March 2000

DIGITAL DIVIDE
A Governor Would Give Every Student a Laptop (NYT)
FCC Chairman Kennard Receives Award from Educators (FCC)
Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service (FCC)

INTERNET
Report Sees Major Hurdles for Internet Election (CyberTimes)
Judge Says School May Have Overreacted to Student's Site
(CyberTimes)
Doubleclick Puts Off Its Plan For Wider Use Of Personal Data (NYT)
U.S. Unveils New Quarterly Index to Track E-Commerce (WSJ)

TELEVISION/CABLE
Reprieve for Houston TV Station (NYT)

NEWSPAPERS
In Seattle, a Novel Pact Between Two Newspapers Ignites a War (WSJ)

CONGRESS
Case, Levin Again Face Senators' Skepticism (WP)
Senate Passes Bill To Privatize Communication Satellite Network
(SJM)
Truth in Telephone Billing (House)

WIRELESS
Italy's Tascali Joins With 2 Publishers to Seek Mobile-Phone
Internet License (WSJ)

SPECTRUM
FCC is Set to Approve Rules on Airwave Band (WSJ)

DIGITAL DIVIDE

GOVERNOR WOULD GIVE EVERY STUDENT A LAPTOP
ISSUE: Digital Divide
Gov. Angus King of Maine announced a plan today to give every seventh grader
in the state a laptop with Internet service beginning the Fall of 2002. The
$65 million plan was immediately met with skepticism from members of the
Legislature. The Governor suggests that $50 million from the state's
unallocated budget surplus be put in a permanent endowment, along with $15
million in matching funds from federal and private sources, to pay for the
computers. According to Senator Mark W. Lawrence, "essentially taking a
chunk of money, setting up a foundation -- that's very different and I think
that's going to be debated in the Legislature."
[SOURCE: New York Times (A12), AUTHOR: New York Times Staff]
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/030300maine-compute-edu.html

FCC CHAIRMAN KENNARD RECEIVES AWARD FROM EDUCATORS
Issue: Universal Service
Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard accepted the 2000
Eagle Award from the United States Distance Learning Association (USLDA) for
his work in improving education and distance learning. "It is a tribute to
Chairman Kennard's vision that more than one million public, private and
parochial school classrooms have been linked to the Internet with E-Rate
funding," noted USDLA Executive Director John G. Flores. "And the program is
helping to reduce the "digital divide," with 70% of the second year funding
going to schools from the lowest income areas." "I am very happy to accept
this award. But I am even happier that because of the E- Rate we have
connected hundreds and thousands of classrooms and libraries to the
Internet. We have begun to better educate our children for the 21st
century," Chairman Kennard said. "Our challenge now is to ensure that no one
gets left behind in the Broadband Internet Age. This year we have requested
that 70% of the E-Rate funding be targeted to schools in traditionally
low-income areas. We cannot afford not to bridge the digital divide."
[SOURCE: FCC]
(http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Miscellaneous/News_Releases/2000/nrmc0011.html)
See Also:
STUDY FINDS E-RATE IS ACHIEVING ITS GOAL OF BUILDING INTERNET FRAMEWORK FOR
21ST-CENTURY SCHOOLS
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation]
(http://www.benton.org/e-rate/pressrelease.html)

FEDERAL-STATE JOINT BOARD ON UNIVERSAL SERVICE
Issue: Universal Service
The Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service will hold an open meeting
on Monday, March 6, 2000, from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m., in the Commission Meeting
Room at the Federal Communications Commission, 445 - 12th Street, SW,
Washington, DC 20554. At the meeting, the Federal-State Joint Board will
address issues related to high-cost universal service support. This meeting
will be open to the public. For further information, please contact Gene
Fullano, Accounting Policy Division, Common Carrier Bureau, at (202)
418-7400, TTY (202) 418-0484.
[SOURCE: FCC]
(http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Public_Notices/2000/da000435.html
)

INTERNET

REPORT SEES MAJOR HURDLES FOR INTERNET ELECTION
Issue: Internet
A report released Friday says that a plan to create the Internet's first
democracy is hampered by skepticism, conflicting goals and a general lack of
accountability. The report, written by Center for Democracy and Technology,
and Common Cause, two Washington public interests groups, does not go so far
as to suggest that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN) postpone an election planned for September. ICANN's proposal would
allow any Internet user over the age of 16 who has an e-mail and postal
address to participate in the international election of a special council,
which in turn would appoint the nine board members. The main problems with
the plan are a lack of a fundamental understanding of what ICANN does among
potential voters, and a lack of controls to keep the election from being
captured by special interests. "Until these fundamental concerns are fully
addressed, this election will not be able to confer the consent of the
governed onto ICANN," the report states. Although ICANN'S primary mission
was to introduce competition into the business of registering domain names,
the last year or so has been spent on creating three so-called "supporting
organizations" of business groups that will provide the bulk of financing
for the nonprofit group. With those organizations in place, the last task of
ICANN's interim board is to create an at-large constituency and elect board
members to replace themselves. The September election's goal is to
accomplish both of these tasks.
[Source Cyber Times, Author: Jeri Clausing]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/03/cyber/articles/03domain.html)

JUDGE SAYS SCHOOL MAY HAVE OVERREACTED TO STUDENT'S SITE
Issue: Internet
A federal judge in Seattle has ordered a school district to temporarily
refrain from punishing a student who created an "unofficial" Web site for
his school. Chief Judge John Coughenour of the United States District Court
for the Western District of Washington concluded that the school's five-day
suspension of the student likely violated his right to free speech. Nick
Emmett, 18, a senior at Kentlake High School in Kent, Wash., created his
"Unofficial Kentlake High School Home Page" at home outside of school hours.
The site featured mock obituaries of some of Emmett's fellow students. In
the wake of the shootings in Columbine High School in Colorado, and other
schools, educators have focused attention on the students' Web sites as
early indicators of threats. Coughenour's opinion acknowledges the fear felt
by educators. The judge's opinion states that the school district "argues,
persuasively, that school administrators are in an acutely difficult
position after recent school shootings in Colorado, Oregon and other
places." But, Coughenour found that the school district had not sufficiently
demonstrated that the mock obituaries "were intended to threaten anyone, did
actually threaten anyone, or manifested any violent tendencies whatsoever."
[Source Cyber Times, Author: Carl S. Kaplan]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/03/cyber/cyberlaw/03law.html)

US UNVEILS NEW QUARTERLY INDEX TO TRACK E-COMMERCE
Issue: E-Commerce
The Commerce Department unveiled a new index meant to track e-commerce
separately from overall retail-sales figures. "This number is the new
benchmark - our first government economic indicator for the e-economy," said
Commerce Secretary William Daley. The index measures only products and
excludes service sites such as online brokerage and travel sites. Since
airline tickets are widely estimated to be the most popular product sold
online, their exclusion from the index mans that it will be a fairly
conservative measure of the total amount of money spent on the web. Other
economists point out that there will be a limited usefulness to the index.
"Measuring e-commerce is like measuring 'phone-commerce' in 1880 when that
technology was in its infancy. The phone quickly became part and parcel of
the broader economy, making it harder to keep it separate, and this may,
too." said Brad DeLong from University of California at Berkeley.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A2), AUTHOR: Yochi Dreazen]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB95201048539755660.htm)

DOUBLECLICK PUTS OFF ITS PLAN FOR WIDER USE OF PERSONAL DATA
Issue: Privacy
As a result of enormous pressure from privacy advocates and Wall Street,
DoubleClick has announced that it would hold off on its plan to link
personal information to anonymous data it collects about consumers on the
Internet. "I made a big mistake," said Kevin O'Connor, DoubleClick's chief
executive. "It was wrong to try to match that information in the absence of
government or industry standards, so until there's agreement on it, we will
not." DoubleClick had plans to take information from Abacus Direct, which
compiles offline information on the buying habits of millions of consumers,
and combine it with data it already gathers about online consumers. By
combining the online and offline, the company could provide advertisers with
consumers' identities and detailed personal information that would tie an
individual to his or her Internet use and buying habits.
[SOURCE: Cyber Times AUTHOR:Bob Tedeschi]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/columns/030300doubleclick-adcol.ht
ml)
SEE ALSO:
DOUBLECLICK REVERSES COURSE AFTER PRIVACY OUTCRY
[Wall Street Journal (B1), AUTHOR: Andrea Petersen]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB952019045241548818.htm)
DOUBLECLICK DROPS USER PROFILING
Issue: Privacy
The Internet's largest advertising network announced
(http://www.doubleclick.net/company_info/press_kit/pr.00.03.02.htm) that it
had made a "mistake by planning to merge names with anonymous user activity
across Web sites in the absence of government and industry privacy
standards." See also EPIC's DoubleTrouble page, Junkbusters' page on
Doubleclick/Abacus merger, Richard Smith page on online advertising, and
EPIC testimony on Internet Privacy and Doubleclick.
[SOURCE: Electronic Privacy Information Center]
(http://www.epic.org/)

TELEVISION/CABLE

REPRIEVE FOR HOUSTON TV STATION
Issue: Television/Cable
Lee P. Brown, the Mayor of Houston, stepped in to prevent a scheduled shut
down of the ABC television station yesterday by brokering an agreement
between ABC and Time Warner's cable unit to extend their contract in Houston
for seven days. The two companies have been locked in a bitter dispute over
the transmission rights to the station. The ABC station, which is owned by
Disney, has demanded that Time Warner's cable system pay a fee of 70 cents a
subscriber for the Disney Channel, and begin carrying two other Disney-owned
channels, the Soap Opera Channel and Toon Disney. Time Warner executives
have accused ABC and its parent, the Walt Disney Company, of trying to
extort an agreement that would cost Time Warner $100 million. ABC had
planned to terminate the transmission rights in Houston as of last night at
midnight, which would have removed the ABC station from the homes of nearly
650,000 cable subscribers.
[SOURCE: New York Times (Online), AUTHOR: Bill Carter]
(http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/houston-tv-abc.html)

NEWSPAPERS

IN SEATTLE, A NOVEL PACT BETWEEN TWO NEWSPAPERS IGNITES A WAR
Issue: Newspapers
A fierce newspaper battle is brewing in Seattle as the Seattle Times
prepares to publish in the morning instead of the afternoon, going
head-to-head with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "It will be a grand
experiment, an old-fashioned content battle," said Frank Blethn, publisher
of the Seattle Times. What's surprising is that both newspapers are party to
a 17 year joint operating agreement in which they share printing plants and
delivery trucks but maintain separate newsrooms. In February 1999, the
joint operating agreement was renegotiated and the decision made to publish
both papers in the morning. Some believe that this means the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer is preparing to eventually shut down. As part of the
agreement, if either publication posts losses for three straight years, its
owner can shut it down and still keep 32% of the profits earned by the other
until 2083. "We assumed we were being sold down the river," said
Post-Intelligencer reporter Jane Hadley.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B1), AUTHOR: Rachel Zimmerman and Matthew
Rose]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB952029107673531268.htm)

CONGRESS

SENATE PASSES BILL TO PRIVATIZE COMMUNICATION SATELLITE NETWORK
Issue: Satellite
The Senate passed legislation that will privatize the world communications
satellite network, Comsat. The measure, which will allow telephone
companies to bypass Comsat to get direct access to the global satellite
consortium Intelsat, could potentially result in lower long-distance calling
rates. Comsat was chartered by Congress in 1962 to keep then-telephone
monopoly AT&T from extending its control to international satellite
communications. The privatization of Comsat was necessary for Lockheed
Martin to complete its proposed deal with Comsat. The defense contractor has
already purchased 49 percent of Comsat, but could not acquire the rest of
the company because of current Comsat ownership limits that were written
into the 1962 law.
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Associated Press]
(http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/005787.htm)

CASE, LEVIN AGAIN FACE SENATORS' SKEPTICISM
Issue: Mergers
The Senate Commerce Committee quizzed America Online Inc. chief Steve Case
and his Time Warner Inc. counterpart, Gerald Levin, about the promise and
potential pitfalls of their pending marriage yesterday. The two-hour public
meeting, during which AOL's competitive tactics were compared wit those of
Microsoft Corp., followed a similar one held Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary
Committee. The senators again attempted to pin down answers to questions on
sundry topics ranging from consumer privacy to "open access," allowing AOL'
competitors access to Time Warner's cable-TV lines. Since Internet giant AOL
announced on Jan. 10 that it would acquire media powerhouse Time Warner,
legislators and consumer groups alike have expressed worry that the
concentration of power in this unprecedented hybrid company would have
negative effects on a number of realms.
[Source Washington Post (E2) Author: Ariana Eunjung Cha]
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61985-2000Mar2.html)

TRUTH IN TELEPHONE BILLING
Issue: Telephone Regulation
Thursday, March 9, 2000 10:00 a.m. in 2322 Rayburn House Office Building
subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection hearing
on H.R. 3011, the Truth in Telephone Billing Act of 1999 and H.R. 3022, the
Rest of the Truth in Telephone Billing Act of 1999.
[SOURCE: House of Representatives]
(http://com-notes.house.gov/schedule.htm)

WIRELESS

ITALY'S TISCALI JOINS WITH 2 PUBLISHERS TO SEEK MOBILE-PHONE INTERNET
LICENSE
Issue: Wireless
Tiscali, an Italian Internet and telecommunications company, has allied
itself with the publishers of the two biggest Italian newspapers in an
attempt to get a license to provide Web surfing on mobile phones. Italy is
offering five licenses to provide next-generation Universal Mobile
Telecommunications System (UMTS) services this year. Four of those licenses
are expected to go to existing mobile phone networks, making the battle for
the fifth license bitter. More than half of the Italian population owns a
mobile phone. The government plans to award the permits by August.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A16), AUTHOR: Yaroslav Trofimov]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB95203690182629113.htm)

SPECTRUM

FCC IS SET TO APPROVE RULES ON AIRWAVE BAND
Issue: Spectrum
The Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote as early as Monday
on rules that would save 6 megahertz of the available 36 megahertz spectrum
for two-way radio use. The 6 megahertz spectrum is designated as "guard
bands" to prevent interference with police, fire department and other public
safety frequencies. The FCC is expected to back away from an original staff
proposal to use the 6 megahertz spectrum for private-radio networks, which
have shown to have little interference with public-safety networks.
Instead, it is likely to open the spectrum to "band managers" who could
lease slices for private or commercial use, except cellular-phone services.
With passing these rules, the FCC is effectively guaranteeing that much of
the 6 megahertz spectrum would go to private two-way radio use instead of to
high-tech bidders from wireless carriers. "If the FCC has chosen to write
rules that ensure a giveaway of valuable spectrum rather than allow an open
auctions where new wireless broadband technologies could bid, that's a
tragedy," says Mike Farmwald, the founder of FreeSpace, a wireless company.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B4), AUTHOR: Kathy Chen]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB952049976476959536.htm)

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(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
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-- primarily those covering long term trends and developments in
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