Category: media criticism

“…distinctions between government services and political campaigning are being blurred as politicians use Internet technology”–National Journal

excerpts:  In general, federal laws bar the use of government assets for political campaigning. But the much-lawyered distinctions between government services and political campaigning are being blurred as politicians use Internet technology to extend their advocacy…White House officials declined to be interviewed on the rules governing the separation of campaign and state data.

“There are indications that the administration wants to revise some of these laws, particularly with respect to the Internet, and we’re waiting to see if we can play a role,” said Peter Greenberger, a former regional campaign manager for Al Gore’s presidential bid who now heads Google’s Elections and Issues Advocacy team. “The real question that people are trying to answer is what can the White House do now that they’re the White House as opposed to a [political] campaign.”

Finding that line will mean answering questions about rules that bar the use of government assets for political campaigning, contracting rules that limit the ability of officials to hire one company rather than another and laws that bar government officials from favoring contractors, said Google officials. Also, added Greenberger, “There would be issues providing some services to an elected official that is not provided to somebody else,” such as a political opponent. But, he added, “in some cases, you know, incumbency is a powerful thing.”

source:  Google Stands To Gain From Capital Connections.  Neil Munro.  National Journal.  March 17, 2009.

The real digital TV transition: Why TV “Advanced Advertising” [aka Project Canoe] Raises Privacy & Consumer Protection Concerns

The cable and telephone industry have Google envy.  These broadband communications giants recognize that online advertising companies such as Google and Yahoo have created an enormous market for themselves through the delivery of online ads.  Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon and others want to use their Bush Administration-given broadband monopoly status to gain a significant share of this market.  Cable giants are also working together to transform television so it can better compete with online, and target viewers with more precision and in-depth ads.  The goal–for cable, phone and online ad companies–is to eventually provide a seamless system that tracks, profiles and targets us across every “screen,” including TV, PC and mobile.

Comcast is heavily investing for such a viewer/user tracking world.  It has plans, according to the trade publication Multichannel News to create a “gigantic database called “TV Warehouse,” able to store a full year of statistics gathered from digital set-tops in more than 16 million households nationwide…TV Warehouse, envisioned as having a massive 500 Terabytes of storage, would then feed up to a database even broader in scope operated by Canoe Ventures, the advanced-advertising venture formed by Comcast and five other large MSOs.  The idea: to give advertisers an enormous set of actual viewing metrics — showing exactly what millions of cable customers watched and when — as opposed to representative samples.”

Not surprisingly, Comcast’s Brian Roberts has said his company should no longer be viewed as merely a provider of television:  “Over the last few years we have successfully transformed Comcast from a cable company into a new products company that utilizes one infrastructure to deliver a growing number of products.”  Advanced Advertising, which is what the cable industry’s technical consortium known as CableLabs calls it, is one of the major products Comcast and others will soon provide.  According to CableLabs, “Advertising is growing in importance for cable operators. CableLabs is currently supporting activity in four areas designed to create new revenue opportunities around advanced advertising technologies. These areas are digital ad insertion, interactive advertising, reporting, and addressability.”   Cable executives are working with advertising companies to “…agree on a valuation metric. What’s a click worth?”

But the core concern with Advanced Advertising is the tracking of viewers, including the use of internal and outside databases for targeting. Comcast Spotlight, for example, offers marketers access to a broad range of databases for more precise targeting. Acxiom offers cable and other providers a host of database segmentation services, including its Personicx VisionScape. “With PersonicX VisionScape, marketers have at your fingertips real-time access to a wealth of information… that can help them understand more about their customers – what type of products they use, their purchasing behaviors, their channel and media preferences.  The PersonicX household-level segmentation system is built with InfoBase-Xâ„¢ data and places almost every U.S. household into one of 70 distinctive segments and 21 life stage groups based on specific consumer behavior and demographic characteristics.”

Cable’s work to create a more powerful viewer data collection and targeting system has been out of public and policymaker view.  Cable engineers have been working  together to perfect the technology that will allow it to merge “content and subscriber metadata for targeting zones (or, in a unicast environment, for targeting individuals) to bring the right ad to the right consumer at the right time.”

The phone and cable companies, knowing that the 1984 Cable Communications Act contains privacy safeguards for interactive TV ads and aware of the current debate on behavioral targeting, claims that such data collection and targeting will be anonymous and could include an “opt-in.”  We don’t believe any cable or phone consumer is being told the extent of the plans underway to track and target them.  For example, Alcatel’s product for IPTV related advanced advertising explains that:
“To capture the full revenue potential of targeted and interactive advertising, IPTV providers need to ensure that the following critical actions are addressed:

  • Capture and measure — The network must be able to collect “opt-in” subscriber information from a broad range of databases, which advertisers will use to reach specific “targeted” markets. This anonymous data includes usage patterns, subscriptions, demographics, location, presence and preferences — including how, when and where advertising messages are delivered, along with the type of device that is used. In addition, accurate measurement capabilities are needed that can verify audience response and track the effectiveness of ad campaigns…
  • Activate and interact — Finally, this data, combined with the right systems and infrastructure must be able to deliver personalized and interactive ads to the right consumer, at the right time.”

Consumers/subscribers should decide whether such an advanced system can target them at all.  Beyond informed consent (and data security), there need to be clear safeguards.  Targeted ads for financial, health, and products aimed to children and adolescents raise consumer protection issues.  I have real concerns about “ethnic” profiling, given how lucrative advertisers realize the Hispanic and African American markets are.  We believe that the cable industry has to engage the public in a serious debate about the scope and goal of its Project Canoe and advanced advertising initiative.  Congress, the FCC, and the FTC must become more proactive to protect our privacy from this new approach.

PS:  This week’s Multichannel News offers insight into the latest developments.  Here’s an excerpt:  “This year, the largest cable operators in the U.S. plan to have upgraded at least 20 million digital set-tops with code to run standardized interactive-TV applications. That will make it possible for viewers to click a button on their remote to, say, ask an advertiser to e-mail them more information…The industry over the last two years has coalesced around a common technical standard, maintained by CableLabs, referred to as Enhanced Binary Interchange Format, or EBIF (pronounced “EE-biff”)…Comcast, for one, claimed it had deployed EBIF user agents on more than 10 million Motorola set-top boxes by the start of 2009. The operator hopes to complete the rollout to its entire Motorola footprint, about 20 million boxes, by midyear…” [Interactive TV Begins to Bloom.  Todd Spangler.  Multichannel News.  March 3, 2009].

Progress & Freedom Foundation & Online Privacy: Looking at PFF’s Online Ad Industry [& Data Collecting] Funders

Two staffers from the Progress and Freedom Foundation (Adam Thierer and Berin Szoka) issued a quick response to the new FTC online marketing privacy principles.  In a press release announcing the short paper, PFF explains that:

Tighter regulation of the online advertising market in the form of privacy mandates, the authors warn, “would severely curtail the overall quantity of content and services offered—and greatly limit the ability of new providers to enter the market with innovative offerings.”

It’s interesting to consider what such “tighter regulation” of the online marketing might mean for the companies that fund the Progress and Freedom Foundation.  The list includes heavyweights of online data collection, such as Google, Microsoft, News Corp (MySpace and other Fox Interactive properties) and Time Warner.  PFF funders include monopoly ISPs which want to get into interactive data collection and online ad targeting big-time, such as Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon (other PFF supporters include a number of companies engaged in online ad targeting, such as Cox, CBS, NBC, etc).

Perhaps a good research project for PFF would be to examine the online data collection, analysis, and ad targeting work being done by its funders (including all the technologies being used).  We’d like to see the press release on that one!

The Loss of the Trade Press Covering the Media Industry in D.C.: Why it matters

This week we learned that the long-time reporter covering the cable industry in Washington, D.C. for the industry “trade” publication Multichannel News had lost his job.  Variety also closed its DC bureau in December.  Hollywood Reporter doesn’t have its veteran DC reporter.  Adweek/Mediaweek/Brandweek no longer have a regular person based in Washington.  There’s been consolidation at Ad Age and TV Week as well, with one journalist now responsible covering issues for both publications.  We understand there has been some belt-tightening also at Broadcasting and Cable.

These D.C.-based reporters played an incredibly important role–not just covering their own industry for insiders, but providing people like myself (consumer and public interest advocates)  real insight into what the industry was actually saying and doing.  I know many of these journalists–they are fine reporters who did their work seriously.   I imagine reporters working for trade publications covering other industries have also lost their positions.  The losses in the daily print press are frightening.  And so too is the decimation of the cadre of trade journalists covering the media and entertainment industry. Trade reporters are a crucial part of the journalistic ecosystem–their loss is another indication of how the entire journalistic enterprise is collapsing.  It cannot be replaced solely by bloggers.  It takes real shoe “leather” and digging into the facts on a daily basis they helps keep an industry accountable–and the public informed (including industry insiders ).

We have longed urged officials in the Newspaper Guild and academic journalists to call for congressional hearings into the plight of journalists and newspapers.  Sadly, they did not act to, for example, have Congress and the states implement the many common sense recommendations made in 2001 by the writers of Taking Stock: Journalism and the Publicly Traded Newspaper Company.  The American public needs to understand what the loss of reporting institutions means for the country’s democratic future.  And we should enact new laws and regulations which help save what is left,  allowing those who really care to own and operate these outlets.  And we require new policies which can help spur the emergence of a new generation of sustainable digital news services.

Facebook researching “sentiment” engine: “looking to figure out if people are having a good day or bad day”

Via scobleizer.com [excerpt from interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.  My bold]:
Facebook is, he told me, studying “sentiment” behavior. It hasn’t yet used that research in its public service yet, but is looking to figure out if people are having a good day or bad day. He said that already his teams are able to sense when nasty news, like stock prices are headed down, is underway. He also told me that the sentiment engine notices a lot of “going out” kinds of messages on Friday afternoon and then notices a lot of “hungover” messages on Saturday morning. He’s not sure where that research will lead. We talked about how sentiment analysis might lead to a new kind of news display in Facebook. Knowing whether a story is positive or negative would let Facebook pick a good selection of both kinds of news, or maybe even let you choose whether you want to see only “happy” news.” 

source: Zuckerberg: Facebook’s “intense” year.  scobleizer.com

Don Graham of Washington Post now on Facebook board of directors

We just saw the press release from Facebook announcing that Donald Graham, the chairman and CEO of the Washington Post company joined its board this month.  While it makes perfect business sense for the Post and Facebook to co-mingle, it’s bad for journalism.  Facebook’s work raises a host of policy issues–including privacy and consumer protection for online marketing–which requires a watchdoging independent press.  Mr. Graham’s new role sends the wrong signal to the already under stress reporters and editors who work for him.  We need tough investigative report on the digital marketplace–not some mutual-old-media-back-scratching-new-media relationship.  Here’s an excerpt from the press release announcing Mr. Graham’s new role:

“Don Graham understands how to build and manage an organization for the long term,” explained Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. “He has made The Washington Post Company one of the most valued and respected education and media companies while making society more open and understanding. What I most admire about Don is his commitment to build around this purpose – and not just a business. His decision to join our board means that Facebook will benefit from this insight and experience.”

“Facebook has completely transformed how people interact by providing a compelling forum where millions and millions of people can connect and share,” said Graham. “Mark’s sense of what Facebook can do is quite remarkable.”

Congressional Internet Caucus–Brought to You by Google, Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, CTIA and More!

We hope the era of government reform that should be a hallmark of the incoming Obama Administration and the new Congress will include reforming the Congressional Internet Caucus.

For too long, the Caucus agenda has been under the influence of the “Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus.”  This is not an independent group–but one with connections deep into the Silicon Valley and communications business.  Last week’s annual State of the ‘Net Congressional Caucus meeting was funded by “platinum sponsors” Google, Microsoft, and Verizon.  The “gold sponsors” were AT&T,  the Center for Democracy and Technology (which is funded by many of these same corporations), CTIA (The Wireless Association), and VeriSign.  “Notepads” were provided by the Hunton & Williams law firm; “Laynards” were paid for by Juniper Networks.  “Coffee Breaks” paid for by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.  Qwest provided “bags.”  The Venable law firm gave out the “travel coffee mugs.’

As always, the agenda of the meeting was purposefully narrow, to help ensure none of the corporate sponsors would be seriously challenged. Broadband policy is too important an issue to be left in the hands of a few well-funded DC insiders.

Google, YouTube, and DoubleClick Cookies Placed on Users of YouTube’s new Congress Channels, Says Computer Scientist

Columbia U computer professor Steven M. Bellovin has an important post on the privacy issues raised by YouTube’s new House and Senate channels.  He writes [excerpt, our emphasis] that:

“I opened a fresh web browser, with no cookies stored, and went directly to the House site. Just from that page, I ended up with cookies from YouTube, Google, and DoubleClick, another Google subsidiary. Why should Google know which members of Congress I’m interested in? Do they plan to correlate political viewing preferences with, say, searches I do on guns, hybrid cars, religion, privacy, etc.?

The incoming executive branch has made the same mistake: President-Elect Obama’s videos on Change.gov are also hosted on (among others) YouTube. Nor does the privacy policy say anything at all about 3rd-party cookies.”

Video channels providing the public access to members of Congress and the new Administration should be in the forefront of privacy protection-and not serve as a data collection shill for any company.  Nor should one company be permitted to shape broadband video access to federal officials.

Google Lobbying: Why Congress Should Not Use the new YouTube Senate and House Video Hubs

Google is taking a lobbying tactic developed in part by CSPAN years ago–offer members of Congress a free service so they can be seen by the public.  That kind of electronic or digital campaign contribution helps insure that Congress will think twice about biting (or regulating) the video hand that feeds.  Google’s new YouTube Senate and House Hub channels raise a number of concerns and policy questions.

For example, what happens to the user data as people click on the Congressional YouTube channels?  Does Google get to collect, analyze and use such data for its growing political online advertising business?  Beyond privacy, should Congress be endorsing a private for-profit venture as the principal access point voters and constituents need to use?  Does the use of YouTube create a potential conflict of interest for members of Congress who will need to regulate Google–on such things as competition (the DoJ recently described Google as a monopoly); privacy, consumer protection, etc (remember, Google sells all kinds of ads for mortgages, credit cards, junk food, health remedies, etc.).

It’s not a coincidence perhaps that Google’s YouTube congressional channel announcement comes at the same time the company is expanding its online ad business for politics.  As Ad Age reports this week,“The end of an election season usually means dismantling the campaign apparatus until the next cycle. But not at Google; not this year…Rather than packing it all away until 2010, it’s hoping to build a year-round political-advertising business one House seat and hot-button issue at a time.  “There are 500,000 elected officials in the U.S. With the advances we’ve made in geo-targeting, we think this will be part of every political campaign in the country, as well as issue campaigns,” said Peter Greenberger, Google’s director of election and issue advocacy…Google doesn’t yet offer targeting based on congressional districts, but with ZIP code and city targeting, politicians and advocacy groups can cobble together a reasonable approximation of a congressional district.”

The in-coming Obama Administration has had the support of Google’s CEO, and company officials have played a role in the transition.  But the new administration should develop a digital outreach approach to the public which is public–and non-commercial–in nature.  It shouldn’t show any favoritism, even if Google is the leading search and video service.  It should be a change.org--not a government via dot com.

see: “Election  is Over, but Google Still Chasing Political Spending.”  Michael Learmonth.  Advertising Age.  January 12, 2009.

Digital TV, the Giveway to the Broadcast Lobby, and the Current Proposal for a Delay

The focus on a lack of digital TV converter discount coupons obscures a more important story.  The grabbing of the digital spectrum by the broadcast lobby as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.  There is no business model for terrestrial broadcasting—what happened was a spectrum grab–so broadcasters could gain for free public airwaves worth billions.  Ironically, now taxpayers are footing the bill for the converters as well–another subsidy in a way to the National Association of Broadcaster lobby.

The debate should be on how the digital airwaves giveway to the broadcast lobby should be a lesson learned.