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In the end, the tweets told the tale. After more than a year of arguing in court papers that police officers had led hundreds of Occupy Wall Street marchers on to the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge and then arrested 700 of them, a Brooklyn writer’s own Twitter postings showed that he had, in fact, heard warnings from the police to stay off the road.
“They tried to stop us, absolutely did not want us on the motorway,” the writer, Malcolm Harris, posted during the march on Oct. 1, 2011, according to passages read by a prosecutor in court. “They tried to block and threaten arrest. We were too many and too loud. They backed up until they could put up barricades.” Those postings and others by Harris, 23, were described publicly for the first time in Criminal Court in Manhattan as Harris pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. The case had become a significant focus of attention for its involvement of posts to social networking sites and legal arguments over who controls that material. Harris and Twitter had opposed a subpoena of Twitter for Harris’s postings, which had been pushed off his public page by more recent postings.
A Brooklyn Protester Pleads Guilty After His Twitter Posts Sink His Case
Hackers may stage a massive fraud attack on 30 U.S. national, investment and regional banks early next year, according to a new cybersecurity report. The report, scheduled to be released by McAfee Labs, warns the financial industry to be wary of software that creates fraudulent online banking transactions.
Hackers could create fake bank transactions, or skim a portion of high-dollar bank transfers, the report said. The report links the threat to a program called Project Blitzkrieg, which hackers say has been in development since 2008 and has already stolen $5 million. The attacks have now reached the United States, McAfee reports. There have been 300 to 500 U.S. victims in the past couple of months, and the effort could reach full strength by spring, said Pat Calhoun, a network security expert at McAfee.
Cybersecurity firm identifies ‘credible threat’ to 30 U.S. banks
Verizon Communications and Coinstar Inc.'s Redbox plan to launch a beta version of their online video joint venture in the next week, with a combination streaming content and DVD rental package priced at $8 a month. The venture, announced in February, gives Coinstar a foothold in the Web video market where consumers are flocking, often to the detriment of physical rentals like those at Redbox, which represents the majority of Coinstar's business. For $8 a month, a subscriber gets four one-night rental credits at Redbox kiosks in addition to unlimited streaming video. For $9 monthly, subscribers have the option to get Blu-ray discs at Coinstar's machines. Standard DVD rentals at Redbox kiosks are $1.20 each.
Verizon-Redbox Venture Advances
The UK’s mobile users are consuming more data on their phones and tablets than any other leading nation for the first time, according to a report published by Ofcom.
The communications regulator found that activities such as web browsing, video streaming and the use of social networking sites in Britain now exceed those in Japan, which has long been the trend setter. Shopping is a key driver of the surge in overall data consumption, with the UK now spending more online than any other country in the world. Shoppers spent more than £1,000 a year via the internet for the first time in 2011, up 14 per cent from 2010, and pushing the UK higher than second-ranked Australia where consumers spent £842. The rapid rise in internet usage is in partly due to the widespread use of “smart” devices, from phones and tablets to internet-enabled televisions, in the UK.
UK leads world in mobile Internet use
Europe’s top competition authority approved the acquisition of France Telecom’s Orange Austria operation by Hong Kong’s Hutchison, but set a series of tough conditions that could still derail the deal.
A key condition that will have to be met to approve the takeover is the sale of the budget mobile brand Yesss from Orange to Telekom Austria, which could still be blocked by the domestic competition regulator BWB. The decision by Brussels to greenlight the €1.3bn deal – which was seen by the telecom industry as a test case for whether consolidation would be allowed within national telecoms markets – will be welcomed by mobile operators. European chief executives of large telecom groups have been putting mounting pressure on the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to ease rules to facilitate consolidation in the troubled sector. Joaquín Almunia, the bloc’s antitrust enforcer, said that the acquisition would be completed upon Hutchison’s successful sell-off of its radio spectrum and on the condition that it grants access to its wholesale network to smaller competitors.
Hutchison allowed to buy Orange Austria
France's competition watchdog has slapped €183 million ($239 million) in fines on the country's two top mobile operators for anti-competitive pricing policies between 2005 and 2008. The Autorite de Concurrence said that Orange and SFR had abused their dominant market positions and hurt the country's number three operator, Bouygues Telecom. Specifically the watchdog cited the policy of offering unlimited calls between subscribers of one network, which it said threw up an unjustified barrier to free competition among operators.
French mobile operators hit with antitrust fines
Google says it has reached an agreement over copyright issues with a group of French-language Belgian newspapers, ending a six-year dispute. The parties also agreed to promote each other's services by placing Google advertising in publishers' media.
Google, Belgian papers reach accord on copyright
The House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held an oversight hearing on implementation of provisions of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 that allow for new spectrum auctions. Subcommittee Republicans expressed that the Federal Communications Commission will fail to generate enough revenue from its planned auction of spectrum currently used by television broadcasters. Congress authorized the FCC to auction local TV stations' airwaves to cellphone carriers as part of a payroll tax cut extension bill earlier this year. The auction is intended to generate enough revenue to pay the TV broadcasters, fund a nationwide broadband network for first-responders and help pay down the federal debt.
"While I’m not about to micromanage how the FCC operates the auction, I do expect the FCC will follow the law, including maximizing the proceeds from the auction," said Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR). Republicans are concerned that the FCC will set aside too much unlicensed spectrum, which can be used by any company for free. Chairman Walden said he believes that some unlicensed spectrum is important to allow for innovation and to power WiFi networks, but he worried that the FCC is going too far. He estimated that the FCC's plan to reserve unlicensed spectrum blocks could cause the federal government to forgo an estimated $7 (AdWeek reports he said $19) billion in revenue.
Democrats voiced support for the FCC's unlicensed spectrum plan. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the full Commerce Committee, said unlicensed spectrum has been an "incredible economic success story" and that additional unlicensed spectrum will allow businesses to "invent things we can't even imagine." Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), the subcommittee's top Democrat, said Republicans were putting too much emphasis on maximizing government revenue at the expense of pursuing policies that would benefit the industry and consumers. Democrats also raised concerns about spectrum ownership consolidation, though no member used the names AT&T and Verizon. “The FCC must have the authority to write auction rules that aim to avoid the concentration of spectrum in the hands of just a small group of companies,” said Rep Waxman. Republican FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell testified that a cap on the spectrum that any one company can win at auction could "create harmful uncertainty and may reduce the pool of auction participants."
Preston Padden, executive director of the newly formed Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition, confirmed that there are now more than 25 stations "in major markets" represented his group of broadcasters interested in making some spectrum available for auction.
Recap: Keeping the New Broadband Spectrum Law on Track Statement (Chairman Genachowski) Statement (Commissioner McDowell) Statement (Commissioner Clyburn) Statement (Commissioner Rosenworcel) Statement (Commissioner Pai) Republicans worried airwave auction won't raise enough money (The Hill) House Panel Debates FCC's Proposed Rules for Spectrum Auction (AdWeek) Padden Says There Are 25-Plus Major Market Stations In Coalition (B&C) Subcommittee Examines FCC’s Implementation of New Spectrum Law (House Commerce) G.O.P. Balks at Plan to Add Airwaves for Mobile Internet and Wi-Fi (NYTimes)
House Commerce Committee members came prepared with a boatload of questions for the five Federal Communications Commission commissioners. Several legislators brought up diversity and the FCC's media ownership proposal.
Leading that charge were Reps Bobby Rush (D-IL) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA). Rep Rush said he was tired of a procession of platitudes from commissioners over his past 17 years on the committee, "but absolutely no performance." He thanked the FCC for putting off a vote on the item -- the chairman had wanted to vote it by the end of the year, but has effectively put that off, at least until early January. But Rep Rush said he was "tired of this continuum of excuses," and wanted to know what, other than a tax certificate policy, could be done to boost minority ownership. All the commissioners agreed that it was not acceptable that there were only 28 full-power TV stations in the country owned by minorities. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski defended his decision to proceed to a vote on loosening cross-ownership rules, saying it was time to wrap up the 2010 quadrennial and that the FCC would continue to make diversity a core mission, including seeking funding to complete the studies that would allow it to better justify a number of associated diversity proposals, which were remanded back to the FCC by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals for better justification. Critics of that dual-track strategy continue to argue that the FCC should not take any action on its rules until their impact on diversity can be gauged via those studies.
Media Ownership is Hot Topic at House Spectrum Hearing
A number of Members of Congress from California have written the Federal Communications Commission advising that it should make preserving viewer access to free over-the-air (FOTA) broadcasting a "top goal" of its incentive auction rulemaking.
In a letter Dec. 11, a day before the House hearing on the auctions, the legislators pointed to statistics that the number of viewers relying on FOTA had grown to 54 million, and was continuing to grow. Given that California's diverse populations are even more likely to be over-the-air only viewers than the general population, they said preserving the service was "absolutely critical." They said they were concerned that the FCC's incentive auction proposal -- released in September -- lacks details about border coordination with Mexico and Canada and details on potential viewer disruptions from the auction, including potential loss of programming.
California Congress Members to FCC: Preserve Free TV