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July 2016

Broadband Privacy Plan Opponents Flood FCC

The Protect Internet Freedom coalition said those with concerns about the Federal Communications Commission's proposal on broadband privacy have submitted over a quarter of a million comments to the FCC as of June 6, which is the deadline. The group said that was the total that had been submitted from its online platform. Given that the FCC's online docket showed 271,473 comments (218,198 in the last 30 days alone), the group was concluding that "despite all of the setbacks and glitches, opposition comments are still in the overwhelming majority of total comments filed." The FCC has had some problems with comment backlogs across all its dockets, including broadband privacy, due to an aging system that has recently been replaced. PIF complained to the FCC about the backlog.

Sec of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson pushes cyber reorganization

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson stumped for a proposed reorganization of the division of his agency responsible for protecting critical infrastructure from digital threats. “We've asked for a reorganization from Congress,” Johnson told the Senate Judiciary Committee during a June 30 on oversight of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “I know the House Homeland Committee is considering it and possibly drafting language. And if this is something the Senate would consider, I think it would go a long way to addressing both cyber and the protection of critical infrastructure.”

Specifically, Sec Johnson wants to replace the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) within the DHS with a new operational agency tasked with protecting the computer networks that run the nation’s power grid, water utilities and more. The agency, along with many lawmakers, see the move as way to smooth bureaucratic barriers within the DHS. But the proposed reorganization, in the works for over a year, has been a point of tension between the agency and Congress.

Savage (MN) is test site for Mediacom community Wi-Fi project

If you are roaming in Savage (MN) without Internet access, Mediacom just bought you some web time. In July, the cable TV company plans to install at least 10 Wi-Fi antennas in central spots around the city, including parks and sports facilities. Only Mediacom subscribers will receive full access to Wi-Fi, but other subscribers can get about 30 minutes for free, an airport-style amenity.

"It's basically like the Wi-Fi you have in your house, but larger and stronger," said Savage's assistant city administrator, Brad Larson. For device holders, it's "just giving you more access to free data." Savage is one of several testing grounds, and the only one in Minnesota, for the community service, which Mediacom hopes to take national. This is also Savage's first community Wi-Fi project, as public connectivity is now limited to city facilities. More users using more devices — from tablets to wearable technology — adds virtual traffic, and more Wi-Fi opens up lanes.

Mobile Video Revenue to Rise to $25 Billion, Advertising Represents 67% of Total

Total mobile video revenue will rise to $25 billion, with advertising revenue accounting for 2/3 of the total value by 2021, as viewer numbers and usage continues to expand and rise around the world, according to new market research from Strategy Analytics. Businesses will spend more to advertise on mobile device video delivery platforms in a bid to reach wider audiences. Strategy Analytics predicts that the number of mobile video viewers worldwide will more than double to 2 billion by year-end 2022, a 36 percent market penetration, the market research company highlights.

Wei Shi, Analyst, Wireless Media Strategies noted, “The strongest growth in mobile video revenue will come from advertising-funded content as advertisers look to catch up with the increasing quantity of video consumption."

July 6, 2016 (FBI completes Clinton email probe)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 2016
Today's Events:


THOSE DAMN EMAILS
   FBI completes Clinton email probe, recommends no criminal charges
   Clinton allies see end to email controversy [links to Hill, The]
   For Hillary Clinton, Political Fight Over Emails Is Far From Over [links to Wall Street Journal]
   FBI’s Critique of Hillary Clinton Is a Ready-Made Attack Ad [links to New York Times]
   Editorial: Legal, but Not Political, Clarity on the Clinton Emails [links to New York Times]
   Editorial: Hillary Clinton should have known better [links to San Jose Mercury News]
   Editorial: FBI Director outlines a persuasive case against indicting Clinton, but the decision isn't his to make [links to Los Angeles Times]
   Editorial: Jim Comey’s Clinton Standard [links to Wall Street Journal]
   Michael Mukasey op-ed: Clinton Makes the FBI’s Least-Wanted List [links to Wall Street Journal]
   Six things we learned from the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail [links to Washington Post]

ELECTIONS & MEDIA
   Clinton and Pro-Hillary PACs Have Spent $192M More on TV, Radio Ads Than Trump and His Supporters [links to AdAge]
   How you can bring more truth to campaigns – and government - op-ed [links to Benton summary]

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Internet Access -- An Incomplete Promise - Daily Yonder op-ed [links to Benton summary]
   Will the Supreme Court take an interest in net neutrality? - Daniel Lyons/AEI analysis [links to Benton summary]
   Lifeline Connects Coalition Discusses Petition for Reconsideration of Lifeline Reform Order [links to Benton summary]
   2015 Survey: Home Internet Adoption by Californians with Disabilities - press release [links to Benton summary]
   The World Is Melting But at Least We’ll Have Better Internet Because of It [links to Vice]
   These Maps Show What the Dark Web Looks Like [links to Vice]

SECURITY/PRIVACY
   Georgetown's Larry Downes Is Down on FCC's Broadband Privacy Plan
   US Judge confuses privacy and security, concludes that you should have neither [links to Benton summary]
   In the Future, Hackers Will Build Zombie Armies from Internet-Connected Toasters [links to Vice]

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Wave 2 Wi-Fi: Enabling multigigabit wireless Internet [links to Benton summary]
   Smartphone Penetration Among Children is Surging, Not Just Teens Anymore [links to Benton summary]
   Amsterdam birdhouses give free Wi-Fi [links to Benton summary]

ADVERTISING
   Parents Are Increasingly Using Mobile Devices for Back-to-School Shopping [links to AdWeek]

TELECOM
   AT&T wants to end private line voice service in Alabama and Florida [links to Benton summary]
   CenturyLink's copper replacement plan could spur protests by consumers, CLECs [links to Benton summary]

TELEVISION
   Consumer Video Choice Coalition (CVCC) Prods Cable's Box Ditch Pitch [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
   Content Companies Commend Box-Ditching Effort [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
   Nielsen Unveils Streaming Ratings for ‘Orange is the New Black,’ ‘Seinfeld’ [links to Wall Street Journal]

CONTENT
   How to make Google forget your most embarrassing searches [links to Washington Post]

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
   More police departments are exploring technology that would allow 911 emergency dispatchers to receive text messages from people who need help. [links to Christian Science Monitor]

LABOR
   AT&T, CWA begin negotiations covering 2K Internet workers [links to Benton summary]
   Federal investigators probe Google over age-discrimination complaints [links to San Jose Mercury News]

COMPANY NEWS
   Comcast will let customers get Netflix on its set-top box [links to Revere Digital]
   Data show that more people 35 and older are starting to use Snapchat [links to Christian Science Monitor]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   EU parliament pushes ahead with plans to block, remove terrorist content online
   Brexit: The first major casualty of digital democracy - Brookings analysis
   ‘Godspots’ Cometh, But Can Free Wi-Fi Save Christianity in Germany? [links to Vice]
   Israel Accuses Facebook of Complicity in West Bank Violence [links to Bloomberg]
   United States, Singapore, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Israel are getting the biggest bang for their buck in economic and digital innovation [links to Associated Press]
   Millions of Chinese Stream Reality Shows Starring Themselves [links to Bloomberg]

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THOSE DAMN EMAILS

FBI COMPLETES CLINTON E-MAIL PROBE, RECOMMENDS NO CRIMINAL CHARGES
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Matt Zapotosky]
FBI Director James Comey said that his agency will not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private e-mail server as Secretary of State, but called Clinton and her staff “extremely careless” in handling sensitive data. Director Comey said the FBI investigations into thousands of e-mails by Clinton determined that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” The findings now go to the Justice Department. The announcement — which came only about 72 hours after FBI agents interviewed Clinton — in some ways lifts the cloud that has been hanging over Clinton’s presidential campaign for months. But it will almost certainly spark criticism that the outcome of the high-profile probe was a foregone conclusion, influenced heavily by political considerations. Director Comey said Justice Department prosecutors also must make a final determination, though he was unequivocal in stating his view. “We are expressing our view to Justice that no charges are appropriate in this case,” he said.
benton.org/headlines/fbi-completes-clinton-email-probe-recommends-no-criminal-charges | Washington Post | FBI statement
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PRIVACY

GEORGETOWN'S DOWNES IS DOWN ON FCC'S BROADBAND PRIVACY PLAN
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Larry Downes, project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, is no fan of the Federal Communications Commission's broadband privacy proposal. Downes filed a letter in the docket referencing his article in the Harvard Business Review on what he says is the three major problems with the FCC proposal:
False Premise – The FCC’s assumption that Internet service providers have 'unique' access to consumer information is flatly wrong. Thanks to a nearly-complete campaign to encrypt information flow, ISPs are largely blind to the kind of sensitive information the FCC claims as its chief motivation for the rulemaking.
Double Standard – Leaving out the dominant 'edge' providers who are in fact the 'gatekeepers' of transactional information unnecessarily subjects consumers to two sets of different rules and different enforcement mechanisms for information exchange.
Transaction Costs of 'Opt-In' – Subjecting ISPs and ISPs alone to 'opt-in' requirements for nearly any use of consumer information, as all economists agree, significantly raises the transaction costs of precisely the kind of information exchanges that have so far fueled the 'cycle of innovation' that elsewhere the FCC praises as the source of the Internet’s phenomenal success. To do so only for those providers who have the least access to transaction data is both arbitrary and capricious.
benton.org/headlines/georgetowns-larry-downes-down-fccs-broadband-privacy-plan | Broadcasting&Cable
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

EU PARLIAMENT PUSHES AHEAD WITH PLANS TO BLOCK, REMOVE TERRORIST CONTENT ONLINE
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jennifer Baker]
Civil liberties Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) approved plans to create a law that will block terrorist content online.The counter terrorism directive also deals with terrorism training and financing as well as “Internet propaganda, and the misuse of the Internet for terrorist purposes." It was passed by 41 votes to four, with 10 abstentions meaning that the parliament’s chief negotiator, German MEP Monika Hohlmeier, can now start talks with the European ministers for justice and home affairs on a final text. The initial draft proposal contained no reference to online activity, but Hohlmeier introduced two new sections taken in part from the EU law against child sex abuse. Under the latest wording, national authorities must take measures to ensure the prompt removal of illegal content hosted from within their territory that constitutes public incitement to commit a terrorist offence. If this is not feasible, they may take the necessary measures to block access to such content “while adhering to transparent procedure, adequate safeguards, and subject to judicial review.” “It’s easy to ban something on the Internet, but of course you can’t ban everything, and if people use terrorist-related Internet facilities, then they will be correspondingly dealt with," said Hohlmeier.
benton.org/headlines/eu-parliament-pushes-ahead-plans-block-remove-terrorist-content-online | Ars Technica
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BREXIT: THE FIRST MAJOR CASUALTY OF DIGITAL DEMOCRACY
[SOURCE: Brookings, AUTHOR: Dhruva Jaishankar]
What are the implications of Brexit for democracy? Arguably, Brexit represents the first major casualty of the ascent of digital democracy over representative democracy. This claim deserves an explanation. Many technology optimists have assumed that globalization would lead to the democratization of information and decision-making, and also greater cosmopolitanism. Citizens would be better informed, less likely to be silenced, and able to communicate their views more effectively to their leaders. They would also have greater empathy and understanding of other peoples the more they lived next to them, visited their countries, read their news, communicated, and did business with them. Or so the thinking went. But there has been little to justify such panglossianism. There is some evidence for a correlation between greater information, political democratization and economic progress, in that all three have advanced steadily, if at different paces, over the past two decades. But that correlation is weak. Instead, digital democracy -- the ability to receive information in almost real time through mass media and to make one's voice heard through social media -- has contributed to polarization, gridlock, dissatisfaction and misinformation. This is as equally applicable to the countries in which modern democracy took root -- in the United States and Europe -- as it is to India, the biggest and most complex democracy in the developing world.
benton.org/headlines/brexit-first-major-casualty-digital-democracy | Brookings
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Will the Supreme Court take an interest in net neutrality?

[Commentary] The network neutrality opinion may be the most significant court decision in the telecom space since the Supreme Court’s Brand X decision a decade ago. In a highly deferential decision, the DC Circuit court ratified the Federal Communications Commission’s controversial reclassification of broadband Internet access as a Title II common carrier service, setting the stage for a broad regulatory agenda and permitting greater oversight over the Internet ecosystem. Given the stakes, it is unsurprising that the agency’s opponents refuse to throw in the towel, instead vowing to take the case to the Supreme Court. But will the high court take an interest in the case? If the Justices are interested in the case, there is one important legal question they may find worthy of their time and it is rooted in the deference that was key to the agency’s victory: the scope of the “major questions” exception to the Chevron doctrine.

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