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[Commentary] As partners with the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, a national coalition examining reading problems, scanned the technology and literacy landscape examining new products and programs. What we found was a digital Wild West, especially in the teeming app marketplace.

Tens of thousands of apps are labeled educational and marketed to parents who receive little to no information about whether and how they work. Most of the top-selling reading apps appear to teach only the most basic of literacy skills. They lean toward easy-to-teach tasks, such as identifying the ABCs, but don't address higher-level competencies that young children also need to become strong readers, such as developing vocabulary and understanding words in a narrative. A snapshot of the iTunes App Store's most popular paid literacy apps showed that 45 percent targeted letters and sounds and half focused on phonics. Only 5 percent covered vocabulary, and none addressed comprehension or the ability to tell stories. Many “reading” apps are essentially flashy flashcards: Click on a set of letters and the audio kicks on, uttering the letter's sounds. Move to the next set and repeat. This imbalance comes as research shows that knowing the ABCs and other basic literacy skills, while important, are not enough to help children become strong readers. Children need background knowledge and vocabulary, too. With the advent of new technologies, we are at an opportune moment for harnessing digital media to support parents, educators, and children in building the next generation's reading skills. But technology's potential to be a game changer will not be reached unless technology is tapped to provide vital new supports for parents and educa­tors. At its best, the technology complements the work of trained teachers and parents. It doesn't replace it.

[Lisa Guernsey is director of the Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation. Michael H. Levine is executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.]

[Commentary] Blink and you're left behind in the online-marketing world. That's the dilemma facing the Federal Trade Commission, which is considering catch-up fixes to a 1998 law designed to protect children's privacy on the Internet.

The big firms - Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Twitter - are opposed to tighter laws. User habits and tastes are the real gold mine in the social-media world, where viewers freely trade personal information as they correspond, search and amuse themselves. If the laws are changed to protect children, then it won't be long before consumer advocates want the same guarantees for everyone, these firms worry. For starters, the federal agency should investigate the extent the problem, a task that likely will show how extensive data mining has become. Then the harder task of devising better rules should begin. Is there an effective way that balances privacy with the cost of running websites that draw young viewers? Apps and online outlets remain free only as long as advertisers believe they're worthwhile, business advocates say. If too many privacy regulations are added, this industry will be damaged. California is pushing ahead on a parallel course. Attorney General Kamala Harris has sent out notices to app developers and websites to better display privacy agreements for all users. In the case of children, Washington's intentions should be clear: A vulnerable and less sophisticated audience needs nearly ironclad privacy protections. It's time to strengthen rules that protect children in the online world.

The European Commission settled its antitrust case against Apple and four book publishing groups over e-book price fixing, in what was described as a victory for the leading online seller, Amazon, and a setback for publishers fighting for the ability to set prices for electronic literature in the digital marketplace.

The European Union’s competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, said he was ending his office’s investigation after Apple and the publishers — Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Holtzbrinck, the owner of Macmillan — agreed to end their attempt to set prices for e-books through a series of preferred selling agreements. Under those agreements, made in 2010, publishers could set their own prices on e-books, with the retailer acting as an agent taking a commission. Apple championed this agency model. For print books, by contrast, publishers act as wholesalers, charging retailers about half the cover price for a book and then allowing retailers to set their own price to consumers. Amazon built a huge business by offering consumers discounts under this wholesale model. Publishers fear that under the wholesale model, Amazon can sell e-books for less than it pays, taking a loss in the short term to drive smaller competitors out of business, thus gaining a monopoly, to the detriment of the publishers. European Union officials, however, see things differently: that collusion by publishers would lead to higher prices for consumers.

The Obama Administration announced that it will refuse to sign a United Nations treaty under consideration at a major global telecommunications conference because of provisions that it says would give a UN stamp of approval to state censorship and regulation of the Internet and private networks.

“The United States has announced today that it cannot sign” the treaty’s provisions “in their current form,” said Terry Kramer, the U.S. ambassador to the World Conference on International Telecommunications, as the 12-day conference draws to a close. Representatives of several other of the world’s largest economies also spoke out against the treaty, causing it to collapse for all practical purposes. International Telecommunication Union officials had said earlier that the meeting, the agency’s first major review of a telecommunications agenda since 1988, was not going to be a referendum on Internet freedom. But late Dec 12, according to Administration officials, the conference chairman, Mohamed Nasser al-Ghanim, director general of the Telecommunications Regulation Authority of the United Arab Emirates, inserted a resolution in the treaty that broke open the deep divisions between the countries on Internet regulation. The U.S. delegation is concerned with measures that would give governments new authority to regulate spam on their Internet networks. U.S. officials fear that states could use that provision to monitor and silence dissidents and others under the auspices of U.N. approval. “One man’s spam is another man’s political speech,” said one administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, lacking the authority to discuss the matter on the record. The Americans also opposed expanding the definition of what the treaty covers from public telecommunications networks to any network, public or private, including Internet service providers and government systems. They also were concerned about efforts to include network security in the treaty.

ITU Secretary General Hamadoun I. Touré rejected the United States’ characterization of the treaty. “The new . . . treaty does NOT cover content issues and explicitly states in the first article that content-related issues are not covered by the treaty,” he said.

House Commerce Committee Republicans commended Ambassador Terry Kramer, Ambassador Philip Verveer and the rest of the U.S. Delegation’s decision not to sign an treaty that would expand the role for the UN on Internet issues. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) also commended “the hard work of our talented U.S. delegation led by Ambassadors Verveer and Kramer. The U.S. government is united with many other ITU member countries, industry, and leaders in civil society across the globe in supporting a free and open Internet. The United States has made no apologies for advancing this clear position, and I applaud this Administration for defending these core principles in Dubai. Though the WCIT negotiations have concluded, we must continue to engage with other countries and international stakeholders through the multi-stakeholder process to advance our shared goal of a free and open Internet accessible to all.“

Federal Communications Commission member Robert McDowell said, “As egregious as today’s action was, many of the anti-freedom proposals were turned back - but the worst is yet to come. The United States should immediately prepare for an even more treacherous ITU treaty negotiation that will take place in 2014 in Korea. Those talks could expand the ITU’s reach even further. Accordingly, Internet freedom’s allies everywhere should more than redouble their efforts to erase the damage that was wrought today. Freedom and prosperity are at stake. Let’s never be slow to respond again. Freedom’s foes are patient and persistent incrementalists. They will never give up. Nor should we.”