1. Monthly archive
  2. January 2016

January 2016

German court declared unlawful a feature that encourages Amazon customers to share links to products of the online shop with their contacts

A German court has declared unlawful a feature that encourages Amazon customers to share links to products of the online shop with their contacts, confirming the ruling of a lower court. The Amazon "share" feature invites customers to share a product via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or Pintrest. The court said that sharing by e-mail without approval of the recipient was illegal. It is "unsolicited advertising and unreasonable harassment," the regional court in Hamm said, confirming the ruling of a lower court in Arnsberg. The case was brought against one of Amazon's resellers by a competitor.

The ruling comes after Germany's highest court ruled earlier in Jan that a similar feature that encourages Facebook users to market the social media network to their contacts as unlawful. At the time, the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (VZBV), which brought the Facebook case to court, had said the ruling would have implications for other services in Germany which use similar forms of advertising.

Department of Labor plans labor survey that will include on-demand jobs

The Department of Labor said it plans to revive a survey of “contingent” workers, which could shed new light on the scope of the so-called on-demand economy. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez said that the agency is working with the Census Bureau to run the Contingent Worker Supplement as part of a larger survey in May 2017. “It will give us reliable, credible insight into what’s going on across a range of work arrangements — from independent contractors to temporary employees to workers holding multiple jobs at the same time,” Sec Perez said. It will be the first time that the survey has been run since 2005, when it was discontinued because of budgetary constraints.

Sen Mark Warner (D-VA) praised Sec Perez's announcement. Sen Warner has become a leading voice calling for a safety net for workers in the on-demand economy who, as independent contractors rather than employees, lack certain benefits. “If we are going to make this 21st century economy work better for more people while encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship, it is crucial that we have better, more accurate data about who and how workers are participating in the on-demand economy,” he said.

What’s Up With Those Wireless Attack Ads?

Late in 2015 Verizon rolled out a television commercial that depicts colorful balls rolling down four ramps to illustrate its claim of having a “better network” than its competitors. Recently, two of the competitors named in that commercial — Sprint and T-Mobile — hit back at Verizon with response ads of their own featuring almost identical visuals. The commercials aired the same weekend millions tuned in to watch the National Football League’s playoff games.

The advertising war highlighted the intensity with which competitor wireless companies such as Sprint and T-Mobile chase the powerhouse legacy networks, Verizon and AT&T. Public opinion matters dearly to these smaller companies trying to catch up to the subscriber numbers of the two major providers. Their response ads attempt to highlight that they are making progress in that regard.

The Pentagon's plan to defend the power grid against hackers

The Pentagon's advanced research wing is looking for ways to safeguard America's most critical assets from attacks on the Internet – a network it helped create. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which pioneered much of the technology underpinning the Internet, is planning to invest $77 million over the next four years to develop methods to help utilities detect and recover from cyberattacks, which experts say is a growing threat to small and large power operators alike. "What we’re really looking at is a high-impact, low probability event," says John Everett, program manager at the Information and Innovation Office at DARPA who is overseeing the initiative. But, says Dr. Everett, "DARPA’s mission is to create and prevent technological surprises."

As electric power plants and other critical infrastructure facilities' increasingly rely on Internet-connected technologies and wireless communications, hackers appear to be uncovering new avenues to penetrate their networks. While cybersecurity experts have been warning about this for years, that threat gained new attention in the wake of Dec's malware attack on a Ukrainian power plant and recent news reports of digital incursions at a small New York dam and at the major US power producer Calpine Corp. In addition to those attacks, President Barack Obama issued a presidential proclamation in October that emphasized the need to shore up US critical infrastructure facilities against attack.

France’s Top Cop Has More to Teach Silicon Valley

France’s top cop is coming for another visit to Silicon Valley -- but this time it’s a victory lap. A year after French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve went to California to demand that Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter do more to scour the Internet for potential terrorist propaganda, Cazeneuve plans in February to head back for another visit to praise how deeply tech firms are cooperating with French police–and to offer lessons to the US for doing the same. “France has been a pioneer,” Cazenueve said. “There is now a wide-ranging and effective dialogue based on mutual trust between the French government and Internet companies.”

It’s a far cry from his rhetoric a year ago, when Cazeneuve said at the same conference that Internet companies had to “take responsibility” for the “major problem” of extremist content that groups like Islamic State use to find recruits. Following 2015’s visit, French officials and US companies to agreed in April to an accelerated process for police to ask companies to remove terrorist content. During his forthcoming visit, Cazeneuve says he will meet with US firms to “update our level of cooperation,” and also get together with US Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to discuss their recent push to curb terrorist content on social media. “The US now also wants to work with operators to counteract terrorist content on the Internet,” Cazeneuve said. “Our audacity has paid off, and now we’re schooling others, and I’m very happy about that.”

Comcast Gets Down to Business With Wi-Fi

Carving out another revenue stream for its commercial service arm, Comcast Business has formally introduced WiFi Pro, a cloud-controlled Wi-Fi platform for small- and medium-sized businesses and enterprise branch locations. Comcast noted that Wi-Fi Pro, a managed solution provided by the company, uses two commercial Wi-Fi networks – a private network for employees and a guest network for visitors and patrons. The new offering can be managed on mobile devices using a mobile app or an online portal, allowing partners to check network activity, configure controls and allocate bandwidth. The platform also features a customizable splash-page designer.

“Wi-Fi Pro offers simple management and features to [small and medium-sized businesses (SMB)] and distributed enterprises that were previously only available to headquarters and other large office locations, enabling a better employee experience and customer engagement,” said John Guillaume, vice president of Product Management at Comcast Business. “The additional marketing features allow SMBs and enterprise branches to create a more personalized experience through Wi-Fi to help drive customer retention and revenue growth.”

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