The FCC should adopt “light-touch” net neutrality and prohibit broadband Internet access providers from charging for prioritized access, Internet Association CEO Michael Beckerman, Gina Woodworth, IA’s vice president-public policy and government affairs, and General Counsel Markham Erickson told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and aides July 23, said an ex parte notice (http://bit.ly/1tWBw8s) posted in docket 14-28 on Monday. The commercially reasonable test would create “uncertainty and needless litigation,” the association said. Net neutrality rules should apply to any ISP, regardless of wired or wireless, it said. Net neutrality is “critical in maintaining fairness to all who use the Internet from the smallest to the largest users,” Sunset Digital Communications President Paul Elswick, Vice President Ryan Elswick, and Director-Special Projects Daniel Wells told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s aides July 24, said an ex parte notice (http://bit.ly/1la6vsg) posted in the docket Tuesday. The officials met with Gigi Sohn, FCC special counsel for external affairs; Daniel Alvarez, legal adviser, and Elizabeth McIntyre, Pricing Policy Division deputy chief. Networks like Comcast and Verizon “intend to extort the transport provider” in addition to content providers, said Sunset, which advocated for common-carrier regulations.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) endorsed Tuesday a cyber-risk oversight handbook for corporate board of directors jointly published by AIG, the Internet Security Alliance (ISA) the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). DHS is incorporating the handbook into its Critical Infrastructure Cyber Community (C3) Volunteer Program, the program the department is using to encourage use of the National Institute of Standards and Technology-facilitated Cybersecurity Framework, said DHS Assistant Secretary Andy Ozment, head of the National Protection and Programs Directorate’s (NPPD) Office of Cybersecurity and Communications, during a news conference announcing DHS’s adoption of the handbook. DHS will also make the handbook available through the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team’s website, said Ozment. The handbook, originally released last month, says corporate boards of directors should handle cybersecurity using a set of five principles, including an understanding that cybersecurity is “an enterprise-wide management issue,” rather than just an IT issue. Boards also need to understand the legal implications of cyber risks and should have adequate access to cybersecurity expertise to evaluate policies, the handbook said. They should also expect management to create an enterprise-wide cyber risk framework that is adequately funded, and should identify which risks to “avoid, accept, mitigate or transfer through insurance,” the handbook said (http://bit.ly/1mbVuut). Directors are “very much aware of cybersecurity,” but need guidance on how to confront it, said NACD President and CEO Ken Daly during the news conference. ISA President Larry Clinton said the handbook could help corporate board and cybersecurity experts “connect the dots,” noting that both sides need to understand each others’ lexicons.
NSA surveillance activities, as revealed by former contractor Edward Snowden, have damaged the economic outlook of international businesses based in the U.S., prompted proposals by foreign governments for data localization mandates, weakened the diplomatic standing of the U.S. and undermined the NSA’s cybersecurity efforts, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute says in a policy paper released Tuesday (http://bit.ly/UIDnRJ). “While intelligence officials have vigorously defended the merits of the NSA programs, they have offered little hard evidence to prove their value -- and some of the initial analysis actually suggests that the benefits of these programs are dubious,” the foundation said in an accompanying blog post (http://bit.ly/1mYFrMj) Tuesday. “American companies have reported declin ing sales overseas and lost business oppor tunities, especially as foreign companies turn claims of products that can protect users from NSA spying into a competitive advantage,” the paper says. NTIA’s decision to transition the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority to ICANN and its multistakeholder body “demonstrates that [NTIA] is willing to fulfill longstanding commitments to the Internet governance community rather than fighting to maintain the status quo,” it says, citing the disruption to the Internet governance debate and multistakeholder model after the Snowden disclosures. The paper recommends increasing “transparency around government surveillance” and strengthening “privacy protections for both Americans and non-Americans,” among other ways to reduce the alleged harm of NSA programs.
"Writers who argue that data collection and analytics favor the rich over the poor rely on hypothetical rather than actual examples,” said Technology Policy Institute President Thomas Lenard in comments filed Monday to the FTC ahead of its September workshop on big data (http://bit.ly/UxMqW2). No current evidence indicates that predictive analytics tools cause discrimination, he said. But the recent White House report on the subject (CD May 2 p3), and the FTC’s workshop lineup (http://1.usa.gov/1hFee3o) indicate otherwise, Lenard said. “Much of the concern seems to be that the predictive models may not be totally accurate,” he said. “Big data, however, can be expected to improve accuracy. The use of more data points makes it less likely that any single data point will be determinative, and more likely that a correct decision will be reached.” Additionally, big data is being used to develop products to benefit low-income individuals, Lenard said. He cited three companies -- Better Finance Inc., LendUp and ZestFinance -- that use additional data points to find people for “small, short-term” loans. These individuals might not have been able to get any loan previously, Lenard said. “It is more likely that price discrimination will favor lower-income individuals,” he said. “Since price discrimination involves charging different prices to different consumers for the same product based on their willingness to pay, and since willingness to pay is generally positively related to ability to pay, price discrimination will, other things equal, result in lower prices to lower-income consumers."
Live broadband coverage to connected devices of the summer’s biggest events, including the World Cup and Wimbledon, drove BBC Sport in June to its “busiest digital month on record,” it said Thursday (http://bbc.in/1pfKVE5). BBC Sport logged 77.5 million “unique browsers” in June, beating the previous record of 73.6 million set during the London 2012 Olympics, it said. Included in the data are live viewership on smartphones, tablets, laptops and connected TVs, BBC Sport said. Other recent digital firsts, according to BBC Sport: (1) Its highest-ever weekly mobile reach, 8.1 million unique U.K. mobile browsers, during the first full week of the World Cup, June 16-22; (2) Its highest-ever daily global reach, 3.4 million unique browsers across all devices, during postgame coverage of Germany’s 7-1 drubbing of Brazil on July 9.
The government can get warrants requiring email service providers to turn over all account information for an indefinite period of time, said the U.S. District Court in New York City in a Friday memorandum opinion explaining a June 11 warrant approval (http://bit.ly/1yRqww7). The court noted its divergence with other recent district court rulings on similar matters as the reason for issuing an explanation. The U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia and the District of Kansas refused to issue such warrants because they would not limit what content could be disclosed and would allow the government to seize large quantities of emails without establishing probable cause, said the New York court’s Friday opinion. That argument “too narrowly construes the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement and is contrary to copious precedent,” said Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein, who wrote the opinion. Multiple courts have concluded on-site searches of hard drives are difficult and warrants have allowed for the government to remove hard drives to conduct information searches. “We perceive no constitutionally significant difference between the searches of hard drives just discussed and searches of email accounts,” Gorenstein said. “Indeed, in many cases, the data in an email account will be less expansive than the information that is typically contained on a hard drive.” The D.C. and Kansas rulings are outliers to the larger body of legal precedent, he said. “If the Government acts improperly in its retention of the materials, our judicial system provides remedies,” Gorenstein said. “We recognize that the Government has a need to retain materials as an investigation unfolds for the purpose of retrieving material that is authorized by the warrant.” American Civil Liberties Union Legislative Director Christopher Calabrese said the court’s explanation allows for an invasive government. “The case highlights the danger of allowing civil agencies to have some type access to our emails directly from the service provider,” he said by email. “The result will be that these agencies will have full access to our email inboxes, potentially in response to the most trivial civil violations of the law.” The ACLU, privacy advocates and conservative-leaning groups have been pushing for Congress to pass a law requiring the government to obtain a warrant before accessing a user’s email, which it currently is not required to do under all circumstances (CD July 14 p9).
European data protection officials will meet Thursday with representatives of search engine companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to discuss implementation of the “right to be forgotten” ruling, said a government new release and industry representatives. The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party -- officials from various European Union data protection agencies -- decided to call the meeting after a July 15 gathering to discuss guidelines for companies to comply with the European Court of Justice’s “right to be forgotten ruling,” said a July 17 release from the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés, France’s data protection agency (http://bit.ly/1lcSr0S). “This discussion led, amongst other things, to the highlighting that in order to effectively exercise this right, it is necessary for individuals to understand thoroughly the precise reasons a search engine, subject to European Union law, can legally refuse this right,” the agency said. The agency said the meeting with search engine company representatives will allow them to give input on the working party’s compliance guidelines, slated for a fall release. Microsoft and Yahoo confirmed they would have representatives at Thursday’s meeting, while Google said it would comply with privacy officials without adding any specifics. Google and Microsoft have published Web forms for individuals to requests third-party links be removed from searches, while Yahoo is still working on its own compliance strategy, it said Friday.
The British Video Association will merge “back office functions" with the Industry Trust for IP Awareness “to focus greater resource on shared challenges,” the London-based groups said Thursday. Each group will keep its “core” identities, the BVA to promote sales of home entertainment content, the Industry Trust to run consumer education campaigns to thwart video piracy, the groups said. The merger is intended to keep both organizations “on a sustainable path in a rapidly changing market,” they said. Liz Bales, director general of the Industry Trust, will be CEO for both bodies, they said. Lavinia Carey, who recently resigned as the BVA’s director general, will be a “consultant lobbyist” for both groups, they said.
The National Governors Association urged improved coordination between the federal government and states on cybersecurity matters, releasing a framework Tuesday for states, territories and federal agencies to cooperate on cyberattack response, cyberthreat information sharing and cybersecurity protection (http://bit.ly/1p9UfKE). The NGA said its Council of Governors, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security jointly agreed to the plan last week at the NGA’s meeting in Nashville (http://bit.ly/1t0yTCa). The framework charges all parties to develop and clarify their cybersecurity policies to allow a “national approach” to preventing and responding to cyberincidents, including creating a national cyberincident response framework. DOD will work with the Council of Governors to revise DOD’s policy regarding states’ use of National Guard cyber-related resources. The framework asks state and local governments to create real-time reporting and analysis programs that are similar to the federal government’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program. DHS will work with state and local governments to improve the timeliness of shared cyberinformation. The framework’s release follows the NGA’s 2012 creation of its Resource Center for State Cybersecurity and the Council of Governors’ 2011 release of a joint action plan for responding to domestic emergencies.
E-commerce site Etsy joined the Internet Association, IA said in a Wednesday news release (http://bit.ly/Wb6puD). IA includes companies like Amazon, AOL, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Netflix, reddit, Twitter and Yahoo. “The Internet Association understands that the promise of the Internet lies in the power to harness user communities to achieve a broader economic impact,” said Etsy Public Policy Director Althea Erickson. IA has been critical of proposed FCC net neutrality rules (CD July 15 p1).