Nextgov/FCW - Authors - Juliana Gruenwald

Ex-White House official aims to get 'do not track' back on track

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 13:05:47 -0500

Few can accuse Peter Swire of backing away from a challenge. The Ohio State law professor has agreed to take on a job that might be as hard as trying to mediate the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys.

Swire was picked last week to take over as cochairman of a working group created last year by the World Wide Web Consortium to come up with a standard for responding to consumers online tracking choices. He was tapped after Aleecia McDonald, director of privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, stepped down from the post.

Privacy advocates and the Federal Trade Commission have championed the idea of providing consumers with a way to opt out of being followed as they surf the Web. Advertisers and others use tracking information to help target ads to consumers based on their interests.

Swire, who will cochair the do-not-track working group along with Intel’s Matthias Schunter, has a long record of experience in following online-privacy issues. He served as privacy adviser to President Clinton and as a special assistant on President Obama’s National Economic Council from 2009-2010.

Despite this, he faces a tough task. The group has hit a logjam reflecting fundamental differences in how far the W3C should go in determining how websites should respond when they encounter a consumer’s do-not-track choice.

“My first job is to be a good listener,” Swire said in an interview on Tuesday. “There are many different stakeholders. There are quite a few difficult issues but [the goal is] also worth achieving.”

He said given the W3C’s expertise and track record in setting standards for the Web, “creating a header that works globally would be a significant achievement.”

Among his first moves in his new role was to seek comment this week from all the stakeholders about what the group’s priorities should be going forward and areas where they might find agreement.

The working group includes a range of stakeholders, including privacy advocates, advertising and marketing officials, and representatives from Internet browser makers like Google and Mozilla. Most of the browser companies have responded to calls to include a do-not-call option in their browsers.

A coalition of advertising and marketing industry groups including the Digital Advertising Alliance, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and the Direct Marketing Association said that the do-not-track working group should focus more narrowly on developing a technical standard rather than trying to define policy. The “widening of scope beyond a technical specification that defines ‘a simple machine-readable preference-expression mechanism’ has caused the working group's mandate to grow out of hand, and for progress to come to a virtual halt,” the groups said in their comments to Swire.

Mike Zaneis, IAB senior vice president and general counsel, said the working group has yet to make any progress, noting that it hasn't even agreed on basic issues such as the definition of tracking. While he said a “fresh perspective can help, my caveat is that … we’ve been bogged down because the issues are so complex and so critical and nothing about new leadership for the working group will change those facts.”

Privacy advocates agree about the difficult task ahead but had a different view on how to move forward. “Swire’s job is to negotiate the release of do not track while it’s being held up at gunpoint by most of the online-marketing industry,” Center for Digital Democracy Executive Director Jeff Chester quipped. His group and other privacy advocates want the W3C to develop a much more robust standard than called for by ad-industry officials.

“Deciding how technically to send a message without spelling out what the obligations are for the server that receives the message would produce a meaningless specification,” Consumer Watchdog’s John Simpson wrote in his comments.

(Image via Tatiana Popova/Shutterstock.com)

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Senate panel takes up electronic privacy issues

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:14:15 -0500

The Senate Judiciary Committee took a step on Thursday toward updating the nation’s outdated laws related to when law enforcement and other government agencies can access e-mail and other electronic communications.

As part of legislation to modernize the Video Privacy Protection Act, the committee attached provisions that would update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., acknowledged that the bill is unlikely to pass Congress before the end of the year but said it would help advance work on the issue in the 113th Congress.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the sponsor of the video privacy bill and chairman of the House Judiciary Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Subcommittee, said he would prefer to see the ECPA provisions stripped from the legislation so his video privacy bill could move on its own before the end of the year. The video privacy bill, which the House passed late last year, would update a 1988 law aimed at protecting the privacy of consumers' video-viewing records to allow companies such as Netflix to obtain one-time consent to share a customer's video-rental information with others.

“It is my hope that we can separate the VPPA fix this Congress and move forward with that, while taking more time to examine EPCA,” Goodlatte, who will chair the House Judiciary Committee in the next Congress, said in a statement. “I certainly agree that ECPA is something that Congress should look at closely to see if updates or reforms are necessary but I do not think that it is possible to complete the thorough examination that is needed in the short amount of time we have in this lame duck session.”

Privacy groups, tech firms, and others have been pressing lawmakers to update ECPA to reflect the vast changes in technology since the law was first enacted. They argue that many of the law’s protections are out of date and provide inconsistent protection depending on how long and where an e-mail and other electronic records are stored. For example, law enforcement can obtain e-mail that is six months old or older from a third-party provider like Google or Microsoft with a subpoena.

The ECPA amendment the committee adopted to the video privacy legislation would require law enforcement, with a few limited exceptions, to seek a warrant based on probable cause before obtaining e-mail from a third party.

“Three decades after the enactment of ECPA, Americans face even greater threats to digital privacy,” Leahy said. “With the explosion of new technology and the expansion of government surveillance power … the committee has an important opportunity to begin to address this privacy challenge.”

The issue of e-mail privacy has gained new attention in recent weeks after Gen. David Petraeus resigned when an extramarital affair he had was revealed through e-mails obtained by the FBI.

The committee began marking up the video privacy legislation in September but postponed action after Judiciary ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, raised concerns that the proposed changes to ECPA would hamper the ability of law enforcement to carry out investigations. In response, Leahy drafted an amendment adopted by the committee on Thursday that made some changes, including giving law enforcement officials more time before they are required to notify an individual that their e-mail or other communications have been obtained from a third-party provider.

Grassley said he still has concerns with the legislation but voted to move the bill out of committee with the understanding that supporters would continue to try to address his concerns. “I believe we can craft the bill in a way that increases e-mail privacy but protects law enforcement’s ability to obtain information as part of a criminal investigation,” Grassley said. “While I don’t believe this version strikes the proper balance, I think it is the start of an important discussion.”

The committee rejected an amendment from Grassley that would have retained the current subpoena standard for investigations involving child abductions, child pornography, and violent crimes against women such as rape. Leahy and other committee members said that the bill already provides exceptions for investigations involving such emergency situations. The committee approved a handful of other amendments including one that would limit the one-time consent for sharing video rental information to one year.

Despite the changes Leahy made to his ECPA legislation, many of the groups that have been pushing Congress to overhaul the law say they still support the measure. “We believe the central privacy protection of the bill—a search warrant for all content—remains in place so we think it would be a substantial step forward for privacy,” Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, told National Journal.

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House poised to pass STEM immigration bill

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:07:08 -0500

Despite White House opposition, the House appears likely to pass a bill this week that would allow more foreign students who graduate from U.S. schools with advanced technical degrees to stay in the country.

The House failed to pass the bill, drafted by Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, when it was brought to the floor in September under a procedure that requires a two-thirds vote to pass. But based on the vote from that first attempt, the legislation appears to have enough support to pass the chamber this week by a majority vote.

The bill would eliminate the Diversity Visa Program and shift up to 55,000 green cards a year to foreign students who graduate from qualified U.S. schools with a doctorate or master’s degree in the “STEM” disciplines: science, technology, engineering, and math.

Smith’s STEM bill is slated to come up for debate on Thursday. Smith did make some minor changes to the measure, including making it easier for family members of STEM green-card holders to stay in the United States while they wait for their own green cards, and allowing unused STEM green cards made available in fiscal years 2013 through 2016 to be used in the future. The original bill would have only allowed for unused STEM green cards that were available in the first two years covered by the bill to be rolled over into future years.

Still, even supporters acknowledge that the bill faces long odds in the Senate, where Democratic leaders on the issue, such as Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., favor including STEM green-card legislation as part of broader immigration reform.

Schumer introduced his own STEM green-card bill in September.

On Wednesday, the White House issued a statement of administration policy opposing passage of the House bill for several reasons, including that it “would allocate immigrant visas for advanced graduates of a limited set of STEM degree programs.” The statement said the Obama administration is “deeply committed” to immigration reform but “does not support narrowly tailored proposals that do not meet the president’s long-term objectives with respect to comprehensive immigration reform.”

Tech firms and lawmakers argue that immigrants have been responsible for helping to start some of the most successful tech firms in the United States, including Google and Yahoo, and that it makes no sense to educate foreign students in the key STEM fields and then force them to leave the United States when they graduate.

Both Democrats and Republicans support the goal of allowing more skilled foreign students who graduate with advanced STEM degrees to remain in the country, but Smith’s bill faces continued resistance from key House Democrats, including Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who has offered her own STEM green-card legislation. She has criticized the bill for eliminating the Diversity Visa Program. The program uses a lottery to allocate up to 55,000 green cards to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

“Republicans know they have an anti-immigrant image problem, yet, unfortunately, they are proceeding with the Smith bill to pretend they’re pro-immigrant, even though it is a divisive bill that actually reduces legal immigration,” Lofgren, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Republicans need to move past these kinds of gimmicks and work with Democrats to reform our immigration system so it works for businesses, our economy, and families,” Lofgren said. “I am ready to work seriously with Republicans on top-to-bottom reform and hope that real progress can be made early next year.”

Critics of the Diversity Visa Program, however, argue that it has been prone to fraud. The State Department even posted a warning on its website advising people to be wary of scams related to the program. “The Diversity Visa invites fraud and absolutely means that we would have a security risk if we were to continue it,” Smith said during the House floor debate on his bill in September.

However, some tech-industry officials and other groups say they welcome action on the issue.

“Passing this bill into law will greatly benefit the United States, because STEM graduates will be able to innovate and create companies here that have the potential to employ thousands of Americans,” Keith Grzelak, vice president for government relations for the engineers group IEEE-USA, said in a statement.

Grzelak’s group released a report on Tuesday that argued the Diversity Visa Program has achieved its goal and is no longer needed.

“The data shows that the visa lottery has made itself unnecessary, and even counterproductive, which is clear from comparing the educational level and potential contribution to the American economy of STEM graduates from the same regions and countries,” the report concluded.

This article appeared in the Thursday, November 29, 2012 edition of National Journal Daily.

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CEA chief calls for SOPA movement to block anti-net proposals

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:00:00 -0500

The CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association said on Tuesday that critics of international efforts to increase regulation of the Internet need to band together like they did last year to defeat U.S. anti-piracy legislation that was strongly opposed by Internet activists and tech companies.

“The world needs a PIPA-SOPA moment,” CEA chief Gary Shapiro told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday, where he discussed next month’s meeting of the International Telecommunication Union, when member countries will gather to reexamine international telecommunications rules. Shapiro was referring to last year's unprecedented protest that derailed legislation known in the Senate as the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, and in the House as the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, that aimed to crack down on piracy and counterfeiting on foreign websites. CEA and other critics argued that both bills would harm free speech and hamper innovation on the Internet.

Shapiro and other tech industry representatives, along with U.S. government officials, have voiced concern about proposals that could be offered at the ITU meeting in Dubai, which begins next week and runs until Dec. 14. Among the proposals that have caused concern is one that would require websites to pay extra to reach users in other countries.

Shapiro, who sits on a State Department advisory committee on international communications and information policy, and others also say they are worried about another proposal that would give countries greater ability to censor Internet users under the guise of attacking Internet fraud.

“I’ve never seen the U.S. more unified” against a proposal, Shapiro said. Noting the strong U.S. opposition to such proposals, he said he believes the U.S. government has been “doing everything it can in a game where the rules are stacked against us.”

Google and others have tried to rally support from Internet users against some of the ITU proposals. Google has launched a “Take Action” campaign that warns that some governments that currently censor their citizens’ access to the Internet “are trying to use a closed-door meeting in December to regulate the Internet.”

Shapiro said that while he would like to see the Internet community rally around efforts to block the controversial proposals, “the problem is it only works with countries that listen to their own people.”

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Senate clears bill to fight online fraud

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:54:31 -0500

The Senate cleared legislation on Wednesday that would reauthorize a six-year-old law that gave the Federal Trade Commission new authority to combat cross-border spam, spyware, and other types of online fraud.

The Safe Web Act, which was first enacted in 2006 and expires next year, authorizes the Federal Trade Commission to share information with and provide investigatory assistance to foreign consumer-protection agencies about cross-border fraud, receive confidential information about fraud without having to disclose it publicly, pursue fraud cases that could involve foreign sources, and seek redress for foreign and U.S. consumers victimized by cross-border scams involving U.S. firms.

The bill, which passed the House in September and now heads to the White House, would authorize the law until 2020.

“The U.S. Safe Web Act provides critically important consumer protections, allowing the Federal Trade Commission to combat cross-border fraud, spam, and spyware. I’m very pleased the president has expressed his support for it,” Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., the bill’s sponsor and chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, said in a statement.

The bill will likely be Bono Mack’s legislative swan song given that she will not be returning to Congress next year after losing her bid for reelection.

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Don't bet on an online gambling bill

Dan Friedman and Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:46:44 -0500

Senate leaders are less optimistic about moving online gambling legislation through Congress during the lame-duck session than they were just a few months ago.

Earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., began crafting legislation that would legalize online poker while banning other forms of Internet gambling. Their effort was prompted in part by a new interpretation of the Wire Act that the Justice Department released late last year. The department reversed course in deciding that the 1961 law, which bars wagering over telecommunications lines, applies only to sports betting. The opinion opened the door to new forms of online gambling at the state level, and many states have taken steps to move into this space.

Reid said on Wednesday that although he is still hopeful about action on his draft bill before the end of the year, “we don’t have a path forward right now, but we're working” on it.

Kyl, who is leaving the Senate after next month, was also pessimistic about prospects in this Congress given the major issues that lawmakers must tackle, including legislation to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, when automatic tax hikes and spending cuts go into effect at the beginning of 2013. A longtime online-gambling foe, Kyl helped craft the 2006 law that barred payment processors from handling bets for online gambling. The law’s effectiveness has been put into doubt in the wake of the Justice Department’s decision on the Wire Act.

“I am not saying that it's parochial or special legislation, but it’s not sequestration and the fiscal cliff and defense bill and all that, so it would be hard,” Kyl told National Journal on Wednesday, citing the lack of time left to resolve those major issues.

He said the House presents the biggest problem. Kyl said that although acting on the bill this year will be hard, “don’t infer from that I wouldn’t like to see something done.”

The measure enjoys the backing of major gambling interests, including the American Gaming Association, which counts casino operators such as Caesars, the Las Vegas Sands, and MGM as members.

The bill would “in effect be a limitation of gaming,” AGA President and CEO Frank Fahrenkopf said in an interview on Thursday. “It would just allow Internet poker.”

He and other supporters of the legislation warned that unless Congress moves to limit the fallout from the Justice Department's decision, Internet gambling will proliferate at the state level. The AGA and others argue that poker should be legalized because it is less susceptible to fraud online given that participants play against each other and not the operator of the game.

“We think it’s very important to have a federal standard on consumer protection,” Fahrenkopf added. “If you don’t have a federal floor standard, you’re going to have one state competing with another, and it will be a race to the bottom.”

The bill does face opposition from some stakeholders, including the National Governors Association, which wrote to congressional leaders last month voicing opposition to the latest draft. The draft bill would limit the ability of states to expand their lotteries to include new forms of online gambling and would also limit those who could immediately offer online poker to current brick-and-mortar casino operators.

John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, said that although his group supports the bill, it would like to see improvements to the measure, including removing a provision requiring all states—even those where gambling is now legal—to opt in to providing online poker.

“Ultimately, we want to get licensed and regulated poker in the U.S.,” Pappas said on Thursday. “This does achieve that goal.”

If it does have a chance in the lame-duck session, the draft bill is unlikely to move as a stand-alone measure and instead would probably be attached to a “must-pass” piece of legislation.

(Image via Galushko Sergey/Shutterstock.com)

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Advocates hope Petraeus scandal will spur action on ECPA

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 10:28:10 -0500

Privacy advocates said on Wednesday they are hopeful that the attention over e-mails that forced CIA Director David Petraeus to resign over an extramarital affair will finally push lawmakers to update a two-decade-old law dealing with government access to electronic communications.

During a Capitol Hill briefing on privacy issues, privacy advocates argued that revelations that the FBI uncovered Petraeus’s affair by obtaining access to his personal e-mail shows the need for lawmakers to provide Americans with more protections over their personal electronic communications. A coalition of privacy groups and industry has been pushing lawmakers in recent years to update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Under current law, law enforcement only needs a subpoena to obtain e-mail that is six months or older.

Bills have been introduced in both chambers to update the law. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., attached part of his ECPA reform measure to a video privacy bill that his panel began marking up in September. The amendment to the video privacy bill would require government to obtain a search warrant based on probable cause to access e-mail or other electronic communications from a service provider, with some exceptions.

What the scandal involving Petraeus “illustrates so clearly is that the trail we're leaving with e-mail and [electronic] records creates an incredibly detailed profile of our lives and a portrait of us,” said Chris Calabrese, legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union. “The scandal will put a face on why we need to update ECPA.”

Calabrese noted that the Senate Judiciary Committee may finish its markup of the video privacy bill with the ECPA provisions when Congress returns from Thanksgiving during the last week of November. Although he still believes it is unlikely such a bill would pass Congress during the lame duck, he is hopeful the committee will return to the issue early in the 113th Congress.

Justin Brookman, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Project on Consumer Privacy, echoed this view and noted that there is both bipartisan and widespread industry support for updating ECPA. “It’s going to be tough in the lame duck, but it will be a huge issue in the 113th Congress,” he said. The center has been leading the Digital Due Process coalition, which includes a wide range of companies and groups from Google to Americans for Tax Reform to the ACLU.

Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has voiced concerns raised by state and local-law enforcement officials and the Obama administration about Leahy’s legislation. In a statement in September, Grassley noted that some law-enforcement officials are concerned that the warrant standard imposed by Leahy’s measure “could impact cases where time is of the essence, namely kidnapping and child-abduction cases.”

(Image via FrameAngel/Shutterstock.com)

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Privacy, spectrum among top mobile issues

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 11:00:00 -0500

Mobile industry policy experts on Thursday said cybersecurity, privacy, and spectrum would be among the top issues facing the mobile industry in 2013.

"When I think about the next year, I think the president is focused on moving this economic engine, this dynamo forward," Jim Kohlenberger, former chief of staff at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration, said at an event sponsored by Mobile Future, a coalition of tech companies. But he added that "we've got big things we need to do, [such as] getting more spectrum into people's hands. We have to solve important privacy and security challenges."

The need for more spectrum has topped the wireless industry's wish lists in recent years and will continue to do so in 2013 despite steps taken by Congress and the Obama administration to free up more airwaves to fuel Americans' demand for new wireless technologies. These steps include an executive order by the president to find 500 megahertz of spectrum over the next decade for mobile broadband and passage of spectrum legislation that authorized incentive auctions to entice television stations to voluntarily give up some of their spectrum.

"This president has laid out a very aggressive mobile agenda and has begun to execute on it. I think the next four years are really going to be about execution, execution, execution," said Bryan Tramont, a managing partner at Wilkinson, Barker and Knauer who served as chief of staff to former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell.

Some of the challenges the administration will face in implementing its spectrum policies include trying to get federal government users to give up their spectrum for commercial providers and effective implementation by the FCC of the incentive auction process, he said.

While spectrum will continue to be a top concern, other panelists also said privacy and cybersecurity will continue to be challenges in the mobile space that the administration will want to address.

"The priorities that were going to see very soon are going to be around the ideas or issues surrounding cybersecurity and around privacy," Rob Painter, managing director for the venture capital firm Razor's Edge Ventures.

Earlier this year, the administration unveiled a proposal to boost online consumer privacy through a consumer "Privacy Bill of Rights." While the White House called on Congress to implement this proposal through legislation, it also is pushing for industry to implement some of the principles through voluntary industry codes of conduct. The first industry stakeholder effort aimed at developing these codes of conduct is focused on increasing transparency in what data is collected by mobile applications.

Tramont noted that companies that want to do business in the mobile space face a challenging landscape in trying to figure out what kind of information they need to provide consumers about their privacy practices given the different messages coming out of the federal government, states, and industry self-regulatory efforts.

"There is lot of consumer behavior that is shifting around consumer privacy and I think it is a fundamental challenge for us as an industry to make sure we come up with the right path forward," he said.

(Image via Ersler Dmitry/Shutterstock.com)

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Music industry continues fight against Internet radio bill

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 10:07:26 -0500

The music industry is continuing its lobbying campaign against legislation that supporters say is aimed at leveling the playing field for online music providers.

Last month, the AFL-CIO came out against the Internet Radio Freedom Act, offered in September by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. The bill would require that the Library of Congress's Copyright Royalty Board use the same standard for setting royalty rates paid by Internet radio providers like Pandora that it uses to set rates for cable and satellite digital music providers. Pandora and radio stations that simulcast music via the Internet complain that they pay much higher rates.

The music industry, however, argues that the legislation would result in lower revenues for performers and has been rounding up opposition to the Chaffetz-Wyden legislation. Among the latest to come out against the legislation is the NAACP.

"As an organization which has, for more than 103 years, fought for economic justice for all Americans, this legislation is clearly antithetical to the work of the NAACP," Hilary O. Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington Bureau and senior vice president for advocacy and policy, said in a letter to House Judiciary Committee leaders last week. The bill "fails the basic test of economic fairness and discriminates against singers and musicians by slashing the compensation they receive when their work is played over digital online radio. Fair and adequate compensation for a day's work is a fundamental civil and labor right."

As it works to oppose the Chaffetz-Wyden bill, the music industry is continuing to press lawmakers for legislation that would require traditional terrestrial radio stations to begin paying performance fees to musical performers for playing their music on the air. Unlike Internet radio stations and cable and satellite music providers, traditional radio stations have been exempt from paying royalties to performers because they were viewed as benefiting from the exposure they received from radio airplay.

The House Judiciary Committee is expected to hold a hearing on the issue of music royalty rates later this month.

Even as it lobbies lawmakers to move the Chaffetz-Wyden legislation, Pandora filed a lawsuit earlier this week against the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, a royalty collection agency, demanding that the Internet radio service pay lower royalty rates to songwriters and music publishers. In the lawsuit, Pandora argued that ASCAP is refusing to allow it to pay the same royalty rates the group offered to Pandora's competitors.

(Image via Eastimages/Shutterstock.com)

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Tech industry offers congrats, wish list for Obama

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 15:00:00 -0500

Never one to hold his tongue, Consumer Electronics Association President and CEO Gary Shapiro was among the more high-profile tech-industry supporters of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, but he said on Wednesday that he is hopeful President Obama will refocus his attention on improving the federal government's fiscal house and boosting the economy after winning a second term on Tuesday.

Even though he said he continues to believe Obama "has been the worst president for business in my lifetime," Shapiro said in an interview that the president has been "very tech friendly."

"His attitude toward business has to change," Shapiro added. "His legacy will want to be a strong healthy economy. That requires that you embrace business somehow."

In addition to focusing on reducing the deficit and addressing the so-called "fiscal cliff" at the end of the year, when taxes are set to go up and major spending cuts are slated to go into effect, Shapiro said he is hopeful Obama can work with Congress on immigration reform. CEA and other tech groups have been pushing lawmakers for legislation that would allow more foreign students who graduate from U.S. schools with tech-related degrees to stay and work in the United States.

Other tech industry leaders in Washington were far less outspoken in their preferences for the White House and were quick to congratulate Obama on winning a second term but still called for action on some key issues including tax reform.

Groups such as TechAmerica have been pushing Congress and the White House to implement a territorial tax system, which calls for taxing only those earnings that occur inside the United States. Under the current U.S. tax system, corporations are taxed for what they earn domestically and abroad unless they reinvest those revenues overseas. During the campaign, however, Obama was critical of such an approach.

"We congratulate President Obama on his reelection and look forward to working with him on the many pro-innovation and job growth issues vitally important to the U.S. technology industry and its global competitiveness," TechAmerica President and CEO Shawn Osborne said in a statement on Wednesday, "It was clear throughout the election that there was a commitment from both campaigns to address some of the most pressing issues critical to the growth of our industry--access to human capital, opening new markets, protecting IP and modernizing the U.S. tax code."

The Telecommunications Industry Association, which represents communications equipment manufacturers and suppliers, also called for action on a laundry list of tech priorities.

"We strongly encourage President Obama to bring renewed focus to the issues facing tech and telecom businesses in the U.S. In particular, our nation must have, and enforce, trade policies that erase barriers for U.S. goods and ensure that our companies have a level playing field throughout the world," TIA President Grant Seiffert said in a statement. "More spectrum for broadband is vitally important for allowing consumers to reap the benefits of the wireless revolution and for American businesses to compete effectively. And tax reform, including incentives such as a permanent R&D tax credit, is needed so these businesses can invest in new technologies and continue leading the world in innovation."

One of Washington's newest industry groups, the Internet Association, which includes tech firms such as Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Google, congratulated Obama on winning "America's first social election." The group noted the important role social media played in the election. In a statement, Internet Association CEO and President Michael Beckerman said both parties "must guard this growth for the future of voting and the freedom of this great land."

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Several new tech leaders likely in House

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:25:45 -0500

It appears that tech issues on Capitol Hill will have some new key players next year as a result of Tuesday’s congressional elections.

An apparent loss by Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., means the gavel will change hands on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, which deals with consumer privacy issues.

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Cybersecurity Subcommittee, Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., also could lose his seat—the nine-term congressman was trailing his Democratic challenger Ami Bera by 184 votes, a margin that could prompt a recount after the election results are certified.

The entertainment industry lost a strong supporter, Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who is currently the second-ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, which handles copyright and patent laws. Berman was soundly defeated by another Democratic incumbent, Rep. Brad Sherman, after redistricting in California.

Finally, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will lose a Republican member, Rep. Charlie Bass of New Hampshire, who lost his bid for reelection to Democrat Ann McLane Kuster in a rematch of their 2010 race. Bass has been a member of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee as well as the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade.

Bono Mack, who trailed Democratic challenger Raul Ruiz on Wednesday morning, held several hearings in the last two years on whether Congress should pass consumer privacy legislation. But she remained skeptical about the need for such legislation. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is the current vice chairman of Bono Mack’s subcommittee, but other GOP members of the Energy and Commerce Committee could make a bid for the subcommittee chairmanship.

Two other Energy and Commerce members in tight races appear to have won reelection. Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., won a narrow victory over Democrat John Ewing, while in Utah, Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson eked out a slim win over GOP challenger Mia Love.

Terry is in line to chair the Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee following the primary defeat of the current chairman, Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla.

Berman, a member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet, was a strong supporter of the controversial House anti-piracy bill known as the Stop Online Piracy Act. Sherman also initially supported SOPA but backed away from the measure after it was sidelined in January following a major protest from Internet activists and the tech industry.

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Commerce, Justice reviewing .com contract

Juliana Gruenwald — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:00:00 -0400

The Commerce and Justice departments are scrutinizing Verisign's bid for a six-year renewal of its contract to continue running the .com registry, the Internet's most popular generic top-level domain name.

Verisign said late last week in releasing its latest earnings results that the department may not finish its evaluation before the company's current contract expires on Nov. 30. Verisign said Commerce informed it earlier this month that both Commerce and the Justice Department are examining the agreement's "pricing terms." If Commerce doesn't approve the contract before it expires, Verisign's current contract will be extended for six months, Verisign President and CEO Jim Bidzos said during an earnings call last week.

Despite this, Bidzos said he was confident the company's contract will get renewed. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit group that manages the Internet's domain-name system, in June approved Verisign's contract to continue operating the .com registry, which is the database of all the second-level domains that have been registered under the top-level domain ".com," such as nationaljournal.com.

"We want to emphasize that nothing has happened that changes the risk of our running .com," Bidzos said. "We expect to continue to be the registry operator of .com. Our record on security and stability has been acknowledged by the Commerce Department."

The proposed contract renewal would maintain the current pricing structure, which allows Verisign to increase prices four times during the six-year contract by as much as 7 percent each time. The company, which also manages the .net registry, receives $7.85 for every domain name that is registered in .com by registrars, which are companies like Go Daddy that sell second-level domain name registrations to the public.

Neither the Commerce Department nor Verisign would give details on what pricing issues are being examined. "Verisign's .com Registry Agreement renewal is currently undergoing review by the Department of Commerce as required by the cooperative agreement between Verisign and the department," a spokeswoman for the Commerce Department's National Telecommunication and Information Administration said on Monday.

But industry watchers said that while the contract could undergo further changes, Verisign will likely continue to run .com.

"It is highly unlikely that the contract would be put out for competitive re-bid, as this would open up the possibility of a non-U.S. company receiving the registry contract and could well send Verisign hurtling toward bankruptcy as it has sold off other parts of its business over the past few years and is now focused almost exclusively on registry operations," Philip Corwin, counsel for the Internet Commerce Association, wrote in ablog post on Monday. His group represents domain-name investors, website developers, and others. "Most likely are constraints on Verisign's pricing flexibility, which could range from reducing the 7 percent limit to something less, reducing the number of times that prices can be raised, or even requiring Verisign to justify any future proposed increases to the DOJ before implementing them."

If changes are made to the contract, ICANN would have to put the revised contract up for public comment, he added.

Verisign has been operating the .com registry since 2000 when it bought Network Solutions, which was given the first contract ever in 1993 to operate the .com registry and to provide second-level domain-name registrations to the public. Verisign sold off its retail registrar operations in 2003 but kept the .com and .net registry business.

While Verisign has a wide swath of the domain-name market with its operation of the .com and .net registries, that business will soon face new competition. ICANN is expected to approve hundreds of new generic top-level domain names over the next few years to compete with .com, .net, and the 20 other existing generic top-level domains.

(Image via Pavel Ignatov/Shutterstock.com)

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NGA says it opposes draft Internet gambling bill

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 09:39:38 -0400

Even though prospects for the legislation have faded this year, the nation's governors on Thursday told Senate and House leaders that they oppose draft legislation that would tighten restrictions on Internet gambling while allowing for the legalization of online poker.

In a letter to House and Senate leaders on Thursday, the National Governors Association called on lawmakers to include state input before moving any online-gaming legislation. States have begun taking steps to offer online gambling within their state borders after the Justice Department last fall revised its interpretation of the Wire Act, which deals with state gambling activities. The department said the 1961 law only applies to sports betting, essentially opening the door to other kinds of online gaming.

In response to the Justice Department's reinterpretation of the federal Wire Act, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., earlier this year crafted their draft bill that would legalize online poker and off-track horse betting, while specifically outlawing other forms of online gaming. The Justice Department's move cast doubt on a 2006 law, which Kyl helped author, that barred payment processors from handling payments for online gambling bets.

"The draft would preempt emerging state regulatory authority recently established by the U.S. Justice Department under a reinterpretation of the federal Wire Act, which could restrict state revenues derived from gaming," the NGA said in the letter signed by Govs. Tom Corbett, R-Pa., and Steve Beshear, D-Ky., the chairman and vice-chairman, respectively, of the group's Economic Development and Commerce Committee. "We oppose the draft Senate legislation in its current form as an unnecessary preemption of state authority."

Prospects for the draft bill, however, have dimmed over a dispute on how to move the measure. Kyl and Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., whom Reid asked to help line up GOP votes for the bill in the Senate, said last month that they think the House should take up the legislation first, before the Senate acts. Reid has rejected that idea and has criticized Heller, who is in a tight race to win a full Senate term, for not doing enough to round up Republican votes for the legislation.

Despite this, Heller told the Las Vegas Review-Journal earlier this month that he still thinks he and Reid can work together to pass the legislation.

(Image via Pedro Salaverría/Shutterstock.com)

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Coalition launched to lobby support for Internet radio bill

Juliana Gruenwald — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 12:21:08 -0400

Internet radio firms joined by broadcasters and some tech groups are launching a new coalition Thursday to help rally support for legislation that would lower the royalties paid by Internet radio providers.

The Internet Radio Fairness Coalition will push lawmakers to pass legislation introduced last month in the House by Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Jared Polis, R-Colo., and in the Senate by Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that would require the Copyright Royalty Board to use the same standard for setting royalty rates paid by Internet radio providers that it uses for satellite and cable music providers.

The founding members of the coalition include Pandora, which lobbied hard for the legislation, as well as the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the Digital Media Association, and broadcasters Clear Channel Media and Entertainment and Salem Communications. Pandora is a member of both CCIA and CEA.

Internet radio providers such as Pandora and traditional radio stations that simulcast music over the Internet complain that they pay much higher royalty rates than cable and satellite music providers. Broadcasters, however, currently pay nothing for playing a performer's music on a traditional terrestrial radio station. Pandora has joined the music industry in complaining about this in the past but now says it does not want the long-running battle over the issue to derail its efforts to lower the rates Internet radio providers pay.

"Legislation that establishes a fair royalty rate setting-standard for Internet radio will drive investment in webcasting, which ultimately offers greater opportunities and more revenue for working artists," Pandora founder and chief strategy officer Tim Westergren said in a statement. "When the digital music sector is allowed to grow and innovate, everybody wins."

The National Association of Broadcasters managed to derail an effort led by the music industry in the 111th Congress to pass legislation that would have required terrestrial radio stations to begin paying fees to performers for playing their music on traditional radio stations. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., is working on draft legislation that would require broadcasters to pay higher royalties when they play music on the Internet to make up for not paying fees to performers when playing their music over traditional terrestrial radio. Broadcasters, however, have long argued that performers benefit from the free exposure they get from airplay on traditional radio stations.

"We believe that market-based solutions are the way to go," Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman said in a statement. His firm has inked deals with a handful of record labels to begin paying performers for playing their music on traditional terrestrial radio stations in exchange for paying them lower fees when their music is played over the Internet. "But in the absence of these agreements, the [Copyright Royalty Board] needs to have and consider more relevant information so they are better able to develop a rate structure that will lead to a healthy, sustainable Internet radio marketplace."

The House Judiciary Committee is expected to hold a hearing on the issue of music royalty fees later this fall when Congress returns after the November election for a lame-duck session. Any other action on the issue will likely have to wait until next year.

(Image via Pavel Ignatov/Shutterstock.com)

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Stop robocalls and earn $50,000

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 10:57:03 -0400

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz is not a fan of Rachel from Card Services.

"Rachel, you are now Public Enemy No. 1," Leibowitz joked on Thursday at the start of an FTC summit focused on ways to crack down on the not-so-humorous subject of illegal robocalls, which are automated telemarketing calls. Leibowitz said the commission gets thousands of complaints a month about the robocalls from Rachel and the credit card scam her sponsors are pushing, as well as many others.

The FTC summit focused on both technological and regulatory tools to curtail annoying robocalls to consumers from telemarketers. While the calls are often associated with landline phones, robocalls also are migrating to wireless phones as more Americans give up their landline phones and rely only on a cell phone.

Experts who appeared at the summit offered consumers a variety of ways to help reduce the annoying calls. Some of the proposed remedies are as simple as using caller i.d. and signing up for the National Do-Not-Call Registry to screen out unwanted calls or technologies that aim to block such calls. For wireless callers, there are apps that consumers can use to screen out both wireless robocalls and associated text messages, said Andrew Whitt, Verizon Communications director of network operations and corporate technology. But none of these solutions are foolproof.

The FTC said it is aggressively going after companies that call consumers with pre-recorded telemarketing calls without their permission. Violators could face fines as stiff as $16,000 per call. Despite this, there is still enough of an economic incentive for robocallers to chance getting caught, said Kevin Rupy, US Telecom's senior director of law and policy. Some of the ways they make money include getting consumers to respond to the scams they are pushing, which might promise lower-credit card rates, he said.

The FTC offered up a challenge on Thursday to innovators to come up with a "technological solution that will reduce substantially the number of illegal robocalls both on landlines and mobile phones," FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director David Vladeck said at the end of the summit.

The agency is offering a $50,000 award to college students or other individuals or small companies who come up with a new solution that blocks illegal robocalls but allows legitimate calls to go through. It must be easy to use and deploy and work much better in tackling the robocall problem than other technologies on the market today, Vladeck said. The contest formally opens on Oct. 25 and the deadline for submitting a solution is Jan. 17. The FTC plans to announce the winner in early April.

"Everyone wants to put Rachel and her robotic colleagues in their rear view mirror," Vladeck said.

(Image via BigKnell/Shutterstock.com)

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FCC official downplays spectrum estimates from auctions

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 08:44:59 -0400

A key Federal Communications Commission official in charge of helping to implement incentive auction legislation on Thursday downplayed initial estimates about how much spectrum could come out of the process.

During a speech at the Media Institute, Gary Epstein, a senior adviser and co-leader of the FCC's incentive auction task force, discussed the FCC's proposal to implement the incentive auction authority provided by Congress as part of payroll tax legislation passed in February. The incentive auctions are aimed at enticing broadcasters to give up some of their spectrum or agree to share spectrum with another TV station. That spectrum would then be auctioned to wireless providers, who say they need more spectrum to meet the nation's growing demand for wireless technologies.

Incentive auctions were first proposed by the FCC two years ago in its National Broadband Plan as one of the ways to free up more spectrum for wireless broadband. The proposal envisioned reaping up to 120 megahertz of spectrum from incentive auctions. Broadcasters and others, however, now say that estimate is overly optimistic.

When asked whether FCC officials were backing away from this 120 megahertz goal, Epstein said that he was "not in the business of estimating" how much spectrum the process would yield.

"It's a market-based decision," he said. "Our real job is to make the reverse auction understandable and make it easier for folks to participate."

Epstein did not offer much detail on what the auctions would look like beyond what was included in theproposal adopted by the FCC late last month. In its proposed rulemaking implementing the incentive auction proposal, the FCC asked for comment on the best way to structure the three-step process. These steps include holding a "reverse auction" for broadcasters to offer bids on what it would take for them to give up or share their spectrum; relocating broadcasters through a process known as "repacking" to clear up swaths of spectrum to auction; and conducting a "forward auction" of the spectrum relinquished by broadcasters.

(Image via kangshutters/Shutterstock.com)

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Outdated regs hinder investment in new tech, FCC commissioner says

Juliana Gruenwald — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 09:11:35 -0400

Federal Communications Commissioner Ajit Pai on Tuesday called on the commission to set up a task force that would help accelerate the transformation of the nation's communications infrastructure from old-copper based telephone networks to ones based on Internet technology.

"This task force would study how to hasten the Internet transformation," Pai said during a forum on transforming the Internet sponsored by the Communications Liberty and Innovation Project. "It would help us modernize the commission's outdated regulations and it would allow us to account for and accelerate the dramatic technological changes in the communications industry."

Pai said the proposed IP Transition Task Force should recommend the repeal of "old-world regulations that no longer make sense in a competitive, all-IP world" and discourage investment in new technologies.

One of the first candidates for repeal is an open proceeding from 2010 that called for reclassifying some broadband services as a telecommunications service, he said. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski offered the proposal in 2010 in response to a court decision that undermined the FCC's authority over broadband providers and limited attempts to impose open Internet rules on broadband providers. The reclassification proposal was sidelined when the FCC adopted net neutrality rules in December 2010 using different authority.

"We should make clear that we have no intention of employing such a back-to-the-future regulatory approach," said Pai, a Republican who joined the commission earlier this year.

Pai also appeared to indicate support for re-examining the 1996 Telecommunications Act. He said the law is "hopelessly outdated." He stopped short, however, of calling on Congress to revamp the law. Instead, he said until the FCC gets new direction from Congress, "our charge at the commission is to administer the act as it stands."

In a later panel discussion, several industry experts, however, said Congress needs to overhaul the 1996 law. They argued that the communications landscape has changed dramatically since the law was enacted. Many of the traditional communications sectors have converged with cable companies now offering phone and Internet access along with its video service and traditional phone companies offering video and Internet service as well.

"In the very long run, the act needs to be rewritten," USTelecom Senior Vice President Jonathan Banks said.

But he and others said there are other steps the FCC can take now, including using its "forbearance" authority to remove burdensome regulations that they say provide companies with a disincentive to invest in modern, next-generation networks.

While agreeing that the FCC can take steps now to remove unnecessary regulatory barriers, Congress needs to lead the policy-setting effort going forward, Jeffrey Silva, a telecom analyst with Medley Global Advisors said. "This issue of IP transformation almost begs for a debate, a serious debate among all the stakeholders and for Congress to take it up in a serious way and to draw some contours and give some direction to it," Silva said.

Despite this, he said he wasn't optimistic that Congress could take on such a big issue in the current political climate.

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Do-not-track proposal headed off the tracks

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 08:16:10 -0400

A growing rift between privacy advocates and advertising industry officials is dimming hopes for a proposal aimed at giving consumers an option of whether they want to be tracked as they surf the Internet.

The issue revolves around efforts to give consumers more control over their personal information by providing a “do-not-track” option, which would allow them to opt out of being tracked as they surf the Internet. The Federal Trade Commission has championed the idea, and all the major Internet service providers have agreed to include a do-not-track option in their browsers. But so far there is little agreement on what websites should do when they encounter a do-not-track signal from a consumer’s Internet browser.

The dispute escalated on Tuesday after the Digital Advertising Alliance, a coalition of advertising groups, issued a statement saying that its members do not have to honor the do-not-track requests sent by users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 10 browser, which is set to be released later this month, even if advertisers have signed on to the DAA’s privacy self-regulatory program. Microsoft announced in May that its Internet Explorer 10 browser would have the default setting for do-not-track turned on, a move that has prompted much concern from the advertising industry.

“The trade associations that lead the DAA do not believe that Microsoft’s IE10 browser settings are an appropriate standard for providing consumer choice,” the DAA said in a statement on Tuesday. “Machine-driven do-not-track does not represent user choice; it represents browser-manufacturer choice.”

The DAA’s statement comes a few days after privacy advocates, advertising industry officials, and other stakeholders met in Amsterdam as part of an ongoing effort led by the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, to develop standards for how websites should respond to do-not-track signals they receive from Internet browsers.

Advertising industry officials were criticized by some privacy advocates for offering proposals at the meeting that they say would undermine the effectiveness of do-not-track. These include proposals to allow tracking for advertising and marketing purposes, exceptions that privacy advocates say would basically make do-not-track meaningless.

“DAA is trying to turn DNT into TNT and blow the process up,” said Jeff Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy. Chester attended last week’s meeting in Amsterdam and added that the stakeholders are no closer to agreement on a do-not-track standard than they were before the meeting.

Electronic Frontier Foundation Staff Technologist Dan Auerbach also attended last week’s W3C meeting and said “it seems clear they [advertising industry officials] want to stifle the progress” on do-not-track. He said many contentious issues remain outstanding following the meeting, including what it means to be in compliance with a consumer’s do-not-track choice. He said privacy advocates would most likely prefer no standard over a “watered-down” do-not-track standard that he says the advertising industry is advocating.

DAA Counsel Stuart Ingis defended the group’s efforts and said the standards being advocated at the W3C run counter to the principles adopted by the DAA’s members as part of its privacy self-regulatory program. “When data is used for advertising and marketing, this benefits consumers and is not negative. To treat advertising and marketing as a permitted use like fraud and [intellectual property] protection makes sense under the DNT moniker. Advertising is every bit as important to consumers in the economic support it provides to the Internet,” he said.

Chester and other privacy advocates have been urging the FTC to play a bigger role in the W3C process. Last week, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said he was still hopeful that the W3C would eventually reach an agreement on a do-not-track standard but said all of those involved need to be willing to compromise.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., warned advertising officials last week that he would push for his legisaltion requiring websites to honor consumers' do-not-track choices if they do not cooperate on the issue.

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Experts: Mobile phones are vulnerable to cyber attacks

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:58:21 -0400

A big majority of information technology experts say mobile phones are vulnerable to cyber attacks and half said the wireless industry is not doing enough to address the problem, according to a survey released on Tuesday by the wireless industry group CTIA.

In a survey of 500 officials who handle IT for a wide range of companies, 50 percent of those polled said wireless companies are doing a fair to poor job of addressing cybersecurity and 86 percent said mobile phones are vulnerable to a cyber attack. This is just slightly below the 88 percent who said tablets were vulnerable to cyber attacks.

Despite this, 77 percent of those polled said the mobile industry is "better equipped" to develop cybersecurity standards than government. Lawmakers have been working for several years to develop legislation that would protect both public and private networks from cyber attacks. But some industry officials complained that cybersecurity legislation that failed in the Senate in early August gave government too big of a role in developing standards for protecting private and public networks.

In CTIA's survey, released at this year's MobileCon conference, 68 percent of the IT professionals said industry and government should share information about cyber attacks and work together to define standards for protecting networks.

"The wireless industry recognizes the importance of keeping our customers and our communications networks safe and secure from cyber threats," CTIA President and CEO Steve Largent said in a statement. "As the IT professionals have identified in this survey, in order to do this, public and private organizations must be able to share information so we can better secure our networks and protect our customers."

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U.S. seizes hundreds of websites accused of selling fake drugs

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 09:12:22 -0400

As part of an ongoing effort to combat online counterfeiting and piracy, federal authorities on Thursday announced a major crackdown on websites allegedly engaged in selling counterfeit drugs.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, working with other federal agencies and Interpol, seized 686 websites this week for allegedly selling counterfeit pharmaceuticals. The move was part of an annual international effort that targets criminal networks engaged in selling online fake drugs. The most recent crackdown, which began late last month and ended on Tuesday, targeted websites in Europe and the United States.

"These international partnerships are essential in the global fight against the trafficking of counterfeit drugs," ICE Director John Morton said in a statement. "Instead of taking potentially life-saving medicines, customers are duped into purchasing drugs that are fake or untested and could ultimately do them more harm than good."

Morton's agency has been involved in the seizure of hundreds of domain names linked to websites allegedly engaged in online piracy and counterfeiting. The effort, however, has come under some scrutiny by critics who say the agency has unfairly seized some legitimate sites.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Intellectual Property Center has been encouraging tougher action against such websites and praised the latest crackdown. "This victory for consumers is the single biggest effort by ICE since the beginning of Operation In Our Sites in 2010, which, until now, had targeted criminals running illicit operations through an additional 839 sites," Steve Tepp, the center's chief intellectual property policy counsel, said in a statement.

(Image via naiheic/Shutterstock.com)

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FTC urged to probe whether Facebook is violating privacy settlement

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 09:12:27 -0400

Two privacy groups are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether a deal Facebook has entered into with a data-mining firm violates the privacy settlement the social networking site reached last year with the agency.

In a letter Thursday to the FTC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy urged the commission to examine whether the deal Facebook reached with Datalogix to measure the effectiveness of Facebook ads runs counter to the privacy promises Facebook agreed to as part of the consent decree reached last year. Datalogix will reportedly match information it has about consumers with personal information from Facebook users.

The FTC finalized its consent decree last month that settled allegations - first raised by EPIC and others - that Facebook deceived its users when it changed its privacy settings in 2009. As part of the settlement, Facebook agreed to get permission from users before changing the way it shares data and submit to independent third-party audits of its privacy practices for two decades.

"Facebook did not attempt to notify users of its decision to disclose user information to Datalogix," the two privacy groups said in their letter to the FTC. "Neither Facebook's Data Use Policy nor its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities adequately explains the specific types of information Facebook discloses, the manner in which the disclosure occurs, or the identities of the third parties receiving the information."

While Facebook has pledged to protect the anonymity of the data, EPIC and CDD question the effectiveness of the methods the company is using to do this. They also said that Facebook is offering users a "confusing and ineffective" means of opting out of the arrangement with Datalogix.

In a statement, Facebook said it is "confident that we are [in] compliance with our legal obligations."

The company also has defended its agreement with Datalogix, saying it is aimed at helping its "advertisers understand how well their Facebook ads are working. ... We know that people share a lot of information on Facebook, and we have taken great care to make sure that we measure the effectiveness of Facebook ads without compromising the commitments we have made on privacy. We don't sell people's personal information, and individual user data is not shared between Facebook, Datalogix or advertisers."

(Image via flydragon/Shutterstock.com)

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Lawmakers offer Internet radio legislation

Juliana Gruenwald — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 13:25:23 -0400

Lawmakers in both the House and the Senate offered legislation Friday that supporters say would level the playing field for Internet radio stations by allowing them to use the same standard for determining the rates they must pay performers for playing their music as other digital music providers.

The legislation offered in the House by Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Jared Polis, D-Colo., and in the Senate by Ron Wyden, D-Ore., would require that the Copyright Royalty Board use the same standard for setting rates for paying performers as it does for satellite and radio, which pay a much lower rate. The bill also would require that Copyright Royalty Board judges have a minimum level of experience and be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

"Congress enacted the royalty rate standard for Internet radio 14 years ago, when Internet radio was barely a concept," Chaffetz said in a statement. "This bipartisan legislation levels the playing field for Internet radio services by putting them under the same market-based standard used to establish rates for other digital services, including cable and satellite radio. It's well past time to stop discriminating against Internet radio."

Wyden echoed Chaffetz's comments, adding that the legislation "puts Internet Radio on an even plane with its competitors, and allows the music marketplace to evolve and to expand--which will ultimately benefit artists and the internet economy."

Internet radio provider Pandora has been pushing lawmakers for a legislative fix. The Consumer Electronics Association, which Pandora is a member of, endorsed the legislation.

"The changes proposed by the Internet Radio Fairness Act are simple and long overdue. They will drive innovation, investment and jobs, not just in Internet radio but also in the hardware used to access Internet services," CEA Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Michael Petricone said in a statement.

The National Association of Broadcasters backed the move as well. In a statement, the group said they "strongly supports legislative efforts to establish fair webcast streaming rates."

Debate on the issue, however, will likely spill over into the next Congress given that lawmakers are expected to recess this week and not return until after the election.

Music industry officials have voiced concern with the legislation, saying it would result in less revenue for musical performers. At the same time, they argue that any bill that deals with rates paid by online radio should also address the issue of terrestrial radio stations, which are currently not required to pay musicians for playing their music on the air.

"Going from a fair market, 'willing buyer, willing seller' rate to a government mandated subsidy will break the backs of artists, while Pandora executives pad their pockets," Ted Kalo, executive director of the music industry coalition musicFIRST, said in a statement. "We support rate parity that addresses the greatest inequity of all, the lack of a performance right for terrestrial radio, and is fair to music creators."

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the ranking member on the House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee, has been working on a draft bill that also aims to level the playing field between digital music providers and takes modest steps in addressing the issue of terrestrial radio. Nadler's draft bill would require radio broadcasters to pay a higher rate for streaming music online to account for the fact that they don't pay performers when their music is played on traditional radio stations.

In the last Congress, lawmakers tried and failed to move legislation that would require terrestrial radio stations to pay performance fees. However, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who is vying to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in the next Congress, has said he would like to take a broader look at the issue and examine the concerns of both the music industry and Internet radio providers.

Pandora founder and Chief Strategy Officer Tim Westergren told National Journal last month that his company and others hurt by the current online music rate structure shouldn't be "held hostage" to the fight over whether traditional radio stations should have to start paying performers.

(Image via Norebbo/Shutterstock.com)

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Ad industry, privacy advocates spar over 'do not track'

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:02:14 -0400

Lawmakers and the Federal Trade Commission are being lobbied to intervene to help settle differences between some advertising industry representatives and privacy advocates over how to implement a “do-not-track” option giving consumers the choice of whether they want to be tracked online.

Many companies now track consumers by placing text files called "cookies" on their computers when they visit certain websites in order to tailor ads to them based on their preferences. In response to the growing use of online tracking for advertising and market research, many privacy advocates have called for giving consumers a do-not-track option. The idea gained momentum after the FTC first endorsed the idea in a draft privacy report in December 2010.

Some of the browser providers including Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer have begun including a do-not-track choice in their browsers. But it is unclear how websites will respond to these do-not-track requests.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international organization that sets technical standards for the Web, has been convening talks involving advertising and tech industry representatives and privacy advocates on developing a standard for what it means to abide by a consumer’s do-not-track preference. Those talks, which have been going on for months, however, appear to have reached a stalemate and some of the parties involved are now looking outside the group for help.

Privacy advocates wrote the FTC last week appealing to the agency to intervene to help break the logjam. In their letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, the privacy groups said the two major stumbling blocks center around the use of “unique identifiers” and the default settings for Internet browsers that include a do-not-track option.

"Consumer privacy has suffered in the technical 'arms race' between privacy tools and industry tracking practices, and we support efforts to design a consensus approach in hopes of avoiding further undermining of consumer trust online," the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Watchdog and the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote. "We believe that a meaningful [do-not-track] standard that browsers enable, users understand and websites honor is the best outcome for all. Strong FTC support for the W3C process would, we hope, nip this damaging 'arms race' in the bud."

Microsoft’s announcement earlier this year that it would offer the latest version of Internet Explorer with the do-not-track option turned on has caused concern among some advertising industry officials and sparked debate over how far the W3C should go in defining do-not-track standards. Some worry that Microsoft has made the choice for consumers. Given this, they say many websites may not honor Internet Explorer do-not-track requests.

"It’s one thing to set a technical standard, but [another] to define the policy behind the technical standard," said Stuart Ingis, who serves as counsel to the Digital Advertising Alliance.

In response to concerns raised by the ad network ValueClick, advertising technology firm 33 Across and others, a group of GOP House lawmakers wrote Leibowitz Friday to voice concern with the agency’s role in the W3C process and to request details about whether it is driving efforts to restrict online advertising without adequate authority to do so.

"We are also concerned the FTC and W3C have failed to study how certain implementations of [do-not-track] could affect third-party advertising networks, the publishers who depend on advertising revenue, and ultimately the consumers who today enjoy a vibrant creative ecosystem of online applications, services and content," said the letter signed by nine House members including Reps. Tom Graves, R-Ga., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Dan Burton, R-Ind., a senior member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

They added that the third-party advertisers and publishers most likely to be hurt by implementation of do-not-track are not “adequately represented” in the W3C process and said some companies are “using this extra-legal policymaking process to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.” The lawmakers sought information from the FTC about what authority it is using to participate in the W3C process, who the FTC has met with related to the W3C process, what studies it considered in endorsing do-not-track and other information.

"We’re seeing policies outside the United States influencing the economy here, through the FTC’s encouragement of the W3C process.” ValueClick Chief Privacy Office Jason Bier told National Journal.

“I’m concerned that the legislative process has been put in a forum other than where it should be -- which is Congress. I have specific concerns about what impact this could have on the U.S. economy, and the thousands of small companies and publishers that ValueClick serves may be hurt badly.”

Leibowitz has been vocal in saying that he believes do-not-track should mean that companies will not collect information from consumers except in a few limited instances. But what those exceptions should is still up for debate. The Digital Advertising Alliance argues that some tracking is necessary in some instances such as for fraud prevention, security and market research.

Adam Mazmanian contributed to this story.

(Image via Lightspring/Shutterstock.com)

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Ayotte criticizes White House over Google video request

Juliana Gruenwald — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., criticized the White House on Wednesday for suggesting that Google remove a controversial anti-Islam video from the its YouTube video-sharing site in response to violent protests in Egypt, Libya, and other predominantly Muslim countries.

“Google is a private company, and they’re going to take what actions they believe are appropriate where they conduct their business throughout the world,” Ayotte, who sits on the Senate Commerce Committee, told reporters. “But in our country, we believe in free speech, even if the speech is offensive and that’s part of our First Amendment. And so for here, I don’t think it was appropriate for the White House to call on them to pull the video down.”

Ayotte’s comments came in response to YouTube’s decision to remove access to the video in some countries in the wake of violent protests over the video in Egypt, Libya, and other countries, which led to the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans in Benghazi. YouTube denied that it took the action in response to a White House request.

“We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions. This can be a challenge because what's OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere. This video -- which is widely available on the Web -- is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube,” a YouTube spokesman said. “However, we've restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal, such as India and Indonesia, as well as in Libya and Egypt given the very sensitive situations in these two countries. This approach is entirely consistent with principles we first laid out in 2007."

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., agreed with Ayotte that Google should be allowed to do what it wants and added that the government should not play a role in dictating such moves.

It’s “different whether Google does it privately or whether the government would ban something. And I don’t like the government banning anything,” he said in a brief interview. “But I have no sympathy at all for people producing things that incite other countries not to like us, either.”

At least one lawmaker who has been vocal on Internet free-speech issues also did not take issue with Google’s move -- nor with the White House requesting such action.

“I think it was a business decision. I’m not going to Monday-morning quarterback it,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told National Journal. He led opposition in the Senate to anti-piracy legislation earlier this year because of concerns that it would stifle online free speech.

“Obviously, there are very significant reasons why they would do it. I start with the proposition, as you know, that free speech is so important, but I also understand, and it goes back in the history of our country to the implications of shouting fire in a crowded theater and a host of other judgments," he added.

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House Republicans support Smith’s STEM bill

Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 09:07:48 -0400

A group of House members introduced legislation on Tuesday that would make it easier for foreign students who graduate from U.S. universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, or math to stay in the United States.

House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, introduced the bill along with 47 House Republicans, but only one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, has signed on so far. The full House is expected to vote on the measure this Thursday.

The bill targets an issue both parties say needs to be addressed. Both President Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney have voiced support for allowing foreign studnets who graduate with advanced STEM degrees from U.S. schools to stay in this country.

Supporters note that many of the most successful tech firms in the United States were created or cofounded by immigrants, including Google, Intel, and Yahoo. At the same time, tech-industry officials argue that they may be forced to move some work offshore if they are unable to keep the talent they need here in the United States.

“In a global economy, we cannot afford to educate these foreign graduates in the U.S. and then send them back home to work for our competitors,” Smith said in a statement. “For America to be to the world’s economic leader, we must have access to the world’s best talent.”

Smith’s bill would scrap the Diversity Visa Program enacted in 1990 that allows immigrants to participate in an annual lottery of up to 55,000 U.S. green cards. Instead, it would reallocate 55,000 green cards to foreign STEM graduates. It would require them to earn their degrees while living in the United States, to commit to staying in the country for at least five years, and to be sponsored by a U.S. employer. It would only apply to students who graduated from accredited U.S. colleges and universities that are at least a decade old and have been classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching or the National Science Foundation as engaging in a “high level” of research activity.

The bill would require companies to post STEM job openings on a state workforce agency’s jobs site before seeking foreing graduates for the position. In addition, the STEM visas created by the bill would not be available to students who graduate with advanced degrees in the biological and biomedical fields.

The bill is one of many aimed at addressing the brain drain of students who come to the United States to earn valuable skills at U.S. universities but are forced to leave the country because they can’t obtain a green card or temporary work visa.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Judiciary Immigration subcommittee, is expected to introduce his own STEM bill most likely on Wednesday that would not eliminate the Diversity Visa Program. Instead, the bill would create a two-year pilot program that would allocate 55,000 green cards a year to non-U.S. students who graduate from U.S. colleges or universities with a master’s degree or doctorate in a STEM field. His bill also would allow high-tech workers currently in the United States on temporary visas to renew their visas without having to first return to their home country.

Last week, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., introduced a bill similar to Schumer's measure that also would retain the Diversity Visa Program.

“We should be encouraging every brilliant and well-educated immigrant to stay here, build a business here, employ people here, and grow our economy,” Schumer said in a statement on Tuesday. “Fixing our broken green-card system will help ensure that the next eBay, the next Google, the next Intel will be started in America, not in Shanghai.”

Schumer had been negotiating with Smith on developing bipartisan legislation that could move through both chambers but they could not agree on such issues as which schools would be eligible, according to a Senate aide. Schumer’s bill is unlikely to see action before the Senate recesses this month for the November election.

Bipartisan legislation known as the Startup 2.0 Act was introduced in both chambers earlier this year that would create two new visas for foreign students who graduate with advanced STEM degrees or start businesses in the United States.

Tech firms have been supportive of these efforts but are anxious for Congress to move on the issue, which has been bogged down by the debate over comprehensive immigration reform.

“We applaud the efforts of members on both [sides] of the aisle to increase STEM visas. At present, we support the Smith bill because that’s the one that scheduled for a vote on Thursday,” Michael Petricone, senior vice president of the Consumer Electronics Association, said. “It is imperative that something get done as soon as possible — kicking out foreign-born advanced-degree holders is silly and economically self-destructive. We are hopeful that both sides can transcend politics and partisanship, and do what is clearly in the best interests of the United States.”

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