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Sprint Nextel said it doesn’t have control of Clearwire despite its majority stake in the spectrum-rich Washington company. Sprint, which long has been Clearwire’s largest shareholder, increased its stake in the company from 48 percent to 50.8 percent, but clarified that this increased ownership doesn’t spell control.
“While we have a majority stake, we do not have control of the company, and their finances are not consolidated with Sprint’s,” spokeswoman Melinda Tiemeyer said. “They are an independent company with independent management and board. This is (the) same as when we previously owned more than 50 percent.” Sprint has tweaked its ownership stake in Clearwire over the years in efforts to detach itself from Clearwire’s debt and to avoid Clearwire being considered a legal subsidiary of Sprint.
Sprint: Clearwire stake doesn’t amount to control
Sprint Nextel may not yet have Clearwire in the palm of its hand, but its decision to buy Eagle River Holdings' stake might buy Sprint some time by scaring off any other companies pondering a Clearwire takeover.
Sprint would be unable to block a spectrum sale by Clearwire to AT&T, Dish Network or anyone else that might be interested. Dish may be the company Sprint most fears getting its hands on Clearwire. Charlie Ergen, Dish's founder and chairman, is rumored to already hold in excess of $900 million of Clearwire's debt, according to Tim Farrar, head of Telecom, Media and Finance Associates. Sprint previously had majority control of Clearwire but reduced its voting interest below 50 percent during June 2011 in order to eliminate potential cross default risk. Sprint could choose a similar route to reduce only its voting interest if Clearwire struggles more financially, say analysts who expect Sprint to surrender Clearwire shares to take their stake back under 50 percent if they are unable to take control or materially fund Clearwire before the closing of the Softbank transaction.
Sprint's investment designed to scare off Clearwire suitors
U.S.-funded programs to beat back online censorship are increasingly finding a ready audience in repressive countries, with more than 1 million people a day using online tools to get past extensive blocking programs and government surveillance. But the popularity of those initiatives has become a liability.
Activists and nonprofit groups say that their online circumvention tools, funded by the U.S. government, are being overwhelmed by demand and that there is not enough money to expand capacity. The result: online bottlenecks that have made the tools slow and often inaccessible to users in China, Iran and elsewhere, threatening to derail the Internet freedom agenda championed by the Obama administration. “Every time we provide them with additional funding, those bottlenecks are alleviated for a time but again fill to capacity in a short period of time,” said André Mendes, director of the Office of Technology, Services and Innovation at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which funds some of the initiatives. “One could reasonably state that more funding would translate into more traffic and, therefore, more accessibility from behind these firewalls.” The United States spends about $30 million a year on Internet freedom, in effect funding an asymmetric proxy war against governments that spend billions to regulate the flow of information. The programs have been backed by President Obama, who promoted the initiatives at a town-hall-style meeting in Shanghai three years ago.
Internet anti-censorship tools are being overwhelmed by demand
To carry on his war against Facebook, Max Schrems figures he needs at least 200,000 euros — about $250,000 — no small sum for a law student scraping by on a government stipend. But like those he is targeting, Schrems, 25, is a creature of the Internet age. He envisions a fundraising campaign that could go viral: If 10,000 people give 20 euros each, Schrems figures, he will have enough to take the world’s most effective user revolt against Facebook to the next level — in a court of law.
Schrems contends that Facebook collects too much information on its users, keeps it too long and uses it for purposes that violate European privacy laws. As evidence, he points to the 1,222 pages of data the social media company catalogued on him before he formally requested his file from Facebook last year. The account it offered of his life — every friendship declared, every photo uploaded, every “poke” or comment or invitation sent or received over three years of casual use — sparked an online sensation when he posted it online.
Facebook privacy targeted by Austrian law student
President Barack Obama has some supporters in high places at Comcast, but so does Mitt Romney. Comcast/NBCU Washington President Kyle McSlarrow, former chairman of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, has been lending his expertise, albeit in an informal capacity, to the Romney presidential campaign.
"Kyle has been informally advising the campaign on energy and telecommunications issues," a source close to McSlarrow confirmed to The Wire -- McSlarrow, a longtime Republican and McCain supporters last time around, is a former deputy secretary of the Department of Energy and was the national chairman for the Quayle 2000 Presidential Campaign. A source close to the Romney transition advised B&C of McSlarrow's advisory role, then offered up his name as a possible candidate for the FCC chairmanship if the Romney camp looks beyond the two current Republican FCC members -- Rob McDowell and Ajit Pai -- said to be strong candidates for the post.
McSlarrow Advising Romney Campaign
In the battle to win every undecided voter, drive enthusiasm and boost turnout, a new front has opened in the 2012 election: the #hashtagwar.
Within 24 hours of President Barack Obama dubbing Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s policy shifts as “Romnesia,” #Romnesia was trending worldwide on Twitter. Within 48 hours, two Romnesia postings on Obama’s Facebook page were “liked” by 364,963 people and shared nearly 57,696 times. On Tumblr, a series of animated pictures -- or GIFs -- with speech excerpts was liked or re-posted 16,861 times. Four years ago, when Facebook was one-tenth its size today and before smart phones were the norm, Obama pioneered the use of social media in presidential politics. Today, with the Internet an integral part of people’s lives, Obama’s campaign again has the upper hand, leveraging its ability to communicate with masses on different platforms in ways that weren’t possible in 2008. Yet 2012 may present the first test of whether it makes a difference.
Obama Winning Social Media, If #Hashtagwars Really Matter
The Barack Obama and Mitt Romney camps may be emptying their war chests this month to go head-to-head in TV spots in swing states, but the online battle is a more lopsided affair.
According to research by the analytics company Moat, the Obama campaign had a 93.3% share of voice in terms of display-impression volume in September across the top 20,000 publishers, compared with the Romney campaign's 6.7%. And for the period between Sept. 1 and Oct. 14, the Obama camp had 497 creatives deployed across the web compared with the Romney camp's 90. While both campaigns are making use of ad networks and audience buying, the Obama campaign's ads were sighted with many more tags from ad-tech companies (194 compared with Romney's 116 for the weeks between Sept. 1 and Oct. 3). Moat's report also makes note of the fact that 30% of the Obama ads have a Yahoo Genome tag, which "suggests use of audience and data targeting."
Obama Outslugs Romney in Digital
A web analytics company has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated federal law by using its web-tracking software that collected personal data without disclosing the extent of the information that it was collecting. The company, Compete Inc., also allegedly failed to honor promises it made to protect the personal data it collected.
The proposed settlement will require that Compete obtain consumers’ express consent before collecting any data from Compete software downloaded onto consumers’ computers, that the company delete or anonymize the use of the consumer data it already has collected, and that it provide directions to consumers for uninstalling its software.
Tracking Software Company Settles FTC Charges That it Deceived Consumers and Failed to Safeguard Sensitive Data it Collected Be clear about what you collect (FTC blog)
The Federal Trade Commission released a staff report "Facing Facts: Best Practices for Common Uses of Facial Recognition Technologies" for the increasing number of companies using facial recognition technologies, to help them protect consumers’ privacy as they use the technologies to create innovative new commercial products and services.
The FTC staff report recommends that companies using facial recognition technologies:
- design their services with consumer privacy in mind;
- develop reasonable security protections for the information they collect, and sound methods for determining when to keep information and when to dispose of it;
- consider the sensitivity of information when developing their facial recognition products and services – for example, digital signs using facial recognition technologies should not be set up in places where children congregate.
The staff report also recommends that companies take steps to make sure consumers are aware of facial recognition technologies when they come in contact with them, and that they have a choice as to whether data about them is collected. So, for example, if a company is using digital signs to determine the demographic features of passersby, such as age or gender, they should provide clear notice to consumers that the technology is in use before consumers come into contact with the signs.
FTC Recommends Best Practices for Companies That Use Facial Recognition Technologies
Isis -- the mobile payment joint venture between Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile -- is finally going live in Austin, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah after missing its earlier summer launch date.
The payment system, which uses near field communication (NFC), will be available on nine handsets and can be used at hundreds of locations in the two cities. Consumers interested in Isis will need to head down to their carrier store to either buy an Isis compatible NFC-enabled phone or check if their phone is among the nine supported devices. They will also need to get a new SIM card from their operator to enable touch-and-go payments from their phone.
Carrier mobile payment play Isis goes live in Austin and Salt Lake City