May 2010

Facebook's Privacy Crisis Is Also Its Opportunity

[Commentary] You can set your watch by it: After sudden success comes a backlash, and right now, Facebook is getting backlash from all sides. Privacy advocates are attacking the company. Regulators in the U.S. and abroad are asking questions or openly criticizing it. Some users are considering canceling their accounts while others (like me) have stripped their profiles of data and grown cautious about their updates. But every crisis brings an opportunity. Facebook can emerge from the privacy brouhaha it started a lot stronger than it was before it began. Of course, it won't be easy and if Facebook fumbles, it will almost surely emerge a lot weaker.

Search warrant in iPhone raid is unsealed

Apple persuaded a Silicon Valley law enforcement task force to investigate the loss of a secret iPhone prototype, claiming that the phone was "invaluable" and calling revelations of its features "immensely damaging" to the company.

The investigation led to a controversial April 23 raid on the home of a technology blogger who published photos of the phone. The search warrant for the raid, unsealed Friday by a San Mateo court, sheds more light on a case that has raised questions about the close ties between the industry and the little-known task force that was created to fight crimes against technology companies. The documents also underscored how valuable the phone is to Apple, which has sold more than 50 million iPhone units since 2007.

The documents revealed that Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs personally asked Gizmodo.com to return the wayward phone. According to the documents, unsealed at the request of The Times and other media outlets, the investigation by the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, or REACT, was triggered in part by Apple's allegations that the phone prototype may have been stolen. In a meeting just days before the raid, Apple executives and lawyers told a REACT investigator that publishing information about the device could harm sales of the current iPhone because potential buyers would wait for the new one to be released. An Apple executive could not give an estimate of the financial impact but said it would be "huge." According to the documents, Apple called police after being tipped off by the roommate of a Redwood City, Calif., man who had allegedly found the phone in a pub, where an Apple employee had lost it.

Network Neutrality supporters looking for room to compromise

Top network neutrality supporters in Congress are hoping to avert an all-out legislative showdown that could result from the Federal Communications Commission's push to regulate Internet providers.

As the FCC, under Chairman Julius Genachowski, seeks to regain its authority to rein in those companies, a move that is likely to draw tough legal challenges in the coming months, members of Congress this week invited broadband providers to work with them on new regulations, which many lawmakers agreed are inevitable in some form. Deciding what power the FCC has and over which kinds of communication companies the agency can exert it means lawmakers would have to choose winners and losers in this dispute, all as millions in lobbying dollars exchange hands. That would occur at a time when much legislation already remains stalled in the upper chamber, where the absence of consensus has become the norm.

"The legislative process in the U.S. Senate is slower than molasses... and that's talking about how fast it is," Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), a member of the Commerce Committee, quipped at the CCIA summit on Thursday. "I hate to say it, but whatever evolves is going to get litigated," he predicted of the FCC's plans. "My view is: let's just see the process unfold a bit more... and then let us have the discussion. If there's a legislative fix, we'll have a debate."

AT&T Friday applauded Rep Rick Boucher's call for firms to bring their ideas to Congress for how to address their concerns with Chairman Genachowski's proposal to reclassify broadband service.

We Need To Regulate Broadband And The Internet Separately

[Commentary] There are so many things wrong about the way we debate broadband policy, but one of the most erroneous is the conflation of regulating the Internet vs. broadband. We need to regulate networks differently from traffic, just as we regulate roads differently from the cars that traverse them, or electrical networks from the appliances that use them. We need one set of regulations for how physical networks are built and operated, and another for the things that happen on these networks. While it may seem like an obvious proposition, too often broadband policy debates ignore or gloss over this distinction.

The FCC and the Internet

[Commentary] Liberals and conservatives alike should be wary of five unelected bureaucrats making laws that Congress never granted them authority to make.

The proposed network neutrality regulations could unintentionally harm consumers. Broadband providers like Verizon and Time Warner Cable will be forced to shift costs of new broadband networks to consumers and won't be able to charge the giant search engines and Internet video providers any of the freight for the giant pipes necessary for their business models. Internet companies like eBay and Google make billions on these networks but pay very little (other than the relatively paltry monthly "special access fees") for the privilege of using these expensive pipes. Consumers rather than corporate profiteers will end up with the short stick of a proposed new law imposed by fiat and without proper Congressional authority. That's not a good idea.

[E. Faye Williams is national chairwoman and general counsel, National Congress of Black Women.]

What A Difference A Year Makes

House Small Business ranking member Sam Graves (R-MO) isn't shy about sounding alarm bells over the dearth of high-speed Internet connectivity in rural areas -- especially in an election year. "There is a severe lack of appropriate infrastructure that limits many American communities, businesses, and families from gaining full access to these services," Graves said Wednesday during a committee hearing. "Rural areas in many states are particularly likely to lack the infrastructure needed to allow them to benefit from this vital technology," he added while calling for a federal commitment to infrastructure investment that ensures broadband service reaches small businesses and rural communities. But what he didn't mention is that he voted against last year's economic stimulus package, which created a $7.2 billion program of loans and grants designed to help bring broadband to rural America.

Wi-Fi: It Just Keeps Going and Growing

As Wi-Fi approaches its 25th birthday, innovations based on the technology just keep on coming.

A company called Anyfi Networks today launched a product that gives a Wi-Fi network the basic properties of a cell phone network, which means a user could move from hotspot to hotspot without losing coverage or having to authenticate on the network again. Another startup, called Compiled Networks offers technology that has the same effect. If Wi-Fi networks can be linked using standard (in other words, cheaper and interoperable) technology, it becomes harder to run through the limited gigabytes or megabytes in your high-cost cellular data plans, which is a good thing for consumers and possibly good for carriers whose networks are overloaded.

With CBS, Fox Back, NAB At Full Power

[Commentary] A decade after quitting the National Association of Broadcasters in an ugly disagreement with affiliates over television station ownership limits, CBS and Fox officially returned to broadcasting's principal lobby this week as dues-paying members.

(Today, nobody much cares about the ownership cap. The networks aren't interested in buying stations anymore. In fact, Fox, CBS and NBC have been shedding smaller-market stations over the past several years. And they might have sold more, if prices for stations were not so depressed.)

For the first time since 1999, broadcasting is unified under the NAB banner. It would be hard to overstate the importance of having all the networks in the NAB again. Each of the networks and their parent companies has tremendous individual clout. Say what you will about the affiliates and their local news efforts, the primetime programming of the Big Four is what defines TV broadcasting in the minds of most Americans, including official Washington. It also doesn't hurt that ABC, CBS and NBC have influential national news organizations and that Fox has Fox News Channel in the corporate family. No politician can ignore them. From now on, when NAB speaks on the Hill or at the FCC, it will speak for the networks as well as their affiliates. And there will be no doubt in the minds of Washington policymakers where broadcasting stands as there has too often been over the past 10 years.

Senator Calls For More Focus On Cell Phone Bills

Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) wrote Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski urging more attention to what she described as confusing cell phone bills and "poorly" outlined terms of service in mobile phone contracts.

She praised the FCC for its recent call for public comment on ways to alert customers before they run up high cell phone charges. "This so-called 'bill shock' concern is just one aspect of the broader problem of confusing billing practices and poorly outlined terms in cell phone contracts," Sen Klobuchar wrote. She also voiced concern again about mobile phone providers charging "outrageous early termination fees" to customers who cancel their contracts early.

When It Comes to Mobile Phones, Consumers Aren't Pro-choice

Apple's success in mobile computing can be attributed to consumers who aren't really into infinite choices, according to a Forrester report.

The report, by Sarah Rottman Epps, a Forrester analyst, calls the current proliferation of mobile apps "curated computing," and said it's the wave of the future. The question of whether people want less choice is an important one for many vendors outside of Apple. The idea that we need curated computing because the form factor is limited, while true today, but will it continue to be true as we get more advanced UIs and firms begin designing apps for mobile rather than for the traditional PC environment? Will the pendulum swing from apps back to the web?

Benton

Search