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August 2015

Google and the “right to be forgotten”: Where is the Obama Administration?

[Commentary] It must be getting lonely for Google in the battle over Europe’s increasingly extraterritorial demands regarding the (misnamed) “right to be forgotten.” As Europe raises the stakes yet again, Google is still not seeing any support from the Obama Administration.

The key question is why the Obama Administration hasn’t taken a stand and stepped in to defend the legitimate interests of a beleaguered US company -- and more broadly the principle of allowing accurate, public data to move freely across borders, without encountering censorship or parochial restrictions. These are the goals for the Internet that the US is touting as essential for the proposed US-EU free trade agreement. And the EU’s escalating protectionist, extraterritorial demands on the “right to be forgotten” directly flout such ambitions. Either on a separate bilateral basis, or in the context of the US-EU FTA negotiations, the Obama Administration should take a strong stand against arbitrary “delisting” of accurate, already published data, and the fragmentation of the Internet inherent in French regulatory demands.

[Claude Barfield is a former consultant to the Office of the US Trade Representative]

Hollywood should be ashamed of the way it treats Muslim actors

[Commentary] Being an actor is hard. Everyone knows that the movies, while glamorous, are a difficult and stressful business to break into, no matter your background. But actors of Middle Eastern origin face an even more unpleasant prospect: they must go through the same stress and competition, but are often restricted to a range of roles that can be narrow, degrading, and offensive.

Jon Ronson has an excellent GQ profile of a group of Muslim and Middle-Eastern actors working in Hollywood. They all told him the same thing: that there were essentially no roles available to them other than terrorist villains. And the terrorist roles, unsurprisingly, were mostly just two-dimensional stereotypes -- plot devices, not characters. Ronson writes that the men he profiled in his story "are going through something that future generations will regard as outrageous. They're the bloodthirsty Red Indians surrounding the settlers' wagons in 'Stagecoach'. They're the black savages in 'The Birth of a Nation' (who were played by white actors in blackface). They are the people Hollywood will be apologizing to tomorrow." They deserve that apology. I hope they get it. But in the meantime, maybe they could get some better parts?

August 3, 2015 (The California Lifeline Reform Case Study)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 2015

FCC Meeting on this week’s agenda -- https://www.benton.org/calendar

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Questioning Federal Broadband Spending - analysis
   ISPs: Net neutrality rules are illegal because Internet access uses computers
   What have we learned from Google Fiber? - op-ed
   What We Talk About When We Talk About “Tech Transitions” - PK analysis
   Ted Cruz’s Fight to Protect the Open Internet - WSJ editorial [links to web]

TELECOM
   The California Lifeline Reform Case Study – Overview - analysis
   FCC to Congress: Your tele-town halls are safe

JOURNALISM
   Seven Years Later: What Exactly Did Rupert Murdoch Do To The Wall Street Journal? - HuffPo op-ed [links to web]
   What Hillary Clinton’s letter to the New York Times tells us about politics and media - analysis [links to web]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   Us Decides to Retaliate Against China’s Hacking [links to web]
   Warrantless mobile phone location tracking heads to Supreme Court [links to web]
   US intelligence officials to take part in review of Clinton e-mails [links to web]
   Ted Cruz’s Fight to Protect the Open Internet - WSJ editorial [links to web]

CONTENT
   Imports of Digital Goods Face Test
   LinkedIn Starts Building a Syndicated Content Network [links to web]
   Some Digital Publishers Say No to Ad Tech [links to web]
   For New York Times, a Gamble on Giveaways [links to web]

ADVERTISING
   Comcast-owned NBC refused to run commercials for Sling TV's competing streaming service [links to web]
   Advertisers: US ‘right to be forgotten’ would be legally ‘baseless’ [links to web]
   Some Digital Publishers Say No to Ad Tech [links to web]

TELEVISION
   NCTA responds to senators' set-top complaints, says consumers already have plenty of choice [links to web]
   AT&T Says Users Can Watch TV on Any Device With Its New Bundle, the First of Its Kind [links to web]

HEALTH
   VA Embraces Virtual Care, Testing Bluetooth Hearing Aids [links to web]
   This iPhone Accessory Replaces an Eye Doctor's Office [links to web]
   When a Doctor Is Always a Phone Call Away [links to web]

DIVERSITY
   What ProPublica is Doing About Diversity - press release [links to web]
   Women in science and engineering seek their own version of 'MacGyver' on TV [links to web]

POLICYMAKERS
   Celebrating 20 Years at the Benton Foundation - press release [links to web]

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INTERNET/BROADBAND

QUESTIONING FEDERAL BROADBAND SPENDING
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
The Pew Research Center released an analysis that highlighted 15 percent of all US adults do not use the Internet -- a fraction of the number (48 percent) in 2000, but a figure that is mainly unchanged in the past three years. Additionally, Politico published a scathing critique of one program responsible for billions of US taxpayer dollars spent to improve broadband access in the country’s hardest to serve areas. The National Broadband Map -- completed in 2010, and updated again in 2015 -- shows that 50 percent of Americans in rural areas don’t have high-speed Internet in the way the Federal Communications Commission now defines it. In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act made up to $2.5 billion available to the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to extend broadband’s reach in rural areas. The purpose of the RUS loan program is to increase broadband deployment (that is, the number of broadband subscribers with access to new or improved broadband service) and economic opportunity in rural America through the provision of broadband services. Politico’s Tony Romm concludes that RUS’ program never found its footing in the digital age.
benton.org/headlines/questioning-federal-broadband-spending | Benton Foundation
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ISPS: NET NEUTRALITY RULES ARE ILLEGAL BECAUSE INTERNET ACCESS USES COMPUTERS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
Internet service providers filed a 95-page brief in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit outlining their case that the Federal Communications Commission’s new network neutrality rules should be overturned. One of the central arguments is that the FCC cannot impose common carrier rules on Internet access because it can’t be defined as a “telecommunications” service under Title II of the Communications Act. The ISPs argued that Internet access must be treated as a more lightly regulated “information service” because it involves “computer processing.” “No matter how many computer-mediated features the FCC may sweep under the rug, the inescapable core of Internet access is a service that uses computer processing to enable consumers to ‘retrieve files from the World Wide Web, and browse their contents’ and, thus, ‘offers the ‘capability for... acquiring,... retrieving [and] utilizing... information.’ Under the straightforward statutory definition, an ‘offering’ of that ‘capability’ is an information service," the ISPs wrote. "If broadband providers provided only pure transmission and not information processing, as the FCC now claims, the primitive and limited form of 'access' broadband customers would receive would be unrecognizable to consumers," the ISPs also wrote. "They would be required, for example, to know the IP address of every website they visit. But, because Domain Name Service ('DNS') is part of Internet access, consumers can visit any website without knowing its IP address and thereafter 'click through' links on that website to other websites." The fact that Internet service providers offer e-mail accounts and cloud storage further proves the point that Internet access is an information service, according to this argument.
benton.org/headlines/isps-net-neutrality-rules-are-illegal-because-internet-access-uses-computers | Ars Technica
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WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM GOOGLE FIBER
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Blair Levin]
[Commentary] There is no question that Google Fiber is a seminal development in the broadband market. The question is what is the lesson for policy? Karl Bode writes that Google Fiber proves the National Broadband Plan was nothing more than a "political show pony." He chastises the National Broadband Plan for not doing enough for competition. The core policy related to network competition, however, that he proposed was forcing incumbents to offer an open access network, in which the incumbents would offer all, or parts, or their networks to rival providers at wholesale rates. Under Bode's proposal, which others also supported, the government would define both what parts of the network would be "unbundled" and set the rates. The National Broadband Plan team evaluated, and then rejected this option, believing it would not lead to investments to deploy the next generation networks necessary to deliver the affordable, abundant bandwidth America needed. As Google Fiber, which emerged from discussions with the team developing the National Broadband Plan, started evaluating the economics of building a fiber network, it concluded that building a network that it shared with other providers would not make economic sense, even on an unregulated basis. Google, therefore, decided to proceed with a proprietary model. If the government had required open access that required Google to share its infrastructure with competitors, Google Fiber would have been stillborn. The lesson here is competition does not arise from the desire for it; it comes from rules that attract investment into competitive networks.
benton.org/headlines/what-have-we-learned-google-fiber | C-Net|News.com
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WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT "TECH TRANSITIONS"
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Meredith Filak Rose]
[Commentary] If you follow tech policy, you’ve probably seen the summer’s hottest buzz-phrase: “the tech transition.” This opaque moniker (like most tech policy talk) doesn’t explain much about the underlying topic. So what is the tech transition? Simple answer: It’s about your phone. But it’s also about so, so much more. Including whether you can count on the phone network to work when you need it. From its inception up until the mid-2000s, telephone traffic ran over copper wire. In the mid-2000s, companies began replacing copper lines with fiber optic cable. This switch -- taking out our old system and replacing it with the new -- is what we mean when we talk about the “tech transition.” It raises plenty of questions about what to do with legacy systems, and even more that would take pages to cover on their own, such as: who’s responsible for providing backup power if the fiber system goes down? How much notice are consumers entitled to before their provider switches to fiber, and what should that notice look like? What responsibilities do the carriers have? What kinds of features does the new fiber network need to replicate from the copper network to be considered “comparable” as a replacement? Are we really just “upgrading” the phone network, or are we replacing it with something completely new? All of these questions are playing out at the Federal Communications Commission right now.
benton.org/headlines/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-tech-transitions | Public Knowledge
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TELECOM

CALIFORNIA LIFELINE REFORM CASE STUDY
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Sean McLaughlin]
The Federal Communications Commission is seeking public input on a proposal to reform and modernize its Lifeline program. For 30 years, the Lifeline program has made basic telecommunications services more affordable for people with low incomes. Now, the FCC is considering updating the program to make access to broadband networks more affordable, too. Public comments in this proceeding are due on Monday, August 17; reply comments are due Tuesday, September 15. To help inform the FCC’s Lifeline proceeding, Benton Foundation is conducting a case study with Access Humboldt’s Broadband Policy Project that will highlight the California Lifeline reform experience - exploring issues raised, capturing lessons learned, and addressing important questions for the future of the Lifeline program. California is the only state that has a Lifeline program with greater support provided to low income households than the federal program. Why is California’s Lifeline program the most substantial state program? How did that happen? What has the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) learned? We’ll review the history and explore the issues in hopes that the FCC and other states can take some lessons from the California experience to help inform the “modernization” of Lifeline going forward.
[Sean McLaughlin is Executive Director of Access Humboldt in Eureka (CA)]
https://www.benton.org/blog/california-lifeline-reform-case-study-overview
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FCC TO CONGRESS: YOUR TELE-TOWN HALLS ARE SAFE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Mario Trujillo]
The Federal Communications Commission is trying to calm the nerves of lawmakers about the legality of their telephone town hall outreach. The agency issued a set of FAQs on July 31 clarifying that nothing in a recent FCC ruling to strengthen robocall restrictions will change how lawmakers are allowed to reach out to constituents through virtual town halls. “As long as vendors for tele-town halls continue to adhere to the decades old rules, use of these services should pose no issue,” the agency wrote. Confusion was expressed earlier when FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler suggested lawmakers were violating FCC robocall restrictions if they called constituents without their prior consent. Chairman Wheeler’s statement at the end of a three-hour House hearing shocked the lawmakers still left in the room, and the agency quickly clarified that Chairman Wheeler meant to make an important distinction between robocalls to mobile phones vs. landlines. Lawmakers and others have for decades been allowed to make “informational” robocalls -- including outreach for a telephone town hall -- to landline telephones. But those same calls to a mobile phone are prohibited, unless a lawmaker or vendor gets prior consent. That has been the case since mobile phones began to be covered by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-congress-your-tele-town-halls-are-safe | Hill, The | FCC
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CONTENT

DIGITAL IMPORTS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Brent Kendall]
The clash over protecting a free-flowing Internet while also fighting online piracy has shifted to an unlikely and largely unknown setting: a legal battle about teeth-alignment devices at a federal trade body. A US appeals court will consider whether federal tariff law gives the International Trade Commission the power to order a halt to foreign digital transmissions into the US when those communications infringe US intellectual property. Traditionally, the ITC has intervened only to stop the importation of physical goods.
benton.org/headlines/imports-digital-goods-face-test | Wall Street Journal
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The California Lifeline Reform Case Study – Overview

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking public input on a proposal to reform and modernize its Lifeline program. For 30 years, the Lifeline program has made basic telecommunications services more affordable for people with low incomes. Now, the FCC is considering updating the program to make access to broadband networks more affordable, too. Public comments in this proceeding are due on Monday, August 17; reply comments are due Tuesday, September 15. To help inform the FCC’s Lifeline proceeding, Benton Foundation is conducting a case study with Access Humboldt’s Broadband Policy Project that will highlight the California Lifeline reform experience - exploring issues raised, capturing lessons learned, and addressing important questions for the future of the Lifeline program. California is the only state that has a Lifeline program with greater support provided to low income households than the federal program. Why is California’s Lifeline program the most substantial state program? How did that happen? What has the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) learned? We’ll review the history and explore the issues in hopes that the FCC and other states can take some lessons from the California experience to help inform the “modernization” of Lifeline going forward.

What have we learned from Google Fiber?

[Commentary] There is no question that Google Fiber is a seminal development in the broadband market. The question is what is the lesson for policy?

Karl Bode writes that Google Fiber proves the National Broadband Plan was nothing more than a "political show pony." He chastises the National Broadband Plan for not doing enough for competition. The core policy related to network competition, however, that he proposed was forcing incumbents to offer an open access network, in which the incumbents would offer all, or parts, or their networks to rival providers at wholesale rates. Under Bode's proposal, which others also supported, the government would define both what parts of the network would be "unbundled" and set the rates.

The National Broadband Plan team evaluated, and then rejected this option, believing it would not lead to investments to deploy the next generation networks necessary to deliver the affordable, abundant bandwidth America needed. As Google Fiber, which emerged from discussions with the team developing the National Broadband Plan, started evaluating the economics of building a fiber network, it concluded that building a network that it shared with other providers would not make economic sense, even on an unregulated basis. Google, therefore, decided to proceed with a proprietary model. If the government had required open access that required Google to share its infrastructure with competitors, Google Fiber would have been stillborn. The lesson here is competition does not arise from the desire for it; it comes from rules that attract investment into competitive networks.

Us Decides to Retaliate Against China’s Hacking

The Obama Administration has determined that it must retaliate against China for the theft of the personal information of more than 20 million Americans from the databases of the Office of Personnel Management, but it is still struggling to decide what it can do without prompting an escalating cyberconflict.

The decision came after the administration concluded that the hacking attack was so vast in scope and ambition that the usual practices for dealing with traditional espionage cases did not apply. But in a series of classified meetings, officials have struggled to choose among options that range from largely symbolic responses — for example, diplomatic protests or the ouster of known Chinese agents in the United States — to more significant actions that some officials fear could lead to an escalation of the hacking conflict between the two countries.

AT&T Says Users Can Watch TV on Any Device With Its New Bundle, the First of Its Kind

Walk out the door and watch TV anywhere. That’s the pitch AT&T is making for its new nationwide offering, the first of its kind, that combines television and wireless phone service for $200 a month for the first 12 months.

The announcement of this package, available to customers starting Aug. 10, came a little more than a week after AT&T closed its $48.5 billion takeover of satellite company DirecTV, forming the country’s largest television distributor, with about 26 million subscribers. Executives promoted the merger — which combines one of the country’s largest telephone and Internet providers with the country’s largest satellite provider — as the creation of a next-generation entertainment provider that would serve customers who increasingly demand on-the-go entertainment across a variety of screens. Creating new bundles of television, wireless and broadband services was one of the merger’s highlights that executives underscored.

Ted Cruz’s Fight to Protect the Open Internet

[Commentary] Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) wants to safeguard the open Internet from authoritarian regimes. You’d think that would be an easy position to take, but it’s not. The Texas senator and presidential candidate is bucking the leadership of his Republican Party to push hard against the Obama Administration plan to abandon America’s protection of the Internet from political interference. The Obama plan for Icann if the US contract ends now requires only a “consensus” among governments to dictate Internet policy. That’s a far lower standard than today’s requirement of unanimity and would further sideline US influence. The majority of authoritarian governments could act together to politicize Icann. Instead of censoring GayRightsInRussia.org or LiberateTibet.org only in their own countries, Russia and China could forge a “consensus” to impose a global ban. Protecting the open Internet was a bipartisan issue for many years and should be one again. The Obama Internet giveaway invites a high-profile campaign issue for politicians who oppose it. Considering the popularity of the Internet, being for it is better politics than being against it.

When a Doctor Is Always a Phone Call Away

[Commentary] When it comes to health care, “efficient” is a word that frightens people, calling to mind a soulless bureaucracy with an eye on the company’s bottom line. But it is inefficiency that is overburdening the medical system. Americans are struggling to obtain affordable, convenient care, and 103 million people in the U.S. live in areas with a shortage of primary health-care providers, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration. Yet the country is dependent on expensive, brick-and-mortar facilities that require time-consuming travel. Primary-care doctors tend to cluster in urban areas. If you get sick in rural Wyoming, even during the workweek, your only choice might be the emergency room.

In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, 136 million people were seen in an ER; many of those visits could have been replaced with a $50 telemedicine consultation. Researchers at the University of Rochester found that 28% of the visits at one pediatric emergency room involved ailments such as ear infections or sore throats that could be diagnosed over the phone.

[Boxer is the chief telehealth officer of Pager and chief medical officer of Well Via]

Imports of Digital Goods Face Test

The clash over protecting a free-flowing Internet while also fighting online piracy has shifted to an unlikely and largely unknown setting: a legal battle about teeth-alignment devices at a federal trade body. A US appeals court will consider whether federal tariff law gives the International Trade Commission the power to order a halt to foreign digital transmissions into the US when those communications infringe US intellectual property. Traditionally, the ITC has intervened only to stop the importation of physical goods.

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