November 2010

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation aimed at cracking down on online piracy and counterfeiting with a particular emphasis on rogue foreign websites.

Even though it was approved on a 19-0 vote, the Combatting Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act is unlikely to pass the Senate during the lameduck session. While saying she was "pleased to support" the bill, Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) noted the bill would need some more work as it moves forward. She cited concerns raised by critics of the bill with a provision that could lead to the revocation of a domain name for websites found to be involved in piracy or counterfeiting. The bill's opponents are "particularly concerned about the domain name remedy," Sen Feinstein said. She said the committee should be "open minded to the alternatives on this one point."

Public Knowledge President Gigi B. Sohn said, "We are disappointed that the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning chose to disregard the concerns of public-interest groups, Internet engineers, Internet companies, human-rights groups and law professors in approving a bill that could do great harm to the public and to the Internet. We look forward to working with the Committee next year to craft a more narrowly tailored bill that deals with the question of rogue Web sites."

Update:

Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) threatened to block the legislation, saying the bill is a heavy-handed solution to the problem.

"It seems to me the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act as written today, is the wrong medicine," Sen Wyden, the chairman of the Finance International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness Subcommittee, said during a hearing on international trade and the digital economy. "Deploying this statute to combat online copyright and infringement seems almost like a bunker buster cluster bomb when really what you need is a precision-guided missile."

Sen Wyden said that unless changes are made to the bill to ensure it "no longer makes the global online marketplace more hazardous to consumers and American Internet companies, I'm going to do everything I can to take the necessary steps to stop it from passing the U.S. Senate."

While it's been dawning on us for some time that Android is a beast, each day seems to bring new confirmation that the monster shows no signs of letting up.

Android mobile ad impressions drew even with iOS for the first time, according to Millennial Media. The largest independent ad network said Android OS is tied with iOS with a 37 percent share of ad impressions. That's a big change from last month, when iOS represented 46 percent of impressions while Android grabbed 29 percent.

The Millennial data came on the same day Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak predicted Android will be the dominant smartphone platform, comparing it to the dominance of Windows. Last week, consultancy PRTM said Android is helping build a Wintel-like juggernaut with Qualcomm, dubbed Quadroid, that could ultimately weed out some manufacturers. I'm not so sure about that last point, because there seems to be a fair amount of competition still in the processor market, with Texas Instruments and Samsung in the mix, Nvidia still pushing, and Intel pressing to get into the market. The ARM-licensing model means an x86 style domination would be more difficult to maintain. Plus, Android is also more open and customizable than Windows ever was.

A key goal of the broadband stimulus program is to create jobs -- not just temporary construction jobs or jobs with the service providers, but also jobs that will be created in a community as a result of improved broadband connectivity. One person who has some great insight on how jobs in the latter category can be created is David Hudgins, who is vice chairman of Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative as well as director of member and external relations with MBC member company Old Dominion Electric Cooperative. MBC operates a broadband network in southern Virginia, which is owned by service provider members.

But the network was not built primarily to be a telecom project but rather to be an economic development project, Hudgins says. The organization got some of its initial funding through a settlement from tobacco companies and through a grant from the Department of Commerce's Economic Development Association. The members also raised some funding on their own. Since construction several years ago, MBC has had some impressive successes in attracting businesses to member communities -- including a unit of Ikea and even Microsoft. MBC also has helped existing small businesses in its communities grow and create jobs. For example, a local florist established an online offering and now has added staff to support new sales to customers outside the community

Comcast has announced the new executive structure for NBC Universal, ending Hollywood's favorite guessing game these past few months. Few surprises given the endless speculation, but there were shifts worth noting on both the content and distribution sides of the digital business.

Matt Bond, previously executive vice president of content acquisition for Comcast's portfolio of cable channels, becomes executive vice president of content distribution at NBCU. That will put him in charge of distribution of Comcast's now-massive portfolio of programming. Responsibility for NBCU distribution previously rolled up under Jeff Gaspin, who also oversaw the broadcast and cable assets. With Gaspin exiting NBCU, his direct reports on the distribution side now report to Bond: Bridget Baker, who managed affiliate relations, and JB Perrette, who led digital efforts. It was to be expected that distribution would be broken off into a separate job given Gaspin's responsibilities were likely seen by Comcast as overly broad to begin with. Essentially, the position reverts to what it was when David Zaslav was in this role before he moved on to run Discovery Networks.