Daily Digest 11/30/2017 (Jim Nabors, Maurice Hinchey)

As an unwavering champion of network neutrality, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn believes in setting the record straight. Chairman Pai made a number of claims and predictions in his dissent from the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet Order.

Chairman Pai: The 2015 Open Internet Order seizes unilateral authority to regulate Internet conduct, to direct where Internet service providers put their investments, and to determine what service plans will be available to the American public.
False. The Order in fact kept your broadband provider from blocking, throttling (slowing down), paving tollways on their network or at the point of interconnection, and interfering with the ability of content and customers to reach one another. No regulation of the Internet writ large (this is clear and obvious), no investment prescription, and no service plan determinations.

Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against a Syracuse man for allegedly threatening to kill Congressman John Katko and his family if he did not support net neutrality. Specifically, federal prosecutors allege that the man left a voicemail at Congressman Katko’s office saying, among other things: ‘[I]f you don’t support net neutrality, I will find you and your family and I will kill . . . you . . . all. Do you understand? I will literally find all . . . of . . . you and your progeny and just wipe you from the face of the earth.’

I condemn in the strongest possible terms any attempts to intimidate government officials with violent threats, and in particular, efforts to target their families. I would also like to express my sympathy to Congressman Katko and his family and thank law enforcement officials for taking this matter seriously.

[Commentary] Net neutrality is founded on the core principle that everyone should have equal access to the internet, regardless of what content the individual chooses to consume. It is the only way we can ensure a level playing field for all citizens of this country. We have many sources of disparity we already reckon with regularly — income, education, race, health, gender, geographic location, and the list goes on. Why are we creating another one? Unencumbered access to the Internet is a necessity today for all manner of personal, economic and social transactions in our digitally connected society. The Internet is all about freedom and openness and diversity and the multitude of important values these simple words embed. In management education we increasingly use the word “open” to characterize the nature of important business activities today like “alliances” and “innovation.” Let’s not create another walled garden that will limit our access to knowledge and services that our society so desperately needs. Let’s not create another digital divide. [Ritu Agarwal is a professor, senior associate dean for research and the Robert H. Smith Dean’s Chair of Information Systems at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. ]

A Q&A with Sarah Morris, director of Open Internet Policy and senior policy counsel at the Open Technology Institute. 

We urge the Federal Communications Commission to take its vote to kill net neutrality off the agenda, but our hopes aren’t high. And without these rules, everyday users and small businesses will pay the price, free speech will suffer, and competition and innovation will be eroded.

While much the internet is in an uproar about Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to roll back Network Neutrality, I’d like the suggest that they’re focusing on the wrong thing. The reason Pai’s decision is the wrong one is not because the lack of net neutrality is, prima facie, a bad thing. Rather, it’s because we don’t have anything close to free market conditions in the U.S. when it comes to broadband.

Telecommunications and electric cooperatives are playing an important role in bringing high-speed broadband to rural America, according to a new report from the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). Using FCC data, researchers identified 87 cooperative gigabit deployments as of December 2016. The majority of the nation’s 260 telecom cooperatives have deployed fiber-to-the-home.  About 60 of the nation’s 900 electric cooperatives have deployed fiber, and that number is growing fast. “Cooperatives have quietly proved that they can build fiber-to-the-home networks that are capable of speeds of more than 1 gigabit per second,” the report authors said.

Beyond a photo, the iPhone X’s front sensors scan 30,000 points to make a 3D model of your face. That’s how the iPhone X unlocks and makes animations that might have once required a Hollywood studio. Now that a phone can scan your mug, what else might apps want to do with it? They could track your expressions to judge if you’re depressed. They could guess your gender, race and even sexuality. They might combine your face with other data to observe you in stores—or walking down the street. Apps aren’t doing most of these things, yet. But is Apple doing enough to stop it? After I pressed executives this week, Apple made at least one change—retroactively requiring an app tapping into face data to publish a privacy policy.

This report examines (1) trends in the gender, racial, and ethnic composition of the technology sector workforce; and (2) oversight of technology companies' compliance with equal employment and affirmative action requirements. The estimated percentage of minority technology workers increased from 2005 to 2015, but GAO found that no growth occurred for female and Black workers, whereas Asian and Hispanic workers made statistically significant increases (see figure). Further, female, Black, and Hispanic workers remain a smaller proportion of the technology workforce—mathematics, computing, and engineering occupations—compared to their representation in the general workforce. These groups have also been less represented among technology workers inside the technology sector than outside it. In contrast, Asian workers were more represented in these occupations than in the general workforce.

More than 5 million people in the United Kingdom could be entitled to compensation from Google if a class action against the internet giant for allegedly harvesting personal data is successful. A group led by the former executive director of consumer body Which?, Richard Lloyd, and advised by City law firm Mischon de Reya claims Google unlawfully collected personal information by bypassing the default privacy settings on the iPhone between June 2011 and February 2012. They have launched a legal action with the aim of securing compensation for those affected. The group, called Google You Owe Us, says that approximately 5.4 million people in Britain used the iPhone during this period and could be entitled to compensation. Google is accused of breaching principles in the UK’s data protection laws in a “violation of trust” against iPhone users.