Daily Digest 5/4/2018 (Bringing Back Privacy)

[Commentary] The Senate may soon be voting on net neutrality. The net neutrality debate is driven in part by the fact that Internet service providers (ISPs) have the technical ability and financial incentive to act as gatekeepers, picking winners and losers in the Internet marketplace. Perhaps an ISP will favor a particular airline reservation website or an online newspaper by blocking access to its competitors, or simply by making access to competitors’ content painfully slow. These delays matter; Google found that a majority of viewers typically abandon a website if they have to wait just three seconds. Members of Congress may not realize that ISPs can similarly pick winners and losers in elections. A modern campaign depends on the Internet to accept contributions, and to get its message out. If access to a campaign website is slow, impatient users will abandon the site, some credit card transactions will fail, campaign contributions will be lost, and fewer supporters will sign up to volunteer. The nation needs common-sense FCC rules that prohibit blocking of legal content, and other forms of unreasonable discrimination. This cannot happen while the FCC’s recent decision stands. Members of Congress who hope to use the Internet in the 2018 campaign could choose to rely on the kindness of ISPs, or they could vote to reverse the FCC’s dangerous decision using the Congressional Review Act (CRA), and thereby restore the Internet freedoms for constituents and for all Americans. 

[Peha is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and former Chief Technologist of the Federal Communications Commission]

Post Road Foundation, an organization funded by The Rockefeller Foundation, will fund studies in five rural communities to explore the economics of the telecom utility partnership. Post Road Foundation was established last year with the goal of spurring broadband deployment and ultimately economic development in unserved and underserved areas. Post Road Foundation President Waide Warner said the foundation has enlisted a team of experts to conduct what he called “pre-feasibility” studies to determine whether there might be opportunities for investors to fund broadband deployments undertaken by telecom providers in partnership with utilities, including electric companies, gas companies and water utilities. Post Road Foundation is covering 90% of the cost of the pre-feasibility studies, which are targeted for completion by late September. Based on the findings, the next step would be full-blown feasibility studies. The community partners include:

• Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation (Georgia and North Carolina)
• Presque Isle Electric & Gas Co-op (Michigan)
• City of Sanford (Maine)
• Old Town – Orono Fiber Corporation (Maine)
• A collaboration of community groups in the Downeast region, including Eastern Maine Electric Cooperative and Downeast Broadband

[Commentary] Our privacy framework no longer works. It must be changed. Now. Let’s begin by requiring “opt-in.” Before any business shares our personal data, we should have to grant it permission to do so, up-front and right at the outset. Then let’s simplify those ridiculous “terms of service agreements” that require our acceptance before we can even open up an app. Going a step further, let’s require any site that wishes to change its terms of service to notify us that it is doing so AND tell us what those changes will be, BEFORE they are implemented. Getting changes like these implemented is a two-step process, one legislative, one regulatory: First, Congress must pass a comprehensive privacy framework that guarantees users control over their data. Companies must be required, not urged, to do these things. Secondly, regulators must be empowered to implement and enforce these policies. Finally, let’s realize there are other dimensions to privacy protection that need to be part of our discussion. 

[Michael Copps served as a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission from May 2001 to December 2011 and was the FCC's Acting Chairman from January to June 2009. In 2012, Copps joined Common Cause to lead its Media and Democracy Reform Initiative.]

[Press release] House Commerce Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT): “Earlier this year we asked the Government Accountability Office to assess what would happen if reports were true that Trump’s FCC planned to move the $8 billion a year Universal Service Fund.  We were dismayed to learn from press reports that Chairman Pai unilaterally pressed forward with this plan that will cost recipients tens of millions of dollars a year without the benefit of GAO’s further analysis, without telling his fellow Commissioners, without input from the millions of Americans who depend on these funds, and without notifying Congress.  Unfortunately, this action is just the latest evidence of Chairman Pai’s casual disregard for the public’s input and determined avoidance of Congressional oversight.”

If you're a Sprint customer and have been frustrated by network performance, you may want to cheer on the deal with T-Mobile. If you're a T-Mobile customer, it doesn't represent much of an upgrade. For both groups, this tie-up—which still has to be approved by regulators—carries the risk of higher prices and fewer deals. For simple speed, though, the merger offers a lot of potential upside for Sprint users. Consider the results found by four nationwide tests of the big four carriers—two relying on crowdsourced data, two based on scheduled drive testing.

Politics and data are now inextricably linked. Cambridge Analytica was part of a world increasingly fueled by vast troves of personal data that billions of Internet users emit every day. Politicians now have the tools to target us each individually — based on data suggesting our race, religion, income, shopping habits, sexual orientation, medical concerns, personality traits, current location, past locations, pet preference or Zodiac sign if they'd like. Granular personal data on each of us can be used to create precise messages to any individual voter, then delivered to us through the online ecosystem over Facebook, Instagram, Google, Twitter and other free services. Such tactics have long been standard in commerce -- ever noticed how ads for those nice hiking boots keep following you around the Web? -- but all these tactics of manipulation are equally available to those working in largely unregulated political realms too. Experts expect this technology to only improve, especially as artificial intelligence and virtual reality steadily grow more powerful. The era of campaign season “deep fakes” -- imagine a convincing but phony clip of a politician doing something appalling -- is not far off.