October 11, 2012 (A bulwark against the Super PACs: The Internet)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2012
NIST’s Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board http://benton.org/calendar/2012-10-11/
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
After Week of Big Political News, the Big Loser? Liberal Bias - analysis
Gallup ups cell-phones to 50 percent
A bulwark against the Super PACs: The Internet - op-ed
Super PACs Pay Up to 4X More for TV Spots
ESPN, Local Cable Finding Political Cash Together [links to web]
Twitter Says Its Ads Make Money for Politicians [links to web]
Romney's Ad Buy Tops President's [links to web]
Big Bird joins list of unwitting – and unwilling – campaign props [links to web]
Mitt Romney has a Google problem [links to web]
Former NTIA Chief Criticizes Government Investment [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
The Internet at a Global Crossroads: Preserving Internet Freedom and Openness - press release
GOP senators to White House: Cyber order would be 'a mistake'
Groups Concerned About FCC Collection/Sharing of Online Consumer Data
PRIVACY
Senate Commerce Probes Data Brokers
How much do Google and Facebook profit from your data?
Self-Regulation Group Allows Web Companies To Reject IE10 Do-Not-Track Requests
How new Facebook privacy deal could pay you $10… or $5 … or nothing
Lawmakers blast advertisers for ignoring 'Do Not Track' on Microsoft's Explorer [links to web]
Groups Concerned About FCC Collection/Sharing of Online Consumer Data
TELEVISION
NAB Tells FCC to Leave Retransmission Alone [links to web]
NBC Regroups Under Comcast with New Cuts, Spending [links to web]
Broadcast Nets: Viewership Dips, Median Age Rises [links to web]
ACCESSIBILITY
Netflix settles with deaf-rights group, agrees to caption all videos by 2014
RESEARCH
The typical Twitter user is a young woman with an iPhone and 208 followers [links to web]
IAB: Hispanic Audience Active Online, Mobile [links to web]
How foreign audiences saved Tinseltown
Groups Concerned About FCC Collection/Sharing of Online Consumer Data
WIRELESS
Will voice-over-LTE become a casualty of the T-Mobile/MetroPCS merger? [links to web]
Amazon gets FCC's OK to sell Kindle Fire 4G tablets [links to web]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
FirstNet: Answers to Key Questions [links to web]
HEALTH
Study Links Electronic Health Records to Improved Care [links to web]
LABOR
Is technology to blame for chronic unemployment? - op-ed [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
The Innocence of YouTube
Huawei could trigger a major crisis
China’s Defense of Huawei? US Tech Companies Spy Too [links to web]
Telecom Industry Keeps Eye on China [links to web]
Too late for America to eliminate Huawei - analysis [links to web]
Where is E-Government Communication Headed? [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
The Conceit of Internet Control - op-ed
ITU releases latest global technology development figures - press release
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
LIBERAL BIAS?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
[Commentary] Back when President Barack Obama seemed to be in command of the race and had the poll numbers to back it up — that was just a week ago, wasn’t it? — there were abundant suggestions that the fix was in, that a compliant, genetically liberal media was smoothing the way for the re-election for the Democratic incumbent. But after a remarkable performance by Mitt Romney in last week’s debate and a remarkably bad one by the incumbent, a poll by the Pew Research Center showed that Romney had not only made up ground, but was four points ahead of President Obama among likely voters. So, did the mainstream– and allegedly liberal — media try to knock down the new numbers? Hardly. Most reveled in the turn of events because reporters, regardless of their own political affiliations, are always in favor of news.
benton.org/node/136789 | New York Times
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CELL PHONES AND POLLS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: MacKenzie Weinger]
Gallup’s editor in chief Frank Newport on said the polling firm’s methods are constantly evolving, noting that the daily tracking polling has increased the proportion of cell phones to 50 percent and added slight changes in likely voter questions. Gallup now completes interviews with 50 percent cell phones and 50 percent landlines, when previously cell phones accounted for just 40 percent. “This means that our weights to various phone targets in the sample can be smaller, given that the actual percentage of cell phones and cell-phone-only respondents in the sample is higher,” he said. “We have instituted some slight changes in our weighting procedures, including a weight for the density of the population area in which the respondent lives. Although all Gallup surveys are weighted consistently to census targets on demographic parameters, we believe that these improvements provide a more consistent match with weight targets.”
benton.org/node/136780 | Politico
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THE INTERNET VS PACS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Deepak Bhargava, Helen Brunner]
[Commentary] Money and politics have always gone hand in hand. But this year, we are witnessing the first presidential election in which big corporations can contribute unlimited funds to media campaigns that directly support or attack candidates. In this brave new world, big money donors are coloring voters’ views of candidates which can make or break political careers at an unprecedented scale. The influence of big money interests continues once candidates are elected, with all of the access money can buy. We must work to fix the massive structural issues that have allowed big money to distort our political landscape. But in the meantime, we also need to find ways to level the playing field for everyone. And that means protecting today’s greatest equalizer: the Internet. Now more than ever, Internet access is critical to ensure that everyone can participate in our flawed but salvageable democracy. We need fair and equitable policies that extend Internet access so that everyone in the United States can actively engage in the debates that affect their lives.
benton.org/node/136822 | Hill, The
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SUPER PACS AND ADS
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Jack Messmer]
Super PACs and other third-party political advertisers have been spending heavily on TV advertising in the run up to the Nov. 6 election and they are paying as much as four times as much as the candidates for comparable ad time, according to a TVNewsCheck spot check of stations' online political ad files in three markets in the swing states of Ohio, Florida and Nevada. The disparity is not surprising. Federal law mandates that stations sell time to candidates at the lowest unit rate — that is, at the rate stations charged their most favored commercial advertisers. Since super PACs and other groups not directly affiliated with a candidate don't qualify for the federal discount, stations are free to charge them whatever the market will bear and they do. But until political ad rates went online this summer by order of the Federal Communications Commission, it was difficult to find the evidence of the disparity. It required visiting individual stations and rummaging through their public inspection files.
benton.org/node/136763 | TVNewsCheck
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
THE INTERNET AT A GLOBAL CROSSROADS: PRESERVING INTERNET FREEDOM AND OPENNESS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Speaking at the Futurecom conference in Rio de Janeiro, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said that the upcoming World Conference of International Telecommunications (WCIT) will “be a crossroads for the Internet,” determining whether it remains free and open, or becomes increasingly impeded by international regulations. He urged leaders in the developed world and emerging economies to reject proposals for new international regulation of the Internet. FCC Chairman Genachowski said, “We have a path that led to the extraordinary growth of broadband and the Internet - the path of open markets, competition, and the free flow of information - and we should stay on that path.” Chairman Genachowski called for the continued preservation of an open Internet as part of a vision which embraces competition, market-based policies, and the existing multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance.
benton.org/node/136769 | Federal Communications Commission | read Genachowski’s remarks
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MORE ON CYBERSECURITY
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
A trio of centrist Senate Republicans urged President Barack Obama to hold back on issuing an executive order that would protect critical infrastructure systems from cyberattacks and encouraged him to work with Congress to pass legislation instead. In a joint letter sent to the White House, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Dick Lugar (R-IN) warn that an executive order could "undermine" Congress's need to act on cybersecurity legislation and provide a "false sense of security" that the national security threat has been resolved through executive action. Issuing an executive order "would be a mistake," they argued, and the president should "redouble" his efforts to work with Congress to get a bill passed that would address the rising threat.
benton.org/node/136786 | Hill, The
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PRIVACY
DATA BROKERS PROBE
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
The Senate Commerce Committee is opening a probe into the data broker industry and is seeking more information about what data these companies collect and how they do it. Data brokers collect and sell information about consumers to third parties. The committee wrote nine companies including information provider Reed Elsevier and the three major credit reporting firms Experian, Equifax and Transunion. "Collecting, storing and selling information about Americans raises all types of questions that require careful scrutiny," said Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). "While these practices may offer some benefits to consumers, they deserve to know what's being collected about them and how companies profit from their information." The panel is seeking a long list of information from the companies by Nov. 2, including the methods and mechanisms the companies use to collect data from consumers, the type of information collected, what products or services that data is used for, and who bought or used those services and products.
benton.org/node/136750 | National Journal | B&C | Senate Commerce Committee | FTC blog
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PROFITS FROM YOUR DATA
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Joe Mullin]
Savvy Internet users know that all the great stuff they get from the Internet for "free"—the searches, the social networks, the games, even the news—isn't really free. It's an exchange, where companies are able to take user data, sell it to advertisers, and make money that allows them to give themselves a paycheck while keeping you afloat in free digital services. So that data you're giving away online is worth something, but have you ever taken a stab at figuring out how much? A just-released privacy add-on for Firefox and Chrome, Privacyfix, gives it the old college try. Privacyfix measures your last 60 days of activity on Google, extrapolates that to a year, and uses a value-per-search estimate. Analysts believed Google was making $14.70 per 1,000 searches in 2010, and possibly less in 2011. Of course, if you spend all your time searching for luxury hotels or mesothelioma lawyers—and then clicking through the advertised links—you're much more valuable than the average user. Brock says his estimated annual Facebook value was a mere $1.68. His daughter, perhaps unsurprisingly, is at $12. His Google value checks in at more than $700 per year, though. The add-on also tells you how many of the websites you visit feed data back to Facebook and Google. I was surprised to see that Facebook is tracking me across 87 percent of the Internet, despite the fact that I'm a minimal user of Facebook.
benton.org/node/136752 | Ars Technica
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RESPONDING TO MICROSOFT
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Wendy Davis]
The ad industry is continuing to ramp up the pressure on Microsoft to retreat from its decision to activate do-not-track headers by default in Internet Explorer 10. "A 'default on' do-not-track mechanism offers consumers and businesses inconsistencies and confusion instead of comfort and security," the self-regulatory group Digital Advertising Alliance said. The organization added that it won't require members to honor do-not-track headers from people who use the Internet Explorer 10 browser. While the ad group previously indicated that it won't require publishers and ad networks to respect do-not-track signals set to "on" by default.
benton.org/node/136745 | MediaPost
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FACEBOOK PRIVACY SETTLEMENT
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Jeff John Roberts]
After a judge blasted a proposed Sponsored Stories settlement that would have paid $10 million to lawyers and nothing to users, the company is back with a new offer. It calls for a $10 pay out but the fine print means that is unlikely to happen. If too many of the estimated 125 million eligible people claim the money, everyone’s share will be reduced accordingly. And if the reduced amount falls below $5 per person, the Court has the discretion to give it to the usual suspects — the privacy groups. This isn’t the only strange feature of the new deal. Another is the notification process. Under the new settlement, Facebook is obliged to create a website and to notify users via email and to place ads in USA Today. This is all well and good but there is no obligation to notify them through, I dunno, Facebook.
benton.org/node/136748 | paidContent.org
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PRIVACY AND FCC BROADBAND SPEED TESTS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
A coalition of groups has warned the Federal Communications Commission to be careful how it collects and/or shares consumer online information as part of its broadband speed tests. In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Communications Liberty and Innovation Project, TechFreedom, Center for Media and Democracy and a half-dozen others said they were concerned consumers were turning over information to the government that could be used to "review" their Internet activity "without due process or judicial scrutiny." The FCC is using the information to "help determine the access of U.S. residents to broadband (such as cable, DSL, fiber, and other broadband services, including mobile services." The info may be shared with NTIA and the Agriculture Department, both of which oversee broadband deployment and adoption grants and loans. But the groups are worried that the test gives the FCC too much access to personal info without enough checks and balances.
benton.org/node/136813 | Broadcasting&Cable
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ACCESSIBILITY
NETFLIX AND ACCESSIBILITY
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Joe Mullin]
In an agreement that the National Association for the Deaf (NAD) calls "a model for the streaming video industry," Netflix has agreed to caption all of its shows by the year 2014. The online-streaming giant is already captioning 82 percent of its videos, according to the consent decree. Now, it's bound to finish its entire library, reaching the 90 percent mark in 2013 and 100 percent by 2014. The company has also agreed to speedily caption new content. The agreement says that Netflix will put captions on new content within 30 days by 2014; within 14 days by 2015; and within 7 days by 2016, "and shall strive to reach a point at which Conforming Captions are provided simultaneously with launch at all times."
benton.org/node/136816 | Ars Technica
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RESEARCH
FOREIGN BOX OFFICE
[SOURCE: Foreign Policy, AUTHOR: Stephen Galloway]
These are boom times in Hollywood, thanks to the American entertainment industry's secret new weapon: foreigners. "International" revenue (that is, anywhere that's not North America) is up 35 percent over five years ago and accounted for 69 percent of the studios' box-office receipts in 2011, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. As of Sept. 13, the studios' income from foreign theaters was running at $11 billion, compared with $7.6 billion domestically, per media data analyst Rentrak. As America has struggled in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Hollywood has gone global, with breathtaking results. Facing little room for domestic growth and with movie screens already saturating the United States, the film business has had little choice but to look abroad. Thanks to the recession, Tinseltown may have found its own salvation.
benton.org/node/136739 | Foreign Policy
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
INNOCENCE OF YOUTUBE
[SOURCE: Foreign Policy, AUTHOR: Susan Benesch, Rebecca MacKinnon]
[Commentary] Sovereigns of cyberspace such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have no legislatures or courts, yet they are carrying out private worldwide speech "regulation" -- sometimes in response to government demands, sometimes to enforce their own terms of service and guidelines. As they attempt this unprecedented feat in a dizzying variety of social and political climates, they will continue to face complex dilemmas. In trying to develop "community guidelines" for the world, they will be both tempted and pressured to bend them to fit other new circumstances. With so many audiences ready to riot, so many provocateurs looking for excuses, and so many channels of communication between them, the companies cannot be expected to prevent -- or take responsibility for -- violence provoked by content posted on their services. What they can do, however, is to make a major contribution to both freedom and civility by explaining their de facto "jurisprudence" as it develops, to the public.
benton.org/node/136742 | Foreign Policy
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HUAWEI CRISIS?
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Verne Kopytoff]
Richard D'Aveni, a business professor at Dartmouth College, said defending Huawei and ZTE risks branding U.S. tech companies as unpatriotic. Meanwhile, siding against them would antagonize their Chinese suppliers, partners and customers. "Their best move is to stay silent, but behind the scenes, lobby for supplies," he added. Indeed, the situation is complicated by the interdependence of both nations. Cutting off trade is nearly impossible. China needs U.S. technology to keep its infrastructure and factories operating. Meanwhile, U.S. tech manufacturers depend on Chinese components. The lines are so blurry that a product's origin is often a matter of semantics. Apple's iPhones and iPads, for example, are largely assembled in China. Similar cross-pollination is the norm for U.S. telecommunications equipment makers. Congressional investigators, however, did not look at any security risks created by such ties.
benton.org/node/136740 | Fortune
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
THE CONCEIT OF INTERNET CONTROL
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Christopher Schroeder]
[Commentary] The Internet today isn't merely a mode of communication but the defining platform by which businesses innovate and transact around the world. How can governments restrict this platform when it’s very success is based on transparency, openness and access? Becoming a force in tech innovation or disruption has never been easier—but unimpeded access to the Internet is essential. New entrepreneurs world-wide are creating ways to collaborate and solve local, regional and even global problems. Governments should note that while these innovators are passionate about their homes and culture, they have also never been more mobile. If pushed, they can seek out other countries that embrace their talent.
benton.org/node/136807 | Wall Street Journal
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MEASURING THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
[SOURCE: International Telecommunication Union, AUTHOR: Press release]
New figures released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) show that information and communication technology (ICT) uptake continues to grow worldwide, spurred by a steady fall in the price of telephone and broadband Internet services. The new data, released in ITU’s flagship annual report Measuring the Information Society 2012, rank the Republic of Korea as the world’s most advanced ICT economy, followed by Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland. Of the ten top-ranked countries, eight are from Europe. The two remaining countries both come from the Asia-Pacific region, with the Republic of Korea in first place, and Japan ranked 8th. The top five countries have not changed their rank between 2010 and 2011. The only new entrant in the top ten is the UK, which moved up from 14th place last year to 9th place in 2012. ITU’s ICT Development Index (IDI)* ranks 155 countries according to their level of ICT access, use and skills, and compares 2010 and 2011 scores. All countries in the IDI top 30 are high-income countries, underlining the strong link between income and ICT progress. There are large differences between developed and developing countries, with IDI values on average twice as high in the developed world compared with developing countries. The report identifies the group of countries with the lowest IDI levels – so-called ‘Least Connected Countries’ – and highlights the need for policy makers to pay keen attention to this group.
benton.org/node/136805 | International Telecommunication Union
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