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  2. December 2015

December 2015

Four 2016 candidates got free ad time during 'The National Dog Show'

Much of the free advertising time NBC gave to Republican presidential candidates to satisfy equal opportunity rules after Donald Trump's "Saturday Night Live" appearance came during a rerun of "The National Dog Show" in Nov. Ad time also came during "Dateline" and another episode of "SNL."

According to NBC broadcast disclosures filed over the weekend, NBC satisfied equal opportunity requests from four candidates by giving them 25 ad slots each on 18 broadcast stations in the early-nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The ads ran from Nov. 27 to Nov. 29 in prime-time slots. Four low-polling GOP presidential candidates -- former Virginia Gov Jim Gilmore, Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC), former Arkansas Gov Mike Huckabee and Gov John Kasich (R-OH) -- took the ad time in a deal with NBC. The deal was struck because Trump's "SNL" appearance triggered Federal Communications Commission equal opportunity rules. Each of the four candidates got eight 30-second ads during a rerun of the dog show in which a Skye terrier named Good Time Charlie won.

Legislators Put $5 Million Bounty On Spectrum Efficiency

Rep Doris Matsui (D-CA) and Sen Tom Udall (D-NM) have introduced a bill that would promote greater spectrum efficiency by paying up to $5 million for a breakthrough wireless technologies. They pointed out in introducing the Spectrum Challenge Prize Act Tuesday Dec 8 that rather than pay for R&D that may not pan out, a challenge prize only rewards success.

A Hill-passed budget bill already includes legislation to spur a government auction of reclaimed spectrum, but the new bill would target the other side of the equation, being more efficient with the spectrum government agencies still hold on to. "The spectrum challenge competition would help incentivize innovators and entrepreneurs to develop technologies that eclipse the current state-of-the-art," they said. The bill would "instruct the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), in consultation with other federal partners, to award up to $5 million in prizes to participants who develop ground-breaking solutions to spectrum efficiency."

A response to a dumb thing Donald Trump said about the Internet

[Commentary]On Dec 7, Donald Trump said, “We’re losing a lot of people because of the Internet, and we have to do something. We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. And we have to talk to them. Maybe in certain areas closing that Internet up in some way [audience member cheers]… Somebody will say, ‘oh, freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people. We have a LOT of foolish people.”

Sigh. Let’s ignore, for a moment, how Trump gleefully mocked one of our fundamental constitutional rights. Let’s ignore how he likened the people who support that right to a swarm of idiots. I’d rather talk about the Internet -- specifically, the idea that you can shut parts of it down at will. You probably can’t, at least not here. Even if we did somehow succeed in selectively taking a major metropolitan area offline, we would not be left safer or better insulated from terrorist threats. Far from it. Doing so would undermine commerce, put our critical infrastructure at risk, and violate fundamental freedoms of speech and expression that are (which I hope Trump will someday come around to realize) the best tools we have to fight cultists and totalitarians. In short, this is a foolish idea, borne of foolish minds, and replicated time and time again by foolish authoritarian regimes around the world. Let’s not be one of them.

It’s Time to Come Together on Digital Trade

[Commentary] Digital trade between the US and the European Union is big business -- really big business. The US exported $140.6 billion worth of services to the EU alone in 2012 and over 70 percent of trade in services between the US and EU is delivered digitally. However, all this activity could come to a halt if swift action isn’t taken to retain and preserve these digital exports.

Currently, two issues stand in the way of restoring businesses as usual, the “Judicial Redress Act” (JRA) and US “Safe Harbor” status. We have until the end of January to build new pathways between the US and the EU before our current regulations expire and we cannot allow political gamesmanship to allow us to miss these critical deadlines. While the US and the EU have chosen different routes to protect individual privacy, both continue to study and create mechanisms to meet their citizen’s rightful expectations in privacy. Given the significant amount of digital trade between the US and EU, the two partners must keep in mind the privacy aspirations, and political realities, of each other. Simply put, neither trading partner can afford to “dictate” policies to the other, or ignore concerns that are based on thoughtful deliberation. Digital trade is simply too valuable to be put in the balance. Standing in the way of this valuable program does nothing to send a message, other than the fallacious message that transatlantic business does not matter. We call on the Department of Commerce to swiftly finalize Safe Harbor negotiations, and our Congressional representatives to facilitate these negotiations.

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