BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Democratic Senators Have Business Data Service Reform Issues
How Comcast convinced customers to buy “near-worthless” service plans
Networks of ‘Things’ - NIST [links to Benton summary]
Kentucky’s high-speed network project runs into delays
Cities, States Battle Over Municipal Broadband [links to Benton summary]
Frontier to extend 50 Mbps speeds to 2 million homes over the next year [links to Benton summary]
David Ignatius: Let ICANN geeks rule over the Internet [links to Washington Post]
HEALTH
"Mapping Broadband Health in America" Provides Data-Driven Tool for Developing Broadband Health Policies and Solutions - FCC press release
Commissioner Clyburn Remarks at Launch of Mapping Broadband Health in America Platform - speech [links to Benton summary]
ELECTIONS 2016
Trump’s already got an excuse for a November loss: the election will be “rigged"
Donald Trump Denounced After Saying “The Election’s Going To Be Rigged” [links to Media Matters for America]
Donald Trump has no idea what his "rigged election" talk could unleash [links to Vox Media]
Democratic National Committee CEO Amy Dacey resigns in wake of email breach [links to Washington Post]
Is the Elite Media Failing to Reach Trump Voters?
Donald Trump Says He’ll Spend More Than $500 Billion on Infrastructure [links to Bloomberg]
Megyn Kelly thinks she knows why Donald Trump wants to change the debate dates: To get a larger audience [links to Washington Post]
Trump blasts media over airtime, says he's 'running against a rigged press' [links to Washington Post]
Donald Trump suggests he may revoke New York Times’ press credentials [links to Benton summary]
Donald Trump on New York Times: ‘They Don’t Write Good’ [links to Benton summary]
Freedom of the press: Is Trump the next Erdoğan? - The Hill op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Holman Jenkins: Trump campaign needs a second front, using paid TV to send out a better image [links to Wall Street Journal]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
Comcast Defends 'Pay-For-Privacy' Pricing, Makes Case To FCC
Public Knowledge to FCC: Anonymized Data Still Needs Regulating
President Obama: US Could Punish Russia for Hacks, With Enough Proof [links to Benton summary]
Increasing the Potential of IoT through Security and Transparency - NTIA blog [links to Benton summary]
Op-Ed: An advocacy storm is coming. Could it water your garden? [links to International Association of Privacy Professionals]
Here's How Government Thinks Nanotech Will Transform Cyber [links to nextgov]
New Library Privacy Guidelines offer strategies for protecting patron data in the digital environment [links to American Library Association]
SURVEILLANCE
Judge blasts FBI for bugging courthouse, throws out 200 hours of recordings [links to Ars Technica]
Privacy Activists Launch Database to Track Global Sales of Surveillance Tech [links to Vice]
TELECOM
FCC To Fine Two Individuals $25,000 Each For Falsifying Caller ID Information With The Intent To Harm [links to Federal Communications Commission]
RADIO
Rush Limbaugh Renews Long-Term Talk Radio Contract [links to New York Times]
CONTENT
Judge wipes out patent troll’s $625M verdict against Apple [links to Ars Technica]
JOURNALISM
Vice Media to Begin Nightly HBO News Program on Sept. 26 [links to New York Times]
Why Calls for a ‘National Conversation’ Are Futile [links to New York Times]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
OMB Policy Aims to Cut Data Center Spending By 25 Percent [links to nextgov]
POLICYMAKERS
Mayor de Blasio Announces Sree Sreenivasan As City's New Chief Digital Officer [links to City of New York]
COMPANY NEWS
Verizon taps a European cellular executive to run its wireless business -- Ronan Dunne had run Telefonica’s U.K. operation [links to Vox Media]
Moody’s Says Viacom Unlikely to Retain Rating [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
China, Not Silicon Valley, Is Cutting Edge in Mobile Tech [links to New York Times]
Max Schrems, The 28-Year-Old Activist Who Took on Facebook. And Won [links to Bloomberg]
MORE ONLINE
San Francisco rejects 'tech tax' plan to require firms to back housing programs [links to Benton summary]
Seven innovative mobile libraries and the people who created them [links to Christian Science Monitor]
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
DEMOCRATIC SENS HAVE BDS REFORM ISSUES
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
A group of Democratic Sens are urging the Federal Communications Commission to factor in more recent cable business data service (BDS) information into their calculation for revamping its rules on business broadband service.
That came in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, according to the Invest in Broadband for America coalition, which was formed to urge the FCC to "get its facts right" before proceeding. In their letter, the senators, from rural states, said: “As you work toward a final rule, it is especially important for the Commission to use all the available data, including the data submitted earlier this year by the major cable operators, to both measure competitive markets accurately and ensure that the regulations for noncompetitive markets are based on the real cost to provide service, especially in low-density, high cost rural markets.” Signing on to the letter were Sens Jon Tester (D-MT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bob Casey (D-PA), Angus King Jr. (I-ME), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI).
benton.org/headlines/democratic-senators-have-business-data-service-reform-issues | Broadcasting&Cable | The Hill | Fierce
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HOW COMCAST CONVINCED CUSTOMERS TO BUY "NEAR-WORTHLESS" SERVICE PLANS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
The Washington state attorney general's $100 million lawsuit against Comcast uses a sales script and transcripts of chats with customers to make the case that Comcast deceived subscribers when marketing what the state calls "near-worthless" service plans. Since January 2011, Comcast made $73 million selling Service Protection Plans (SPP) for up to $5 a month to 500,000 customers in Washington. But the service plans were sold to customers under false pretenses, with Comcast describing the plans as being far more comprehensive and useful than they were, Attorney General Bob Ferguson alleged. One of Ferguson's key pieces of evidence is a sales script that Comcast used until June 2016. (Comcast recently made changes to address the attorney general's complaints.) Though Comcast service plans had various limitations and purportedly "covered" certain services that were actually available for free, the "sales scripts did not include any reference to limitations on the SPP's coverage," the AG's lawsuit said. "Nor did Comcast's training manuals teach its employees to disclose the limitations to Washington consumers."
benton.org/headlines/how-comcast-convinced-customers-buy-near-worthless-service-plans | Ars Technica
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KENTUCKY'S HIGH-SPEED NETWORK PROJECT RUNS INTO DELAYS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Bruce Schreiner]
KentuckyWired hit a speed bump when the planned fiber optic network meant to spread high-speed Internet throughout the state became entangled in longer-than-expected efforts to gain access to utility poles, lawmakers were told. As a result, completion of the project’s initial phases could be delayed by 10 to 12 months, said Chris Moore, executive director of the Kentucky Communications Network Authority, which oversees and maintains the KentuckyWired project. Now the target date for completing those first phases is the third quarter of 2017, he said. The entire project could be wrapped up by the first quarter of 2019 — about four to eight months later than anticipated, Moore said. The slowdown in the initial phases drew concern as a Kentucky legislative panel received an update on the vast project’s progress. “Now why would it take that long?” said state Rep Rita Smart (D-Richmond). Moore said that 85 percent of the fiber optic cables will be attached to utility poles, mostly in rural areas. The rest of the cables will be placed underground, mainly in urban areas. Project managers had to obtain agreements from owners of the poles, he said. “We ran into delays in getting pole attachment agreements with two of the largest pole owners in the commonwealth,” Moore said. Those agreements are now in hand, he said. But another potential slowdown has been obtaining easements from private landowners, he said. Potential cost overruns are “yet to be fully developed,” but project managers are working to minimize any additional costs, he said.
benton.org/headlines/kentuckys-high-speed-network-project-runs-delays | Associated Press
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HEALTH
MAPPING BROADBAND HEALTH IN AMERICA
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission’s Connect2Health Task Force launched the Mapping Broadband Health in America tool, a web-based mapping tool that will enable and inform more efficient, data-driven decision making at the intersection of broadband and health. By allowing users to ask and answer questions about broadband and health at the county and census block levels, the tool provides critical data that can help drive broadband health policies and connected health solutions for this critical space. The mapping tool is an interactive experience, showing various aspects of connectivity and health for every state and county in the United States. Users can generate customized maps that display broadband access, adoption and speed data alongside various health measures (e.g., obesity, diabetes, disabilities and physician access) in urban and rural areas. These maps can be used by both public and private sectors and local communities to identify not only gaps, but also opportunities. Examples of some of the initial findings:
The picture of health is vastly different in connected communities vs. digitally isolated communities.
There is a significant gap between rural and urban counties.
benton.org/headlines/mapping-broadband-health-america-provides-data-driven-tool-developing-broadband-health | Federal Communications Commission | View the tool
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ELECTIONS 2016
TRUMP'S EXCUSE FOR NOVEMBER LOSS: THE ELECTION WILL BE "RIGGED"
[SOURCE: Vox, AUTHOR: Tara Golshan]
Three months out, Donald Trump has already started warning people the election in November might be "rigged" for Hillary Clinton, telling Republican voters to "watch very closely." Speaking with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Trump insinuated President Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in 2012 in fixed election, said his own primary win was rigged "a little bit," that Clinton beat Bernie Sanders in a "rigged" primary, and that Democrats would attempt to rig the 2016 election for Clinton. "I’m telling you, November 8th, we’d better be careful because that election is going to be rigged," Trump said. "And I hope the Republicans are watching closely or it’s going to be taken away from us."
Trump’s new commentary on voter fraud seems to be coming from political strategist and Trump’s close adviser Roger Stone, who told Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos that Trump has to "begin talking about it constantly." "I think we have widespread voter fraud, but the first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about it constantly," Stone said. "He needs to say for example, today would be a perfect example: ‘I am leading in Florida. The polls all show it. If I lose Florida, we will know that there’s voter fraud. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.’" Stone added that if Clinton were to "steal" this and win, her inauguration would be a "bloodbath."
benton.org/headlines/trumps-already-got-excuse-november-loss-election-will-be-rigged | Vox | Breitbart
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IS THE ELITE MEDIA FAILING TO REACH TRUMP VOTERS?
[SOURCE: Slate, AUTHOR: Isaac Chotiner]
A Q&A with Glenn Greenwald, co-founding editor of the Intercept, and best known for his role in reporting on Edward Snowden's disclosure of National Security Agency material.
During the course of the interview, we talked about why media elites have trouble reaching Trump supporters, Greenwald’s differences with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and the future of privacy in a world of hacks. Asked, "How do you think about Trump vs. Clinton, given your strong anti-establishment feelings?" Greenwald said, "Just take a step back for a second. One of the things that is bothering me and bothered me about the Brexit debate, and is bothering me a huge amount about the Trump debate, is that there is zero elite reckoning with their own responsibility in creating the situation that led to both Brexit and Trump and then the broader collapse of elite authority. The reason why Brexit resonated and Trump resonated isn’t that people are too stupid to understand the arguments. The reason they resonated is that people have been so fucked by the prevailing order in such deep and fundamental and enduring ways that they can’t imagine that anything is worse than preservation of the status quo. You have this huge portion of the populace in both the U.K. and the US that is so angry and so helpless that they view exploding things without any idea of what the resulting debris is going to be to be preferable to having things continue, and the people they view as having done this to them to continue in power. That is a really serious and dangerous and not completely invalid perception that a lot of people who spend their days scorning Trump and his supporters or Brexit played a great deal in creating."
benton.org/headlines/elite-media-failing-reach-trump-voters | Slate
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SECURITY/PRIVACY
COMCAST ON PRIVACY
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Wendy Davis]
Comcast is asking the Federal Communications Commission to reject proposed rules that would prohibit broadband providers from charging higher fees to subscribers who decline behaviorally targeted ads. "A bargained-for exchange of information for service is a perfectly acceptable and widely used model throughout the U.S. economy, including the Internet ecosystem, and is consistent with decades of legal precedent and policy goals related to consumer protection and privacy," Comcast writes in a new FCC filing. The broadband provider adds that a prohibition on a pay-for-privacy pricing system "would harm consumers by, among other things, depriving them of lower-priced offerings." Comcast also contends the FCC "has no authority to prohibit or limit these types of programs."
benton.org/headlines/comcast-defends-pay-privacy-pricing-makes-case-fcc | MediaPost
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PK TO FCC: ANONYMIZED DATA STILL NEEDS REGULATING
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Public Knowledge says that just because a broadband customer's information is anonymized does not mean those customers should not have to give permission for it to be shared with third parties. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, joined by the other Democrats, has proposed requiring customers to opt in to share their information with third parties, Internet service providers, who don't like the FCC proposal in general, have said that in any event the FCC need not apply its new framework to information that cannot be traced to an individual user. Public Knowledge strongly begs to differ and recently was trying to convince the FCC of its point of view. In meetings with FCC staffers, according to an ex parte filing, Public Knowledge representatives said that Congress intended that customers should have control of how their information is used, period. Public Knowledge argued that it is clear that Congress's goal was not "merely to avert a negative harm of embarrassment or exposure of information to third parties, but a general desire to ensure that when a subscriber sends a communications transmission, that the transmission is in any way utilized by the carrier for its own gain." If that is the case, the group told the FCC, "then anonymization is no help," and would still "convey a windfall to the carrier at the expense of consumer control of the information in a way that Congress did not intend." ISPs argue that consumers also gain through third-party use of anonymized data since that supports the model of free online content that users have come to expect.
benton.org/headlines/public-knowledge-fcc-anonymized-data-still-needs-regulating | Broadcasting&Cable
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