The executive and legislative branches have no compelling reason not to halt the bulk collection of phone metadata, done under Patriot Act Section 215, said Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board Chairman David Medinein in a Lawfare blog post Friday. “Last month, the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences released a report in which it determined that ‘[t]here is no software technique that will fully substitute for bulk collection’ of signals intelligence and, finding more drawbacks than benefits to having phone companies instead of the government hold call records, recommended focusing instead on use controls of collected information to address privacy concerns of people who are not the targets of surveillance,” Medine said. “The NRC’s conclusion about the relative merits of aggregated data pooling generally should not deter the President from terminating the 215 telephony metadata program on his own or Congress from passing the USA FREEDOM Act.” The USA Freedom Act was surveillance overhaul legislation that stalled in the Senate last fall.
Drawback
A duty drawback is a refund by CBP of the duties, taxes, or fees paid on imported goods, which were imposed upon importation as prescribed in 19 U.S.C. 1313(d). More broadly, a drawback also includes the refund or remission of other excise taxes pursuant to other provisions of law.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler conceded Monday that an incentive auction has never been tried before and poses a “daunting challenge” for the FCC to get the details right. Wheeler, who spoke at the Brookings Institution, also said the FCC is committed to working with broadcasters to make the auction a success.
T-Mobile representatives warned FCC officials about the dangers of package bidding, which both AT&T and Verizon Wireless have advocated for the upcoming incentive TV auction. The “drawbacks” of package bidding include “the creation of an excess supply of licenses upon the withdrawal of a package bid; the creation of new mechanisms to game the auction process; and the competitive risks associated with effectively granting package bidders an additional right to withdraw bids compared to individual license bidders,” T-Mobile said, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1dTnCdx). “Given the risks, drawbacks and complexities associated with package bidding, participants ... discussed alternative mechanisms that can reduce exposure risk without substantially increasing gaming opportunities or computational challenges. Reasonable spectrum aggregation limits, for example, can constrain exposure risk in a manner similar to package bidding, but without unduly increasing either auction complexity or gaming opportunities."
The U.K. Office of Communications should act to improve in-building mobile phone coverage, consulting company Real Wireless said in a report to the regulator Thursday (http://bit.ly/1bUz0V2). Reliability of indoor mobile services is becoming increasingly important to consumers, and can be tackled by outdoor solutions in which users receive a mobile signal from a network outside the building, or via indoor solutions where the signal comes from some kind of access point in the building dedicated to serving only that premises, it said. In the U.K., existing indoor cellular coverage provided by outdoor macro-cellular networks is at a high level for voice and data services, but the outdoor approach has some drawbacks, the report said. Among other things, construction material variations and building geometries may make it impossible for signals to penetrate inside all buildings, and trends toward more thermal shielding required in building regulations will significantly affect coverage levels over time, it said. So while outside solutions will continue to provide a baseline level of indoor coverage, there will be greater need for dedicated in-building plans to give consumers better services, it said. Poor indoor service arises from users being long distances from their operators’ sites; inside a building with challenging construction materials or layout; or in a high-rise that suffers from interference from multiple cells, the report said. Wi-Fi installed by an end user is a popular option for boosting indoor mobile services, but has been limited to data services unless the user wants to use over-the-top alternatives to voice and messaging such as Skype, it said. Carrier Wi-Fi, where operators are involved in deploying and managing the network and which allows roaming between their cellular and carrier Wi-Fi networks, is under development, it said. Traditional consumer repeaters and signal boosters are available in Britain but can’t legally be deployed without operator permission due to possible interference, it said. New, intelligent repeaters are helping to tackle those interference issues, it said, but they are not widely available. Femtocells have been rolled out commercially by all U.K. mobile operators and targeted to particular groups of consumers, it said. Picocells, which cover large areas, target larger small and mid-sized buildings. Distributed antenna systems, an infrastructure of cables, amplifiers and antennas installed inside to distribute mobile signals in analog form, are expensive to plan and install and are suitable only for large high-capacity or corporate buildings, it said. Hybrid solutions using femtocells, picocells and Wi-Fi are also promising, it said. The study looked at areas of concern for Ofcom in in-building solutions. These included: (1) Fully integrating small cell solutions into existing networks. (2) Ensuring that security best practices are set in consumer-accessible small cells. (3) The lack of a centralized security certificates authority to authenticate the identity of small cells, which could lead to a limited supply of vendors and access point products for consumers to choose from. (4) The fact that many in-building solutions are still fairly immature and of limited availability. Among other things, the report recommended that Ofcom give consumers information and help to identify the most appropriate indoor solution, and consider making low-power, shared-access licensed spectrum available for indoor deployment. The regulator should also consider monitoring and reporting on indoor coverage levels across operators, and analyze the U.S. situation with consumer repeaters to see if it might work in Britain, the report said.
Native advertising was characterized as everything from beneficial to both the consumer and media industry to a violation of ethics that could destroy the media industry “one boatload of shit at a time,” during a daylong FTC workshop on the issue. The former characterization came from panelists representing publishers, content discovery platforms, ad companies and public relations firms. The latter came from Bob Garfield, co-host of On the Media and MediaPost columnist. Legal researchers later presented studies on how users consume and understand various forms of advertising.
As the fight continues over Verizon’s plan to rebuild its network on Fire Island destroyed during Superstorm Sandy using wireless infrastructure, one big question that arises is what’s wrong with wireless anyway as an alternative to the plain old telephone service. With small carriers across the U.S. deploying wireless-only systems and larger carriers making wireless a big part of their IP transition plans, some industry observers are asking if the FCC needs to change its regulatory worldview of wireless substitution. Last week, the FCC Wireline Bureau opted not to “automatically” grant Verizon’s Communications Act Section 214 petition (CD Aug 15 p1) to discontinue domestic phone services, but to instead request additional data from Verizon.
No one supports a “down from 51 reversed” 600 MHz band plan, as proposed in the FCC Wireless Bureau in a May 17 public notice, CTIA said in comments filed at the commission. CEA offered a similar critique. The bureau also sought comment on a proposal to rely on TDD instead of FDD, which has been proposed by Sprint Nextel. The notice dominated incentive auction discussions at CTIA the following week, and with comments due at the commission Friday, it got little industry love.
Internet users show a range of attitudes toward the Internet and its role in their lives, depending on their digital literacy, a study for the U.K. Office of Communications found. Ofcom commissioned the survey to inform its thinking on consumers’ and citizens’ behavior in the context of different aspects of their online experience, the Ipsos MORI report on “being online” said (http://xrl.us/bo8t5t). It divided respondents into the “highly digitally literate,” for whom the Internet had become a main way of engaging with the world; the “medium digitally literate,” for whom the Internet was a key part of their lives and who used it for distinct tasks; and those with “low digital literacy,” who used the Internet for a limited range of activities and tended to find it hard to learn new things. One key finding was that users made tradeoffs between the benefits and drawbacks of online engagement when deciding whether to carry out an activity on the Internet. For example, the report said, when deciding whether to buy something on a website not heard of before, users tended to balance the potential risk against the financial benefit of getting the lowest price. The thought process involved a variety of factors, such as previous experience of performing the activity, friends’ and families’ experiences and peer reviews of products or services. “Confidence in going online was a key factor in whether someone felt able to access the full potential of the web,” the report said. A second finding was a lack of awareness of how to stay safe online and many misconceptions about what “safe” behavior was. The research showed that many participants didn’t understand how safety mechanisms such as the green padlock, verified payment methods and other mechanisms worked, so failed to use them in a consistent way. People relied on their instincts to assess what to trust on the Internet, the report said. Another finding was a lack of understanding about how personal data are stored, used and transferred on the Internet. Many users were happy to allow companies to use their data with their consent, but there were also concerns about the consequences of doing so, the report said. Here, too, there were tradeoffs, as people decided to input personal information or agree to terms and conditions if not doing so would prevent them from getting what they wanted, it said. There was also a broad assumption that online rights and responsibilities should be the same as those offline, the survey found. “Most people were entirely unaware of their online rights,” it said. They believed that individuals have a responsibility to behave in a socially acceptable way online and that websites should monitor and address offensive comments while aiming to preserve free speech, it said. Finally, respondents believed the Internet would become increasingly dominant, a shift not generally perceived as problematic as long as the changes were seen to be beneficial to some. Respondents also predicted more harmony between humans and technology, the report said. While some were saddened by the idea of total access to all information, for free, which everyone would constantly interact with, most were “broadly resigned to this vision of the future,” it said.
The Copyright Principles Project should be a model for a copyright reform process, members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property said during a hearing on the CPP Thursday. CPP participants testified, including the UC-Berkeley Law and Information Management professor that convened the project, Pamela Samuelson. Members said the subcommittee should examine the stakeholder discussions that led to the report, rather than focus solely on the policy suggestions in the report. Full committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. -- who said last month that Judiciary would hold hearings to reevaluate copyright law in light of changing technologies (CD April 25 p9) -- said he hopes to hear “from everyone interested in copyright law ... before we begin to look at more specific issues.”
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. -- The borderless world of wireless presents unique regulation challenges for app developers, said panelists at the Entertainment Apps Conference. Joleen Winther Hughes of Hughes Media Law Group said: “Developers want no boundaries or borders, but when you're trying to develop intellectual property, it’s crucial having ownership of it. Once you release an app in multiple jurisdictions, you must also be aware that there are different rules in different areas."