cleared Awan of a litany of conspiracy theories promulgated on Internet blogs, picked up by right-leaning news sites, and fanned by President Trump on Twitter. “The Government has uncovered no evidence that your client violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems,” including stealing equipment or illegally accessing or transferring information, including sensitive or classified information, prosecutors wrote in an 11-page plea agreement dated and signed July 3. Federal prosecutors described in the agreement a “thorough investigation” that included forensic analysis of computer equipment and other devices, logon and usage data and interviews with about 40 witnesses. 

Journalism

Put the damn paper out: Why the newsroom is a bedrock of American democracy

[Commentary] The newsroom is the defining institution of journalism and a miracle of social organization. It teaches young people the practices and values of responsible, accurate journalism; it applies multiple layers of professional judgment to prevent error and make difficult editorial calls; it creates the sense of mission and teamwork that inspire professionalism and dedication; it sifts news sources from all over the world while staying minutely tuned to the local community; it organizes and sustains complex investigative projects; it provides accountability and discipline when things go wrong. And, somehow, it melds all of that into a coherent product. President Donald Trump’s attacks on the press (“enemies of the American people”) seem to have inspired something of a pro-media backlash. A poll conducted by the Freedom Forum Institute last year found 43 percent of respondents said that the media try to report the news without bias, an impressive 20-point increase over 2016. If sustained, that trend is heartening, and it reflects a heartening reality: In the face of an unprecedented demagogic onslaught, the mainstream media have done an extraordinary job. Though my own newspaper days are long past, I have never been as proud of my newsroom training as I am right now, and those five people who died in Annapolis (MD) show why. 

[Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow at Brookings]

Digital Life

Stories From Experts About the Impact of Digital Life

Technology experts and scholars have never been at a loss for concerns about the current and future impact of the internet. Over the years of canvassings by Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center, many experts have been anxious about the way people’s online activities can undermine truth, foment distrust, jeopardize individuals’ well-being when it comes to physical and emotional health, enable trolls to weaken democracy and community, compromise human agency as algorithms become embedded in more activities, kill privacy, make institutions less secure, open up larger social divisions as digital divides widen, and wipe out untold numbers of decent-paying jobs. Many of these experts also wrote about a number of powerful ways digital life makes things better. Some themes:

  • The Positives of Digita Life: Glorious connectedness; Invent, reinvent, innovate (careers);  Life-saving advice and assistance; Efficient transactions
  • The Negatives of Digital Life: Connectedness overload; Trust tensions; Personal identity issues; Focus failures.
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Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) -- we welcome your comments.

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