BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2016
Today's Events:
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Tim Berners-Lee Looks to reinvent the Web
The Challenges of Closing the Digital Divide
With New Letter of Credit Rules in Place, FCC Rural Broadband Experiment Funding Moves Ahead
SECURITY/PRIVACY
FCC should bar ‘pay for privacy’ schemes - Troy Wolverton
The Illusion of Confusion and the FCC’s Broadband Privacy Proposal - analysis
AT&T Does Not Want to Ask for Permission to Share Your Data - PK blog [links to Benton summary]
Your mobile phone account could be hijacked by an identity thief - FTC blog [links to Benton summary]
Privacy advocates accuse Obama administration of failing to properly protect student data [links to Benton summary]
Consumer Watchdog: FCC Should Regulate Edge Privacy [links to Benton summary]
Attorneys General to FCC: Require Edge to Make Consumer Privacy Pledge [links to Benton summary]
Sen Manchin (D-WV): Set-Top Proposal May Create 'Dangerous' Privacy Loophole [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Orin Kerr: The Fifth Amendment limits on forced decryption and applying the ‘foregone conclusion’ doctrine [links to Washington Post]
Sen Whitehouse proposes creating cybersecurity ‘militia’ [links to Hill, The]
Google, Yahoo!: Amendment Would Weaken Surveillance Protections [links to Multichannel News]
COMMUNITY MEDIA
Libraries Teach Tech: Building Skills for a Digital World - Center for an Urban Future
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
FCC Opens Doors on New Comment Filing System [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Book Excerpt: Why Didn't E-Gov Live Up To Its Promise? [links to nextgov]
Nextgov E-Book: Federal Agencies Adapt to the Internet of Things [links to nextgov]
State Dept: 75-year estimate for Clinton aides’ e-mails is ‘not outlandish’ [links to Hill, The]
Security, Privacy, Governance Concerns About Smart City Technologies Grow [links to Benton summary]
Streamlining government services with bots [links to Brookings]
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
Trump Orders Surrogates to Intensify Criticism of Judge and Journalists [links to Benton summary]
Conservative Media Struggles To Defend Trump And His Widening University Scam Scandal [links to Media Matters for America]
Early Nomination Call for Hillary Clinton by Associated Press Sent Media Scrambling [links to New York Times]
Why the media shouldn't have declared Hillary Clinton the nominee last night [links to Vox]
Reporters covering Clinton report harassment following AP election call [links to Politico]
Tech cash skews to Democrats [links to Benton summary]
Why Samantha Bee is the political commentator we’ve been waiting for [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
Samantha Bee: Trump's Candidacy Is The Bed Media Made By Giving Him Billions In Free Airtime [links to Media Matters for America]
ADVERTISING
ANA Report Finds Execs Knew of 'Pervasive' Use of Nontransparent Media Practices [links to Benton summary]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
FCC Seeks Comment on Network Communications International Corp. Petition for Expedited Declaratory Ruling - public notice [links to Benton summary]
Sprint’s innovative plan to boost cell service runs into local hurdles [links to Benton summary]
TELECOM
Telecommunications Industry Association: ICT Spending Up 5.7% to $1.45 Trillion [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
TELEVISION
SBA Advocacy Arm To FCC: Exempt Small MVPDs from Set-Top Rules [links to Multichannel News]
Op-ed: The FCC Hoists the Jolly Roger on Your Cable Box [links to Wall Street Journal]
CONTENT
Want To Actually Change Someone's Mind On Social Media? Do This [links to Fast Company]
COMPANY NEWS
Shammo: Verizon Strike Will Drive Negative Broadband Subscriber Results in Q2 [links to Multichannel News]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
President Obama, Indian Prime Minister Modi commit to cyber cooperation [links to Benton summary]
Facing Data Deluge, Secret UK Spying Report Warned of Intelligence Failure [links to Intercept, The]
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
TIM BERNERS-LEE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Quentin Hardy]
Twenty-seven years ago, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web as a way for scientists to easily find information. It has since become the world’s most powerful medium for knowledge, communications and commerce — but that doesn’t mean Berners-Lee is happy with all of the consequences. “It controls what people see, creates mechanisms for how people interact,” he said of the modern day web. “It’s been great, but spying, blocking sites, repurposing people’s content, taking you to the wrong websites — that completely undermines the spirit of helping people create.” So Berners-Lee gathered in San Francisco with other top computer scientists — including Brewster Kahle, head of the nonprofit Internet Archive and an internet activist — to discuss a new phase for the web. So what might happen, the computer scientists posited, if they could harness newer technologies — like the software used for digital currencies, or the technology of peer-to-peer music sharing — to create a more decentralized web with more privacy, less government and corporate control, and a level of permanence and reliability? The project is in its early days, but the discussions — and caliber of the people involved — underscored how the World Wide Web’s direction in recent years has stirred a deep anxiety among some technologists.
benton.org/headlines/tim-berners-lee-looks-reinvent-web | New York Times
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THE CHALLENGES OF CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
A Q&A with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn of the Federal Communications Commission.
When asked, "What do we know about the people who aren’t able to obtain access to or afford broadband?" Commissioner Clyburn responded, "Tens of millions of people are caught in the divide, and what we know is many are low-income and in rural areas. In total, 10 percent of Americans, or 34 million people, lack access to what we define as high-speed Internet. Many more do not adopt broadband for many reasons — especially cost — and the adoption problem particularly affects low-income people." When asked, "Why aren’t people adopting internet when it is available to them? Is it just cost? I’ve seen surveys citing skepticism over the relevance of the Internet." Clyburn responded, "What is the definition of relevance? And relative to what? I think someone who doesn’t adopt may not admit to you that they have some type of challenge in digital literacy. They may say they don’t need it when the real answer may be that they aren’t comfortable with a keyboard or mouse."
benton.org/headlines/challenges-closing-digital-divide | New York Times
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NEW LOC RULES IN PLACE, FCC RURAL BROADBAND EXPERIMENT FUNDING MOVES AHEAD
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
In what could signal the beginning of the end of the Federal Communications Commission Rural Broadband Experiment (RBE) funding logjam, the commission said it was ready to authorize RBE support for six RBE projects in two states. The funding, which totals over $4 million, will go to Northeast Rural Services for five projects in Oklahoma and to Lake County for a project in Minnesota. The RBE program made a total of $100 million available to traditional and non-traditional network operators to cover some of the costs of deploying broadband to rural areas where broadband was not previously available. Awards in the FCC Rural Broadband Experiment program were made over a year ago, but the FCC was slow in releasing funding to some awardees – in part because some small telecommunication companies and electric utilities that were awarded funding had difficulty meeting a requirement that they obtain a letter of credit (LOC) from one of the nation’s 100 largest banks. Those companies typically do not borrow from those banks, and awardees found that many of the large banks were unwilling to provide LOCs to them. Initially the FCC anticipated imposing the same LOC requirement for winners in the Connect America Fund reverse auction. But when the commission in May adopted a framework for the CAF auction, it expanded the pool of banks from which the FCC would accept LOCs. In announcing that change, the FCC did not specify whether the change would also apply to the RBE program. But as Doug Jarrett, a partner specializing in telecom law with law firm Keller & Heckman LLP, said, the RBE awardees “get the same relief on the LOCs as the CAF II bidders.”
benton.org/headlines/new-letter-credit-rules-place-fcc-rural-broadband-experiment-funding-moves-ahead | telecompetitor
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PRIVACY
PAY FOR PRIVACY
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Troy Wolverton]
[Commentary] As the Federal Communications Commission considers restricting what broadband providers can do with our personal surfing data, the agency is weighing whether it should outright ban a practice that’s come to be known as “pay for privacy.” Certain broadband service providers, most notably AT&T, have begun charging a premium to customers who opt out of having those companies to track their online activities. Privacy and consumer rights advocates are blasting the practice and some are calling for the FCC to outlaw it. The agency should. The FCC’s whole effort to establish rules protecting consumers’ privacy from broadband providers is grounded in a law passed by Congress. Companies shouldn’t be allowed to penalize customers who exercise their legal right to privacy.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-should-bar-pay-privacy-schemes | San Jose Mercury News
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ILLUSION OF CONFUSION
[SOURCE: Free Press, AUTHOR: Matt Wood, Eric Chapman]
[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission has proposed new rules to protect broadband users’ privacy, and Free Press filed our comments urging the agency to follow the law and take this important step. We explained that Congress has already made this decision. It’s the Communications Act (not FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, or advocacy groups like ours) that commands this result. Telecommunications carriers, including broadband providers, must get affirmative consent from their customers before using or selling their private information. Period. Nevertheless, some of the current occupants of Congress would rather ignore the law governing agency action. Reps Fred Upton (R-MI), Greg Walden (R-OR) and Michael Burgess (R-TX) — the current chairmen of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and two of its key subcommittees — suggest that the FCC should freeze in its tracks rather than adopt strong rules protecting some parts of what they call the Internet ecosystem. Fortunately for internet users, the Communications Act says otherwise.
benton.org/headlines/illusion-confusion-and-fccs-broadband-privacy-proposal | Free Press
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COMMUNITY MEDIA
LIBRARIES TEACH TECH
[SOURCE: Center for an Urban Future, AUTHOR: Jonathan Bowles]
If New York City is going to succeed in reducing inequality and put more New Yorkers on the path to the middle class, it will need to significantly increase the number of city residents with digital skills. That’s because so many of the good-paying jobs being created in today’s economy require some level of technology skills. These jobs include the bulk of opportunities in the city’s soaring tech sector, but also a growing share of the positions in more traditional fields, from health care to manufacturing, which are adopting new technologies at a rapid clip. In fact, a recent report by Burning Glass found that 88 percent of middle-skill jobs in New York were digitally intensive. Some of the most important efforts to boost digital skills are coming from an unlikely source: the city’s public libraries. As this data brief shows, the city’s three public library systems served more than 158,000 people with technology training programs in 2015. This represents an astounding 81 percent increase from just three years ago, when the libraries served 87,000 people. Beyond simply serving tens of thousands of New Yorkers, the libraries are reaching many who aren’t being served by other digital training initiatives. One of the libraries’ advantages is that, with 217 branches, the systems have a physical presence in nearly every community throughout the five boroughs.
benton.org/headlines/libraries-teach-tech-building-skills-digital-world | Center for an Urban Future
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