Benton RSS Feed
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris (D) began putting top mobile app makers on notice that they will be held accountable for how they handle Californians' personal information.
The state’s top cop has sent out notices to 100 mobile apps that don’t have a written privacy policy that explains what information the app collects and shares. AG Harris initially targeted the most popular mobile apps, among them Open Table and apps for Delta and United Airlines. The companies could not be immediately reached for comment. The companies were given 30 days to post a “conspicuous” privacy policy or face penalties of as much as $2,500 every time a Californian downloads an app that does not comply with California law. “Protecting the privacy of online consumers is a serious law enforcement matter,” AG Harris said. “We have worked hard to ensure that app developers are aware of their legal obligations to respect the privacy of Californians, but it is critical that we take all necessary steps to enforce California’s privacy laws.” AG Harris is looking to close a privacy loophole with the explosion in the use of mobile devices to access the Web. She is extending privacy protections required by state law for personal computers to smartphones and tablets.
Attorney General Kamala Harris puts mobile apps on notice about privacy California attorney general warns app makers over user privacy (WashPost)
A survey of more than 2,000 technology professionals by Dice.com found that while support for President Barack Obama among tech pros has dropped substantially, he is still the candidate they trust most. Forty-five percent said Obama was the best candidate for tech professionals, compared to 37 percent who said Mitt Romney was the best candidate. Obama’s support among tech professionals is drastically different from what it was during the 2008 race, however, Dice found. At that time, 63 percent of tech professionals said President Obama was the best candidate, compared to 27 percent who favored Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).
With a Week to Go Before the Election, Techies Prefer President Obama
[Commentary] For our nation to remain a leader in scientific advancement, training a dynamic competitive workforce, and bolster America’s position as a global leader in technological innovation, this is what must be done and what one candidate — Barack Obama — clearly understands. Silicon Valley, the choice is clear in terms of candidates who will keep us at the forefront of all things tech. A greener, more sustainable valley is possible, but only with the right man in office.
What This Election Means To Silicon Valley
Ten advocacy groups launched a coalition to promote the use of free, open Wi-Fi networks.
The groups argue that widespread wireless Internet access would benefit users and lead to new technological innovations. The coalition, called the Open Wireless Movement, is made up of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Free Press, Internet Archive, NYCwireless, the Open Garden Foundation, OpenITP, the Open Spectrum Alliance, the Open Technology Institute and the Personal Telco Project. The coalition provides information and tips to households, small businesses, developers and Internet service providers for how to implement open Wi-Fi networks.
Liberal advocacy groups push for free wireless Internet
The health care industry is joining other businesses in urging Congress and federal officials to consider existing cybersecurity efforts before enacting new measures to better protect American computer networks. Congress is expected to revisit cybersecurity legislation before the end of the year and the White House is considering an executive order on the issue.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) helped sponsor legislation that would have created more government oversight of certain critical networks, including those that control electric grids. After that bill floundered in the Senate partly because of industry opposition to new rules, Rockefeller wrote to leaders of Fortune 500 companies asking for their views on cybersecurity. The Healthcare Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST), which represents information security officers at the nation's largest health care organizations, outlined efforts to share information and collaborate to increase cybersecurity.
Health Care Group Puts Focus on Current Cybersecurity Efforts
The Departments of Commerce and Justice are scrutinizing Verisign's bid for a six-year renewal of its contract to continue running the .com registry, the Internet's most popular generic top-level domain name.
Verisign said late last week in releasing its latest earnings results that the department may not finish its evaluation before the company's current contract expires on Nov. 30. Verisign said Commerce informed it earlier this month that both Commerce and the Justice Department are examining the agreement's "pricing terms." If Commerce doesn't approve the contract before it expires, Verisign's current contract will be extended for six months, Verisign President and CEO Jim Bidzos said. Despite this, Bidzos said he was confident the company's contract will get renewed. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit group that manages the Internet's domain-name system, in June approved Verisign's contract to continue operating the .com registry, which is the database of all the second-level domains that have been registered under the top-level domain ".com".
Commerce, Justice Reviewing .com Contract
Power outages and flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy disrupted telecommunications services resulting in spotty coverage for cellphones, home telephones and Internet services.
- Verizon Communications, which serves many of the states in the hurricane's path, appeared to have suffered some of the worst damage from the storm. The company said that storm surge resulted in flooding at several Verizon central offices that hold telecom equipment in Lower Manhattan, Queens, and Long Island "causing power failures and rendering back-up power systems at these sites inoperable."
- Sprint Nextel, the No. 3 U.S. mobile provider said it was seeing outages at some cell sites because of the power outages across all the states in Sandy's path including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Maryland, North Virginia and New England.
- AT&T said it was experiencing some issues in areas heavily affected by the storm.
- People complained of outages to their cable telephone, Internet and television services from providers ranging from Comcast, Cablevision Systems and Verizon in New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York.
Hurricane Sandy disrupts Northeast telecom networks AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile Offer Statements On Hurricane Network Issues: No ETA Given For Fix (TechCrunch) Phone and cable companies start checking storm damage (Associated Press) Sandy Smacks Cable, Telco Networks (Multichannel News) Cellphone service outages reported in the wake of Hurricane Sandy (The Hill)
For days, weather forecasters gave their viewers a lot of trees when it came to coverage of Hurricane Sandy. We learned about the speed of the storm, its famous left turn, its millibars and its (quite accurately portrayed) destructive potential. Now people are asking for more forest. Climate-change forest, that is. Is Sandy the creature of a warming planet?
Weather Channel spokeswoman Shirley Powell said, “Climate change informed our forecasting of this storm from the beginning. We have been completely focused on saving lives and property as the storm approached and was hitting, but as the storm passes, you will see more discussion of this topic in our coverage on TV and online. We have two prominent bloggers that have passionately discussed this topic in the past — Jeff Masters and Stu Ostro.”
Hurricane Sandy: Where’s the climate-change angle, media?
As we move into Day 2 of Hurricane Sandy (now reclassified as Superstorm Sandy), TV news crews from Washington to Boston are working at full force providing wall-to-wall coverage, armed with precautions including ropes to tether satellite masts, cash in case of getting stranded and out-of-market reinforcements.
Having planned for storm coverage since last week — and after ramping it up over the weekend — stations went wall to wall starting at 4 a.m. ET Oct 29, and as Gannett’s WUSA Washington News Director Fred D’Ambrosi puts it: “I’m assuming we are going to be on the air for the next several days and we are prepared to do it." Throughout the day Oct 29, local TV news operations in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston ran non-stop storm tracking radar images and news tickers with emergency information and weather updates. Reporters, many pulling 12-hour shifts, stood by coastlines and waterways from Ocean City, Md., to New England poised for potentially destructive surges. Bracing for widespread power outages cutting off viewers’ access to television, stations put particular emphasis on feeding websites, social media and mobile apps — among the most likely sources of information accessible when the power goes out.
Local News Goes into Sandy Overdrive
Users who still had power and internet connectivity were producing record online and mobile traffic at some sites on Oct 29, with The Weather Channel (TWC) reporting 450 million pages views on its various mobile and online offerings and 298 million page views on weather.com. Both those numbers were records. The overall numbers nearly doubled the previous record of 249 million from Feb. 1, 2011 and were much higher than the 183 million seen on Aug. 27, 2011 from Hurricane Irene. At 1 p.m. ET, the company also told B&C that traffic levels are pacing towards another record for Oct. 30.