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INTERNET/BROADBAND

POWER, POLLUTION AND THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: James Glanz]
A yearlong examination by The New York Times has revealed that data centers, a foundation of the information industry, is sharply at odds with its image of sleek efficiency and environmental friendliness. Most data centers, by design, consume vast amounts of energy in an incongruously wasteful manner, interviews and documents show. Online companies typically run their facilities at maximum capacity around the clock, whatever the demand. As a result, data centers can waste 90 percent or more of the electricity they pull off the grid, The Times found. To guard against a power failure, they further rely on banks of generators that emit diesel exhaust. The pollution from data centers has increasingly been cited by the authorities for violating clean air regulations, documents show. In Silicon Valley, many data centers appear on the state government’s Toxic Air Contaminant Inventory, a roster of the area’s top stationary diesel polluters. Worldwide, the digital warehouses use about 30 billion watts of electricity, roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants, according to estimates industry experts compiled for The Times. Data centers in the United States account for one-quarter to one-third of that load, the estimates show.
benton.org/node/135203 | New York Times
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WE BUILT THAT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Steven Johnson]
[Commentary] So was the Internet created by Big Government or Big Capital? The answer is: Neither. This is what’s most notable about the debate over the Net’s origins: it misses the most interesting part of the story. We live in a world that assumes that the most important and original products in society — bridges, cars, iPads, hospitals, 787s, houses — are created either by states or by corporations. And yet, against all odds, the Internet came from somewhere else entirely. Like many of the bedrock technologies that have come to define the digital age, the Internet was created by — and continues to be shaped by — decentralized groups of scientists and programmers and hobbyists (and more than a few entrepreneurs) freely sharing the fruits of their intellectual labor with the entire world. Yes, government financing supported much of the early research, and private corporations enhanced and commercialized the platforms. But the institutions responsible for the technology itself were neither governments nor private start-ups. They were much closer to the loose, collaborative organizations of academic research. They were networks of peers.
benton.org/node/135200 | New York Times
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FREE SPEECH IN THE AGE OF YOUTUBE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Somini Sengupta]
[Commentary] Google pointed to its internal edicts to explain why it rebuffed calls to take down an incendiary anti-Islamic video posted on YouTube altogether. It did not meet its definition of hate speech, YouTube said, and so it allowed the video to stay up on the Web. It didn’t say very much more. That explanation revealed not only the challenges that confront companies like Google but also how opaque they can be in explaining their verdicts on what can be said on their platforms. Google, Facebook and Twitter receive hundreds of thousands of complaints about content every week. Certainly, the scale and nature of YouTube makes this a daunting task. Any analysis requires combing through over a billion videos and overlaying that against the laws and mores of different countries. It’s unclear whether expert panels would allow for unpopular minority opinion anyway. The company said in a statement that, like newspapers, it, too, made “nuanced” judgments about content: “It’s why user-generated content sites typically have clear community guidelines and remove videos or posts that break them.”
benton.org/node/135199 | New York Times
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THE INTERNET AND THE UN
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
US Ambassador Terry Kramer vowed that the United States will not compromise its principles on human rights, free speech and other issues during negotiations of an international telecommunications treaty in December. "If there are things that are completely objectionable, that violate our fundamental views about human rights, about free speech, about economic opportunities--if they fundamentally violate it--then we will just say no and absolutely we won't proceed," said Kramer, who is leading the U.S. delegation during the negotiations, at a press conference at law firm Wiley Rein. Kramer has met with various officials, most recently in Dubai and El Salvador, to discuss the U.S. position on the treaty and called these conversations "encouraging," while noting that "we have a long road to travel" before WCIT. He will later travel to Beijing to meet with Chinese officials, then head to Tokyo, Europe and Russia.
benton.org/node/135188 | Hill, The
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PLOT AGAINST NET
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Eliza Krigman]
It may sound far-fetched, but Congress suspects other nations of plotting to shackle the free Internet with taxes and censorship. And it's fighting the conspiracy with legislation. The Senate adopted a resolution denouncing efforts by foreign nations to give control over key Internet functions to the United Nations-backed International Telecommunications Union. The House adopted a resolution last month. U.S. lawmakers don’t actually have say in the process that will unfold at the World Conference on International Telecommunications in December, but insiders say it’s a critical step to help build support for the United States’ position. “The Senate resolution will be important,” said Ambassador. David Gross, a telecommunications lawyer and former U.S. coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy at the State Department. “The world watches very carefully what our Congress does on these types of matters” and “the fact that Republicans and Democrats are so unified on this issue is noticed and important globally.” The United States will be represented by Ambassador Terry Kramer, a telecommunications executive tapped for this mission, and a delegation likely to be comprised of some State Department and NTIA officials. Kramer and others closely involved with the process say the challenge is much more nuanced than a direct Internet coup.
benton.org/node/135117 | Politico
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OBAMA’S CYBER ATTACK
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Any day now, the White House will issue an executive order on cybersecurity. The executive moved on its own after Congressional efforts stalled this summer. The Senate split over mandating IT security standards for private companies, and the Administration's order resuscitates this contentious idea. It will also undercut efforts to fashion a bipartisan bill in a lame duck Congress. The Administration's evident motive is to impose government oversight of cyberspace. As it worked to undercut information sharing, the White House pushed the Senate to adopt mandatory IT standards for companies in "critical sectors." Those provisions were weakened in later drafts of the measure, but Senate Republicans still sensibly balked at the attempt to give the Department of Homeland Security oversight over the virtual world, and any bill with such mandates could never pass the House. According to leaked versions of the draft, the executive order would impose security standards for 16 critical industries. The adoption of these "voluntary" (ironic quotes intended) and probably costly measures could be a condition for private companies to win federal contracts. A DHS-led cybersecurity council will decide who's "critical." Twitter and Facebook could easily end up on the list along with electricity providers or financial services firms.
benton.org/node/135192 | Wall Street Journal
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

MOBILE AND CABLE TV
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Amy Chozick]
Tucked amid rows of office cubicles at the sprawling Verizon Wireless headquarters and hidden behind a locked door sit the company’s best kept retail secrets. The mock store looks like a Verizon Wireless retail outlet right down to the signs for the iPhone 5 and racks of mobile accessories. But on one wall, an experimental display of tablets and smartphones labeled “Home Services” offers Verizon customers a new service: cable TV. The display is a little-known result of Verizon’s $3.9 billion purchase of spectrum from Bright House Networks, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable that the Federal Communications Commission approved last month. While most attention has focused on how the purchase of unused airwaves will help Verizon expand its new fourth-generation wireless network, a less publicized result is that cable companies can now use Verizon’s retail presence to sell cable packaged with phone and wireless service. The partnership signals a major shift for both industries. Until recently, wireless and cable companies were archrivals. Major cable providers owned spectrum and hoped to start their own wireless businesses, while wireless companies wanted to compete in cable. The new spirit of cooperation is jolting analysts.
benton.org/node/135196 | New York Times
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LIGHTSQUARED HEARING
[SOURCE: House of Representatives Commerce Committee]
House Commerce Committee Republicans criticized the Federal Communications Commission for blocking LightSquared from launching a nationwide high-speed cellular network. Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) questioned whether the FCC was too quick to dismiss the company's plans and urged FCC officials to continue working to find a solution for the now-bankrupt company. However, other congressional Republicans, have accused the Obama administration of being too cozy with LightSquared. At the hearing, Chairman Stearns argued that the interference problem was the fault of the GPS industry — not LightSquared. He compared the situation to a car veering into the wrong lane of a highway and argued that it is the FCC's responsibility to ensure that everyone stay in his or her own lane.
Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology, testified that the FCC's review was "fact-based and transparent." Knapp said he hopes the agency will be able to find a solution for LightSquared, but he declined to weigh in on whether there are any promising proposals.
Knapp and Mindel De La Torre, chief of the FCC’s International Bureau, said they were unaware of any conversations between the FCC and White House over the issue, which was essentially the only political turn to the hearing. After an eight-month investigation by the subcommittee into the issue, that suggested there were no political smoking guns.
Defending the FCC process was Diana DeGette (D-CO), ranking member of the subcommittee, who said the FCC had been put in a no-win situation, but had conducted the process responsibly and taken steps to address the GPS concerns after they were raised late in the process. Rep DeGette said she would be concerned if the FCC had made politically motivated decisions. "But I don't think that anyone thinks that is the case." The FCC weighed the pros and cons and made a difficult decision.
benton.org/node/135170 | House of Representatives Commerce Committee | The Hill | B&C-preview | B&C | ars technica | National Journal | Bloomberg
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PRIVACY

AD INDUSTRY, PRIVACY ADVOCATES SPAR OVER 'DO NOT TRACK'
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
Lawmakers and the Federal Trade Commission are being lobbied to intervene to help settle differences between some advertising industry representatives and privacy advocates over how to implement a “do-not-track” option giving consumers the choice of whether they want to be tracked online. Many companies now track consumers by placing text files called "cookies" on their computers when they visit certain websites in order to tailor ads to them based on their preferences. In response to the growing use of online tracking for advertising and market research, many privacy advocates have called for giving consumers a do-not-track option. The idea gained momentum after the FTC first endorsed the idea in a draft privacy report in December 2010. Some of the browser providers including Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer have begun including a do-not-track choice in their browsers. But it is unclear how websites will respond to these do-not-track requests. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international organization that sets technical standards for the Web, has been convening talks involving advertising and tech industry representatives and privacy advocates on developing a standard for what it means to abide by a consumer’s do-not-track preference. Those talks, which have been going on for months, however, appear to have reached a stalemate and some of the parties involved are now looking outside the group for help.
benton.org/node/135134 | National Journal
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FACEBOOK AD TRACKING
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Emily Steel, April Dembosky]
Facebook is working with a controversial data company called Datalogix that can track whether people who see ads on the social networking site end up buying those products in stores. Amid growing pressure for the social networking site to prove the value of its advertising, Facebook is gradually wading into new techniques for tracking and using data about users that raise concerns among privacy advocates. Datalogix has purchasing data from about 70 million American households largely drawn from loyalty cards and programs at more than 1,000 retailers, including grocers and drug stores. By matching email addresses or other identifying information associated with those cards against emails or information used to establish Facebook accounts, Datalogix can track whether people bought a product in a store after seeing an ad on Facebook.
benton.org/node/135191 | Financial Times
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FACEBOOK AND FACES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Somini Sengupta, Kevin O’Brien]
Facebook confronted a new obstacle over what to do with one of its most vital assets — pictures. The company promised European regulators that it would forgo using facial recognition software and delete the data used to identify Facebook users by their pictures. The decision could have wide repercussions on how facial recognition technology — a particularly sensitive technological advance — is used globally as surveillance cameras are increasingly installed in public spaces. “This is a big deal,” said Chris Hoofnagle, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley who specializes in online privacy. “The development of these tools in the private sector directly affects civil liberties,” he explained. “The ultimate application is going to be — can we apply these patterns in video surveillance to automatically identify people for security purposes and maybe for marketing purposes as well?”
benton.org/node/135166 | New York Times | LATimes
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FACEBOOK PRIVACY
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Padraic Halpin]
Facebook has tightened up its privacy controls sufficiently to satisfy a review by the body that regulates the social networking company outside North America, removing the immediate threat of legal challenges. Facebook was told by Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner last December to overhaul privacy protection for its users outside the United States and Canada after a probe found its privacy policies were too complex and lacked transparency. The regulator said it was particularly encouraged by the decision to turn off a piece of facial recognition technology, the so-called "tag suggest" feature, for new users in the European Union and by next month, existing users as well. The Irish watchdog, which oversees Facebook's activities because the group's non-U.S. business is headquartered in Dublin, said most of its instructions had been adopted, with progress still to be made on others over the next four weeks.
benton.org/node/135164 | Reuters
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FACEBOOK PRIVACY FOUNDATION
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Wendy Davis]
A divided federal appeals court ruled that Facebook can create a new privacy foundation in order to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from its defunct Beacon ad program. A panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to uphold the settlement, which was approved two years ago by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg. "We affirm the district court’s holding that the settlement was fundamentally fair," the majority wrote. The appellate court specifically rejected opponents' arguments that Facebook will exert too much control over the new organization, called the Digital Trust Foundation. The decision paves the way for Facebook to move forward with the new foundation, which is part of a $9.5 million settlement package. The deal calls for Facebook to pay $6.5 million to fund the Digital Trust Foundation, to be directed by a three-person board that includes Facebook's director of public policy, Tim Sparapani. The social-networking giant also will pay the 19 consumers who filed suit amounts varying from $1,000 to $15,000, and around $2.5 million to the attorneys who brought the case.
benton.org/node/135162 | MediaPost
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GOOGLE SEEKS LEWSUIT DISMISSAL
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Wendy Davis]
Google and a group of consumers are gearing up for a courtroom showdown about recent changes to the company's privacy policy. The latest policy, which went into effect in March, allows Google to aggregate data about signed-in users across a variety of platforms, including Android, Gmail and YouTube. Google says that doing so allows it to target ads and search results more precisely by drawing on a broader pool of information about users than in the past. The company isn't collecting any additional data or sharing information with outsiders. But the move to aggregate data triggered inquiries by Congress and attorneys general, as well as complaints by advocacy groups. The move also resulted in potential class-action litigation by consumers, who allege that Google's new policy breaks promises that the company made in its previous policies. In the past, Google said that it would keep data collected for one purpose, like e-mail, siloed from data collected for other purposes. The consumers say that Google's new policy constitutes a breach of contract and violates the federal computer fraud law and wiretap law, among other statutes. In August 2012, Google filed court papers asking U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Singh Grewal in the Northern District of California to dismiss the claims. Google argues that the consumers lack "standing" to proceed in court because they haven't sufficiently alleged any economic harm. "There are no allegations anywhere in the complaint that any plaintiff has suffered any injury at all. None claims to have lost money. None claims to have changed services," Google argues.
benton.org/node/135125 | MediaPost
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JOURNALISM

NEWSPAPER WAR
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Ryan Chittum]
After Advance Publications announced it would gut the still-profitable New Orleans Times-Picayune’s newsroom and slash publication to three days a week, the Baton Rouge Advocate’s Manship family saw an opportunity. The Advocate, which killed its New Orleans bureau a few years ago in cutbacks, said it would open a new bureau and print a New Orleans edition of the paper seven days a week. With so much local anger at Advance Publications for eviscerating a local institution, the Advocate’s move into New Orleans could be a threat to the Times-Picayune. Well, the Newhouses aren’t taking it lying down. Advance announced yesterday that it’s opening up a Baton Rouge bureau and will launch a local edition there to compete with the Advocate. In other words: newspaper war.
benton.org/node/135113 | Columbia Journalism Review
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AGENDA

FCC’S SEPT AGENDA
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on the subjects listed below on Friday, September 28, 2012. The FCC will consider:
a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to update, streamline, or eliminate earth and space station licensing requirements, reducing regulatory burdens on licensees and accelerating delivery of new satellite services to consumers.
a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to implement an incentive auction of broadcast television spectrum.
a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that initiates a review of its policies governing mobile spectrum holdings.
benton.org/node/135169 | Federal Communications Commission
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

PAKISTANI PAPERS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
Afghanistan banned all Pakistani newspapers from entering the country on Friday in an attempt to block the Taliban from influencing public opinion via the press. The order, issued by the Ministry of Interior, adds to the mounting tension between the neighboring countries. It focuses specifically on blocking entry of the papers at Torkham, a busy border crossing, and directed border police to gather up Pakistani newspapers in the three eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan. In a statement, the ministry said the newspapers were a conduit for Taliban propaganda.
benton.org/node/135151 | Associated Press
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MEDIA AND ELECTIONS

WHO DO YOU TRUST?
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] In March 2012 we at Headlines were intrigued by an interview Craigslist founder Craig Newmark gave GigaOm in which he said the next big problem the Internet needed to solve was trust. In an election season, in any political season, really, trust plays a huge role. For Newmark, the issue is management of our online relationships and reputations. For our purposes today, we start with the opening of a Marketplace story on how Americans feel about the news media: “Unless you follow political rallies around like the Grateful Dead, this election season a big chunk of your news is bound to be filtered through the news media.” So do people trust the media as they decide on who to elect in November? On September 21, Gallup reported that Americans' distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004. (For sake of comparison, trust in the media was much higher, and more positive than negative, in the years prior to 2004 -- as high as 72% when Gallup asked this question three times in the 1970s.)
http://benton.org/node/135095
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

FOXCONN RIOT
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Kathrin Hille, Sarah Mishkin]
Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer by shipments and revenue, suspended production at one of its largest factories in China after a mass riot among workers. The incident is the latest case of labor unrest at Apple’s main supplier despite the massive efforts Foxconn has made since 2010 to revamp the way it manages its 1 million-strong Chinese workforce. Foxconn said a personal dispute between several employees at its factory in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan escalated into an incident involving some 2,000 workers at around 11pm on Sunday night. “The dispute was brought under control by local police at approximately 3am this morning. According to police, some 40 individuals were taken to the hospital for medical attention and a number of individuals were arrested,” the company said. The Taiyuan plant, which employs 78,000, is part of the iPhone supply chain as it makes some parts but analysts said there would be no impact on the iPhone 5. The plant makes only very small quantities of casings and the company expects to resume production on August 25.
benton.org/node/135179 | Financial Times
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September 24, 2012 (Power, Pollution and the Internet)

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