November 2013

Users More Likely to Click On Ads With AdChoices Icon

Transparency and choice go a long way toward making Internet users comfortable with receiving interest-based ads, according to the results of a poll from the Digital Advertising Alliance.

More than 51 percent of those surveyed said they would be more likely to click on an online ad that had an icon, like the DAA's blue AdChoices icon, that allowed them to opt out. More than 73 percent of those polled said they would be more comfortable with interest-based ads if they knew about the privacy protections that are part of the DAA's self-regulatory program. That's good news for brands that use the icon, said Lou Mastria, executive director of the DAA. "Having the protections associated with the icon makes a difference with consumers," he said. Now in its third year, the DAA has focused more of its resources on educating both the public and policymakers that its self-regulatory program is the preferred approach over government regulation to protecting consumer privacy online.

Update: In 700 MHz Interoperability Push, FCC Acts Promptly on AT&T Prompt

In an order released on October 29, the Federal Communications Commission modified: (a) certain technical requirements for the Lower 700 MHz D and E blocks; and (b) AT&T’s B and C Block licenses, as AT&T had requested as part of the voluntary industry interoperability solution.

The FCC also extended the interim construction benchmark deadline for all 700 MHz Lower A and B Block licensees until December 13, 2016, and issued a waiver of the interim construction benchmark for certain Lower 700 MHz A Block licensees that must limit their deployments in order to protect incumbent Channel 51 operations. The amended rules are set to take effect on December 5, 2013, although the Order itself will technically be subject to judicial review until at least January 4, 2014 (and longer, if anyone seeks such review prior to that date).

The Intelligent Ihome Cometh, If Apple's Patent Ideas Come True

Apple has filed a new patent in the US patent office with the nearly incomprehensible name, "System and method of determining location of wireless communication devices/persons for controlling/adjusting operation of devices based on the location." The patent imagines everything from your TV to your tablet to your car would communicate, through a hub device, to your home's thermostat, lighting system, telephone, dishwasher, stove and so on.

By using "trigger" devices and events, such as detecting your car pulling into the parking space or your cellphone crossing the threshold at the front door, the house would be able to preemptively respond, perhaps by unlocking the front door as your car arrives or turning the coffee machine on as you walk in the door. The idea is a step beyond internet-connected electrical outlets or lighting solutions like Philips' Hue--Apple imagines the house would be intelligent and would look at the house occupant's movements within the home to try to predict what their next actions would be. The key to all of this is location and movement data.

Google Nudges Cities for More Data

Since its inception, Google has worked to perfect and personalize its search engine results, and the company may have revealed its next big push for improvement: open government data.

Margo Georgiadis, Google’s president for the Americas, called upon municipal leaders to open access to greater volumes of city data to support custom user results in Google’s search engine. Georgiadis voiced her comments in Chicago at an annual luncheon of the Metropolitan Planning Council, where she extoled the virtues of search innovation and open government as two faces of the same coin. “Think about all the information that the government has. It has a huge wealth of information that would be incredibly useful to what we’re all doing every day,” said Georgiadis. Google would couple the expanded city data with information that it aggregates from users like calendars, Web searches, location and other profile data to deliver targeted results and suggestions. Georgiadis described Google’s ultimate objective for search to become an intuitive personal assistant for each individual -- she envisions the search bar to eventually become a thing of the past. To accomplish this, she suggested the “default” of city data and its related processes would need to be an open access environment, a decision that would allow residents -- and Google -- a window to the data for greater use.

President Obama Calls For IT Procurement Reform

President Barack Obama called for an overhaul of the way the federal government purchases information technology in the wake of the troubled launch of the Healthcare.gov website.

“There are a whole range of things that we’re going to need to do once we get this fixed -- to talk about federal procurement when it comes to IT and how that’s organized,” President Obama said in remarks in Washington before members of Organizing for Action, a grassroots advocacy organization that grew out of his presidential campaign. President Obama said, “I personally have been frustrated with the problems around the website on health care. And it’s inexcusable.” Several observers of the Healthcare.gov implementation have said the ultimate problem is with the federal procurement system and the way contractors are selected for major projects.

Hispanic Audiences Fueling TV News Growth

From new national ventures like ABC-Univision’s Fusion (which broadcasts in English) to new local Spanish-language newscasts around the country, broadcasters are expanding news offerings targeting Latino viewers to keep up with that audience’s growth in numbers and strength. The growth also signifies broadcasters’ foray into secondary markets that have burgeoning Latino populations.

T-Mobile doubles its LTE speeds, capacity in at least 40 major cities

T-Mobile customers in the country’s biggest cities may have recently noticed their 4G speeds boosted considerably.

On T-Mobile’s Q3 earnings call, CEO John Legere revealed that it has doubled the amount of spectrum used by its LTE networks in 40 of the top 50 US metro markets, effectively doubling the theoretical speeds of its 4G service and dramatically increasing the overall capacity available to its customers. T-Mobile is now using 20 MHz of Advanced Wireless Service (AWS) spectrum for LTE in these upgraded cities, which puts its networks on par with the systems launched by Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Those carriers are adding capacity and boosting speeds on their networks as well, but T-Mobile has another surprise in store. Legere said the carrier in 2014 will double its LTE bandwidth again in the biggest cities, launching 40 MHz networks in at least 22 of the top 25 markets.

T-Mobile’s new love of MVNOs helps drive its subscriber growth

T-Mobile US credits its new Un-carrier strategy of quick upgrades, cheap plans and free tablet data to its recent stellar subscriber growth, but there’s an unsung hero in T-Mobile numbers.

Mobile network virtual operators -- essentially infrastructure-less carriers who buy time on T-Mobile’s networks -- accounted for 344,000 of T-Mobile’s 1 million net subscriber additions in the third quarter. Recently, a lot of new MVNOs have signed on with T-Mobile, taking advantage not only of its faster HSPA+ service, but the fact that customers could bring their own devices to the T-Mobile’s SIM-card supported GSM networks. Solavei; Target’s Brightspot; Walmart Family Mobile, and TracFone Wireless’s Straight Talk, Telcel América, Net10 and Simple Mobile all use T-Mobile networks either in part or exclusively. The result is 1.3 million new MVNO connections have found their way onto T-Mobile’s network in 2012, and its overall quarterly net additions from MVNOs have increased by 189 percent year-over-year. T-Mobile now has 5.2 million MVNO connections, which isn’t huge compared to its nationwide competitors, but for a carrier the size of T-Mobile that’s a significant chunk of subscribers.

Here comes Mark Zuckerberg's knowledge economy

It's Mark Zuckerberg's knowledge economy now. And the rest of us just share information inside it. Or at least, that is how it appears to Mark Zuckerberg.

The term "knowledge economy" has been around for a couple of decades. In the 1990s, it was one of those infuriatingly vague buzzwords favored by writers and consultants who gave it such a broad definition it ultimately had little meaning. The age of information was dawning, its primary raw material was creative brainpower. Ever since Facebook blew away its earnings three months ago, the company's CEO has been peppering conference calls with the term. This month, when Facebook again blew past Wall Street's estimates, he and other executives used the phrase eight times. In appropriating the term to describe Facebook's long-term strategy, Zuckerberg has refined the definition. In a Washington Post op-ed last April 2013, Zuckerberg wrote that "Today's economy... is based primarily on knowledge and ideas -- resources that are renewable and available to everyone."

Google’s NSA outrage: Correct and hypocritical

[Commentary] “It’s really outrageous that the NSA was looking between the Google data centers, if that’s true,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal, noting, “The steps that the organization was willing to do without good judgment to pursue its mission and potentially violate people’s privacy, it’s not OK.” Mr. Schmidt, I couldn’t agree with you more. However, please don’t take this as a pat on the back. Google’s position since the slew of National Security Agency revelations began being published has been at best a PR scramble, at worst an exercise in gross hypocrisy.

It was, after all, Schmidt who in 2009 said “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” Such an attitude -- what I’ve described before as a dangerous Silicon Valley transparency ethic, smacking of privilege -- contributed significantly to the crystallization of the surveillance state as status quo. Google’s recent public efforts to push for greater transparency around NSA programs, and Schmidt’s outrage over secret NSA data center hacking, should not exempt the firm from censure over their crucial role in building the US’s sprawling surveillance nexus.

Benton

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