Net neutrality is “socialism for the Internet,” wrote Less Government President Seton Motley in a blog post Monday (http://bit.ly/QzHRJd). “It guarantees everyone equal amounts of nothing.” In the wake of the Netflix-Comcast paid peering deal (CD Mar 5 p1), Motley criticized a move from the political left to expand the definition of net neutrality to include everything from the last mile to the backbone, where peering deals happen. Such an expansive set of net neutrality rules “would give the government hay-yuge new, uber-expansive power over the Internet,” Motley said, calling it “exactly what the Left wants."
Advertisers and brand holders can help fight cybercrime by supporting the City of London police intellectual property crime unit’s (PIPCU) infringing website list (IWL), PIPCU said Monday. The IWL, said to be the first of its kind, aims to disrupt ad revenue on illegal websites around the world, the police unit said. It’s part of Operation Creative, an initiative designed to stop websites from providing unauthorized access to copyrighted content. The IWL gives the digital ad sector an up-to-date list of copyright infringing sites, identified by the creative industries and verified by PIPCU, so that advertisers, agencies and other intermediaries can stop placing ads on the sites. The IWL rollout followed a three-month pilot last year in collaboration with the British Recorded Music Industry, Federation Against Copyright Theft, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, Publishers Association, Internet Advertising Bureau UK, Incorporated Society of British Advertisers and Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, PIPCU said. The pilot showed a “clear and positive trend,” with a 12 percent reduction in ads from major brands on the identified illegal websites, it said. The trial also shows that 46 percent of ads served to the sites clicked through to scams, it said.
A new European Telecommunications Standards Institute cybersecurity technical committee launched Friday. With different methods governing secure transactions in the various EU countries, it’s difficult to assess respective risks and make the right choices to ensure security, ETSI said. Its new panel (TC Cyber) will work with relevant parties within and outside ETSI on standards in several areas: (1) Cybersecurity. (2) Security of infrastructures, devices, services and protocols. (3) Security advice, guidance and operational security requirements for users, manufacturers and network and infrastructure operators. (4) Security tools and techniques. (5) Creating security specifications and aligning them with work done by other ETSI committees. TC Cyber’s first meeting is May 27-28 in Sophia Antipolis, France.
Facebook will use drones, satellites and lasers “to deliver the internet to everyone,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday in a Facebook post (http://on.fb.me/1mx6hQy). The initiative is part of the Internet.org partnership, which Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung jointly launched in August (CD Aug 22 p13). The group’s stated goal is to bring Internet access to 5 billion people. Thursday, Facebook elaborated in a post on Internet.org (http://bit.ly/1hBEJCn). “For suburban areas in limited geographical regions, we've been working on solar-powered high altitude, long endurance aircraft that can stay aloft for months, be quickly deployed and deliver reliable internet connections,” Facebook said. “For lower density areas, low-Earth orbit and geosynchronous satellites can beam internet access to the ground.” But for all systems, the lab is looking into free-space optical (FSO) communication, which “is a way of using light to transmit data through space using invisible, infrared laser beams,” Facebook said. “FSO is a promising technology that potentially allows us to dramatically boost the speed of internet connections provided by satellites and drones.” Michael Toscano, CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, an unmanned aircraft industry group, said “the increased attention our industry is receiving demonstrates the wide range of applications of [unmanned aircraft systems] technology."
Major telecom and technology companies announced a consortium to develop standards for the Internet of Things (IoT), said a Thursday release (http://bit.ly/P96XgL). The companies -- AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM and Intel -- said the new group, called the Industrial Internet Consortium, will work on “establishing interoperability across various industrial environments for a more connected world.” Specifically, the consortium will develop industry use cases, develop best practices and reference architectures and organize public forums to discuss IoT issues, it said.
Federal policy must ensure fair financial practices as big data increasingly enables discriminatory practices, said a report submitted Thursday to the White House as part of the administration’s big data review, said (http://bit.ly/1dQEkeq) Executive Director Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy. CDD and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund jointly submitted the report, which was funded by the Ford Foundation and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Increasing digital- and mobile-based financial services “could provide further obstacles to the consumers most at risk today -- imposing new forms of unaffordable loans, discriminatory pricing, escalating fees for services and unfair marketing practices,” said the report. It sought federal and state “policies that encourage asset-building, budgeting, financial inclusion and opportunities.” The FTC and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “should be encouraged to review the products and services that comprise the contemporary underbanked financial marketplace,” the report said. And the government should review the Fair Credit Reporting Act “to ensure it addresses these current practices,” said the report. It said the FCC can also play a role, by promoting “affordable access to mobile devices."
The Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act was introduced Thursday in response to NTIA’s decision to transition the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority to a global multistakeholder body, said a news release (http://1.usa.gov/1gGRPmJ) from co-sponsors Reps. John Shimkus, R-Ill., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Todd Rokita, R-Ind., Thursday. The bill’s other co-sponsors are Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., and Bob Latta, R-Ohio, it said. “We can’t let the Internet turn into another Russian land grab,” said Blackburn, in the release. “America shouldn’t surrender its leadership on the world stage to a ‘multistakeholder model’ that’s controlled by foreign governments,” she said. “Russia and China have sought such a venue in the past through the United Nation’s International Telecommunication Union,” said the release. The bill would “prohibit” NTIA from “turning over its domain name system oversight responsibilities pending a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress,” it said.
Yahoo and Google’s most recent transparency reports, released Thursday, showed both companies were rejecting a higher percentage of U.S. government requests for data than in the past. Although Google has received an increasing number of requests over the years -- from 12,593 in the second half of 2009 to 27,477 in the second half of 2013 -- the company partially or completely complied with a lower percentage of requests over that time span (http://bit.ly/1hyRz4d). Google complied with 76 percent of requests in the second half of 2010, and only 64 percent by the second half of 2013, according to the report. Yahoo rejected 2 percent of 12,444 government requests in the first half of 2013, but 8 percent of 6,587 requests in the second half of 2013 (http://bit.ly/1dyDhoY). Both companies are also now able to also release some information about how many national security orders they receive, and the number of customer accounts targeted with those orders, because of a recent Justice Department decision. Yahoo received fewer than 1,000 national security letters in the second half of 2013, naming between 1,000 and 2,000 users. The FBI issues national security letters to require companies to disclose information such as the name and address of a particular user, Yahoo said. Google had previously disclosed its national security order data in February (http://bit.ly/1dmIHMN). Overall, it was Yahoo’s second transparency report and Google’s ninth.
Courts may order ISPs to block access to copyright-breaching websites under certain conditions, said the European Court of Justice (ECJ) Thursday in a decision one commentator called unsurprising but important. The ruling in UPC Telekabel Wien GmbH v. Constantin Film Verleih GmbH and Wega Filmproduktionsgesellschaft mbH (http://bit.ly/NYcjur) arose from complaints by the movie companies that their films could be viewed and downloaded from the website kino.to without authorization, the court said. They sought injunctions against ISP UPC Telekabel Wien, which argued that it couldn’t be enjoined because it had no business relationship with kino.to’s operators and there was no proof that its own customers acted unlawfully. The ISP also claimed any possible blocking measures could be circumvented, and some are excessively expensive. The ECJ said the EU copyright directive allows rights-holders to seek injunctions against intermediaries whose services are used by third parties to infringe their rights, and that UPC is such an intermediary. The law doesn’t require a specific relationship between the person carrying out the infringement and the intermediary against whom an injunction is issued, nor is it necessary to prove that an ISP’s customers are actually accessing the material, it said. But fundamental rights recognized by EU law permit injunctions on two conditions, the court said: (1) The ISP’s measure doesn’t unnecessarily deprive users of the ability to lawfully access the information. (2) The blocking or other actions do prevent unauthorized access to the material or at least make it hard to access. Intellectual property rights in such situations conflict with other rights such as the freedom to conduct a business and user’s freedom of information, the ECJ said. Where several basic rights are at issue, EU governments must ensure their national laws strike a fair balance, it said. The ruling isn’t surprising because EU laws implicitly allow such interventions in order to repress piracy, telecom consultant Innocenzo Genna wrote on his radiobruxelleslibera blog (http://bit.ly/1pzl2OJ). Genna, who represents new-entrant, non-incumbent operators, said the decision is “very important” because it’s the first time the ECJ has set out mandatory principles national courts must comply with when they order ISPs to block access to copyright-infringing websites. Under the decision, ISPs can’t be forced to bear significant costs and put in place complex and difficult technical solutions, Genna wrote. The court said Web-blocking must be strictly targeted, particularly when the illicit content is available on sites used for lawful purposes, he said. The decision is “an important clarification that will strengthen the ability of the music and other creative industries to tackle piracy,” said the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The ruling confirms that “copyright is itself a fundamental right requiring protection,” it said. Europe’s recording industry has more than 230 licensed services but its continued success depends on the legal environment in which it operates, IFPI said. “ISPs’ ability lawfully to prevent access to pirate sites that undermine legitimate music service is critically important.”
The FTC approved a final order in its complaint against Apple, the commission said in a Thursday release. The FTC initially revealed its complaint in January, alleging Apple failed to notify parents of a 15-minute window after sign-on during which children could make unlimited in-app purchases without authorization (CD Jan 16 p12). Apple agreed to refund at least $32.5 million in the settlement and change its notification and billing practices by March 31. Commissioner Joshua Wright was the lone dissenting voice in the vote on the order, as he was in the initial settlement.