BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY MARCH 12, 2009
For more on the communications-related provisions of the stimulus law than you ever wanted to know, see http://www.benton.org/node/20455
THE STIMULUS
Information Requested for Recovery Act Broadband Initiatives
Industry Reactions to NTIA/RUS Broadband Meeting Generally Positive
Tech's stimulus boost
Obama's $80 Billion Exaggeration
Grants.gov Strains Under New Demand
National Institutes of Health Recovery Act Funds Now Available
THE TRANSITION
Genachowski: New Media Man with Old Media Roots
Leibowitz Outlines Agenda
Obama and Citizen Engagement
An Ex-Journalist on His New Life as Biden Aide
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
FOIA Ombudsman gets $1 million
Freedom on the global Internet still a pipe dream
Tribune Co. chairman questioned in Blagojevich case
JOURNALISM
As Cities Go From Two Papers to One, Talk of Zero
Health Care Journalists Reveal Fewer Resources, and Time, in Survey
TELECOM
Oklahoma, Utah lead going cell-only
Comcast says it's now No. 3 US home phone provider
Google's Free Phone Manager Could Threaten a Variety of Services
ADVERTISING
Google Launches Behavioral Targeting Ad Program
Creeping Onto the Front Covers of Magazines, Paid Ads
TELEVISION
Times Are Tough on Wall Street and Wisteria Lane
Child Activists Slam Sprout
Idaho Senate OKs Statewide Cable Franchising
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Internet at risk from "wiretapping"
Online services deliver mail without the paper
THE STIMULUS
INFORMATION REQUESTED FOR RECOVERY ACT BROADBAND INITIATIVES
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
In a joint proceeding, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (Department of Commerce) and the Rural Utilities Service (Department of Agriculture) are requesting comment on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Broadband Initiatives. NTIA and RUS will hold a series of
public meetings about the new programs beginning on March 16, 2009. In addition to the information received about the new programs during the public meetings, written comments will be accepted through April 13, 2009. The agencies have about two dozen questions they are requesting information on.
http://benton.org/node/23185
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INDUSTRY REACTIONS TO NTIA/RUS BROADBAND MEETING GENERALLY POSITIVE
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Andrew Feinberg]
Despite a packed-to-capacity auditorium, long lines and occasionally unanswered questions, reactions to Tuesday's unveiling of the Obama administration's $7.2 billion stimulus program were generally very positive among attendees and industry observers. An informal survey of attendees after the event generated generally enthusiastic responses to Tuesday's program by attendees - but also several notes of caution. Most were optimistic about the prospects that the broadband stimulus program would generate economic growth - and opportunities for their bottom lines. An additional theme in responses was pleasure at the Obama administration's stated commitment to transparency.
http://benton.org/node/23184
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TECH'S STIMULUS BOOST
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Jon Fortt]
Here's one group you won't hear complaining too bitterly about government spending: Tech executives. They may be deficit hawks when it comes to their own balance sheets, but leaders of the largest technology companies these days are positioning global stimulus packages - including the Obama administration's $787 billion stimulus plan - as a necessary evil. And while they're careful to avoid promoting any particular political ideology, there's a common refrain among them that with the economy in such rough shape and with customers afraid to spend, it's only natural for governments to step up.
http://benton.org/node/23157
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OBAMA'S $80 BILLION EXAGGERATION
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jerome Groopman, Pamela Hartzband]
[Commentary] National adoption of electronic medical records is estimated to save some $80 billion a year, safeguard against medical errors, reduce malpractice lawsuits, and greatly facilitate both preventive care and ongoing therapy of the chronically ill. But the estimate is based a theoretical study published in 2005 by the RAND Corporation, funded by companies including Hewlett-Packard and Xerox that stand to financially benefit from such an electronic system. And, as the RAND policy analysts readily admit in their report, there was no compelling evidence at the time to support their theoretical claims. Moreover, in the four years since the report, considerable data have been obtained that undermine their claims. The RAND study and the Obama proposal it spawned appear to be an elegant exercise in wishful thinking.
http://benton.org/node/23183
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GRANTS.GOV STRAINS UNDER NEW DEMAND
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Garance Franke-Ruta]
An early casualty of the stimulus package was identified by the Office of Management and Budget this week when OMB Director Peter Orszag told agency heads to plan for a possible meltdown of the government's online grantmaking portal. A review of its capacity revealed a "significant risk of failure," Orszag warned in a memo Monday, our colleague Sarah Cohen reports. The memo went on to say that Grants.gov, the site where nonprofit groups and local governments can apply for more than 1,000 competitive grants from 22 federal agencies, is straining under the weight of recent growth. With an expected 60 percent increase in volume because of last month's $787 billion stimulus measure, the system could just break, Orszag said. The expected major surge in applications is likely to take a while to emerge, as agencies write instructions to applicants and settle on conditions and priorities for the grants. But already the system is slowing down, frustrating would-be grantees trying to meet application deadlines and instead getting error messages.
http://benton.org/node/23182
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NIH RECOVERY ACT FUNDS NOW AVAILABLE
[SOURCE: National Institutes of Health, AUTHOR: Press release]
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that applications for a total of $1.5 billion in grants funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are now available. The grants will fund scientific research, construction and improvement of research facilities, and the purchase of scientific equipment. Funds include at least $200 million in Challenge Grants to support research on topics that address specific scientific and health research challenges in biomedical and behavioral research that would benefit from significant 2-year jumpstart funds. Among those grants will be projects in information technology for processing health care data. Topics: Cyber-Infrastructure for Health: Building Technologies to Support Data Coordination and Computational Thinking; Engineering improved quality of health care at a reduced cost; Develop data sharing and analytic approaches to obtain from large-scale observational data, especially those derived from electronic health records, reliable estimates of comparative treatment effects and outcomes of cardiovascular, lung, and blood diseases; Informatics for post-marketing surveillance; Advanced decision support for complex clinical decisions; Adapt existing genetic and clinical databases to make them interoperable for pharmacogenomics studies; Information Technology Demonstration Projects Facilitating Secondary Use of Healthcare Data for Research; and Innovative information and communication technologies to enhance capabilities of U.S. institutions in global health research and research training.
http://benton.org/node/23156
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THE TRANSITION
NEW MEDIA MAN WITH OLD MEDIA ROOTS
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Kim McAvoy]
Julius Genachowski, President Obama's nominee to be the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is generally viewed as a high-tech maven based on his years as a top executive at Barry Diller's Web-heavy IAC/InterActive Corp. and several subsequent years heading his own investment firm for digital media. But a closer look reveals a career steeped in old-fashioned television. Prior to embracing the new media, Genachowski spent several years deeply involved in the law, policy and management of broadcasting and cable. The old media has even played a bigger than usual part in his life as a husband and father. What Genachowski knows about TV may have begun in 1994 when he was working as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice David Souter and the court was considering the constitutionality of the FCC's must-carry rules. Justice Souter was part of the 5-4 majority that remanded the case to a lower court and again in 1997 when the high court affirmed the rules. Soon after the 1994 vote, then-FCC Chairman Reed Hundt brought Genachowski into the FCC and set him to work as a special counsel to then-General Counsel Bill Kennard and later as his own chief legal aide. At the FCC, Genachowski worked on some of the most important and contentious broadcast TV proceedings of the time, including the repeal of the financial interest/syndication and the primetime access rules, the expansion of children's television obligations and the crafting of the digital television rules. While working at IAC/InterActive, Genachowski's boss, Barry Diller, was appointed to the so-called Gore Commission, which was to determine the public interest obligations of TV stations in a digital era. As Diller's surrogate, Genachowski helped write the "public interest programming and community service certification form" ultimately recommended to the commission, according to Gigi Sohn, president of the advocacy group, Public Knowledge. That form is similar to the new FCC Form 355 approved by the FCC last year as part of its enhanced TV disclosure requirements, Sohn says.
http://benton.org/node/23154
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LEIBOWITZ OUTLINES AGENDA
[SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Andrew Noyes]
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz wants to work with Congress on reauthorization legislation this year that he believes will make his agency more effective. The agency currently has 1,100 employees -- several hundred less than it needs, he said. Chairman Leibowitz top priorities for the agency in the coming months: 1) curbing predatory financial practices, which he believes will only worsen during the recession; 2) stop brand pharmaceutical companies from paying off generic drugmakers to delay the availability of their low-cost versions to consumers; and 3) making sure Internet advertising firms respect consumer privacy -- thus far, self-regulatory efforts by industry in this arena are not working, he said.
http://benton.org/node/23149
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OBAMA AND CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
[SOURCE: The Huffington Post, AUTHOR: Don Tapscott]
[Commentary] For far too long, we've been living in what Tapscott calls a broadcast democracy. These days, the policy specialists and advisers on the public-sector payroll can barely keep pace with defining the problems, let alone craft the solutions. Government can't begin to amass the in-house expertise to deal with the myriad challenges that arise. Governments need to create opportunities for sustained dialogue between voters and the elected. Here's how it would work. The president would say, "We're going to have a national discussion on revitalizing our cities. It starts on Monday at noon and ends the same week on Friday at noon. Anyone can participate through the Web 2.0 discussion community we've set up. If you don't have Internet access, I've partnered with corporations, schools, libraries, community computing centers, and shopping malls to give you access. We'll post background papers. We'll organize the discussion by region and also by interest groups. There will be a business discussion, a discussion of public transit users, and so on. As you participate in the discussion rate the ideas that you come across and the best ideas will rise to the top. I'll participate daily and give my views. At the end of the process we'll explore our options for further action." The goal is to have a conversation in which people become engaged in political life; think about issues; get active in improving their communities; and mobilize society for positive change. [more at the URL below]
http://benton.org/node/23153
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AN EX-JOURNALIST ON HIS NEW LIFE AS BIDEN AIDE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Mary Ann Akers]
A Q&A with former Time magazine journalist Jay Carney. He is now Vice President Joe Biden's director of communications.
http://benton.org/node/23177
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
FOIA OMBUDSMAN GETS $1 MILLION
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Clint Hendler]
The budget President Obama just signed includes one million dollars for the new Office of Government Information Services, which will be housed in the National Archives that is charged with serving as a government wide ombudsman for the Freedom of Information Act process.
http://benton.org/node/23155
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FREEDOM ON THE INTERNET STILL A PIPE DREAM
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: ]
Reporters Without Borders has published its annual "Internet Enemies" report finding that "The Internet represents freedom, but not everywhere." The report identifies countries where authorities regularly chuck bloggers in jail for online posts that displease the regime: Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam. The report also makes (dishonorable) mention of nations that are either considering Internet censorship statutes or have been stepping up control over their citizens' use of the Web. These include: Australia, Bahrain, Belarus, Eritrea, Malaysia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.
http://benton.org/node/23173
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TRIBUNE CO CHAIRMAN QUESTIONED IN BLAGOJEVICH CASE
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Todd Lighty, Robert Becker]
Tribune Co. Chairman Sam Zell hired well-known defense lawyer Anton Valukas and was interviewed in January by federal prosecutors as a "potential witness" in the criminal investigation of former Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich. In their subpoena to Tribune Co., federal authorities sought information about potential staff cuts or changes to the newspaper's editorial board. The company has said Tribune Co. executives did nothing inappropriate. Tribune Co. also acknowledged state records, recently obtained by the Chicago Tribune, that show Zell making a phone call and giving a gift to Blagojevich. According to records of Blagojevich's telephone logs, Zell placed a call to the governor Dec. 8, the day before the arrest. Zell placed "courtesy calls" to several elected officials, including Mayor Richard M. Daley, that day to notify them that the company had just filed for bankruptcy protection, according to the statement from Liebentritt. "Mr. Zell's call to Mr. Blagojevich was not returned," the statement said.
http://benton.org/node/23175
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JOURNALISM
AS CITIES GO FROM TWO PAPERS TO ONE, TALK OF ZERO
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Richard Perez-Pena]
Denver, Seattle and Tucson still have daily papers, but now, some economists and newspaper executives say it is only a matter of time — and probably not much time at that — before some major American city is left with no prominent local newspaper at all. "In 2009 and 2010, all the two-newspaper markets will become one-newspaper markets, and you will start to see one-newspaper markets become no-newspaper markets," said Mike Simonton, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, who analyzes the industry. Many critics and competitors of newspapers — including online start-ups that have been hailed as the future of journalism — say that no one should welcome their demise. No one knows which will be the first big city without a large paper, but there are candidates all across the country -- San Francisco, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, New Haven. Ad revenue, the industry's lifeblood, has dropped about 25 percent in the last two years (by comparison, automotive revenue for Detroit's Big Three fell about 15 percent during the same period, although it has accelerated recently), and that slide, accelerated by the recession, shows no sign of leveling off in 2009. And magnifying the problem, for many chains, is a heavy burden of debt that they took on, mostly in a spree of buying other newspapers from 2005 to 2007, just before the bottom dropped out of the business.
http://benton.org/node/23181
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HEALTH CARE JOURNALISTS REVEAL FEWER RESOURCES, AND TIME, IN SURVEY
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher, AUTHOR: Joe Strupp]
The Association of Health Care Journalists and the Kaiser Family Foundation have released a report on the state of health care journalism that shows those reporting on such issues have fewer resources and less time to devote to the news. But the journalists contend that coverage on health care has either remained steady or even increased in some cases. Among the findings: 1) Forty percent of respondents said the number of health reporters has gone down since they started at their news organization. 2) More than 9 out of 10 said "bottom-line pressures in media organizations were hurting the quality of news coverage of health issues." 3) Nearly 40% said it was either "very likely or somewhat likely that their position will be eliminated in the next three years." 4) About 75% of respondents said that U.S. journalism was headed in the wrong direction, but just more than half felt that way about health journalism. And two-thirds of respondents said health care journalism was headed in the right direction at their media outlet.
http://benton.org/node/23151
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TELECOM
OKLAHOMA, UTAH LEAD GOING CELL-ONLY
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Mike Mokrzycki]
At least 26 percent of households are now cell-only in Oklahoma and Utah, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated. That rate was at least 20 percent in nine other states — Nebraska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, New Mexico, Texas, South Carolina and Tennessee — and the District of Columbia. The study is sure to be watched closely by telecommunications companies trying to understand state and local markets better, and by government, academic and commercial survey researchers using telephone polling to monitor health trends, politics and much more. The CDC, blending its own 2007 survey data with Census updates, found the prevalence of cell-only households varies widely by state — sometimes within regions and even between neighboring states. This is tied to differences by state in demographics known to predict wireless-only ownership, especially being young and renting rather than owning a home. States with the fewest cell-only households: Vermont (5 percent) and Connecticut, Delaware and South Dakota (6 percent each). South Dakota was near the bottom even though next-door Nebraska was near the top. Also below 10 percent: Rhode Island, New Jersey, Hawaii, California (9 percent), Montana, Massachusetts and Missouri.
http://benton.org/node/23174
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COMCAST SAYS IT'S NOW NO 3 US PHONE PROVIDER
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Yinka Adegoke]
Comcast, the largest US cable television company, said on Wednesday it has become the No. 3 provider of primary home phone service in the United States, overtaking telephone company Qwest. The cable company, which started offering phone services in the spring of 2005, said it now has 6.47 million subscribers that take its phone service. Comcast compared its numbers with Qwest's primary consumer access lines, which totaled 5.96 million as of Dec. 31. But Qwest has 6.5 million consumer phone lines in total when it includes additional home phone lines for subscribers who take more than one line. Comcast said its rapid growth in the phone business has been driven by competing on price and offering innovative features such as universal caller ID, which displays the phone numbers of callers on customers' phones, televisions and personal computers if they are "triple-play" customers.
http://benton.org/node/23150
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GOOGLE'S FREE PHONE MANAGER COULD THREATEN A VARIETY OF SERVICES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Miguel Helft]
Google stepped up its attack on the telecommunications industry on Thursday with a free service called Google Voice that, if successful, could chip away at the revenue of companies big and small, like eBay, which owns Skype, telephone companies and a string of technology start-up firms. Google Voice is an expanded version of a service previously known as GrandCentral, a start-up that Google acquired 20 months ago. It is intended to simplify the way people handle phone calls, voice mail and text messages. The service will initially be made available only to existing GrandCentral subscribers; Google says the general public will be able to use it in the coming weeks. Google Voice allows users to route all their calls through a single number that can ring their home, work and mobile phones simultaneously. It also gives users a single and easy-to-manage voice mail system for multiple phone lines. And it lets users make calls, routed via the Internet, free in the United States and for a small fee internationally. Analysts singled out the Internet calling features as the aspect of the service that is potentially most disruptive to established companies. While inexpensive Internet calls have become commonplace, Google's potential to reach a mass audience could make a difference, some analysts said.
http://benton.org/node/23179
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ADVERTISING
GOOGLE LAUNCHES BEHAVIORAL TARGETING AD PROGRAM
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher, AUTHOR: ]
Google said Wednesday it is launching a behavioral targeting advertising program for display and text. This "interest-based advertising" goes a step beyond simply targeting ads based on the page being viewed, explained Susan Wojcicki, Google's vice president of Product Management. "There are some situations, however, where a keyword or the content of a Web page simply doesn't give us enough information to serve highly relevant ads," she wrote in a company blog announcing the program. "We think we can make online advertising even more relevant and useful by using additional information about the Web sites people visit. Today we are launching 'interest-based' advertising as a beta test on our partner sites and on YouTube. These ads will associate categories of interest -- say sports, gardening, cars, pets -- with your browser, based on the types of sites you visit and the pages you view. We may then use those interest categories to show you more relevant text and display ads." Wojcicki conceded the new program may raise privacy issues. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that regardless of Google's efforts to address privacy concerns, the company's new ad program "throws up red flags" for Internet privacy. "This is the Internet's largest search company now profiling and tracking Internet users. That shouldn't happen," said Rotenberg. He said his organization was evaluating "possibilities" about a potential response to Google's move, but declined to specify what options were under consideration. But Ari Schwartz, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said there are positives in Google's plan, including users getting access to their own profile. "On balance it is a step in the right direction," said Schwartz, whose group was consulted while Google developed its plan. But he noted that Google plans to still rely on consumers opting out, rather than in, which most of the public opposes.
http://benton.org/node/23152
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CREEPING ONTO THE FRONT COVERS OF MAGAZINES, PAID ADS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Stuart Elliott]
As tough times send some publishers running for cover, marketers are running advertisements on the covers of some publications. The arrival of paid pitches on magazines' front covers — until now the province of editorial content — is emblematic of changing standards for advertising acceptability. One reason longtime policies are being rethought is, of course, the steep decline in ad revenue caused by competition from online media, coupled with the slowdown in demand for print ads as a result of the recession.
http://benton.org/node/23178
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TELEVISION
TIMES ARE TOUGH ON WALL STREET AND WISTERIA LANE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Edward Wyatt]
Popular entertainment often takes the form of escapism in tough economic times. But a growing number of broadcast network shows have recently incorporated more real-life issues into their stories — a reflection, producers say, of how widespread the current financial troubles are. The real-life financial situations being used for scripts stand out for their directness in addressing the economic plight of average Americans. Because of the months-long delay between the genesis of a television plotline and its broadcast, fictional series rarely make direct reference to current events, lest they risk seeming stale by the time an episode makes it to air. The episodes being shown now were conceived last summer or fall and filmed early this year, meaning they have benefited from the extended economic downturn.
http://benton.org/node/23180
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CHILD ACTIVISTS SLAM SPROUT
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Center for SCREEN-TIME Awareness are criticizing cable TV network Sprout, likening it to a TV version of a sleeping pill for toddlers, while the network's president said it was, instead, a chance for parents and kids to unwind together. In a letter to Sprout's president, CCFC asked the cable and satellite channel to stop luring young kids by misleading parents into believing that the shows would help get their kids "wind down after a busy day.... We urge you to stop packaging your evening program as a sleep aid for children," said CCFC. CCFC which comprises more than two dozen kids advocacy groups including the Action Coalition for Media Education, Alliance for Childhood, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, argues that for very young children TV viewing can produce irregular sleep patterns and says it isn't so hot for older kids either.
http://benton.org/node/23169
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IDAHO SENATE OKs STATEWIDE CABLE FRANCHISING
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Kent Gibbons]
Idaho's state Senate unanimously endorsed the Idaho Video Services Act (S1100), a statewide cable franchising measure, that has now been forwarded to a House committee. The bill states that no political subdivision can compel a video services provider to provide funding, equipment or facilities for PEG programming, other than absorbing the cost of transmitting the channel or channels, once current franchise agreements expire.
http://benton.org/node/23148
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
INTERNET AT RISK FROM "WIRETAPPING"
[SOURCE: NewScientist, AUTHOR: Colin Barras]
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, says the ever-increasing power of computers that is helping the Internet to grow is also threatening its future. The concern is deep packet inspection (DPI), a technique that makes it possible to peer inside packets of data transmitted across the Internet. DPI is already being used for commercial gain, without the consent of users. Companies try to sell DPI-acquired data to firms that can use it for example, to target online adverts. DPI is also used by the Chinese government to enforce its web censorship programme, sometimes called the Great Firewall of China.
http://benton.org/node/23170
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ONLINE SERVICES DELIVER MAIL WITHOUT PAPER
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Alana Semuels]
For a monthly fee, customers can view their letters, bills and catalogs on their computers. Analysts say it's too soon to tell whether digital mail is the next big thing, and skeptics, including the U.S. Postal Service, abound. Still, as consumers become more tied to the digital world, Web-based snail mail services are expanding.
http://benton.org/node/23176
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