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[Commentary] PBS is “educational television,” so why are its programs for kids as male dominated as animated films from Disney or Pixar?
Why is PBS as male-centered as Disney or Pixar?
Google spent $5.03 million on federal lobbying in the first quarter of 2012, according to a regulatory document. That topped such traditional big spenders as Verizon ($4.51 million) and Comcast ($4.55 million). The $5 million is a new record for Google, by far — up from $3.76 million spent on lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2011. You can also compare it to $9.68 million for all of 2011. Categories of issues that Google lobbied for or against in Q1 2012 included copyright, immigration, trade, small business, consumer safety and telecommunications.
Google’s Q1 Federal Lobbying Receipt: $5 Million Google acknowledges lobbying on cybersecurity bill CISPA (The Hill)
Netflix has hired the firm Greenberg Traurig to lobby Congress to amend a video privacy law.
The Video Privacy Protection Act was passed in 1988 after the Washington City Paper published a list of video rentals by Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork during his contentious nomination process. Although his rental history was mostly innocuous, members of Congress were outraged at the breach of privacy. The law bans sharing of rental information without written consent by the consumer or a warrant from the police. Netflix argues the law should be amended to allow users to opt in to automatically share their viewing habits on social networks. Users can already share on Facebook which songs they listen to and which articles they read. Greenberg Traurig lobbyist Edward Barron, a former staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee, will push for the changes on behalf of Netflix. Alan Slomowitz, who served as chief of staff to former Rep. Robert Borski (D-Pa.), and Michael Williams, a former lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, will also work on the account.
Netflix hires more lobbyists for push on video rental law
The Sunlight Foundation has written the Federal Communications Commission to ask that it not accept broadcasters' compromise proposal for posting political files online, arguing that it creates a two-tiered regime that does not satisfy congressional intent for political file reporting and undercuts broadcaster arguments that online posting of all political file info would be unduly burdensome. Top broadcast group execs have met with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Media Bureau staffers over the past several weeks to make a last-ditch pitch for their proposal to put aggregated political ad totals from candidates online, rather than individual ad buys, which would still be available in paper form in local station files. In the letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes government transparency and online access to info, says that placing all the public file political info online is fundamental to satisfying the congressional directive per campaign reform law.
Sunlight Foundation Disses Broadcaster Political File Compromise
The Senate is investigating video competition during a hearing on April 24 and public interest groups are using it as an opportunity to ask tough questions on broadband caps. Such caps, which are in place on over half of the wireline broadband connections in this country, are justified by the idea that they prevent folks from overusing shared broadband networks. However, most outsiders view such caps as a way for broadband providers to protect their existing pay TV products. So as the Senate gets ready to meet, Public Knowledge, Free Press, the New America Foundation and Consumers Union sent a letter to the Senate Commerce Committee asking it to quiz ISPs about their caps. The letters essentially ask why such caps are necessary given that caps are a bad way to deal with network congestion (rate limiting during times of peak demand is a better option).
They also asked what I think of as the Comcast question:
Recently, Comcast began offering an Internet-enabled streaming service through Microsoft’s Xbox device, for customers that subscribe to both Comcast’s monthly cable television package and its monthly broadband service. This online video offering will not count against consumers’ monthly broadband data caps, even though the service is provisioned over the very same networks that Comcast claims are so prone to congestion. This development casts additional doubt on the justification for data caps. That two identically sized data streams traveling over the same infrastructure could produce such disparate outcomes for the consumer provides an indication of the true motivation for these caps: discouraging consumers from using the online video services that compete with Comcast’s monthly cable package.
Will the Senate please ask ISPs to justify their wireless caps? Groups Ask Senate to Make Data Caps Part of Online Video Hearing (B&C)
[Commentary] Native Americans have long experienced disconnection from the rest of the country -- their reservations are generally placed on remote lands with little economic potential, separated from modern-day markets for goods, as well as higher education and health care. The dawn of the Internet was supposed to bridge this gap, according to the promises of prominent public officials.
Fiber optics cables along with satellite and wireless links would deliver the benefits of modernity to reservations, helping lift Native American communities out of isolation and poverty. But the rise of the web as an essential platform in American life has instead reinforced the distance for the simple reason that most Native Americans have little access to the online world. Less than 10 percent of homes on tribal lands have broadband Internet service -- a rate that is lower than in some developing countries. By contrast, more than half of African Americans and Hispanics and about three-fourths of whites have high-speed access at home, according to the Department of Commerce. Without reliable access to the Internet, many Native Americans find themselves increasingly isolated, missing out on opportunities to secure jobs, gain degrees through online classes, reach health care practitioners, and even preserve native languages and rituals with new applications that exploit the advantages of the web.
On Tribal Lands, Digital Divide Brings New Form Of Isolation
Google, which is already making a play for the TV dollars spent by big national brands with investments into what it calls premium video, is now targeting small- and medium-sized video advertisers, too. It’s adapting its popular do-it-yourself AdWords platform to video ads made for its YouTube video portal.
Google AdWords for Video, which soft-launched in September, has a basic framework similar to Google’s text-based AdWords. The program enables a company to bid on keyword searches, so that their ad shows up when relevant YouTube searches are conducted. They can also choose to have their ad embedded into relevant YouTube video categories, much as they would place their commercial during relevant linear TV programming. AdWords for Video purchasers pay only when their spot is actually viewed, and also get various data on when, how and where the ads were consumed. Google has posted a short video that explains how the new program works. The company has also gathered the testimonials of some early adopters to help promote the product.
Google targets $20 billion local TV ad market
Apple products using touch technology infringe on a patent owned by the Pennsylvanian company FlatWorld Interactives, the company alleged in court documents filed on April 20.
FlatWorld asked for a permanent injunction that Apple stop infringing, and for sufficient compensation for the infringements, the company's attorneys said. The Pennsylvanian designer of touchscreen systems for use in museum displays alleged that Apple knowingly infringed on its patent, according to documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said. The infringing products are said to include the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad. FlatWorld said Apple's infringement has been on a massive scale and has caused it irreparable harm. The company demanded a permanent injunction enjoining Apple from continued infringement plus an unspecified amount of damages to compensate for Apple's infringement. The company is seeking a jury trial.
Apple sued in California over touch patent
[Commentary] Verizon has clearly studied everything AT&T did wrong last year when it tried to acquire T-Mobile. That includes staying alert for early signs of trouble and taking preemptive moves to keep the course of approval running smoothly. It also includes showing grace under fire rather than trying to browbeat the Federal Communications Commission into submission.
To head off concerns about the growing “spectrum gap” between Verizon (and AT&T) and its competitors, Verizon has offered to sell its Lower 700 MHz A&B block licenses in a private auction if the FCC grants the application to transfer the AWS-1 spectrum to it from SpectrumCo. At the same time, Verizon also insists that it is doing this of its own free will and not because the FCC is making it do so or because it has run into any trouble. As I will explain, I believe Verizon is telling the truth. The 700 MHz A&B block licenses Verizon promises to auction to competitors is not nearly as useful to it as the AWS-1 spectrum it will get from SpectrumCo and Cox. Given that everyone has extolled the virtues of the 700 MHz spectrum as the most important, game changing super-duper useful for mobile broadband spectrum in the entire universe, and since the licenses in question do cover some major markets, that no doubt comes as a surprise to many. Indeed, rather like the stereotypical used car salesman offering to swap your beat up lemon for his hardly ever driven luxury cream puff, this offer looks too good to be true.
Why would Verizon want to swap Magic Elixir 700 MHz spectrum for Totally Awesome But Not Magic AWS-1 spectrum?
Verizon/SpectrumCo: The Spectrum Concentration Gap v. The Spectrum Crunch Verizon/SpectrumCo Spectrum Gap v. Spectrum Crunch — Verizon’s Brilliant Aikido Move (Part II) Verizon/SpectrumCo: Spectrum Gap v. Spectrum Crunch (Part III)
Almost a decade after a new law went into effect to strengthen health privacy protections, the number of breaches of patient records and databases across the US suggests that personal health information is not as private or secure as many consumers might want or expect. Since fall 2009, more than 400 large health care breaches affecting at least 500 people and more than 50,000 smaller breaches have been reported to the federal government.
Health records lost, stolen or revealed online