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The Telecom Digest for November 2, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 223 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Senate confirms Tom Wheeler as FCC's new chairman (Neal McLain)
Warily, Schools Watch Students on the Internet (Monty Solomon)
Senator Raises Questions About Protecting Student Data (Monty Solomon)
The Information-Gathering Paradox (Monty Solomon)

====== 32 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 22:33:31 -0700 (PDT) From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Senate confirms Tom Wheeler as FCC's new chairman Message-ID: <5f572d18-4069-42e8-8130-af2c3d2ca1d7@googlegroups.com> By Steven Musil, CNET, October 29, 2013 Wheeler unanimously confirmed after Sen. Ted Cruz lifts objection over concerns about Wheeler's views on greater campaign finance regulations. Tom Wheeler, a former telecommunications lobbyist, was unanimously confirmed as the new chairman of the FCC late Tuesday, according to The Hill. ... Wheeler was nominated in May by President Obama to replace Julius Genachowski, who had headed up the agency since 2009. Since Genachowski's departure, Mignon Clyburn has been serving as acting FCC Chairwoman. Wheeler has been around telecommunications policy circles for years and has served as a lobbyist for the cable industry's trade group, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, and the wireless industry's trade association, CTIA-The Wireless Association. He spent 12 years as the head of the CTIA. He also has policy experience within the government, working as a member of the FCC's Technological Advisory Council. Continued: http://tinyurl.com/kjdwo7h This article briefly mentions Wheeler's association with "the cable industry's trade group, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association." My recollection is that Wheeler served as president of the association, then known as the "National Cable Television Association." During those years, the industry was in continuous legal disputes with the broadcast industry over carriage rights and with copyright owners alleging infringement. One of Wheeler's most vocal opponents was Jack Valenti, at the time president of the Motion Picture Association of America. Valenti claimed that cable TV companies were infringing on copyrighted motion pictures by retransmitting them without paying royalties. Valenti even wrote a book about it. In one famous encounter, Wheeler and Valenti were both speakers on an industry panel. When the came time for Wheeler to speak, he began by congratulating Valenti on his new book. In fact, he said (pulling out a stack of papers) "I liked it so much that I xeroxed it!" Neal McLain
Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 10:01:30 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Warily, Schools Watch Students on the Internet Message-ID: <p06240802ce991806d441@[10.0.1.8]> Warily, Schools Watch Students on the Internet By SOMINI SENGUPTA October 28, 2013 SAN FRANCISCO - For years, a school principal's job was to make sure students were not creating a ruckus in the hallways or smoking in the bathroom. Vigilance ended at the schoolhouse gates. Now, as students complain, taunt and sometimes cry out for help on social media, educators have more opportunities to monitor students around the clock. And some schools are turning to technology to help them. Several companies offer services to filter and glean what students do on school networks; a few now offer automated tools to comb through off-campus postings for signs of danger. For school officials, this raises new questions about whether they should - or legally can - discipline children for their online outbursts. The problem has taken on new urgency with the case of a 12-year-old Florida girl who committed suicide after classmates relentlessly bullied her online and offline. Two girls - ages 12 and 14 - who the authorities contend were her chief tormentors were arrested this month after one posted a Facebook comment about her death. Educators find themselves needing to balance students' free speech rights against the dangers children can get into at school and sometimes with the law because of what they say in posts on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Courts have started to weigh in. In September, a federal appeals court in Nevada, for instance, sided with school officials who suspended a high school sophomore for threatening, through messages on Myspace, to shoot classmates. In 2011, an Indiana court ruled that school officials had violated the Constitution when they disciplined students for posting pictures on Facebook of themselves at a slumber party, posing with rainbow-colored lollipops shaped like phalluses. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/technology/some-schools-extend-surveillance-of-students-beyond-campus.html
Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 10:01:30 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Senator Raises Questions About Protecting Student Data Message-ID: <p06240806ce99196a27a1@[10.0.1.8]> Senator Raises Questions About Protecting Student Data By NATASHA SINGER OCTOBER 22, 2013 A lawmaker who is a staunch advocate of children's privacy is investigating whether the data collection and analysis practices of the growing education technology industry, a market estimated at $8 billion, are outstripping federal rules governing the sharing of students' personal information. On Tuesday, Senator Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, sent a letter to Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, about how K-12 schools are outsourcing management and assessment of student data, including intimate details like disabilities, to technology vendors. The letter cited an article in The New York Times this month about concerns over the proliferation of student data to companies. ... http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/senator-raises-questions-about-protecting-student-data/ -or- http://goo.gl/IgWIsN ***** Moderator's Note ***** The junior Senator from Massachusetts is still working off the old playbook he used in the house, and hasn't yet picked up the finer points of public relations. Bill Horne Moderator
Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 10:01:30 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: The Information-Gathering Paradox Message-ID: <p06240803ce99186bebe5@[10.0.1.8]> The Information-Gathering Paradox By SOMINI SENGUPTA October 26, 2013 SAN FRANCISCO - CONSUMER trust is a vital currency for every big Internet company, which helps to explain why the giants of Silicon Valley have gone to great lengths in recent months to show how hard they are fighting back against government surveillance. Companies have released transparency reports, many for the first time, enumerating how many times law enforcement agencies demand user data; their executives have issued blistering statements; and several firms, including Facebook and Google, have filed lawsuits in a bid to reveal more about secret government orders. All the while, though, a central contradiction has become ever harder to conceal. The Internet industry, having nudged consumers to share heaps of information about themselves, has built a trove of personal data for government agencies to mine - erecting, perhaps unintentionally, what Alessandro Acquisti, a Carnegie Mellon University behavioral economist, calls "the de facto infrastructure of surveillance." Nearly five months after Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, went public with classified documents detailing the agency's widespread spying, the Internet industry has only sharpened its efforts to track users online, which it considers essential to profitability. Behaviorally targeted advertising is the principal revenue source for a host of online companies. Earlier this month Google announced plans to feature users' names, photos and posts to promote products in Web ads. Facebook recently expanded its search offerings and made it harder to hide from strangers trying to find you. Meanwhile, digital advertising networks are developing sophisticated new ways to track consumers on cellphones, gleaning intimate insights into who you are and what you like. And Twitter, which recently announced plans for a public offering, has partnered with a company that tracks whether ads on Twitter can influence what you buy offline. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/sunday-review/the-information-gathering-paradox.html
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