March 2012

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 2012

PRIVACY
   Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers - press release
   Companies Fear, Consumer Advocates Praise 'Do-Not-Track' Proposals [links to web]
   Mostly Public Praise for FTC Privacy Report [links to web]
   Employers asking for passwords is just wrong - editorial [links to web]

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Comcast Won't 'Cap' Xbox 360 Access
   The good and bad of niche broadband networks
   Confirmed: The Internet Does Not Solve Global Inequality
   Broadband infrastructure: Time for real policy - analysis

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Local officials urge FCC to block Verizon-cable deal
   Verizon/SpectrumCo: What a Tangled Web It's Weaved - analysis
   Keeping Low-Income Consumers in Mind While Reviewing the Verizon Spectrum Buy - analysis
   FCC Establishes A Public Docket For Providing Input To The Technical Advisory Board For First Responder Interoperability - public notice
   Wireless competition turned upside-down — In theory - op-ed
   A Smartphone Future? But Not Yet - analysis [links to web]
   When You Search on Your Phone, You Click on More Ads. On Purpose? [links to web]

MEDIA AND ELECTIONS
   Pro-Santorum super-PAC making $304,000 ad buy in Wisconsin [links to web]

TELEVISION/RADIO
   Environment ripe for U.S. TV station deals [links to web]
   Free Speech is Real Loser in Rush Kerfuffle op-ed [links to web]

CONTENT
   Apple's iBooks And App Store Price Out Creativity [links to web]
   New York Promised At Least $3.6 Million For Sale Of .NYC Domain Names [links to web]
   Universal to sell $200 million of music catalogues [links to web]

TELECOM
   Ohio Joins the Ranks of States Looking to Cut the Cord

HEALTH
   2012: The Year of Meaningful Use - press release [links to web]

POLICYMAKERS
   FCC Seeks Comment On Nomination For A Board Member Position On the Universal Service Administrative Company Board of Directors - public notice [links to web]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   White House to petitioners: We ARE listening

FCC REFORM
   White House opposes FCC overhaul bill
   Dems Try to Restore Deal Condition Flexibility In FCC Reforms
   A Letter To Congressman Waxman - analysis

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   Does Korea have enough Internet freedom?
   Murdoch firm used hacker site to target pay-TV rival
   New iPad clears China regulatory hurdle [links to web]
   Australia to seek orders against Apple for alleged misleading iPad "4G" claims - press release [links to web]

MORE ONLINE
   Army Cyber Command beefs up inspections, network defenses [links to web]

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PRIVACY

FTC PRIVACY REPORT
[SOURCE: Federal Trade Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Trade Commission, the nation's chief privacy policy and enforcement agency, issued a final report setting forth best practices for businesses to protect the privacy of American consumers and give them greater control over the collection and use of their personal data. In the report, the FTC also recommends that Congress consider enacting general privacy legislation, data security and breach notification legislation, and data broker legislation. The final privacy report expands on a preliminary staff report the FTC issued in December 2010. The final report calls on companies handling consumer data to implement recommendations for protecting privacy, including:
Privacy by Design - companies should build in consumers' privacy protections at every stage in developing their products. These include reasonable security for consumer data, limited collection and retention of such data, and reasonable procedures to promote data accuracy;
Simplified Choice for Businesses and Consumers - companies should give consumers the option to decide what information is shared about them, and with whom. This should include a Do-Not-Track mechanism that would provide a simple, easy way for consumers to control the tracking of their online activities.
Greater Transparency - companies should disclose details about their collection and use of consumers' information, and provide consumers access to the data collected about them.
Over the course of the next year, Commission staff will work to encourage consumer privacy protections by focusing on five main action items:
Do-Not-Track - The Commission commends the progress made in this area: browser vendors have developed tools to allow consumers to limit data collection about them, the Digital Advertising Alliance has developed its own icon-based system and also committed to honor the browser tools, and the World Wide Web Consortium standards-setting body is developing standards. "The Commission will work with these groups to complete implementation of an easy-to-use, persistent, and effective Do Not Track system," the report says.
Mobile - The FTC urges companies offering mobile services to work toward improved privacy protections, including disclosures. To that end, it will host a workshop on May 30, 2012 to address how mobile privacy disclosures can be short, effective, and accessible to consumers on small screens.
Data Brokers - The Commission calls on data brokers to make their operations more transparent by creating a centralized website to identify themselves, and to disclose how they collect and use consumer data. In addition, the website should detail the choices that data brokers provide consumers about their own information.
Large Platform Providers - The report cited heightened privacy concerns about the extent to which platforms, such as Internet Service Providers, operating systems, browsers and social media companies, seek to comprehensively track consumers' online activities. The FTC will host a public workshop in the second half of 2012 to explore issues related to comprehensive tracking.
Promoting Enforceable Self-Regulatory Codes - The FTC will work with the Department of Commerce and industry stakeholders to develop industry-specific codes of conduct. To the extent that strong privacy codes are developed, when companies adhere to these codes, the FTC will take that into account in its law enforcement efforts. If companies do not honor the codes they sign up for, they could be subject to FTC enforcement actions.
benton.org/node/118064 | Federal Trade Commission | WSJ | read the report | WashPost | National Journal | LATimes | B&C
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

COMCAST, XBOX AND DATA CAPS
[SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, AUTHOR: Jonathan Takiff]
While the Xfinity TV video-on-demand application for Xbox 360 hasn't launched as yet, a new FAQ posted on the Comcast website suggests it's coming very soon. And that terms of use will be pretty sweet for subscribers (though also a thorn in the side of content competitors). Essentially, the app turns your Xbox 360 game system into an additional receiver for Xfinity video content that's streamed over the High Speed Internet portion of your Comcast "double play" service. To make it all work, you have to subscribe to both Comcast's Xfinity TV and High Speed Internet, as well as Microsoft's Xbox Live Gold which costs $99 a year. No live (or "linear," in cable-speak) TV shows will be available through the app, at least at launch. But there will be "thousands of TV shows and movies" to choose from - many free, some for rental. And here's the most interesting (and controversial) revelation in the posting. Because the content is being delivered over Comcast's "private IP network and not the public internet," the cable-co won't "count" the streaming "against a customer's bandwidth cap" as it now does with users of other streaming services. (Go over the cap and the operator can shut off or slow down your service, until the beginning of the next billing cycle.)
Public Knowledge CEO said, “The reports that Comcast is offering a video product through the Xbox 360 without the data counting toward the customer's data cap raises questions not only of the justification for the caps but, more importantly, of the survival of an Open Internet. This type of arrangement is exactly the type of situation the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) rules on the Open Internet were designed to prevent -- that an Internet Service Provider juggles the rules to give itself an advantage over a competitor. The Xbox 360 provides a number of video services to compete for customer dollars, yet only one service is not counted against the data cap -- the one provided by Comcast. This is nothing less than a wake-up call to the Commission to show it is serious about protecting the Open Internet. It also shows, once again, that the Commission should take the first steps toward understanding data caps.”
benton.org/node/118095 | Philadelphia Inquirer | ars technica | ars technica | Public Knowledge | at least the | B&C | Free Press | The Verge
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NICHE BRADBAND NETWORKS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
Niche broadband networks, built by communities, universities and others to cover areas big Internet service providers wouldn’t, are doing well in the U.K according to a study by PointTopic. As the U.S. sees its broadband competition dwindle on the wireline side, this study provides some hope from across the pond that academic-and community-sponsored networks can revive broadband innovation. Huge differences in speeds can create chicken and egg problems for towns with superfast connections and no one to connect with, as Chattanooga is finding. Additionally the economics of rolling out superfast broadband mean that dense areas are less expensive to wire, while rural and spread-out areas cost a lot, especially in the U.S. A national plan helps average out the costs, while cherry picking dense areas means any provider trying to connect rural or suburban areas will have to pay more and possibly charge more to offset those costs.
benton.org/node/118090 | GigaOm
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INTERNET DOES NOT SOLVE GLOBAL INEQUALITY
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Alexis Madrigal]
If you live in a rich country, the Internet has probably changed the way you consume (and produce) information. But when you look at global-scale knowledge production, things are as they ever were: the Anglophone world dominates with the United States doing the lion's share of academic and user-generated publishing. Those are the messages of the Oxford Internet Institute's new e-book, Geographies of the World's Knowledge, from which these two graphics were drawn. In the book's foreword, Corinne Flick of the Convoco Foundation reluctantly concludes that the Internet has not delivered on the hopes that it would make knowledge "more accessible." "Many commentators speculated that [the Internet] would allow people outside of industrialized nations to gain access to all networked and codified knowledge, thus mitigating the traditionally concentrated nature of information production and consumption," she writes. "These early expectations remain largely unrealized." We're not only talking about publishing in academic journals or Wikipedia. The book's authors, Mark Graham, Monica Stephens, Scott A. Hale, and Kunika Kono, sampled user-generated content on Google and found that rich countries, especially the United States, dominate the production of user content.
benton.org/node/118089 | Atlantic, The
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TIME FOR BROADBAND POLICY
[SOURCE: NetworkWorld, AUTHOR: Mark Gibbs]
[Commentary] It's all about getting online at a reasonable speed for a reasonable price. The growth in the online economy is still very healthy and, as a platform for business and social innovation, there's nothing that compares. But the consumer's problem is the lack of a national policy and a very weak competitive environment which makes for a patchy, poorly serviced, and inefficient national wired and wireless broadband infrastructure. This, in turn, limits the value that many consumers can get from Internet access. I don't think that anyone could argue that consumer broadband adoption is a bad thing -- indeed, as the National Broadband Plan asserted, broadband service is a "foundation for a better way of life" -- but I fear that we're not moving fast enough to make the NBP work as it could. The problem is that the big ISPs control the game and if they continue to get their way, both mobile and wireline broadband service will remain effectively non-competitive markets.
benton.org/node/118087 | NetworkWorld
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

LOCAL OFFICIALS URGE FCC TO BLOCK VERIZON DEAL
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso, Andrew Feinberg]
Local officials in five cities told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that Verizon's proposed collaboration with Comcast and other cable TV players could discourage Verizon from expanding its own FiOS cable network to their communities. The deal allows Verizon to buy airwaves, known as spectrum, from cable companies including Comcast, Time Warner and Bright House Networks. Under a separate deal announced simultaneously, Verizon and the cable companies agreed to cross-sell each other’s services. While Verizon has built out its FiOS network in communities across the country, it has focused much of its investment on suburban areas, where it is easier to deploy physical infrastructure. The officials and community groups from Albany (NY), Baltimore (MD), Boston (MA), Buffalo (NY), and Syracuse (NY) told the FCC that the deal would deprive their cities of the benefits of competition.
"This is a step backwards in bridging the digital divide," said Albany Common Council President Carolyn McLaughlin, adding that the deal would build "an additional socio-economic barrier."
benton.org/node/118104 | Hill, The
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WHAT A TANGLED WEB IS WEAVED
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Kara Novak]
[Commentary] Public Knowledge and some of our friends [including the Benton Foundation] filed reply comments to Verizon Wireless and the cable companies’ opposition to our petition to deny the proposed spectrum transfer and its accompanying agreements. While we believe the transactions will harm competition and consumer choice, what has emerged from the debate is how the agency, resale, and joint operating entity (JOE) agreements fit into the spectrum transfer. Verizon and the cable companies want us to believe that the agency, resale, and JOE agreements are separate from the proposed spectrum transfer. But David Cohen, Executive Vice President of cable company Comcast, admits that “[t]he transaction is an integrated transaction. There was never any discussion about selling the spectrum without having the commercial agreements.” The truth is that the agreements are intimately entwined with, and contingent on, SpectrumCo’s proposed license transfer. Because of this tangled web, the FCC needs to include the agreements in its review of the proposed license transfer as it considers all the harms to the public interest that could arise from the transaction, even if it reviews the agreements in a separate proceeding and even if the DOJ concurrently reviews the agreements for antitrust violations.
benton.org/node/118103 | Public Knowledge
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LOW-INCOME CONSUMERS AND THE VERIZON DEAL
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Amina Fazlullah]
[Commentary] The Benton Foundation joined a number of public interest advocates asking the Federal Communications Commission to block the deal. Paramount for Benton is the disproportionate effect the deal will have on low-income users. Bills for basic services make up a greater proportion of the paychecks of low-income users, so any price hikes would have a disproportionate impact on them. As the FCC recently found, if quality voice service is not affordable, low-income consumers may subscribe to voice service at the expense of other critical necessities, such as food and medicine, or may be unable to purchase sufficient voice service to obtain adequate access to critical employment, health care, or educational opportunities. And if low-income consumers initially subscribe to phone service, but intermittently lose access because they cannot consistently pay for the service, many of the benefits for individuals and the positive externalities for the economy and society will be lost. With the reduced competition for wireless, pay-TV, and wireline broadband services resulting from this deal, there’s less hope that competitive market forces will check the prices these companies can charge for their services. After the transactions, there will be no possibility that the cable companies will enter the wireless market, and it is unlikely that Verizon will build out new landline or fiber infrastructure in the covered markets. Furthermore, the joint agreements between the companies will give them a formidable advantage that will make it difficult for any existing competitors to continue their service, much less for new competitors to enter the market. These concerns are heightened for low-income, wireless subscribers.
http://benton.org/node/118097
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FCC ESTABLISHES A PUBLIC DOCKET FOR PROVIDING INPUT TO THE TECHNICAL ADVISORY BOARD FOR FIRST RESPONDER INTEROPERABILITY
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
The Federal Communications Commission announces the formation of a public docket, PS Docket 12-74, established for the Technical Advisory Board for First Responder Interoperability. Parties desiring to contribute materials for the Interoperability Board to consider in developing its recommendations may submit their materials in this docket. Parties may seek confidential treatment of materials they submit. By creating this docket, we provide a vehicle for outside parties to contribute to the Board’s deliberations in an open and transparent manner. This docket is not intended, however, to serve as the exclusive mechanism by which members of the Interoperability Board will receive information from outside sources to inform their deliberations.
The FCC announced the election by the members of the Interoperability Board of Charles L.K. Robinson, Director, Business Support Services, City of Charlotte, North Carolina, and Kenneth C. Budka, Senior Director, Advanced Mission-Critical Communications, Bell Labs Chief Technology Officer, Alcatel-Lucent, as Chair and Vice Chair, respectively.
Finally, the FCC announced that it has been informed by State of Alaska representatives that James Kohler of the Alaska Department of Administration, who had previously been nominated to the Interoperability Board, is unable to serve. In his place the Chairman has appointed Bill Price, Director of Broadband Programs, Department of Management Services of the State of Florida.
benton.org/node/118093 | Federal Communications Commission
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PHOENIX CENTER REPORT
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Steven Crowley]
[Commentary] Are fewer competitors better for mobile broadband customers? Yes, according to the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, which says that when spectrum is used up, fewer firms lead to lower prices. In light of their findings, the authors say the U.S. Department of Justice’s and the FCC’s reliance on traditional market concentration measures, such as Cournot model and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, is misplaced. It’s encouraging to see some fresh, thought-provoking thinking on mobile competition analysis. One concern I have with the study, however, is the need for there to be a condition of “spectrum exhaust” for the model to work. Does an operator ever reach the point where it “runs out” or is exhausted of spectrum? I think not. This is because capacity — what the operators are really selling, not spectrum — can be increased without using new licensed spectrum through a variety of techniques including Wi-Fi and small-cell offloading, or increased antenna sectorization at the base station. What happens to this, or any other, competition analysis when the customer can access an operator’s network using no licensed spectrum, or bypass that network completely for some services?
benton.org/node/118059 | GigaOm
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TELECOM

OHIO WANTS TO CUT CORD
[SOURCE:JSI Capital Advisors , AUTHOR: Cassandra Heyne]
Ohio has joined a growing list of states that includes Indiana, Mississippi, Colorado, Georgia and Kentucky, where recent legislative initiatives have attempted to deregulate or drastically alter the states' regulation of basic phone service. According to the Dayton Daily News, “Senate Bill 271 would allow companies to discontinue basic landline service beginning in 2013 if the area is deemed ‘competitive’ by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO).” SB 271 is sponsored by Senator Frank LaRose (R), and like Kentucky SB 135, AT&T loves it. AT&T director of public affairs for Ohio Sarah Briggs commented to the Dayton Daily News, “This bill is about unlocking investment and allowing us to invest in growing areas of our business, which is primarily the wireless side.” Just like in Kentucky, AT&T gives no logical explanation of why it cannot invest in wireless infrastructure and abide by COLR landline obligations.
benton.org/node/118084 | JSI Capital Advisors | Dayton Daily News
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

WHITE HOUSE: WE ARE LISTENING
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Joseph Marks]
The Obama administration takes petitions posted to its We the People website seriously and during weekly meetings discusses responses to those that cross the 25,000-signature threshold , officials said. The response was to a petition snarkily titled Actually Take These Petitions Seriously Instead of Just Using Them as an Excuse to Pretend You Are Listening. It was posted on Oct. 28, 2011, after the first round of White House responses. The reply from White House Digital Strategy Director Macon Phillips was titled We're Listening. Seriously. It outlines several situations in which he said officials have learned about new issues or changed course because of a We the People petition. "No one here at the White House thinks this is perfect" Phillips said in a video embedded in the response. "We think it's the right thing to do. [We're] making sure we're speaking with people about the issues they care about and oftentimes that means issues we aren't currently addressing in our day to day activities."
benton.org/node/118101 | nextgov
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FCC REFORM

WHO OPPOSES FCC BILL
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
The White House came out against a Republican-backed bill that would overhaul how the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) operates, saying it would hamper the agency's ability to protect consumers. "H.R. 3309 would, in effect, create a separate Administrative Procedure Act (APA) for the FCC," the White House said in a statement. "For more than 60 years, the APA has provided a uniform framework to guide decision making by all Federal administrative agencies." The administration also panned the provision that would bar the FCC from imposing merger conditions that do not address specific harms related to the deal. "These restrictions would harm the Federal Government’s ability to promote the most effective competitive outcome in any given transaction involving communications firms," the White House said. "H.R. 3309 would limit the ability of the FCC and the Justice Department to work together on telecommunications matters to protect consumers, promote competition, and increase innovation to ensure access to more choices, lower rates and prices, and better products." The administration said it is committed to "ensuring that the decisions of all Federal agencies are open, transparent, well-founded, and protective of the public interest," but concluded that the FCC reform bill "does not further those goals."
The House is expected to vote on H.R. 3309, the FCC Process Reform Act, this week.
benton.org/node/118105 | Hill, The
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DEMS OFFER AMENDMENTS TO FCC REFORM BILL
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
A variety of amendments have been proposed to Federal Communications Commission reform legislation that passed out of the House Commerce Committee earlier this month. The cable, phone and broadcast industries all supported the House Republican FCC reform efforts, while House Democrats have said HR 3309 will needlessly tie the FCC's hands and lead to endless litigation. The amendments were due at 10 a.m. March 26 in advance of a rules committee hearing later that day on how the bill will be brought up on the floor for a vote, including limiting amendments once it gets there. Among the amendments filed -- there were 10, eight from Democrats, two from Republicans -- were ones that had either withdrawn or defeated in committee, including one (Democratic) that would "require entities sponsoring political programming to disclose the identity of any donor that has contributed $10,000 or more to such entity in an election reporting cycle" and another (Republican) that would allow each commissioner to hire an engineer or computer scientist to advise them. Another (Democratic) would remove the limits on FCC deal conditions that the underlying Republican bill imposes.
benton.org/node/118086 | Broadcasting&Cable
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FCC REFORM BILL
[SOURCE: Talking Points Memo, AUTHOR: Reed Hundt]
[Commentary] You have asked me to share my views on the Federal Communications Process Reform Act of 2012, H.R. 3309, in light of my experience as chairman of the FCC from 1993-97, and my observation of the Commission in the years since my tenure. I am gravely concerned by both the general direction and the specific details of this proposed legislation. My recommendation to the House is that it should ask each Commissioner of the current FCC for detailed comments on the language, and also should invite all previous Chairs as well as the current Chair to offer their views. With all due respect to the honorable members of the House, few know better how the FCC can produce salutary results for America than those who served as commissioners. Of course the current and former members of the Commission might well disagree, but even their differences may be illuminating. My further recommendation is that Congress should consider in more depth what problems it is trying to solve by the legislation. Everyone recognizes that the American people have lost much faith in the fairness and efficacy of the legislative process. It is sometimes said that we now have in large part a parliamentary system embedded within a Presidential form of government. There is little doubt that the current interplay among the three branches of federal government has frustrated the members of every branch, at least as much if not more than it has exasperated the American people.
benton.org/node/118085 | Talking Points Memo
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

KOREA’S INERNET FREEDOM
[SOURCE: Korea Herald, AUTHOR: John Power]
South Koreans often point out that they have one of most the Internet-connected societies in the world. More contentious is just how free the country’s Internet users are to use it as they choose. Korea made Reporters Without Borders’ “Enemies of the Internet” list for a fourth straight year on March 12, alongside the likes of Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Eritrea and the United Arab Emirates as a country “under surveillance,” the category before “enemy.” The report noted that removal-of-content requests by the president-appointed, nine-member Korea Communications Standards Commission have soared since its establishment in 2008. Such requests to Internet service providers, backed by the threat of fines for noncompliance, rose from about 1,500 annually before 2009 to 80,449 in 2010. Reasons for removal included content being deemed defamatory, obscene, or damaging to national security. Park Kyung-shin, a commissioner as well as critic of the KCSC, paints a grim picture of Internet censorship in one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies.
benton.org/node/118082 | Korea Herald
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MURDOCH FIRM USED HACKER SITE
[SOURCE: BBC, AUTHOR: ]
A News Corporation company recruited a pay-TV "pirate" to post hacked details of a rival's secret codes online, BBC Panorama has found. Lee Gibling set up a website in the late 1990s known as The House of Ill-Compute or Thoic. He said NDS, a pay-TV smartcard maker, then funded expansion of the Thoic site and later had him distribute the set-top pay-TV codes of rival ITV Digital. NDS denied this and said Thoic was only used to gather intelligence on hackers. It says Lee Gibling worked as a consultant who was used legitimately to inform on hackers. ITV Digital was first launched as "On Digital" and was set up as a rival to News Corporation's Sky TV in 1998. But the widespread availability of the secret codes meant ITV Digital's services could be accessed for free by pirates. The company went bust in 2002.
benton.org/node/118083 | BBC
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