Google has received nearly 145,000 requests for information removal since it started accepting requests May 29, after the European Court of Justice’s right to be forgotten ruling, said a transparency report published Friday (http://bit.ly/1snEpBQ). From those requests, Google has considered 497,695 URLs for removal, ultimately removing 41.8 percent of them. Facebook has had the most URLs, 3,332, removed from search results, followed by data crawler ProfileEngine.com, YouTube and popular European social network Badoo.
Donna Nelson, chairwoman of the Texas Public Utilities Commission, will be among the panelists for the Oct. 21 Internet regulation forum in College Station, Texas, being organized by FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, his office said Thursday (http://bit.ly/1shkAuR). The other panelists are: Edward Henigin, Data Foundry chief technology officer; Robert Hunt, Guadalupe Valley Telephone Cooperative vice president-regulatory affairs; Chelsea McCullough, Texans for Economic Progress executive director; Joe Portman, Alamo Broadband president; and Stewart Youngblood, Dallas Entrepreneur Center ambassador. The forum is scheduled to be live streamed.
Facebook revealed Audience Network, which lets third parties buy or host advertisements on mobile apps, in a Tuesday blog post (http://on.fb.me/1nYAtGR). “The Audience Network uses the same targeting and measurement features that marketers already use when advertising on Facebook,” it said. The company recently relaunched its Internet-wide ad platform Atlas, which received some pushback from privacy advocates over its targeted advertising opt-out policy, which still allows data collection.
Broadband speeds have increased from an average peak of 27.1 Mbps in 2012 to 45.3 Mbps, said NCTA in a blog post Friday (http://bit.ly/1racpes). The 67 percent increase is based on an Akamai quarterly report on the Internet, NCTA said. “Every year broadband speeds increase in the U.S. and these increases will continue.” Charter Communications increased minimum broadband speeds from 15 Mbps to 60 Mbps this year, while Cox Communications has announced plans for gigabit service to many residential customers, NCTA said. The speed increases come from “huge, consistent, infrastructure investment,” NCTA said. Cable companies spent $14 billion on infrastructure improvements last year, while telecom companies as a whole spent $46 billion, “more than any other industry in America,” NCTA said.
There is “every reason to believe” that the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions “will be consumed” by the ITU, said Bartlett Cleland, Institute for Policy Innovation resident scholar-tax and innovation policy, in a news release Thursday. Cleland cited Iran’s suggestion that the proposals of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee be mandated upon approval by a simple majority of ICANN’s board. “The Obama administration’s view is not just being ignored, but essentially mocked, as authoritarian governments move to make ICANN another puppet of government,” he said. Cleland said if the U.S. fails to preserve Internet freedom, it could be forced to disconnect from the global network.
The FCC should remember the “problems of undue regulation” when it takes on net neutrality, NCTA CEO Michael Powell wrote in an op-ed in The Hill Thursday (http://bit.ly/10msw3k). Based on “history and experience,” Powell wrote, “competition goals will be thwarted if the commission buckles to those who are baying to blanket the Internet industry with the dirty quilt of common carrier regulation.” Powell referred to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s Sept. 7 speech on the need for more broadband competition (CD Sept 5 p1). “Can anyone honestly argue that new heavy regulation will attract new broadband competitors and bring more choices to consumers?” Powell wrote. “Or rather, will it only entrench the power of incumbents and frustrate innovators and entrepreneurs? Will it help broadband build out into rural areas or rather impede it?"
Google revealed a project called The Physical Web, intended to allow smart devices to provide information without user prompts (http://bit.ly/1CHwzoO). For instance, a user walking past a bus stop would automatically be sent bus schedules, Google said Thursday. “The number of smart devices is going to explode, and the assumption that each new device will require [its] own application just isn’t realistic,” the company said. “We need a system that lets anyone interact with any device at any time.” Google said it will release an open, common Web standard “that any device can use to offer interaction.”
The FCC said it scheduled its National Cyber Security Awareness Month technology expo for Oct. 28. The expo will include demonstrations on effective personal cybersecurity practices, the FCC said Wednesday. Exhibition space will be available free to “qualified” entities in cybersecurity, including federal agencies, IT corporations and law enforcement, the FCC said (http://bit.ly/1wYXnh1). National Cyber Security Awareness Month began Wednesday. CenturyLink separately marked the beginning of National Cyber Security Awareness Month by launching a security blog that it said will give customers tips on privacy protections and Internet-wide security issues. The blog will also recommend steps for resolving potential vulnerabilities and cyberattack recovery. The company said customers can also buy its Online Security suite for automatic cloud backup, antivirus services and identity theft protection (http://bit.ly/1qWLClM).
One of every eight U.K. homes uses streaming services to watch TV, while tablets and smartphones are the “go-to” browsing devices in a third of British homes, and one in every 10 millennials doesn’t own a PC or laptop, said a survey report released Monday by the U.K. firm Post Office HomePhone and Broadband (http://bit.ly/1uz0VZk). Streaming or downloading TV programs ranked as one of the top three most popular uses for broadband at home, with 12 percent of homes viewing TV shows mainly via online channels, the report said. The survey of 2,000 British consumers in mid-August also found that nearly a third of U.K. homes use a smartphone or tablet as their main browsing device at home. But PCs and laptops still remain popular for accessing the Internet at home, though not among the youngest consumers, it said. Only 15 percent of 18-24-year-olds use PCs as their main browsing platform compared with two in five consumers over 55, it said. “Streaming and on-demand entertainment services respond to the needs of the time-poor consumer and our report demonstrates how the convenience of these entertainment channels is beginning to dominate the UK’s home browsing activity,” the company said. “While smartphones and tablets provide convenience when accessing the Internet away from home, it’s interesting to see that they are now superseding the PC and laptop as the device of choice in nearly of third of households as well."
Academics will discuss the economics of broadband at the FCC’s Oct. 2 net neutrality workshop, the Office of Strategic Planning & Policy Analysis said Thursday (http://bit.ly/1u3hpri). The panelists at the 1:30 p.m. event will be Jonathan Baker, a professor at American University’s Washington College of Law; Nicholas Economides, a New York University Stern School of Business economics professor and executive director of the Networks, Electronic Commerce and Telecommunications Institute; Thomas Hazlett, a Clemson University economics professor; Christiaan Hogendorn, a Wesleyan University associate economics professor; and John Mayo, an economics, business and public policy professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.