October 2010

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

EASING WIRETAPPING OBSTACLES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Charlie Savage]
Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, citing lapses in compliance with surveillance orders, are pushing to overhaul a federal law that requires phone and broadband carriers to ensure that their networks can be wiretapped. Officials say tougher legislation is needed because some telecommunications companies in recent years have begun new services and made system upgrades that create technical obstacles to surveillance. They want to increase legal incentives and penalties aimed at pushing carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to ensure that any network changes will not disrupt their ability to conduct wiretaps. An Obama administration task force that includes officials from the Justice and Commerce Departments, the F.B.I. and other agencies recently began working on draft legislation to strengthen and expand a 1994 law requiring carriers to make sure their systems can be wiretapped. There is not yet agreement over the details, according to officials familiar with the deliberations, but they said the administration intends to submit a package to Congress next year.
benton.org/node/43716 | New York Times
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TELEVISION

WHY THE FUSS OVER FOX-CABLEVISION
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
The battle between Cablevision and Fox appears to pit a runt against a heavy-weight fighter, analysts say. So why is Cablevision fighting so hard against New Corp. in its battle over fees paid to retransmit Fox's shows? To get federal officials to step into what appear to be increasingly contentious negotiations between broadcasters and cable/satellite video distributors, analysts say. "Today, retransmission consent disputes pit a government-mandated monopoly broadcaster against a distributor for whom there are readily available substitutes. It was never a fair fight," said Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford and Bernstein in a research note to investors. "Regulatory and/or legislative intervention could be the great leveler, and that may be what Cablevision is playing for." The battles will only intensify, analysts say. In two weeks, Dish Network will renegotiate its retransmission consent agreement with Fox. Cablevision's willingness to take blackouts, even as Fox has advised subscribers to go to Cablevision's competitors, shows the cable operator was willing to lose the battle "in an effort to win the war," Moffett wrote in a white paper.
benton.org/node/43703 | Washington Post
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FOX STEPS OVER THE LINE
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Art Brodsky]
Over the weekend, Fox committed what should be considered one of the grossest violations of the open Internet committed by a US company. Unfortunately, there was no one to call them on it. Fox blocked Cablevision subscribers from accessing Fox content online, from fox.com web sites or from Hulu. Even if a customer received only Internet service from Cablevision, and TV programming from another company like DirecTV or Dish, that Internet user trying to reach a Fox online was redirected to keepfoxon.com -- a Fox site that gives Fox's side of the negotiations and even has a couple of helpful links to Cablevision competitors like AT&T's U-verse, Verizon FiOS and DirecTV. The theory behind the Internet blockage was to keep Cablevision subscribers from watching Fox content online, and thus taking away a Cablevision incentive to negotiate. Never mind that some Cablevision Internet access subscribers might want to do something else on the great big Internets. Keeping them away from Fox content was paramount. Until this spring, the 2005 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy statement held that Internet users had the right to access lawful content of their choice. There was no exception in that policy for customers who happened to have their Internet provider caught up in a nasty retransmission battle with a broadcaster. Yes, it would be nice if someone could step in and tell Fox that it is unacceptable to block Internet content. Unfortunately, there isn't that someone around to protect consumers. And that's truly the "harm" here, and why a referee is needed to call the "foul."
benton.org/node/43701 | Public Knowledge
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FOX, HULU, RETRANSMISSION AND COMCAST
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Janko Roettgers]
Fox blocked Cablevision customers from accessing Fox content on Hulu as well as Fox.com, only to reinstate access a few hours later. The whole episode was clearly meant as a show of force -- a warning shot, if you will. But this wasn't just about getting a few extra bucks from Cablevision. Fox had to know that blocking access to Hulu would raise more than a few eyebrows at the Federal Communications Commission, and cause public interest groups to ring the alarm bells about possible consequences of media concentration. Which is actually quite convenient when one of your biggest competitors is about to enter a huge merger. Fox showed how much Hulu has to follow the lead of its corporate parents. We can be certain that the incident will have an impact on the ongoing legislative and regulatory review of the Comcast NBCU merger. After all, it's safe to assume that NBC has the same kind of power to block subscribers of a certain ISP from accessing Hulu -- only, that power is even more questionable if you're about to go down the aisle with the country's biggest ISPs. What will stop Comcast, regulators might ask, from arbitrarily stopping subscribers of competing broadband services from accessing NBC content on Hulu? Some may question whether a merged Comcast NBCU should own any part of Hulu at all.
benton.org/node/43687 | GigaOm
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RETRANSMISSION AND MUST CARRY
[SOURCE: Free State Foundation, AUTHOR: Randolph May]
In recent years, rising broadcast retransmission fees have been the source of increasing friction between broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) negotiating over rights to retransmit broadcast signals. Just witness this past weekend's loss of Fox TV's network television programs by Cablevision's subscribers in New York, Philadelphia, and the surrounding areas. Not surprisingly, in light of the increasing number of blackouts and threatened blackouts of network television programming by broadcasters, there is now an important debate emerging concerning whether the FCC should adopt a set of negotiation and dispute resolution rules to address "must-carry" and retransmission consent rights. There is a fundamental issue, however, that needs to be addressed before considering whether, or what kind, of new rules should be adopted governing the negotiations between the broadcasters and the multichannel video distributors. This is the issue concerning whether, as the broadcasters often claim, the government ought to take a completely "hands off" policy towards the negotiations because they take place in a "free market" context, or whether, instead, there are conditions that exist that make the context of the bargaining a rather "un-free" market. Current negotiations occur in the context of a federal law and regulation overlay that mixes elements of private bargaining with forced-access and protectionist elements. This creates artificial constraints that make the negotiations anything but a free market situation. Indeed, the statutory and regulatory constraints have the effect of conferring certain advantages that may work to the negotiating advantage of broadcasters and against cable and satellite operators.
benton.org/node/43683 | Free State Foundation
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COST OF ADS
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Brian Steinberg]
American Idol retains its status as the most expensive show on broadcast television for advertisers, despite a 9% dip in viewers between the ages of 18-49. Next year's "Idol" is getting an average $467,617 per 30-second ad on Tuesday night and $400,546 per 30-second ad on Wednesday's weekly results show, according to Advertising Age's annual TV pricing survey of media buyers, making "Idol" far and away the priciest show on TV for advertisers. Fox dominates the list of top-dollar shows this year, in part due to the success of musical drama "Glee." Fox airs half of the top 10 most-expensive programs for the 2010-2011 season. NBC's "Sunday Night Football" continues its reign as the most-expensive program for advertisers for the first half of the TV season, commanding an average of $415,000 for a 30-second ad -- a testament to advertisers' fervent desire to align their commercials with live sports, where viewers watch in real time and can't fast-forward past the ads. For its part, "Glee" gets an average of $272,694 per 30-second ad in the fall, when it appears on Tuesdays, and $373,014 per 30-second ad in the spring, when it appears Wednesdays after the "Idol" results show.
benton.org/node/43702 | AdAge
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MEDIA AND ELECTIONS

COMCAST POLITICAL GIVING DOUBLES
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Jonathan Salant, Todd Shields]
Comcast increased political giving by more than half as the biggest US cable company sought federal approval to buy General Electric's NBC Universal. From December 2009, when the deal was reached, through August 2010, Comcast's contributions to federal candidates and political parties rose to $1.1 million from $682,450 in the same period two years earlier, Federal Election Commission records show. The money came from the company-run political action committee that funnels donations from employees. The Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department are weighing the proposed acquisition, which would give Comcast control of the NBC television network, 11 cable channels such as MSNBC and USA Network and a movie studio. Ninety-one of the 99 House members and three of the five senators who wrote the FCC urging support for the $28 billion merger received donations from Comcast in the election cycle that began Jan. 1, 2009, sometimes within days of the letters. Comcast's political action committee became the sixth biggest-spending contributor for 2010 candidates among corporations, up from ninth place in 2008, federal records show.
benton.org/node/43714 | Bloomberg
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$500 MILLION ON ELECTION ADS
[SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Peter Overby]
A new analysis projects that by Election Day, non-party, non-candidate groups will likely spend more than a half billion dollars to influence the congressional campaigns. It's just the latest report documenting a surge in undisclosed political money this year. With two weeks to go till election day interest groups have already spent more than they did in the 2008 congressional races. The analysis comes from the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute — which now projects that the so-called independent groups will end up spending around $564 million this year. That's up 40 percent from two years ago. Most of the additional money appears on the conservative side. The institute projects that ultimately about $334 million will be spent to help Republican candidates. That's about $100 million more than pro-Democratic groups are likely to spend — a reversal from 2006 and 2008... when liberal groups dominated the money race.
benton.org/node/43713 | National Public Radio
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BEHIND THE ATTACKS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Whatever the outcome of the November congressional elections, the voters are already the losers. They are being inundated by attack ads paid for by organizations with benign-sounding names that refuse to identify their donors. Democracy 21, a campaign-spending watchdog group, estimates that as much as $300 million will be spent anonymously in this election cycle; voters will never know where the money came from. One remedy for the avalanche of anonymous attack ads is the DISCLOSE Act, which would require nonprofits like Crossroads GPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (which is covered by a different provision of the tax code) to disclose the names of the companies, organizations and individuals who fund them. The legislation has been approved by the House but was blocked in the Senate by a Republican filibuster; it could, and should, be revived in a postelection session. The DISCLOSE Act also would require the chief officers of corporations -- and nonprofits such as Crossroads GPS -- to appear in ads and take responsibility for them, just as candidates do for advertising sponsored by their campaigns. There is no cogent argument against maximum disclosure. (The notion that disclosure would lead to the harassment of donors is laughable.) Nor is there any 1st Amendment argument for secrecy. Even as it ruled this year that corporations had the right to engage in political spending, the Supreme Court upheld disclosure requirements, noting a previous holding that "disclosure could be justified based on a governmental interest in 'provid[ing] the electorate with information' about the sources of election-related spending." That is what the DISCLOSE Act would do. If those who seek to influence elections don't have the courage of their convictions, Congress must act to identify them.
benton.org/node/43712 | Los Angeles Times
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CABLEVISION RESTRICTS ACCESS TO DEBATE
[SOURCE: Verizon, AUTHOR: Press release]
Verizon is reaching out to elected officials and others on Long Island and around the state to seek their support for the company's efforts to broadcast the first gubernatorial debate leading up to the 2010 election. The debate will be held at Hofstra University on Monday (Oct. 18) and is sponsored by Cablevision. Cablevision is refusing to share the broadcast of the debate.
benton.org/node/43693 | Verizon
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

HAROLD FELD IS RIGHT
[SOURCE: AT&T, AUTHOR: Hank Hultquist]
[Commentary] Kudos to Public Knowledge's Harold Feld for sharpening his lawyer pencil and addressing some of the legal issues around the (apparently) fascinating issue of "paid prioritization." In a recent blog post, Harold explained how, under Title II, the FCC might approach various business models that include payment for prioritization.
Harold's basic point was that the FCC might either permit or prohibit particular instances of "paid prioritization" based at least in part on decisions the FCC has made in the past. I agree completely on this point. Contrary to the title of Harold's blog, I don't think anyone at AT&T has said that Title II would "require" the FCC to permit any and all practices that include both payment and prioritization. But, if someone has, then he or she should go back to common carrier school. What I and others have said is that under Title II the FCC could not a priori (for some reason lawyers like Latin) ban all practices that may combine payment and prioritization, since in the past they have allowed some practices that do so. Under Title II, carriers would be free in the first instance to offer such services and concerned parties would be free to challenge them. At which point, the process Harold describes would kick in and the FCC would have to decide whether the service in question is "unreasonable," or "unjustly and unreasonably discriminatory."
benton.org/node/43704 | AT&T
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BROADBAND SPEED AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Craig Settles]
[Commentary] As the Federal Communications Commission promotes the National Broadband Plan, it appears it's convinced making 100 Mbps Internet access speed available to 100 million households within 10 years will bring transformative change to the U.S. One of the expected outcomes is a positive impact on economic development. But will it? More importantly, is there too much emphasis on the ability of speed to drive economic success? A recent survey of economic development professionals and others who deal with local economic issues by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) reveals that not only do over 55 percent believe we need more than 100 Mbps to impact economic outcomes, they feel we need these speeds within three years. Washington (DC) agencies have made speed the tail that wags the dog. Unless and until policymakers come to grips with the realities in the communities, we can expect to have broadband's potential stifled by policies that lead to bad legislation, wasted money and countless frustrated constituents.
benton.org/node/43686 | GigaOm
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QWEST DEAL AND BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Star Tribune, AUTHOR: Steve Alexander]
CenturyLink is acquiring Qwest for $10.6 billion, but competitors and union employees are saying they will opposing the deal in state regulatory hearings unless they get guarantees that they won't be hurt by planned cost-cutting in the Qwest operations over the next five years. Qwest and CenturyLink are trying to head off that threat by presenting their own vision of what Minnesota's largest phone company would look like in the future. The hearings are currently in a middle phase in which testimony is being taken; regulators aren't expected to rule on whether the acquisition can take place until early next year. The two phone companies issued a list of guarantees about what they would and wouldn't change in Qwest's Minnesota operations over the next two to three years, providing the acquisition is approved by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. In addition, the two phone companies guaranteed a minimum investment in high-speed Internet service in Minnesota, totaling $50 million over five years. One-third of the money would be spent in areas that are unserved or underserved. The guarantees, which were negotiated privately between Qwest, CenturyLink and the Minnesota Department of Commerce, appear to be designed to mollify opponents of the acquisition. The opponents point out, however, that the $50 million guarantee is actually less than Qwest has been spending on broadband in the state.
benton.org/node/43694 | Star Tribune
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WIRELESS

OPEN DOESN'T ALWAYS WIN
[SOURCE: paidContent, AUTHOR: Tricia Duryee]
Steve Jobs doesn't usually participate in the company's quarterly earnings conference call, but he says he couldn't help stopping by to celebrate the company's first $20 billion quarter. As part of the festivities, he tore apart Research In Motion's strategy by questioning its ability to compete; he explained how fragmentation will bury Android and why "open doesn't always win,' and how the bevy of tablets coming in time for the holidays will be "dead on arrival." Jobs presence on today's Q4 call confirms one thing that Google's Android increasing market share is now worth talking about. Jobs: "It's a battle of the mind share for developers and customers, and right now iPhone and Android are winning that battle." In addition, Jobs continued to feel comfortable taking shots at Research In Motion's BlackBerry, which still has the highest smartphone market share in the U.S. despite being outsold by both iPhone and Android.
benton.org/node/43700 | paidContent
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LOVE TEXT, HATE CALLS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Katherine Rosman]
Nielsen analyzed cellphone bills of 60,000 mobile subscribers and found adults made and received an average of 188 mobile phone calls a month in the 2010 period, down 25% from the same period three years earlier. Average monthly "talk minutes" fell 5% for the period compared with 2009; among 18- to 24-year-olds, the decline was 17%. Text messages -- also known as SMS (Short Message Service) -- take up less bandwidth than phone calls and cost less. A recent survey of 2,000 college students asked about their attitudes toward phone calls and text-messaging and found the students' predominant goal was to pass along information in as little time, with as little small talk, as possible. Part of what's driving the texting surge among adults is the popularity of social media. Sites like Twitter, with postings of no more than 140 characters, are creating and reinforcing the habit of communicating in micro-bursts. And these sites also are pumping up sheer volume. Economics has much to do with texting's popularity. Text messages cost carriers less than traditional mobile voice transmissions, and so they cost users less. Texting's rise over conversation is changing the way we interact, social scientists and researchers say. We default to text to relay difficult information. We stare at our phone when we want to avoid eye contact. Rather than make plans in advance, we engage in what Rich Ling, a researcher for the European telecom company Telenor and a professor at IT University in Copenhagen who studies teens and technology, has named "micro-coordination"—"I'll txt u in 10mins when I know wh/ restrnt." Texting saves us time, but it steals from quiet reflection.
benton.org/node/43688 | Wall Street Journal
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ANTI-TEXTING MESSAGES
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Joe Barrett]
Iowa police are on the lookout for drivers who send text messages behind the wheel. So far, the effort is all thumbs. Instead of tickets, police are giving texting drivers colorful bands to wear on their thumbs that say: "TXTNG KILLS." The bands are part of a statewide campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of texting while driving under a new law prohibiting the practice that took effect July 1. For the first year, police can give scofflaws warnings only. Next year, fines will kick in.
benton.org/node/43705 | Wall Street Journal
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP

COMCAST HAS ANSWERS FOR FCC
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Comcast has met the Federal Communications Commission's Oct. 18 deadline for additional information on the company in response to an Oct. 4 request, part of its ongoing vetting of the proposed Comcast/NBCU joint venture. Most of the answers were concerned with data that was not made public, including distribution agreements, rates and other proprietary information. Among the public answers, however, included its plans for deploying broadband. Comcast said it deployed in response to population growth and new demand, for example, and that included deploying Wi-Fi and its HighSpeed2Go mobile broadband service (Comcast said the latter would be deployed in 21 markets by year-end, for example). The FCC wanted to know how Comcast decides what networks to carry. The answer seemed fairly self-evident. The company said it looks at how the network would fit in the overall channel lineup, how it can help Comcast draw and retain subs, the price and terms, the network's management track record, and, finally, "bandwidth constraints." Plus, it said, a net is sometimes part of a larger deal for co-owned nets, so the overall value of the deal comes into play in those cases.
benton.org/node/43715 | Broadcasting&Cable
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TRIBUNE OUSTING EXEC
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr, Tim Arango]
The board of directors of the Tribune Company is expected to ask for the resignation of Randy Michaels, the controversial chief executive of the company. Apparently, the board has lost confidence in the ability of Michaels to lead the troubled company. Michaels became chief executive of Tribune in December, about two years after joining the company as an executive vice president in charge of the company's broadcasting and interactive businesses. Prior to Tribune, Mr. Michaels had a long and lucrative career in the radio industry, having worked for Jacor Communications and Clear Channel Communications. Jacor was owned and eventually sold by Sam Zell, the Chicago real estate magnate who bought Tribune in 2007.
benton.org/node/43708 | New York Times | LA Times
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JOURNALISM

HARD NEWS PAYS
[SOURCE: PerfectMarket, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Vault Index is a new ranking of the 10 most valuable topics for news publishers. It finds that while the Lindsay Lohan sentencing and other celebrity coverage drove significant online traffic for major news publishers, articles about unemployment benefits, the Gulf oil spill, mortgage rates and other serious topics were the top-earning news topics based on advertising revenue per page view.
"This data proves that serious journalism does pay," said Julie Schoenfeld, CEO of Perfect Market. "The great insight unveiled by the Vault Index is that the stories with real revenue opportunity for news organizations today are not always, as it turns out, celebrity scandals but difficult subjects that affect people's lives."
benton.org/node/43699 | PerfectMarket
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HUFFINGTON AND CPI
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Tanzina Vega]
The Center for Public Integrity will absorb the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, a nonprofit journalism arm of The Huffington Post. The move would bring the total headcount at the center to more than 50 employees, making it one of the largest nonprofit investigative newsrooms in the country. As part of the deal, The Huffington Post will transfer $2 million in grants and financing from the investigative fund to support the new venture. The Huffington Post has also agreed to post three articles a day and a handful of headlines on its Web site in a new section dedicated to promoting investigative journalism. The investigative fund brand will be discontinued.
benton.org/node/43707 | New York Times
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CONTENT

BURYING INTERNET SEARCH RESULTS
[SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Peter O'Dowd]
Unseen battles are waged every day on the Internet to protect and destroy brands and reputations. The Internet can be a hostile place, with powerful companies paying handsome sums to hide negative content in Google search results or any quest for information that might hurt their bottom line. According to the digital media research firm eMarketer, search optimization — and suppression — is a $2 billion industry. Prominent public companies including BP and Toyota spend fortunes in an effort to keep negative press about oil spills or faulty brakes far away from the first page of a Google search. "It is an absolute game changer, and a fundamental piece of marketing for any company out there," says Jon Kaufman, a senior vice president at the search optimizer Zog Media. He says this industry is about who controls the message.
benton.org/node/43698 | National Public Radio
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SEARCH NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Claire Cain Miller]
The potential for social information reaches beyond search. Facebook's most popular feature is photo sharing and tagging friends in pictures. Picasa, Google's photo-sharing service, is not nearly as social. Ads also have the potential to be social, when people share and comment on them. Neal Mohan, the Google vice president in charge of display ads, said that by 2015, three-quarters of display ads will be social. But Facebook already allows users to do this. Knowing the information people share on social networks -- like their age, gender and the restaurants and musicians they like -- could also help Google direct ads more effectively. Larry Yu, a Facebook spokesman, said his company expected competitors large and small to emerge but was focused on building a valuable service. Privately, though, Facebook executives have said that their biggest worry is that Google will prioritize a Google profile page over a Facebook page in search results.
benton.org/node/43697 | New York Times
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SCRAPING AND THE LAW
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Wendy Davis]
The legal issues of scraping data are extremely murky -- though not necessarily for privacy reasons. When companies allege that scraping is unlawful, they tend to argue that scraping infringes sites' copyrights, or constitutes a trespass, or violates terms of service clauses that forbid accessing the sites through automated means. Those allegations are central to a pending lawsuit about scraping by Facebook against Power.com. The latter company aggregates information from a variety of social networking sites, enabling users with accounts at services like Orkut, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter to access their information from one portal. To do so, Power asks users to provide log-in information for their social networking sites and then imports their information. Facebook objects to the practice, arguing that Power is violating a federal computer fraud law by scraping. It's not clear whether courts would enforce this provision against, say, a company that's monitoring the site in order to gather intelligence about job applicants. As a practical matter, however, it's probably impossible to prevent people from manually collecting information that users have themselves made available in a public forum.
benton.org/node/43685 | MediaPost
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DIVERSITY

UNSTICKING THE FCC
[SOURCE: Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, AUTHOR: David Honig]
[Commentary] To put it plainly, the Federal Communications Commission is stuck. Although it recently adopted some promising orders related to broadband (e.g., new rules for accessing new portions of wireless spectrum called "white spaces" and for enhancing access in schools and libraries), the Commission has failed to move forward with implementing core provisions of its monumental National Broadband Plan. The business of governing is messy. Congress is influenced by a diverse array of factors that often grind the legislative process to a halt. Part of the reason for having independent expert agencies like the FCC is to insulate specialized policymaking from the political pressures that often bog down those on the Hill. Indeed, even though Congress sets the parameters within which agencies can operate, expert entities like the FCC have wide latitude to push forward with new policies. Yet, despite a clear Congressional mandate to enhance broadband connectivity, the FCC has put this duty on the back burner, in favor of pursuing the Chairman's white whale net neutrality. As a result, the misguided actions of the FCC have imperiled the digital destinies and civil rights of millions of Americans. If we are to sustain our position as the world's most innovative and digitally inclusive country, we must urge those in power the President, Congress, Chairman Genachowski and others to put political posturing aside and move forward with implementing the National Broadband Plan and shepherding the Waxman Open Internet bill to the President's desk for signature. Doing so will grant immediate benefits to individual Americans and to the overall economy.
benton.org/node/43696 | Minority Media and Telecommunications Council
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DESIGNATED ENTITY RULES
[SOURCE: Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, AUTHOR: Latoya Livingston]
After two years of careful research, the Federal Communication Commission's Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age voted unanimously in favor of submitting the "Preference for Overcoming Disadvantage" proposal to the FCC urging the rulemaking body to amend its Designated Entity Rules. To its credit, the FCC has been pondering how to diversify and expand its pool of qualified applicants for communications service licenses, and we are happy the FCC has finally taken a step in the direction of positive change. The Designated Entity Rules have always helped lower entry barriers for small businesses and rural telephone companies that bid for FCC licenses. However, the new amendment would be a great start toward expanding its reach by expanding the FCC's pool of qualified license candidates. In essence, the amendment would adopt and implement an additional new preference program for individuals who are otherwise qualified for an FCC license, but who have faced substantial disadvantages, and who have since overcome those disadvantages. Moreover, in situations where the FCC licenses are to provide broadcast services to the public, the preference program would have the added benefit of opening up the process to candidates who might not otherwise be able to compete in FCC license auctions, thereby contributing to viewpoint diversity on the air. Since the current designee pool is so narrow, the present effects of the Rules are failing short. The new amendment would open the pool of FCC licensees using this new and innovative concept, a tremendous benefit to disadvantaged individuals who would previously have not qualified. But what does that mean?
benton.org/node/43695 | Minority Media and Telecommunications Council
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PRIVACY

FACEBOOK PRIVACY FIX
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Miguel Helft]
When you sign up for Facebook, you enter into a bargain. You share personal information with the site, and Facebook agrees to obey your wishes when it comes to who can see what you post. At the same time, you agree that Facebook can use that data to decide what ads to show you. It is a complicated deal that many people enter into without perhaps fully understanding what will happen to their information. It also involves some trust — which is why any hint that Facebook may not be holding up its end of the bargain is sure to kick up plenty of controversy. The latest challenge to that trust came on Monday, when Facebook acknowledged that some applications on its site, including the popular game FarmVille, had improperly shared identifying information about users, and in some cases their friends, with advertisers and Web tracking companies. The company said it was talking to application developers about how they handled personal information, and was looking at ways to prevent this from happening again.
benton.org/node/43710 | New York Times | WSJ | FT
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FACEBOOK AND PRIVACY
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] If you thought Facebook was your personal playground, think again. Play the most popular games, and your personal information - and in some cases, your list of friends - is sent to app-makers and their allies in the advertising and data-gathering trades. The problem may bother the tens of millions of regular players of FarmVille and Mafia Wars, to name two popular games that figure in the problem. It should trouble the rest of the social-networking site's 500 million users, who will wonder where they stand. There's also a broader, Internet-wide issue: just how private is life in a digital age, when personal information is siphoned off by firms watching every key stroke? It may be that Facebook is too swamped with managing its growth to keep on eye on privacy promises. It could be a onetime lapse exploited by a handful of sleazy data-collecting companies. It may be a problem that Facebook can easily fix. Whatever the cause, it needs an answer. Facebook and other networking sites need to follow through on providing privacy in the online world the firms have created.
benton.org/node/43709 | San Francisco Chronicle
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Daily Digest

Analysis

October 2010

The social networks

Taking the Public Out of Public TV

Net Neutrality 101 -- Why The Government Must Act To Preserve The Free And Open Internet

Sometimes it's good news when candidates won't speak to the press

What the FCC White Space Ruling Means For Wireless ISPs

Mobile Health 2010

October 19, 2010 (Comcast Campaign Giving Jumps)

US Pushes to Ease Technical Obstacles to Wiretapping