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Apparently, the Federal Communications Commission will vote later this month on whether to require cellular carriers to better protect their customers' privacy.
The regulations would require carriers to take "reasonable precautions" to protect personal information, such as the numbers customers dial, the length of calls and their location. The carriers would be barred, with certain exceptions, from sharing the information with third parties without the customers' permission.
FCC to vote on cellphone privacy rules FCC to Clarify Rules on How Carriers Can Use Customer’s Call Data (WSJ)
Maureen Ohlhausen, a Republican member of the Federal Trade Commission, warned against overly aggressive government regulation of online privacy.
Instead, she said the FTC should support voluntary industry-led efforts to develop privacy protection guidelines. "Self-regulation can also offer consumers more privacy choices," Commissioner Ohlhausen said at the Digital Advertising Alliance's conference. "Voluntary codes of conduct and industry-led enforcement are particularly appropriate in dynamic sectors of the economy where traditional regulation may stifle innovation and slow growth." She said companies should develop the privacy guidelines without "undue government involvement." "Otherwise, industry may lose the incentive to participate and instead take a wait and see attitude about whether Congress would ever impose such requirements through legislation," she said.
FTC’s Ohlhausen warns against privacy regulation FTC's Ohlhausen Favors Privacy Self-Regulation (AdWeek)
Top law enforcement officials from San Francisco and New York plan to meet with some of the largest US smartphone makers next week to help thwart the rise in cellphone thefts and robberies.
San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that their meeting scheduled to take place in New York City on June 13 will be dubbed a "Smartphone Summit." Gascon and Schneiderman said they plan to meet with representatives from Apple, Google, Samsung Electronics, and Microsoft and urge them to create new technology to permanently and quickly disable stolen smartphones, making them worthless to thieves. In San Francisco, where more than half all robberies involve a cellphone, Gascon has called on the companies to create new technology such as a "kill switch" to render phones useless. His office cites a 27-year old tourist who suffered severe knife wounds to his face and throat two weeks ago after being robbed by two men over his iPhone. In New York, Schneiderman said there was a 40% spike in cellphone thefts last year. Authorities there have coined the thefts of the popular iPhone and other Apple-related products as "Apple-picking."
US officials to meet over cellphone thefts N.Y., S.F. Officials to Meet With Apple, Samsung and Others Over Rising Smartphone Theft (WSJ)
The co-authors of the CALM Act want the Federal Communications Commission to give them an update on the progress of the law's implementation, which requires video providers to insure advertisement volume is consistent with the surrounding program.
The law went into effect approximately six months ago and they want to know, for one thing, how many complaints the FCC has received about loud commercials since then, as well as how many entities have been granted waivers of temporary relief from that implementation. In a letter to acting FCC chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) did not indicate any impatience with that implementation, and a spokesperson for Rep Eshoo confirmed it was simply a six-month check-up rather than a response to any complaint. "We have not heard any bad reports," he said.
Reps Eshoo, Whitehouse Want FCC Update on CALM Act Hey, FCC: What Are You Doing About Those Loud TV Ads? (The Wrap)
Ten years ago, poker shows proliferated on television and then faded but with several states and federal legislators moving to legalize the game online, some networks are betting that TV poker is back.
"Online poker will introduce a lot of new people to the game and I think that will bring another big wave to television," said Jamie Horowitz, vice president original programming and production for Walt Disney's ESPN. ESPN televises the popular World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournament, currently taking place in Las Vegas through July 6. ESPN will air 26 segments on WSOP starting on July 23. Hollywood agents, TV executives, poker and gaming executives have been meeting to discuss and pitch new poker programs, from reality shows about female tournament players, to shows potentially featuring new online gaming companies.
US networks bet on comeback for TV poker
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced that four public television stations will receive funding totaling $110,000 to support the expansion of Ready To Learn (RTL) projects in their communities.
Ready To Learn is a public media education program funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement to support the development of early math and literacy skills for children ages 2-8, especially those from low-income families. The effort funds the development and distribution of PBS KIDS multiplatform content to help kids build these critical skills. Over the past year, KBTC (Tacoma, Wash.), Iowa Public Television (Johnston, Iowa), WFSU (Tallahassee, Fla.), and WVIZ/PBS ideastream (Cleveland, Ohio) have provided PBS KIDS interactive math and literacy programming and services, developed through RTL for children from low-income backgrounds, to their local communities. This latest funding from CPB will enable these four stations to continue their current projects through September 2013, and expand their work to reach more children, teachers, and families.
Public Media Stations to Expand Early Learning Projects
Mobile is quickly becoming the new normal for YouTube, and it’s starting to pay off: 40 percent of all of the service’s video views in the U.S. are now coming from mobile devices, a YouTube spokesperson told GigaOM.
Worldwide, mobile is now responsible for 25 percent of all of YouTube’s video views. This, and the roll-out of new mobile apps, has helped YouTube to triple its mobile ad revenue in the past six months, according to Bloomberg, which got YouTube VP of Sales Lucas Watson go on the record about the mobile growth.
YouTube’s mobile ad revenue triples as mobile views reach 40% in the US
[Commentary] Digital-age broadband and cloud computing are not only revolutionizing our economy, they are transforming education as we know it. In time, traditional classroom teaching tools like blackboards and books are bound to be delivered through high-speed bandwidth. This means students learning about cell technology through a digital rendering in an interactive book. It means using gaming to explore math concepts like the Pythagorean theorem. It means developing videos to experience historical events. If all this sounds gee-whiz and futuristic, consider that these changes have already taken place in so much of our lives. The smartphones in our pockets, growing ubiquity of tablets and arrival of big data have brought us always-on connectivity and endless access to information. They have revolutionized the way we communicate, connect and create at home and at work. It’s time for a similar upgrade in the classroom.
Of course, new technologies are already filtering into our schools. But to have really successful digital classrooms, we need bandwidth — and lots of it. We can do something about it by updating an existing program at the Federal Communications Commission called the E-Rate. It is time to update the program for the challenges of the digital age. We should reboot, reinvigorate and recharge the E-Rate program. Call it E-Rate 2.0.
Transforming education digitally
President Barack Obama announced his intent to appoint Steve Bennett and Angel Ruiz to be members of the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.
- Bennett is President and CEO of Symantec, a global software company that offers information security, storage and systems management products. From 2010 to 2013, he served on Symantec’s Board of Directors, serving as Chairman from 2011 to 2013. From 2000 to 2007, he was President and CEO of Intuit, a software company that provides products and services to support small business operations. Mr. Bennett joined Intuit after a 23-year career at General Electric, where he held management roles in various segments within the company, including GE Capital e-Business, GE Capital Vendor Financial Services, and GE Electrical Distribution and Control. He currently serves on the boards of American Airlines and AMR Corporation, the American Airlines parent company. Mr. Bennett received a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin.
- Ruiz is Head of Region North America at Ericsson, a global telecommunications equipment and services provider. Mr. Ruiz first joined Ericsson in 1990 and has held a number of sales and managerial positions, including Executive Vice President and General Manager for Cingular Key Account and Vice President and General Manager for Ericsson’s BellSouth (now AT&T) Key Account. Prior to joining Ericsson, Mr. Ruiz was the Senior Product Manager at Alcatel from 1988 to 1990, the Supervision Engineer and Senior Project Manager for Network Planning at Sprint from 1984 to 1988, the Engineering Supervisor for Non-switched Fixed Network, Special Services for AT&T from 1983 to 1984, and the Engineering Supervisor for Special Services for Bell Atlantic from 1980 to 1983. Mr. Ruiz received a B.S. from the University of Central Florida and an M.A. from John Hopkins University.
President Obama Taps Two for National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee
Charles Koch, chairman and CEO at Koch Industries, confirmed that his company is interested in buying newspapers, as long as they can be operated profitably.
He declined to say in the Journal report whether the company was interested in buying newspapers operated by Chicago-based Tribune Co., which have been for sale since February. It has been reported previously that Koch and his brother David Koch are interested in buying the Tribune papers, but those remarks were attributed to unnamed sources. In this latest report, Charles Koch disputed previous speculation that he would use newspapers to advance his political interests. "If we got in the media, it would need to stand on its own and have good economics, create real value and create value for the marketplace, or we wouldn't be interested," Koch said. "We wouldn't be interested in putting huge amounts of money in it on the bet that we can have a miraculous turnaround (of newspapers). We see it continuing to decline, the print media."
Koch brother confirms interest in buying newspapers Koch Confirms Interest in Acquiring Newspapers (WSJ)