August 2010

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, AUGUST 2, 2010

This week's telecom policy events http://bit.ly/bo6YTX

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   $9 Million BTOP Award for SmartChicago
   Is an Internet sales tax coming?
   National Broadband Network is a Defining Issue in Australian Election
   Australia begs residents to accept free fiber connection

BROADBAND CLASSIFICATION
   Greene, Upton Want Congress To Weigh In Before FCC Reclassifies Broadband
   Saturday Broadband Reclassification Bill Meeting Held
   Genachowski's tortuous way
   Chandler, Grayson oppose FCC's reclassification plan

SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
   FCC Seeks Comment on World Radiocommunication Conference Recommendations
   Bill to keep cell phones out of prison passes both chambers
   Emirates to Cut Data Services of BlackBerry

PRIVACY
   FBI's push to clarify electronic authority raises privacy concerns
   Microsoft Quashed Effort to Boost Online Privacy
   Students finally wake up to Facebook privacy issues
   Emirates to Cut Data Services of BlackBerry

HEALTH
   HHS to give states $1M each for health insurance exchanges
   State-by-State Report on Health IT Projects
   Guiding Principles for Stage 1 Meaningful Use Adjustments
   Beyond Cuts: High-Tech 'Band-Aids' Call Doctors

ENERGY
   The Power Grid Is So Dumb That ...

JOURNALISM
   NABJ laments lack of diversity in TV news management ranks
   Media Coverage of City Governments
   What if we had a news outlet exclusively focused on follow-up journalism?

RESEARCH
   Publisher argues free access to research violates administration's transparency initiative
   Evaluating Programs for Efficacy and Cost-Efficiency
   Immediate Review of Information Technology Projects

POLICYMAKERS
   Katz Tapped to be Genachowski's Legal Advisor
   Verizon top Capitol Hill lobbyer on Internet laws

DIGITAL CONTENT
   Customers Will Pay for Online Content
   For Students in the Internet Age, No Shame in Copy and Paste

MORE ONLINE
   $114 billion still available for federal contractors before Sept. 30
   Online-Only Western Governors University Could be New Model for Education
   US understanding of cyberwar still immature, says former NSA director

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INTERNET/BROADBAND

BTOP AWARD FOR CHICAGO
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced a nearly $9 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act investment to help bridge the technological divide and increase economic opportunities in Illinois. The investment will expand and upgrade public computer centers in locations throughout Chicago and provide technology and job assistance training to residents, with a focus on at-risk youth, senior citizens, people with disabilities, and the unemployed. The investment will allow the City of Chicago to add or upgrade over 3,300 computer workstations at more than 150 locations, including city libraries, workforce centers, public housing sites, and all seven city colleges, as well as expand hours of operation. As a result, the centers will be able to accommodate an estimated 200,000 additional weekly users and train up to 20,000 residents over the two-year life of the project.
benton.org/node/40167 | National Telecommunications and Information Administration | project fact sheet
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INTERNET SALES TAX
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ylan Mui]
A movement is slowly building in Washington to banish one of the biggest perks of shopping online: not paying sales tax. That's because the perk has also cost states as much as $23 billion in lost revenue by some estimates, and they want it back. Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) enlisted South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds (R) and other state lawmakers to rally support for his proposed Main Street Fairness Act, which would make it easier for states to go after the money. Gov Rounds said that Internet retailers "have a competitive advantage" over in-state businesses, which are required to collect the tax. About 13 states, including Maryland and Virginia, considered bills this year aimed at collecting the tax and employing a variety of strategies, though they met with limited success. Some tried to broaden the definition of the "physical presence" requirement under the Supreme Court ruling to include certain types of advertisers, while others hoped to bill consumers directly for the lost tax. Online retailers that also have brick-and-mortar stores, such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, already are required to collect sales tax online. But states say a significant number of purchases come from online-only retailers such as Amazon or eBay, which are not required to collect. Delahunt's proposal would essentially give states the blessing to simplify and streamline their tax codes to make it easier for out-of-state retailers (i.e. those on the Internet) to collect the sales tax. So far, 24 states have already gone through the process, but others have hesitated to undertake the project without congressional authority. The proposal still has a long way to go. Rep Delahunt introduced it on July 1 and it was referred to the House Judiciary Committee. But even if it were to become law tomorrow, states would then have to pass their own legislation simplifying the code. That means any change for you the consumer is still at least a few years out. But no proposal is without opposition.
benton.org/node/40171 | Washington Post
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AUSTRALIAN BROADBAND PLAN A POLITICAL ISSUE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Rachel Pannett]
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard unveiled an expanded footprint for a planned national high-speed fiber Internet network that will now reach 93% of homes and businesses, up from 90% previously. The network is a defining policy for Gillard's ruling center-left Labor government ahead of an Aug. 21 general election. But the program isn't universally loved, even though it is popular with many voters. Australia's main conservative Liberal-National opposition coalition has questioned the need for such an expensive service and has threatened to scrap the plan if it returns to power. The government says its new network will provide much more than telecom services and aid in the delivery of health and education services to remote communities, among other benefits. The network will offer speeds of 100 megabits per second -- 100 times faster than many Australians experience currently. But opposition leader Tony Abbott argues the network, which the government estimates could cost up to 43 billion Australian dollars ($38.8 billion) to build, is a costly "white elephant" that would create a new nationalized communications monopoly. Tony Smith, the opposition's shadow telecommunications minister, promised to unveil an alternative plan during the election campaign that will deliver "better, reliable and affordable broadband."
benton.org/node/40170 | Wall Street Journal | AP
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FIBER CONNECTIONS IN AUSTRALIA
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Nate Anderson]
If your government had decided to install a national, open-access fiber-to-the-home network to 93 percent of all residents, if the installation was free, and if the fiber hookup had no effect on your existing phone or cable service and committed you to nothing... wouldn't you take it? Not if you live in Tasmania, where the Australian government's ambitious new National Broadband Network is getting underway with its first fiber deployments. The government-created NBN Co. has the right to dig up streets and trench along rights-of-way, but to install that "last-mile" connection to a home or apartment it needs permission -- and Tasmanians have been slow to offer it. According to local news accounts, only half of the homes and business in the first dig zone have given permission to access their property. That led to this week's rather pathetic press release from NBN Co. in which the CEO basically begged "residents and businesses within the Willunga and Kiama First Release Sites to sign up." Those who don't accept the free install when crews pass through their area will need to pay for an install at some later date if they need service from the network. And they will need service, eventually. Under the government's plan, the incumbent telco Telstra will turn over its old copper phone lines to the government, and all of these will be disconnected within eight years. Telstra, along with other telecommunications and Internet companies, will then compete by offering IP phone service and 'Net access through the new fiber network. Consumers can pick their choice of provider.
benton.org/node/40169 | Ars Technica
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BROADBAND CLASSIFICATION

CONGRESSIONAL RESOLUTION ON BROADBAND RECLASSIFICATION
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Reps. Gene Green (D-TX) and Fred Upton (R-MI) have introduced a concurrent resolution asking the Federal Communications Commission to hold off on reclassifying broadband or clarifying and expanding network neutrality regulations and let the Congress weigh in first. The resolution "directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to wait for Congress to enact a law prior to issuing rules, regulations, or orders concerning additional regulation of broadband Internet service." They have 46 co-sponsors. A majority of House Members have already expressed at least concerns about FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's "third way" plan to reclassify the transmission portion of broadband access as a Title II common carrier service, while not applying most of the regulations that apply under that regime to telecommunications services.
benton.org/node/40198 | Multichannel News | CongressDaily | The Hill
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SATURDAY RECLASSIFICATION MEETING
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
What's been termed the "Big Six" negotiating team of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, AT&T. Verizon, Google. Skype and the Open Internet Coalition continued to meet with Federal Communications Commission officials on July 30 about a possible targeted bill to clarify the FCC's broadband regulatory authority. A bill the FCC, cable and telco operators, Google and Skype and advocacy groups like Free Press and Public Knowledge could all live with is a tall order, but it would take the heat off the FCC, which has gotten plenty of pushback from Congress on FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's "third way" proposal to reclassify broadband transmission as under Title II common carrier regulations, though apply only a handful. Talks seem to be focused on prohibitions on blocking legal content, a nondiscrimination principle--which the FCC is proposing as part of its network neutrality rulemaking separate from the Title II reclassification -- how specialized services would be treated, informing customers about network management practices, and whether network neutrality principles would apply to wireless broadband.
benton.org/node/40197 | Broadcasting&Cable | CongressDaily
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ANOTHER LOOK AT THE THIRD WAY
[SOURCE: TheDeal.com, AUTHOR: Chris Nolter]
The summer of 2010 is not shaping up as Julius Genachowski had hoped. The Federal Communications Commission chairman was eager to promote the open, egalitarian Internet that President Obama had championed as a candidate. The FCC outlined a national broadband plan this spring that would expand high-speed Internet coverage to underserved markets, stimulate online learning and develop the infrastructure that would support the Googles of e-medicine. There were catch phrases like "100 squared," shorthand for connecting 100 million U.S. homes with Internet speeds of 100 megabits per second. Then came checks and balances. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in April overturned a decision made by the prior FCC, drawing into question the commission's authority over broadband. The court ruled that the agency overstepped its bounds in a 2008 dispute with Comcast Corp. when it enforced "net neutrality," or the principle that broadband providers would not discriminate against data flowing over the Internet. The court did not rule against the principle of net neutrality, but rather the FCC's approach to making and enforcing rules for the Internet. Now, instead of pushing ahead on its ambitious online agenda, the FCC is scrambling to re-establish its regulatory domain over broadband. Genachowski has devised a compromise that he dubs the third way, almost a Buddhist "middle path" of regulatory moderation, that would reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, over which the FCC has clear authority. The FCC would forbear from all but a few key rules that are applied to traditional phone systems. The third way, which Genachowski outlined in May, has not generated the level of protest like the big legislative overhauls of financial services and healthcare. But it is creating no shortage of angst among broadband providers and investors. Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research dubbed the maneuver the nuclear option. An executive from AT&T, in a blog post, compared Gena­chowski's gambit to Pickett's Charge, the suicide frontal attack by the Confederate army at Gettysburg.
benton.org/node/40164 | TheDeal.com
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OPPOSITION TO RECLASSIFICATION
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Sara Jerome]
Reps Ben Chandler (D-KY) and Alan Grayson (D-FL), who each support network neutrality rules, each sent letters to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski to say he should not bring broadband under the more stringent "Title II" legal framework that currently regulates telephone service. Both say Congress, rather than the FCC, should clarify the legal framework around broadband services. The existing framework was cast into confusion in April after a federal appeals court decision struck down an FCC attempt to enforce net neutrality policies.
benton.org/node/40191 | Hill, The
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS

WRC-12 RECOMMENDATIONS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
On July 28, 2010, the Advisory Committee for the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-12 Advisory Committee) approved and provided for Federal Communications Commission consideration its recommendations on a number of issues that will be considered by the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-12). Based upon an initial review of the recommendations forwarded to the FCC, the International Bureau, in coordination with other FCC Bureaus and Offices, tentatively concludes that the FCC can generally support the WRC-12 Advisory Committee recommendations. The FCC seeks comment on the recommendations provided by the WRC-12 Advisory Committee. The FCC also seeks comment on the draft proposals that have been provided to the FCC by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Finally, the FCC seeks comment on the International Bureau's initial conclusions with regard to the WRC-12 Advisory Committee recommendations. The deadline for comments on the proposed preliminary views is August 13, 2010. It is necessary that all comments be received by August 13, 2010 in order to allow sufficient time to finalize the U.S. position before commencement of regional WRC-12 preparatory meetings.
benton.org/node/40166 | Federal Communications Commission | recommendations | NTIA
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CELL PHONE PRISON BAN
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Sara Jerome]
A bill to prevent inmates from using cell phones while in prison passed the Senate by unanimous consent on July 28 and is headed to the president for a signature. The bill will prevent inmates from using or possessing cell phones and wireless devices in federal prisons, classifying them as "contraband material." People who attempt to provide inmates with wireless devices could face a year of jail time. The bill arose out of concern that prisoners were using cell phones to direct criminal attacks and gang violence while incarcerated.
benton.org/node/40168 | Hill, The
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PRIVACY

FBI AND PRIVACY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Pete Yost]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued 192,499 national security letter requests from 2003 to 2006. Since then, the bureau has continued its reliance on the letters to gather information from telephone companies, banks, credit bureaus and Internet service providers. That last source is the focus of the Justice Department as it presses Congress to clarify the Electronic Communications Privacy Act so that the FBI can continue to gather some electronic records without a warrant from a judge. The law already requires Internet service providers to produce the records, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department's national security division. But, he said, it currently causes confusion and the potential for unnecessary litigation, as some Internet companies have argued that they are not always obligated to comply with the FBI requests. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) wants a timeout. The administration's proposal to change the law "raises serious privacy and civil liberties concerns," Sen Leahy said. "While the government should have the tools that it needs to keep us safe, American citizens should also have protections against improper intrusions into their private electronic communications and online transactions," said Leahy, who plans to hold hearings in the fall on issues involving the law. Critics are lined up in opposition to what the Obama administration wants to do.
benton.org/node/40201 | Washington Post
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MICROSOFT PRIVACY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Nick Wingfield]
The online habits of most people who use the world's dominant Web browser are an open book to advertisers. As the leading maker of Web browsers, the gateway software to the Internet, Microsoft must balance conflicting interests: helping people surf the Web with its browser to keep their mouse clicks private, and helping advertisers who want to see those clicks. In the end, the product planners lost a key part of the debate. The winners: executives who argued that giving automatic privacy to consumers would make it tougher for Microsoft to profit from selling online ads. Microsoft built its browser so that users must deliberately turn on privacy settings every time they start up the software. Microsoft's original privacy plans for the new Explorer were "industry-leading" and technically superior to privacy features in earlier browsers, says Simon Davies, a privacy-rights advocate in the U.K. whom Microsoft consulted while forming its browser privacy plans. Most users of the final product aren't even aware its privacy settings are available, he says. "That's where the disappointment lies."
benton.org/node/40203 | Wall Street Journal
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EMIRATES CUTTING OFF BLACKBERRY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Barry Meier, Robert Worth]
The United Arab Emirates, citing security concerns, said Sunday that it would suspend BlackBerry mobile services like e-mail and text messaging beginning in October, the latest high-stakes clash between governments and communications providers over the flow of digital information. The Emirates have been in a long dispute with Research In Motion, the smartphone's producer, over the BlackBerry's highly encrypted data system, which offers security to users but makes it more difficult for governments to monitor communications. The decision could have significant implications for BlackBerry use in the Persian Gulf region, where Saudi Arabia has been closely studying the issue and may follow suit. Other countries, including Kuwait and Bahrain, have also raised concerns.
benton.org/node/40204 | New York Times | WSJ | FT
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STUDENTS AND FACEBOOK
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jacqui Cheng]
Students care about Facebook privacy more than the world thinks, and their use of privacy controls has skyrocketed recently, according to two researchers. Eszter Hargittai, Associate Professor of Northwestern University, and Danah Boyd, Research Associate at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society published their findings in the online peer-reviewed journal First Monday, noting that young people are very engaged with the privacy settings on Facebook, contrary to the popular belief that their age group is reckless with what they post publicly. The researchers surveyed first-year writing students at the University of Illinois-Chicago during the 2008-2009 academic year, and then followed up with them again in 2010. The large majority -- 87 percent -- said they used Facebook in 2009, which went up to 90 percent in 2010. Among frequent and occasional users, more than half posted their own status updates in addition to checking up (and leaving comments) on those of friends. Among those who took the survey in both years, nine percent said they never touched Facebook's privacy settings in 2009, a figure that fell to a paltry two percent the next year. Similarly, nine percent said they had adjusted the settings just once in 2010, down from 28 percent in 2009. In contrast, the percentage of students who changed their privacy settings four or more times more than doubled from 24 to 51 percent over that period of time. The researchers noted that those who regularly contribute to activities on Facebook may be more conscious of their audience than those who use it less frequently, hence their motivation to modify their settings.
benton.org/node/40196 | Ars Technica | First Monday
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HEALTH

HEALTH INSURANCE EXCHANGES
[SOURCE: FederalComputerWeek, AUTHOR: Alice Lipowicz]
States can now apply for $51 million in federal money to help build health insurance exchanges. The Department of Health and Human Services wants states to create the exchanges and begin operating them in 2014 as part of the health reform law. The principle is that if consumers have better access to plans, and the plans can be compared more competitively, prices will come down. The exchanges will be operated primarily for individuals whose employers do not offer them health insurance. States may create their own exchanges, partner with other states or be part of an HHS-created exchange. The exchanges will also function as marketplaces to sell the plans. The exchanges are expected to operate online; however, standards for the exchanges have not been developed yet. HHS is asking the public for input to establish those standards. Under the new grant program, states and the District of Columbia are eligible for up to $1 million each to develop the exchanges.
benton.org/node/40158 | FederalComputerWeek
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STATE-BY-STATE HEALTH IT
[SOURCE: Government Technology, AUTHOR: ]
Because many health IT projects and health information exchanges are under way at various government levels -- many of them funded at least in part by the economic stimulus -- it can be overwhelming to encapsulate how these ventures are related and what people and organizations are in charge of them. The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) seeks to give clarity on this complex topic with a state-by-state look at health IT programs and leadership. The association said since the last version of the report released in 2009, there's been "a tremendous flurry of activity due to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology announcing the recipients of the State Health Information Exchange [HIE] Cooperative Agreement Program." Stimulus funding also is beginning to flow to state and regional projects, according to NASCIO.
benton.org/node/40163 | Government Technology | NASCIO
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ENERGY

DUMB GRID TO SMART GRID
[SOURCE: earth2tech, AUTHOR: Katie Fehrenbacher]
[Commentary] The power grid is so dumb that a decades-old networking technology, which has disappeared from pretty much all other industries and has a fraction of the bandwidth of current networks, is still one of the most common choices for digitally connecting parts of the power grid. More specifically, according to Pike Research, utilities are commonly using leased telecom lines attached to 1200 baud modems to digitally connect electrical substations in their power grid network. It is so old and slow that Pike Research says a common utility complaint is that carriers are seeking to get rid of these links, as they're no longer profitable for the carriers. Decades ago it was fairly standard for a phone company to lease a dedicated phone line circuit (installed and configured by the phone company) to the utility in order to build wide area networks. But that's not the case anymore. Utility networks, like telecom networks before this, MUST switch away from these vertically integrated communications systems with their hidden system dependencies, and move toward layered protocol network implementations, where different layers can be switched out without unintentionally disturbing the rest of the system.
benton.org/node/40157 | earth2tech
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JOURNALISM

DIVERSITY IN THE NEWSROOM
[SOURCE: Radio Business Report, AUTHOR: ]
The National Association of Black Journalists is calling on television group owners to do a better job of reflecting the ethnic makeup of the communities they serve when it comes to naming executives in their local newsrooms. The 3rd annual Television Newsroom Management Diversity Census is out, and it found that only 12.6% of news staffers at 151 surveyed stations are persons of color, despite the fact that persons of color make up about a third of the general population. NABJ reported, "Out of 815 executive producers, assignment managers, managing editors, assistant news directors, news directors and general managers at the ABC, CBS, Cox, FOX, Gannett, Hearst Argyle, Media General, Meredith, NBC and Tribune stations 713 (87.9%) are White, 64 (7.8%) are African American, 24 (3%) are Hispanic/Latino, 13 (1.6%) are Asian and only 1 is Native American. The management teams at 82 of the stations are all White."
benton.org/node/40199 | Radio Business Report
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MEDIA COVERAGE OF CITY GOVERNMENTS
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
As the media landscape shifts, so too have newsroom resources. One looming question is where people can find coverage of local news subjects, particularly government and public affairs. A new comprehensive and highly anticipated university study of local news from communities across the country offers a piece of the answer. The study of 98 major metropolitan cities and 77 suburban communities found that the medium significantly affects how and what local news gets covered--particularly about government. The study funded by the National Science Foundation is one of the broadest based we have seen tackling the question of where government coverage comes from. Consumers have a wide, growing variety of choices of media today. But the majority of news about local government still comes from newspapers, according to the study by Thomas Baldwin, Daniel Bergan, Frederick G. Fico, Stephen Lacy, and Steven S. Wildman, a team of Michigan State University researchers associated with The Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law. And that is even truer in suburban cities than in larger central metro cities. In suburbs, moreover, most of the news people get about local government comes from weekly papers, not dailies. The medium also made a difference in the level of sourcing and in the diversity of sources offered in news stories. Citizen news sites, while so limited in number that the sample is quite small, had the richest level of sourcing studied and the widest range of types of sources. Daily newspapers came next followed by weekly papers. Citizen blogs had the lowest level of sourcing of any media studied.
benton.org/node/40195 | Project for Excellence in Journalism | Quello Center
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FOLLOW-UP JOURNALISM
[SOURCE: Nieman Journalism Lab, AUTHOR: Megan Garber]
As a group, reporters are necessarily obsessed with newness, and have always been stalked by The Next Story. There's a fine line, the thinking went, between amplification of a story and advocacy of it; the don't-shoot-the-messenger rhetoric of institutional newsgathering holds up only so long as the messengers in question maintain the appropriate distance from the news they're delivering. And one way to maintain that distance was a structured separation from stories via a framework of narrative containment. Produce, publish, move on. The web, though is changing all that. Digital platforms -- blogs, most explicitly, but also digital journalism vehicles as a collective -- have introduced a more iterative form of storytelling that subtly challenges print and broadcast assumptions of conceptual confinement. For journalists like Josh Marshall and Glenn Greenwald and other modern-day muckrakers, to be a journalist is also, implicitly, to be an advocate. And, so, focusing on the follow-up aspect of journalism -- not just starting fires, but keeping them alive -- has been foundational to their work. Increasingly, in the digital media economy, good journalists find stories. The better ones keep them going. The best keep them burning. What if we had an outlet dedicated to continuity journalism -- a news organization whose sole purpose was to follow up on stories whose sheer magnitude precludes them from ongoing treatment by our existing media outlets? What if we took the PolitiFact model -- a niche outfit dedicated not to a particular topic or region, but to a particular practice -- and applied it to following up on facts, rather than checking them? What if we had an outlet dedicated to reporting, aggregating, and analyzing stories that deserve our sustained attention -- a team of reporters and researchers and analysts and engagement experts whose entire professional existence is focused on keeping those deserving stories alive in the world?
benton.org/node/40184 | Nieman Journalism Lab
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POLICYMAKERS

KATZ TO SUCCEED AIYAR AS LEGAL ADVISOR TO CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the appointment of Zac Katz as Legal Advisor, with particular responsibility for wireline communications, international, and Internet issues. He will succeed Priya Aiyar, who has been appointed Deputy Chief Counsel to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Oil Drilling. For the past year Katz has served as Deputy Chief of the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis. He joined the FCC from the White House Counsel's Office and previously practiced law at Munger, Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles, focusing on transactional and litigation matters involving intellectual property. Katz served as a law clerk for the Honorable Kim M. Wardlaw of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after receiving his law degree from Yale, where he was Editor-in-Chief of The Yale Law Journal and active in the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization. Before law school he worked with technology companies at a strategy consulting and investment firm in Silicon Valley.
benton.org/node/40165 | Federal Communications Commission
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COM LOBBYING
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Matthew Lasar]
According to the latest data provided to the U.S. House of Representatives' Office of the Clerk, during the second quarter of this year, Verizon forked over $4,440,000 to its team of crack buttonholers, who talked up every issue from network neutrality to the proposed Distracted Driving Prevention Act. AT&T spent $3,086,786.27 on lobbying in Q2, about $30,000 more than it did in the second quarter of 2009. Of late, Comcast dispersed $3,820,000 in green love to various causes dear to the cable giants' heart. And Time Warner Cable spent $1,440,000. Google budgeted $1,340,000 for lobbying in Q2, Amazon set aside $500,000, slightly less than Yahoo!'s $550,000, and Microsoft had $1,850,000 on hand for the task. Looks like Facebook is just getting started in DC-land, allocating a comparatively modest $60,000.
benton.org/node/40200 | Ars Technica
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DIGITAL CONTENT

PAYING FOR ONLINE CONTENT
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Peter Funt]
[Commentary] Major media companies have finally learned something about whether consumers will pay for content on the Internet, and it's this: The answer won't be found through endless debate. At long last -- due in part to economic stress -- significant strides are being made to take "pay models" out of the conference room and to the public. Virtually all trend lines in recent communications history have moved, with success, from free distribution to some form of pay model. The viewing and listening public has demonstrated repeatedly its willingness to spend for content, so long as there is some degree of perceived value. For newspaper companies to jump into this digital pay arena, the main hurdle is convincing readers to spend money for material that to date has been so readily dumped online for free. But if free TV could become pay TV, and if free radio could become pay radio, then it would seem to be easier for pay printed newspapers to become pay online newspapers. Many additional challenges face publishers in this belated effort -- among them the proliferation of free sites that summarize, categorize and even plagiarize material. And there is legitimate concern about how much advertisers will spend online versus in print. But the central question on which industry observers seem to dwell -- will consumers pay? -- has already been answered many times in media history. Yes.
benton.org/node/40202 | Wall Street Journal
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DIGITAL PLAGIARISM
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Trip Gabriel]
Professors used to deal with plagiarism by admonishing students to give credit to others and to follow the style guide for citations, and pretty much left it at that. But recent cases suggest that many students simply do not grasp that using words they did not write is a serious misdeed. It is a disconnect that is growing in the Internet age as concepts of intellectual property, copyright and originality are under assault in the unbridled exchange of online information, say educators who study plagiarism. Digital technology makes copying and pasting easy, of course. But that is the least of it. The Internet may also be redefining how students -- who came of age with music file-sharing, Wikipedia and Web-linking -- understand the concept of authorship and the singularity of any text or image.
benton.org/node/40205 | New York Times
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