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December 2016

FTC Announces Agenda for PrivacyCon 2017

The Federal Trade Commission announced the agenda for its second PrivacyCon, a public forum that will continue and expand collaboration among leaders from academia, research, consumer advocacy, and industry on the privacy and security implications of emerging technologies.

PrivacyCon 2017 will take place in Washington (DC) on Jan. 12, 2017 and include opening remarks from FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. The conference will feature 18 presentations of original research on important consumer privacy and security issues and a closing panel moderated by Jessica Rich, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. The event will cover five major topic areas: the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data; mobile privacy; consumer privacy expectations; online behavioral advertising; and information security. During each session, panelists will present their privacy research and then participate in a discussion addressing the broader issues raised by the research.

Newspapers Deliver Across the Ages

Newspapers remain largely a print medium, but the dramatic growth in digital media in recent years has compelled newspaper publishers to re-think their distribution models and become multi-platform content providers. According to the recent study, 81% of monthly newspaper readers engage with the print product, with 51% reading print exclusively. The remaining 49% reads a newspaper on at least one digital platform, with 30% reading both digital and print. Traditionally, newspaper audiences have been more educated, affluent and older than non-newspaper readers.

As digital media have gained in prominence, newspapers have attracted younger readers. Newspaper readers are still educated and affluent, but their ages are more reflective of the general population than they have been in the past. For example, 13% of the U.S. population is 70 or older, and this age group now accounts for 15% of the total monthly newspaper audience. Compared to previous decades, younger readers now account for a greater percentage of newspaper readers. Notably, Millennials 21-34 make up 25% of the U.S. population and now represent 24% of the total monthly newspaper readership. Based on the shift in age of the newspaper reader, it’s clear that the newspaper industry’s adoption of digital distribution has allowed it to reach adults of all ages.

The Hole in the Digital Economy

If the next president intends to improve American infrastructure and expand economic opportunities, there’s no better place to start than with the millions of people who still lack broadband access and computer skills.

Does everyone deserve access to affordable high-speed Internet, just like water, sewers, electricity, and telephone service? In Ma’Niyah Larry’s apartment and at the Ashbury Community Center, where Monica Moore rebooted her career, you can see that the argument could be made. “There is never a shortage of people who want to show up here and learn,” Bill Callahan, director of the Connect Your Community collaborative, remarked as we looked around the community center.

Trump, Silicon Valley's tech titans share more goals than you think

[Commentary] President-elect Donald Trump may learn that the technology firms, who at first glance have little to do with the industrial economy, will in fact play a central role in transforming and reviving the physical economy in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. For it is information technology that will power the Internet of Things, connected cars, smart infrastructure, additive 3D manufacturing, and revolutions in health care, energy, and education.

Silicon Valley might come to appreciate an administration that doesn’t strangle public financing markets with rules and costs that discourage initial public offerings (IPOs), or for that matter block other innovations in biotech, fintech, transportation, and health. Trump, in turn, might learn about the complexity and necessity of integrated global supply-chains, the importance of cross-border data flows, the positive-sum virtues of free and open trade, and the heroic achievements of immigrant technologists and entrepreneurs, who create far more jobs than they could ever take.

[Bret Swanson is president of the technology research firm Entropy Economics LLC and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy.]

A blueprint for getting more women into information technology

The good news is that correcting the cultural, institutional and unconscious biases that push grils away from information technology is not all that difficult. A blueprint for doing so was drawn up by Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College, a small science and engineering powerhouse in Claremont (CA). Dr Klawe raised the percentage of women graduating in computer science from less than 15% in 2006 to 55% in 2016, primarily by removing intimidation in the classroom, and abolishing all notions about some people being good at computer science and others not. Overall, Dr Klawe has seven tips for getting more women into IT, including early internships and hiring lots of female faculty members as mentors and role models. The incoming White House could do much to bridge the widening gap in America’s IT workforce by embracing the Harvey Mudd model. In particular, as a way of getting more computer-science teachers into high schools across the country, it would be a far more “innovative approach to training” than anything tried so far.

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