November 2014

Post-Election, Campaigns Try to Link Targeted Ads to Actual Votes

Political campaigns, parties and consulting firms are digging through the rubble of the midterm elections to see what did and didn't work. Of particular interest: figuring out if the people they targeted with digital ads actually voted.

"Going into Election Day, we were analyzing more than 13 million voters who had voted early in targeted states," said Michael Beach, co-founder of Targeted Victory, a Republican digital consulting firm that handles voter-targeted advertising, among other digital work, for clients including the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Karl Rove-affiliated Super PAC American Crossroads. Such work has been attempted as far back as 2007. That year, online evangelists in the Republican National Committee set out to prove that the digital ads aimed directly at people in the party's voter file drove them to vote in the Louisiana gubernatorial election won by current Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican. But the tools at the time were limited.

Public Knowledge Commends Chairman Wheeler for Pledging to Protect Consumer Rights

In a letter to Sens Edward Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler affirmed his commitment to a workable industry-wide set-top box standard to replace the system removed by Congress in the satellite television reauthorization bill STELAR. Public Knowledge applauds the Chairman for his commitment to leading the charge on consumer protections and choice in the video device marketplace.

Americans Relatively Sanguine About Online Privacy, Study Says

A new survey suggests that revelations about government online snooping provided by Edward Snowden did not raise concerns about online privacy to the same degree in the United States as in other countries. But it also indicates that a majority of Americans are worried about the security of personal information.

The online survey of 23,326 people in 24 countries conducted for Centre for International Governance Innovation, a Canadian research group, also found that Americans view the Internet as less vital to their economic, social and political future than other people worldwide. While the poll found that the information leaked by Snowden about government online surveillance was well known in the United States, 62 percent of American respondents told Ipsos, a polling firm, that they were more concerned about online privacy now than they were a year ago. By comparison, that worry had increased for 83 percent of respondents in Brazil, India and Nigeria during the same period. People in Sweden were the most sanguine, with only 46 percent indicating that their privacy worries have increased. But Americans are nevertheless unhappy with the state of online security. Just 45 percent of American respondents said they thought that the government did “a very good job of making sure the Internet in their country is safe and secure.” Tunisians were the most satisfied, with 82 percent agreeing with that statement while, at the other extreme, only 25 percent of Japanese respondents said that was the case.

Dial N for Nostalgia: Is Anyone Still Using Pay Phones?

There used to be more than 2 million pay phones in the United States, according to the American Public Communications Council, a trade association. Fewer than 500,000 are left.

Of California's 27,000 pay phones, most are concentrated in Los Angeles County, the San Francisco Bay Area and along the Interstate 5 corridor, according to the Public Utilities Commission. Pay phones used to be operated by major companies such as AT&T and Verizon; now the industry has been left to smaller businesses. Pacific Telemanagement Services has become the largest pay phone provider in the country. It owns almost 30% of California's phones, 2,100 of which are in L.A. County. Most phones can be found in high-traffic areas such as airports or in low-income communities, said Mike Zumbo, the company's cofounder and president. Though it appears to be a dying industry — with 18% to 20% erosion a year — pay phones are still profitable, Zumbo said. His company buys dial tones from providers for about $30 per pay phone per month. At 50 cents a call, 100 calls a month would result in a $20 profit. The company earns additional money when users make collect calls or use prepaid cards.

Ted Cruz Backs Internet Tax Ban That Would Cost Texas $358 Million a Year

Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) is lobbying hard to prevent government regulation of the Internet, but one measure he supports is expected to create a sizeable budget hole for his state.

Sen Cruz, a likely presidential candidate in 2016, spent ample time promoting a permanent extension to an expiring ban on federal, state, and local taxation of Internet access that is currently being considered in Congress. The measure, which passed the House earlier this year, is popular in both parties and considered a lame-duck "must pass," as the ban is set to lift on Dec. 11. But a lesser-known consequence of the bill is that it would also end Internet access taxes currently in place in seven states -- Hawaii, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and, yes, Texas. These states are the only ones that can charge residents for Internet access thanks to a grandfather clause in the original Internet-tax moratorium -- first passed by Congress in 1998 -- that carved out an exemption for states that had already begun to cash in.

Sen Durbin: Online sales tax 'up to the House'

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), a backer of the Marketplace Fairness Act, said the House would determine whether online sales tax legislation would proceed this year, all but ensuring that the measure wouldn’t become law in 2014.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) already vowed to block the online bill from consideration in the House, crippling supporters' chances of finally getting the measure to President Obama’s desk. Backers of the measure have been seeking to pair the Marketplace Fairness Act with a less controversial bill that would extend a moratorium on taxes on Internet access. That law, known as the Internet Tax Freedom Act, expires on Dec. 11, along with the current stopgap government funding bill. But Sen Durbin said that it made little sense for the Senate to try to force the House’s hand by bringing the online sales tax bill back to the floor, after it overwhelmingly passed the Senate in May 2013. Still, Durbin also had some choice words for Speaker Boehner in the process.

[Nov 20]

Rep Schiff to NSA: Forget Congress, Stop Mass Spying Now

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is urging the Obama Administration to stop a domestic surveillance program on its own.

"There's no reason, if you think that this is the correct policy, that you have to wait for the Congress to mandate you to do it," he said. Rep Schiff argued that there's no reason the National Security Agency should be collecting massive batches of data in the first place. The data include phone numbers, call times, and call durations, although not the contents of any conversations. "You don't have to wait for the USA Freedom Act," Rep Schiff said. "There is no statutory mandate of any kind for the government to collect bulk metadata."

Why technology and content are inseparable at Netflix

Neil Hunt is the chief product officer at Netflix, and his job entails a lot more than it might sound like. The end product at Netflix is the video streaming through our iPads or smart televisions, but what we’re watching and we’re seeing it is result of a lot of work. Netflix is well known for the algorithms that recommend content to viewers, for example, but less is known about its resilient cloud computing architecture and the myriad considerations that come along with delivering and pricing new types of video formats.

In a recent interview, Hunt explained how Netflix approaches all of these things and where it sees opportunities to improve.

The mis-measure of Netflix

[Commentary] Netflix has long treated viewership data on particular titles as something close to a state secret, or at least a trade secret, to the point that it purportedly declines to share that information even with the creatives behind its original series. So my guess would be that it’s not thrilled with Nielsen’s snooping. Especially so since whatever numbers Nielsen comes up with will be incomplete by definition since Nielsen can’t track mobile viewing -- a growing share of total Netflix viewing -- and could therefore be misleading.

Why T-Mobile subscribers in 21 cities are seeing faster speeds

T-Mobile is starting to clock some impressive download speeds on its newly upgraded LTE networks in different parts of the country: 30.2 Mbps in Columbus, Ohio; 24.1 Mbps in Boston; and 19.3 Mbps in Kansas City. And these are just averages. T-Mobile has recorded peaks speeds as high 86 Mbps on what it’s calling its Wideband LTE network. Wideband LTE is now in 21 cities and metro regions, giving subscribers access to anywhere from 50 percent more to double the bandwidth of T-Mobile’s regular 4G networks. That equates to theoretical peak speeds of 100 Mbps to 150 Mbps, though real world speeds are far lower due to imperfect conditions of mobile networks.

T-Mobile basically has been piling more spectrum onto its network, a process that started way back in 2012, when the failed AT&T-Mo merger landed T-Mobile with a bunch of consolation airwaves. T-Mobile opted to launch an LTE network, and CTO Neville Ray began a complicated refarming process of T-Mobile’s existing frequencies, shutting down 2G capacity and shifting 3G to other bands. In 2013, T-Mobile acquired MetroPCS and a windfall of 4G spectrum in key big city markets, which Ray in turn added to his game of spectral musical chairs.

Benton

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