July 2014

The real threat to online freedom is from Internet giants like Google and Netflix, according to major cable companies. Those sites could block access to popular content and extort tolls out of Internet service providers, the cable companies warn.

The argument is the backward version of the usual fight over network neutrality. In a filing to the Federal Communications Commission, Time Warner Cable claimed that the controversy over Internet providers potentially charging websites for access to special "fast lanes" is a "red herring." The real danger, the cable company claimed, is that Google or Netflix could demand payments from Internet providers.

The National Cable and Telecommunications Association wrote that "a relatively concentrated group of large [Web companies] -- such as Google, Netflix, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook -- have enormous and growing power over consumers' ability to access the content of their choice on the Internet."

The NTCA argued that Google, which handles about 68 percent of all Internet searches, has far more control over access to other sites than any individual broadband provider does. "It makes no sense to focus exclusively on Internet access providers and ignore conduct by [websites] that threatens similar harms," the cable lobbying group wrote.

Nearly 900 writers have lent their name to a letter objecting to Amazon's tactics as it negotiates over e-books with Hachette, the fourth largest publisher in the US.

Outside Amazon and Hachette, no one fully knows what the dispute is about. But it is understood to be a battle over e-book revenue with Amazon thought to want 50% from every e-book instead of 30%. The stakes are high.

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies want to be able to wiretap social media, instant message and chat services. But building in ways to wiretap these kinds of communication can lead to less secure systems, say technical experts, including former National Security Agency officials.

Some security experts suggest hacking as an alternative, but other experts -- including FBI officials -- say that method poses serious risks.

Right now, only phone companies, broadband providers and some Internet phone services are required by law to build in intercept capabilities, but the government wants to extend that requirement to online communication providers.

Ready for Hillary, the super political action committee that's laying the groundwork for a potential Hillary Clinton run in 2016, is testing software to determine whether data about social ties can help identify likely grassroots leaders and new supporters.

If the insights into online relationships prove useful in the 2014 midterm elections, further experiments could even lead to campaigns picking out the most active organizers before those people even know it.

The tool is called Recruiter. While campaigns have largely reached the limits of improving the voter file -- those massive databases of names, e-mail addresses and commercial information that became so important in the 2012 cycle -- the next step is to figure out how to identify and leverage the connections between entries in those files.