July 2014

We need to talk about the right to be forgotten

[Commentary] When you search online there's an unwritten assumption that you'll get an instant answer, as well as additional information if you need to dig deeper. This is all possible because of two decades' worth of investment and innovation by many different companies. Today, however, search engines across Europe face a new challenge -- figuring out what information we must deliberately omit from our results, following a ruling from the European Union's court of justice. The court found that people have the right to ask for information to be removed from search results that include their names if it is "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive".

In deciding what to remove search engines must also have regard to the public interest. When it comes to determining what's in the public interest, we're taking into account a number of factors. These include whether the information relates to a politician, celebrity or other public figure; if the material comes from a reputable news source, and how recent it is; whether it involves political speech; questions of professional conduct that might be relevant to consumers; the involvement of criminal convictions that are not yet "spent"; and if the information is being published by a government. But these will always be difficult and debatable judgments.

It's a complex issue, with no easy answers. So a robust debate is both welcome and necessary as, on this issue at least, no search engine has an instant or perfect answer.

[Drummond is Google's senior vice-president for corporate development and chief legal officer]

Google to Tour Europe to Discuss Privacy

Google will send a group of executives and legal experts, including the company’s executive chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, around Europe to explain Google’s stance on online privacy.

The series of meetings, which is expected to start as early as September and last up to nine months, will form part of the company’s response to a recent European court ruling that gives people the right to ask that links about themselves be removed from certain Internet searches. The privacy committee includes Schmidt and Google’s top lawyer, David C. Drummond. Other members are Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, who has been a vocal critic of Europe’s so-called right to be forgotten, and several European data protection experts, including José Luis Piñar, a former Spanish privacy regulator.

Subcommittees to Explore How Advances in Communications and Technology Can Inform 21st Century Cure

The Subcommittees on Communications and Technology and Health, chaired by Reps Greg Walden (R-OR) and Joe Pitts (R-PA), respectively, have scheduled a joint hearing for July 17, 2014.

The hearing is entitled “21st Century Technology for 21st Century Cures.” Witnesses to be announced.

“Remarkable advancements in technology are transforming health care as we know it. Companies embracing telemedicine and mHealth solutions can bring patients, researchers, and doctors together in ways we never could have imagined just a decade ago. Learning how we can update our laws to foster new technologies and harness the power of these innovations to accelerate and strengthen the discovery, development, and delivery cycle of new cures and treatments is exactly what our #CommActUpdate and 21st Century Cures initiatives are all about,” said full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI). “The collaboration of the Health and Communications and Technology Subcommittees allows for an exciting conversation about what’s next and how we can best leverage our nation’s technological leadership to improve our health care system.”

Syntonic is creating a free-data zone on AT&T’s mobile network

In July a Seattle area startup called Syntonic is offering up a new kind of app and content store to AT&T Mobility customers.

What makes this app store different from, say, the iTunes app store or Google Play, is it comes with a free-data pass. Any app downloaded, video watched or site surfed isn’t counted against your data plan.

Syntonic is taking advantage of AT&T’s new sponsored data program, in which developers or advertisers can the pay the mobile data freight charges that would normally be incurred from consuming their content over the cellular network. The company is basically creating a free zone on the mobile Internet within the borders of its app store.

Complaints About Comcast-Time Warner Cable Deal Now Being Accepted

Don’t like the idea of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable and Internet provider, getting larger by purchasing Time Warner Cable? You can now officially let regulators know, after the Federal Communications Commission formally launched its review of the deal.

The agency is asking for comments about the proposed $45 billion transaction (including Comcast’s spin-off deal with Charter Communications). Initial comments are due August 25, with final comments due October 8.

The action will be mostly administrative. The FCC has already received more than 10,000 comments about the deal since it was announced in February. The FCC notice also starts an informal 180-day shot-clock for completing its review, although that doesn’t really mean much because the agency routinely blows those deadlines. Comcast reiterated its position that the acquisition is in the public’s interest, but suggested that it knows others may not agree.

Net neutrality getting dis-connected

[Commentary] While Google has gone quiet on network neutrality it’s making plenty of waves on other aspects of network management. I don’t think the shift in tactics is mere coincidence. Rather, I think Google, Facebook and other large bandwidth users have decided, like Netflix, that their real fight is not over the treatment of their content over the last mile but over how it gets to the last mile.

For all the sturm und drang over fast lanes and slow lanes, from the point of view of Netflix, YouTube and other video streaming services, it’s a bit of a red herring, as is much of the rest of the substantive debate over net neutrality as it has been defined by the FCC. Nobody’s going to pay for a fast lane on the last mile if they also have to pay a toll just to get their bits onto the last mile. So long as ISPs are able to erect those toll booths and manipulate the traffic around them, fast lanes and slow lanes are irrelevant in terms of their potential impact on a video provider’s business.

There’s another, longer-term consideration, however, that I suspect is also behind the shift in emphasis from net neutrality to peering. Charging for peering doesn’t actually make a lot of short-term economic sense for ISPs, since peering reduces costs for everyone.

By establishing the precedent now that major bandwidth hogs, which for the most part just happen to be major video streaming services, should pay for access to their networks they’re hoping to forestall the day when Netflix can demand payment for its content.

[Sweeting is Principal, Concurrent Media Strategies]

Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

After receiving the letter from a customer in Los Angeles asking why he was not getting a good experience watching Netflix on his 75 Mbps FiOS connection, claiming Verizon was “throttling” Netflix traffic, our network operations team studied the network connection for this customer for the week preceding the date that he emailed us.

They measured the utilization -- or the percentage of total capacity used -- at every link in the Verizon network -- from the customer to the edge of our network, where we receive Netflix traffic -- to determine where, if at all, congestion was occurring.

This review confirmed again what I’ve explained before: there was no congestion anywhere within the Verizon network. There was, however, congestion at the interconnection link to the edge of our network (the border router) used by the transit providers chosen by Netflix to deliver video traffic to Verizon’s network.

While the links chosen by Netflix were congested (congestion occurs when use approaches or reaches 100% capacity during peak usage periods), the links from other transit providers (carrying non-Netflix traffic) to Verizon’s network did not experience congestion and were performing fine. The maximum amount of capacity used (or peak utilization) over the links between these other networks and Verizon’s network ranged from 10% to 80% (with an average peak utilization of 44%).

One might wonder why Netflix and its transit providers were the only ones that ran into congestion issues. What it boils down to is this: these other transit and content providers took steps to ensure that there was adequate capacity for their traffic to enter our network.

Higher education, library groups release net neutrality principles

Today, higher education and library organizations representing thousands of colleges, universities, and libraries nationwide released a joint set of Net Neutrality Principles they recommend form the basis of an upcoming Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision to protect the openness of the Internet.

The groups -- which include the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), and the American Council on Education (ACE), among others -- believe network neutrality protections are essential to protecting freedom of speech, educational achievement, and economic growth. Libraries and institutions of higher education are leaders in creating, fostering, using, extending, and maximizing the potential of the Internet for research, education, and the public good.

These groups are extremely concerned that the recent court decision vacating two of the key “open Internet” rules creates an opportunity for Internet providers to block or degrade (e.g., arbitrarily slow) certain Internet traffic, or prioritize certain services, while relegating public interest services to the “slow lane.” At its best, the Internet is a platform for learning, collaboration, and interaction among students, faculty, library patrons, local communities, and the world.

Libraries and institutions of higher education make an enormous amount of Internet content available to the general public -- from basic distance learning classes to multimedia instruction, cloud computing, digitized historical databases, research around “big data,” and many other educational and civic resources -- all of which require an open Internet.

These groups support strong, enforceable rules to ensure that higher education and libraries can continue to deliver online educational and public interest content at a level of speed and quality on par with commercial providers.

The proposed principles call upon the FCC to ban blocking, degradation, and “paid prioritization”; ensure that the same rules apply to fixed and mobile broadband providers; promote greater transparency of broadband services; and prevent providers from treating similar customers in significantly different ways. The organizations support the FCC’s adoption of “net neutrality” policies to ensure that the Internet remains open to free speech, research, education and innovation.

This Is How Your Financial Data Is Being Used to Serve You Ads

Everyone in advertising is buying exhaustive records of your purchases -- all your purchases -- and comparing them to your viewing habits so that they know which ads you saw and whether or not they changed your behavior. All of your financial information is for sale.

Here's how it's collected:

When you shop frequently at a store, you get a points card so that you can get a discount or coupons. Stores give these away like they're going out of style, ostensibly to reward loyalty -- Kmart, Walmart, Target, Walgreens and CVS all do this.
Two main companies, Acxiom and Experian, collect this data, among other data sets.
The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 in particular is why companies like Acxiom, Experian, and other data brokers (and the companies that use data brokers) are skittish about publicity -- the clauses that allow the use of this data are designed to expressly forbid the direct identification of anybody involved.
So data brokers tip-toe right up to the edge of that line—they whitelist everything they have, meaning that they strip out names and addresses except for the ZIP +4 code (you know, 55555-5555, instead of just 55555.
Well, you probably bought all that stuff with a credit card, and there's a company called Argus that one data company executive said provides "the majority of credit card transactions" to them for the same purposes.

FCC Holding Workshop On Accessibility And Social Media

The Federal Communications Commission 's Accessibility and Innovation Initiative will host a public event, "Accessing Social Media," on July 17, 2014, at FCC Headquarters, 445 12th Street, SW, Washington (DC).

The purpose of the event is to facilitate a collaborative, cross-sector exchange of information about making social media tools and content accessible to people with disabilities, including information about authoring tools, client apps and best practices. Among speakers in attendance will include representatives of the US Department of Labor, General Services Administration, and the American Association of People with Disabilities.

Benton

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