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[Commentary] By any measure, the changes wrought by the Internet have been fast. In the less than 20 years since the Internet became commercially available, what began as an idea for scientists to share information by connecting their computers has grown to touch almost every aspect of our lives, from business, finance and education to shopping, relationships and entertainment. James McQuivey, digital disruption expert at Forrester Research, says: “The number one effect [of the internet] from a purely macroeconomic perspective is that we are witnessing the dramatic reduction of the friction that was presumed to be unavoidable in the modern economy.
Web oils the wheels of progress
Searches of financial terms on Google can be used to predict the direction of the stock market, according to an analysis of search engine behavior stretching back nearly a decade.
The research, by UK and US academics, is the latest attempt to mine online behavior patterns for clues about future movements in financial markets. The findings appeared to show that people do more searches on terms such as “stocks”, “portfolio” and “economics” when they are worried about the state of the markets, said Tobias Preis, associate professor of behavioral science and finance at Warwick Business School.
Google search proves to be new word in stock market prediction
[Commentary] I am a veteran print guy and have treated Twitter as an offshoot of what I do the rest of the time. But I have never thought of it as a primary source of news until the events in Boston and, in particular, the manhunt that took place in Cambridge and Watertown a few days after the bombings. News has moved to the digital sphere, but how we manage that shift is still evolving, and the shape of future journalism still unclear. We have seen glimpses of what it might be, but that's what they are -- only glimpses.
The changing face of news after Boston
Iranian users of Samsung mobile applications said that the company had notified them that they will no longer have access to the company's online store as of May 22. The move is seen as part of international sanctions on the country over its disputed nuclear program. The West has imposed banking and insurance sanctions on Iran since it suspects Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies. In the message, Samsung said that it cannot provide access to the store, known as Samsung Apps, in Iran because of "legal barriers."
Samsung to block access to app store in Iran
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is all but dead, again.
The controversial cybersecurity bill, which passed the House of Representatives last week, will almost certainly be shelved by the Senate, according to a representative of the Senate Commerce Committee. "We're not taking [CISPA] up," the committee representative said. "Staff and senators are divvying up the issues and the key provisions everyone agrees would need to be handled if we're going to strengthen cybersecurity. They'll be drafting separate bills." Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), chairman of the committee, said the passage of cybersecurity legislation is "important," but said the bill's "privacy protections are insufficient." That, coupled with the fact that President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the bill, has even CISPA's staunchest opponents, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, ready to bury CISPA and focus on future legislation.
"I think it's dead for now," says Michelle Richardson, legislative council with the ACLU. "CISPA is too controversial, it's too expansive, it's just not the same sort of program contemplated by the Senate last year. We're pleased to hear the Senate will probably pick up where it left off last year."
ACLU: CISPA Is Dead (For Now)
A senior European Commission official suggested regulators would not be swayed by requests from telecoms companies for more leniency in assessing mergers, saying there was no guarantee that bigger companies would result in more investment.
Cecilio Madero, deputy director-general for antitrust at the European Commission, said: "Frankly speaking, we do not have evidence that operators will invest more if they reach a bigger size as long as markets will remain fragmented and along national borders." Lobbying group the European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association (ETNO) said the gloomy outlook in the sector in Europe, compared with upbeat prospects in Asia and North America, called for a change in EU competition policy. "In reality, competition has shifted from the national level, and indeed from European level, to the global arena," said ETNO head Luigi Gambardella. But the EC's Madero said: "What we cannot do in any event is to give some companies a sort of blank check to consolidate within their national borders and increase prices for consumers on the basis of mere promises of further investments."
European antitrust regulator douses telco industry hopes of merger leniency
Networks are crazy with rage over Aereo, a startup that streams live broadcast content. But even as broadcasters are busy filing lawsuits against Aereo, they're also inking Web-streaming deals of their own.
Broadcasters are finally tapping into a potentially massive market, with more eyeballs and more ads. But they were generally afraid to do it until the Aereo threat loomed, argued Bernstein Research analyst Todd Juenger. "History suggests the networks and distributors can come out on top," Juenger wrote, joking that if it works out, broadcasters should "perhaps send a big 'thank you' note to Aereo, for providing the kick in the pants to motivate the industry into action." Juenger draws parallels between Aereo and TiVo, which set off a similar firestorm in 1999: After TV industry titans filed a barrage of unsuccessful lawsuits against TiVo, cable and satellite providers promptly launched DVR services of their own and ended up overtaking the market. So far, the Aereo story is quite similar.
Will broadcasters beat Aereo at its own game?
Some of the proposed changes to Europe's data protection laws would strip citizens of their privacy rights, a coalition of international civil liberties organizations said.
The European Parliament is currently considering proposals from the European Commission for a complete overhaul of the E.U.'s data protection laws. The original laws date from 1995, the pre-Internet age, and are arguably in great need of an update. However, the debate about how to update them has been intense. Creating one regulation to replace national data protection and privacy laws in the 27 E.U. countries obviously requires compromise, but many parliamentarians report never seeing lobbying on such a scale before. In an effort to reach some sort of consensus, more than 4,000 changes to the draft text have been proposed. The civil liberties coalition, which includes Access, Bits of Freedom, EDRI, La Quadrature du Net and Privacy International, has set up a website, nakedcitizens.eu, to help concerned citizens contact their representatives in the Parliament. The groups have also presented a report based on their analysis of the proposed amendments.
EU data protection bill threatens citizens' rights, warns civil rights coalition
Time Warner Cable chairman and CEO Glenn Britt said Google Fiber, the 1 gigabit per second fiber-optic service launched by the search giant may have some of the glow from its parent, but in the end it isn’t offering anything that the MSO hasn’t successfully competed against for decades.
“What they’re doing is not any different than an overbuilder,” Britt said. “And we’ve had overbuilders for the last several decades in the business.” Time Warner Cable chief operating officer Rob Marcus noted that Google Fiber is currently in front of about 4,000 homes in Kansas City (2,000 of which are TWC customers) and so far, defections to the service are “de minimus.” He added that TWC’s subscribers in Kansas City and Austin represent about 2.5% of TWC’s total video and high-speed Internet customers. “Despite the glow, the products are essentially the same as others are offering,” Britt said. “The speeds for the last little bit of the plant are faster, but they connect to the same old Internet where most of the servers are actually slower. Who knows what their intentions are; they have to speak for themselves. I would question the economics of this and therefore their motives, but we’ll have to see what they do.”
Britt: Google Fiber an ‘Overbuilder’
The European Commission invites comments from interested parties on commitments offered by Google in relation to online search and search advertising.
The Commission has concerns that Google may be abusing its dominant position in the markets for web search, online search advertising and online search advertising intermediation in the European Economic Area (EEA). Google has made proposals to try to address the Commission's four competition concerns. Interested parties can now submit their comments within one month. The Commission will take them into account in its analysis of Google's commitment proposals. If the Commission concludes that they address its four competition concerns, it may decide to make them legally binding on Google.
Google offers for a period of 5 years to:
(i) - label promoted links to its own specialized search services so that users can distinguish them from natural web search results,
- clearly separate these promoted links from other web search results by clear graphical features (such as a frame), and
- display links to three rival specialized search services close to its own services, in a place that is clearly visible to users,
(ii) - offer all websites the option to opt-out from the use of all their content in Google's specialized search services, while ensuring that any opt-out does not unduly affect the ranking of those web sites in Google's general web search results,
- offer all specialized search web sites that focus on product search or local search the option to mark certain categories of information in such a way that such information is not indexed or used by Google,
- provide newspaper publishers with a mechanism allowing them to control on a web page per web page basis the display of their content in Google News,
(iii) no longer include in its agreements with publishers any written or unwritten obligations that would require them to source online search advertisements exclusively from Google, and
(iv) no longer impose obligations that would prevent advertisers from managing search advertising campaigns across competing advertising platforms.
European Commission seeks feedback on commitments offered by Google to address competition concerns Google’s search concessions to the EU are now out and up for comment (GigaOm) EU publishes Google antitrust remedy proposals (IDG News Service) Here’s What Google Will Look Like in Europe Now (Wall Street Journal) 2 Googles: 1 for Europe and 1 for everyone else (Washington Post)