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  2. February 2015

February 2015

Senate Judiciary to make move on FOIA reform

The Senate Judiciary Committee will consider an update to the law managing the public’s access to government records in one of its first legislative acts in 2015.

Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) will hold a markup of the FOIA Improvement Act, which unanimously passed the Senate in 2014 but failed to make it to President Barack Obama’s desk. One of the largest changes in the bill requires agencies to adopt a policy that presumes disclosure and would ban denials of records based on technicalities. President Obama directed agencies to adopt this policy when he first came into office, but the legislation would seek to make it permanent and not subject to the discretion of future Presidents. The Senate bill would also update a provision that allows the government to withhold some agency documents that would be exempt during litigation. The update would end that exemption for documents more than 25 years old. The bill would also make more documents available online and would expand a program that requires agencies to post records regularly used by the public. It would also clarify that individuals cannot be charged for information that was handed over late.

No one knows what happened to NSA staffers who snooped on their lovers

Turns out, not even the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee can figure out what’s happened to the National Security Agency staffers who were involved in the LOVEINT spying scandal. In a letter sent to the Attorney General, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) described how he initially asked the Department of Justice to explain what it was doing to address the 12 publicly-known instances of this inappropriate use of NSA surveillance capability. However, the DOJ has stayed mum.

What Washington Has in Store for Broadcasters and Digital Media Companies in 2015 -- Part 2

[Commentary] There are many actions in courts, at government agencies and in Congress that could change law or policy and affect operations of media companies in some way.

These include not just changes in communications policies directly, but also changes in copyright and other laws that could have a significant impact on the operations of all sorts of companies operating in the media world. Examples include the appeal of the Federal Communications Commission's order setting the rules for the incentive auction, the suggested rewrite of the Communications Act, music licensing reform, and others. There are plenty of issues for broadcasters and digital media companies to consider, and other issues will no doubt come up. So watch carefully to see how these play out as 2015 progresses, and how these actions could affect broadcasters’ business.

New app Timeline brings explainer journalism to mobile

It’s the era of explainer journalism and we have a new entrant to the list. Mobile app Timeline seeks to give you historical, on-the-go context about breaking news, current events, and random stuff.

It’s like Wikipedia meets Circa meets Vox meets The History Channel, and it’s addictive. Timeline launched a few weeks ago. In the way that Circa built a new, on-the-go format for a news story with its bite-sized cards feature, Timeline is creating a fresh form of explainer journalism, one that’s mobile first.

Homes need better Wi-Fi. Is Eero the answer?

As we blanket our homes in connected devices, our Wi-Fi needs to keep up, which means our Wi-Fi networks will likely need to look a lot more like enterprise networks and less like the current home systems with a router in the middle and maybe a repeater or bridge somewhere else. Instead, we’ll need a router and multiple access points so every inch of the home is covered.

A new product wants to bring enterprise Wi-Fi to the masses with a series of beautiful white boxes and cloud-based software controlled from your phone that should give you most of what you need. Eero is a system of white boxes that will cost about $125 per box or about $300 for a system of three on a pre-order basis. The idea is that each box will cover about 1,000 square feet, although that really depends on the type of home you have. Certain materials are much harder for radio signals to pass through. Each Wi-Fi access point is also an 802.11ac router with 2×2 MIMO and has Bluetooth radios in it so you can also set it up via your cell phone. The boxes support WPA2 encryption. The router can handle gigabit speeds and is up to date with the current gear most devices are running.

DISH, the Spectrum Auction, and the Wrath of Commissioner Pai

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission member Ajit Pai has actually picked up an issue I've championed since 2006 -- reform of the "designated entity" bidding credit. Unfortunately, as is too often the case in my opinion, Commissioner Pai directs his outrage at the wrong target.

Rather than seeking constructive solutions to the tension between auction theory (which favors the largest incumbents) and competition theory (which holds the need to make sure someone wins licenses other than the largest incumbents), Commissioner Pai has decided to direct his wrath at DISH for finding a loophole in the auction structure stacked against them. In doing so, Commissioner Pai misses the real outrage of the auction. For DISH to make even a quasi-decent showing in the auction, it needed to use a bidding credit AND still spend more than $10 billion. T-Mobile, the next highest bidder at almost $2 billion, walked away with a mere handful of licenses that will do nothing to overcome the spectrum dominance of the two largest carriers. The fact that the two most robust competitors participating in the auction could spend a combined $12 billion and not appreciably alter the market structure one iota ought to raise very real concern. Bluntly, the fact that DISH could "save" $3 billion is not so much a scandal as a flashing red-light indicator that without regulatory intervention we can forget about any kind of competition in the wireless industry.

What Google Fiber is teaching us about vertical integration

[Commentary] Google is becoming a major investor in fiber optics and other networking technologies, and in doing so is demonstrating the value of vertical integration in information technology.

The commercial reason behind Google’s emerging business model appears to be the value that a single company can create if it combines content services with network hardware. One way to create this value is by aligning networks capabilities and content needs. Another benefit of a vertically integrated Google is that it allows the company to capture what are called network effects. In Google’s case, if it connects more customers to the Internet, it sells more advertising. Google’s business expansion also demonstrates that vertical integration is a misnomer in information tech. As Apple demonstrated with its innovative products, the lines between information, software, device, and networking are of our own making and can be altered or even destroyed by creative product developers. Three cheers for Google for breaking down the old order on its way to creating something entirely new.

[Mark Jamison is the Director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida]

Google killed 500 million bad ads in 2014

Google's Bad Ads team banned more than 214,000 advertisers over the course of 2014, disabling more than 500 million bad ads.

It's a sliver of the total traffic on AdWords, but active investigation is a necessary step to maintain the system's reputation, and Google attacks it with the usual pragmatic engineering ethos. Because of the immense scale involved, bad ads are typically flagged through algorithms and then investigated in-person. Google has a number of quirkily named tools designed specifically for that purpose -- the index of ads is known as Beaker, while the analytics tool is called Bunsen -- but the key moment in each case is noticing something's not right. "Once we have a lead on where we think there's going to be problems, we can use those tools to operate on a lot of different kinds of badness," said Ads Engineering director Vikaram Gupta.

Analysis

Will The FCC Zero-out Zero-ratings in Net Neutrality Decision?

As the debate over Network Neutrality nears its climax with the Federal Communications Commission’s scheduled vote on February 26, there has been increasing attention on one relatively small sub-issue, so-called “zero rating” of certain mobile wireless digital services. Zero rating is currently the subject of intense debate in Europe as well, and has long been controversial in the developing world.

FCC Fiscal Year 2016 Budget in Brief

The Federal Communications Commission requests a fiscal year 2016 appropriation of $388,000,000 from offsetting collections and a $25,000,000 transfer of funds from the Universal Service Fund for a total Salaries and Expenses direct program level of $413,000,000. Over 90 percent of the increase relative to FY 2015 enacted represents the funds needed in FY 2016 to initiate a required move through GSA to new headquarters or headquarters restacking. This process is necessitated by the expiration of the FCC’s current lease. GSA is working with the FCC to identify the most-cost effective alternative to the current leasing agreement. Otherwise, the FCC requests funds to follow through on essential information technology upgrades, as well as other projects initiated during FYs 2014 and 2015, including increasing the Office of Inspector General baseline budget, developing and implementing the Do-Not-Call registry for telephone numbers used by Public Safety Answering Points, and continuing activities in support of the National Broadband Map. The FY 2016 budget request will be used to support the following Strategic Goals:
1) Promoting Economic Growth and National Leadership
2) Protecting Public Interest Goals
3) Making Network Work For Everyone
4) Promoting Operational Excellence

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