1. Monthly archive
  2. November 2016

November 2016

Facebook, Google and now Verizon are accelerating their tracking efforts despite consumers’ privacy concerns

[Commentary] Verizon has topped itself by playing Russian roulette with consumer trust in an attempt to compete with the advertising businesses of Google and Facebook. In an e-mail announcement recently to select subscribers, Verizon signaled how it intends to compete with those two powerhouses, outlining its plan to combine offline information, such as postal address, e-mail address and device type, with AOL browser cookies, Apple and Google advertising IDs, and their own unique identifier header. Coupled with all of their customers’ browsing history and app usage, this mass of customer data will make for a rich competitive product to Facebook and Google.

There’s just one problem: This practice requires explicit opt-in consent from consumers under the new Federal Communications Commission privacy rules. Although the rules are not yet required to be adopted (and notably on the chopping block in a Trump presidency), it's hard to argue that Verizon’s plan doesn't violate the spirit of the rulemaking.

[Jason Kint is the CEO of Digital Content Next]

Google, ACLU call to delay government hacking rule

A coalition of 26 organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Google, signed a letter asking lawmakers to delay a measure that would expand the government’s hacking authority. The letter asks Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), plus House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to further review proposed changes to Rule 41 and delay its implementation until July 1, 2017. The Department of Justice’s alterations to the rule would allow law enforcement to use a single warrant to hack multiple devices beyond the jurisdiction that the warrant was issued in.

President-elect Trump’s pick for attorney general could be bad news for Silicon Valley

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general probably wouldn’t have been the tech industry’s first choice. Sen Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is on the opposite side of several issues that are close to Silicon Valley’s heart and related to the Justice Department. Here are some key areas where tech giants could clash with Sen Sessions if his nomination is successful:

Encryption: When Apple and the Department of Justice faced off over an encrypted iPhone used by one of the shooters in a mass killing in San Bernardino (CA), the tech industry rallied around Apple. But Sen Sessions came out strong on the government’s side.

E-mail privacy: Reforming the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to require the government to get a warrant to search the contents of your inbox is something Congress (and the public) generally supports — even if they haven’t managed to get it done yet. But earlier in 2016, Sen Sessions proposed an amendment to an ECPA reform bill that alarmed some privacy advocates.

Immigration: Sen Sessions is a longtime proponent of more limits on immigration. In October, he suggested that the United States may want to do away with the H-1B visa program, which allows companies to recruit foreign workers if they can’t fill positions domestically. That puts him at odds with the tech industry, which generally wants to expand that program. In fact, a group backed by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg called FWD.us supports immigration reform — including more H-1B visas. In 2014, an ad campaign from the group rattled Sen Sessions so much that he lashed out at Zuckerberg during a speech on the Senate floor.

How AT&T defends its free data policy to skeptical regulators

Parent company AT&T is defending a feature with DirecTV before regulators who said in Nov that they harbor “serious concerns” about the practice, in a fight over how consumers get to experience video on their mobile devices. The program allows consumers to watch as much DirecTV as they want on their AT&T cellphone plans without that consumption eating into customers' monthly data allotments. The exemptions, which AT&T will also apply to its new streaming video app, DirecTV Now, are perfectly good for consumers, the company said in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission.

“Consumers have enthusiastically embraced Data Free TV,” the letter reads. (AT&T owns DirecTV.) As AT&T uses Data Free TV to promote its proprietary services to consumers, other companies could be harmed by the move, critics have said. For example, if Netflix refused to play on AT&T's terms, consumers who watched “Orange is the New Black” on AT&T's data network could find that they were depleting their available data. This would lead to DirecTV having an advantage over Netflix. And the gap would become even more pronounced for smaller media and Internet companies, skeptics say. In its letter, AT&T responded to those claims by arguing that its practice of exempting DirecTV is good for consumers and that it doesn't exclusively benefit its own bottom line. “AT&T makes its sponsored data program available to all content providers on the same terms and conditions,” the letter said. “In fact, AT&T went further in meeting the nondiscrimination requirement than traditional law would require.”

Hackers can now report bugs in Defense Dept. websites without fear of prosecution

The Defense Department became the first US government agency to launch a policy enabling researchers to report bugs or flaws they discover in its websites without fear of prosecution. Calling it a “see something, say something” policy for the digital domain, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said the program is aimed at improving the security of the Pentagon’s unclassified, public-facing networks. The Army also opened registration for Hack the Army, a challenge in which researchers and hackers scour Army sites for software flaws and compete for thousands of dollars in bounty rewards. The Army contest explicitly authorizes researchers to try to hack a limited set of Army systems to find weaknesses. Meanwhile, the new policy is aimed at creating a way for hackers or researchers who come across flaws to report them without exposing themselves to criminal liability.

“This is a historic moment for hackers and the U.S. government,” said Katie Moussouris, founder of Luta Security and an adviser to the Pentagon on the new policy. “For the first time since hacking became a felony offense over 30 years ago, the Department of Defense has now opened the doors for ongoing vulnerability disclosure from helpful hackers who want to help secure these systems without fear of legal prosecution.”

TV still the top source for election results, but digital platforms rise

A substantial majority of US voters – 84% – followed along as results trickled in on election night, and television was by far their most common way of tracking returns. Nearly nine-in-ten of those who followed returns (88%) did so on TV, while 48% used online platforms. About one-in-five (21%) used social networks such as Twitter or Facebook, according to a Pew Research Center post-election survey. The share of voters who tracked election returns on TV was similar to the share who did so during the last presidential election (92% in 2012, 88% this year). On the other hand, digital sources have gained ground. The share of voters who followed returns online increased by 14 percentage points since 2012 (from 34% to 48%), while the share who tracked results using a social networking site more than doubled (from 8% to 21%).

In Trump territory, local press tries to distance itself from national media

It is an odd paradox in a small community: people shop with their local TV reporters and send their kids to school with the children of the editors of their hometown newspaper. They know their local journalists not simply as a byline but as the reporter who sits in the fourth row from the front on the right side of the church every Sunday. They don’t always see them as “the media.” The media are CNN and The New York Times and the Huffington Post. The media that deserves to be put in pens, like cattle, as Tom Matthews, editor of the Wayne County Press wrote in a recent column.

In the coming months, local journalists, like their national counterparts, are sure to face more criticism as Trump prepares to take office. There are two things at play: one is what role journalists will have under a president who has been outwardly hostile of the watchdogs of government, and the other is to what extent people will be willing to listen if the journalism doesn’t confirm previously held beliefs. In other words, how will any journalist deliver credible news under a model in which people doesn’t necessarily want information but rather something else?

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