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Silicon Valley tech firms, banks and other powerful industries are mounting a quiet but forceful campaign to kill an Internet privacy bill that would give California consumers the right to know how their personal information is being used.
A recent letter signed by 15 companies and trade groups -- including TechAmerica, which represents Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other technology companies -- demanded that the measure's author, Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) drop her bill. They complain it would open up businesses to an avalanche of requests from individuals as well as costly lawsuits. The American Civil Liberties Union, a co-sponsor of the Right to Know Act, accuses the business groups of overreacting to hide their true intentions: to keep out of the public's eye the lucrative practice of amassing personal information on people who use online services, computer apps, social networking sites and other portals that track people's locations, buying habits, favorite foods and movies, and even their sexual orientation.
Silicon Valley companies quietly try to kill California Internet privacy bill
The Royalty Exchange is a Web site where musicians can sell parts of their royalty income to investors.
Since it was founded two years ago, the Royalty Exchange, based in Raleigh (NC), has held 18 auctions, raising about $750,000. But Sean Peace, the company’s chief executive, envisions it as a robust marketplace where musicians can capitalize on their work and investors can find a somewhat exotic asset that could still bring in steady earnings.
Web Helps Musicians Sell Shares of Royalties
[Commentary] The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM) stipulates no mandatory penalties or enforcement mechanisms.
Say what? TV ads still too loud
Mexico’s Senate passed a reform bill that stands to shake up the country’s telecommunications and broadcasting sectors, introducing more competition and creating investment opportunities for foreign companies.
Approval of the reform, which came only after a marathon all-night session, marks an important victory for the new administration of centrist President Enrique Peña Nieto as it tries to lift Mexico’s annual growth rate towards 6 percent a year from about 3.5 percent now. Economists have long seen the two sectors, which are dominated by Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim’s América Móvil, and broadcaster Televisa, as prime examples of how the relative lack of competition hurts growth and drives up prices. Senators appeared to weaken the bill that was approved weeks before by the lower house, allowing companies to stall, pending appeal, the application of fines or other orders from the country’s antitrust authority. However, they will not be able to stall fines or other measures handed out by the new regulator, which the new legislation would create.
Mexico telecom reform nears reality
Google was fined 145,000 euros ($189,230) by a German regulator for collecting wireless-network data by its cars taking photos for the Street View service.
Google’s cars from 2008 to 2010 captured the data, including contents of e-mails, passwords, photos and chat protocols, Hamburg data regulator Johannes Caspar said. He had reopened the probe after prosecutors dropped a related criminal case last year. “In my view, this is one of the biggest data protection rules violations known,” said Caspar. Google’s “internal control mechanisms must have severely failed.”
Google Fined 145,000 Euros Over Wi-Fi Data Collection in Germany
All of those questions, messages, and stern commands that people have been whispering to Siri are stored on Apple servers for up to two years.
Here’s what happens. Whenever you speak into Apple’s voice activated personal digital assistant, it ships it off to Apple’s data farm for analysis. Apple generates a random numbers to represent the user and it associates the voice files with that number. This number — not your Apple user ID or email address — represents you as far as Siri’s back-end voice analysis system is concerned. Once the voice recording is six months old, Apple “disassociates” your user number from the clip, deleting the number from the voice file. But it keeps these disassociated files for up to 18 more months for testing and product improvement purposes.
Apple Finally Reveals How Long Siri Keeps Your Data Apple says it keeps Siri data up to 2 years (Washington Post) Ever wonder what Apple does with your Siri data? (GigaOm)
Some don’t know what to make of Google’s fiber moves. They have two big questions:
- What is Google actually trying to do here?
- How much is Google willing to spend on whatever they’re doing?
And there are multiple theories to answer those questions, which aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive:
- It’s a sandbox for Google. It’s literally trying to figure out what goes into offering that kind of speed, and what happens when customers take advantage of it.
- Google thinks that by offering blazing-fast fiber in a bunch of cities, it will spur the likes of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and other incumbents to up their own investments in speed. And that eventually means that more people will have faster Internet, which is presumably good for Google.
- Google really does plan on wiring a big swath of the country. Because, why not? It’s Google. It can afford just about anything.
Analysts again tried to suss out what Google was up to. Both CEO Larry Page and CFO Patrick Pichette did a good job of speaking at length and not saying very much, beyond the notion that it would be good if lots of people had fast Internet.
Google Fiber Is World-Changing! Or Maybe Not. Or Both!
Penguin become the fifth and final publisher to end its e-book pricing pact with Apple in a move that should soon bring an antitrust investigation by the European Union to a close. In a proposal to the European Commission, Pearson, Penguin’s British media group parent, said it will terminate its “most-favored nation” contract with Apple, scrapping a policy that barred rival retailers from selling e-books at prices lower than those of the iPhone maker. Penguin’s proposed agreement is essentially identical to the one proffered by Apple, HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster last fall.
Penguin to Drop Apple E-Book Deal to Settle EU Antitrust Probe
Tweens and young teens who use social media place a higher value on fame than kids who don't use it or use it infrequently, according to a new survey of media use among those ages 9-15. "Kids who claim they want to be famous use more media," says lead author Yalda Uhls, a researcher at UCLA's Children's Digital Media Center. Of the 334 young people surveyed online with their parents' permission, almost half say they use social networks; among the under-13 age group, 23% use a social networking site; 26% of the younger group say they have a YouTube account. A third (33%) of the young people surveyed said being famous was either somewhat important, important or very important.
Survey: Young people who use social media seek fame
Twitter and YouTube accounts that reportedly belong to the suspected Boston Marathon bombers are being used to piece together a profile of the two Tsarnaev brothers. Both the media and the public are combing through posts on the two social media sites to gain insights into the personalities of the two suspected bombers and find out what may have triggered them to launch a deadly attack at the Boston Marathon earlier this week that killed three people and seriously wounded scores of others.
Social media scoured for clues to Boston Marathon bombing suspects