Category: broadband

Yahoo!’s Deal with the Newspaper Industry: Papers should come clean about the data they will now collect/share and our privacy

We are troubled, as are many, about the crisis occurring within the U.S. daily newspaper industry. The lay-offs, cut backs, and other problems besetting such distinguished papers as the Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News, Philadelphia Inquirer, and too many others, requires the attention of policy makers and civic leaders. We believe a principal cause for the current problem are publishers and newspaper holding companies whose first interest is squeezing out maximum revenue returns—for themselves and shareholders. Newspapers can make a reasonable profit and support serious journalism. But when they are seen as just another vehicle designed to generate lots of cash, the defenders of the First Amendment have been replaced by white-collar criminals. It’s time for new federal laws that would enable newspapers to be operated without regard to maximizing shareholder return.


 We also know we are in a key transition period for all media. That’s why we should publicly examine all the major deals shaping our future information landscape—to determine how well they will serve the public interest [Yes. We think that’s more important than just making money from the deals]. So, when William Dean Stapleton, CEO of MediaNewsGroup, says in a joint statement that the new partnership with Yahoo! and 176 newspapers is “transformational”–it requires a closer look. Some of the biggest names in the news business—Belo, Cox, Hearst, Scripps and MediaNews—have now hitched their digital wagons to Yahoo! Papers such as the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and Dallas Morning News are now a part of what is called the “most comprehensive advertising network in the online industry.” A major facet of the deal, notes the release, is for the papers to “[U]se Yahoo!’s search monetization functionality on newspapers Web sites, such as Web search, downloads of the Yahoo! toolbar and sponsored search.”

We recognize that newspapers must boldly work to secure new digital revenues. But in doing so, they must be responsible. That includes explaining carefully to every reader and user the kind of personal and other data Yahoo! is now able to collect and financially harvest. Readers/users need to know how Yahoo! and its newspaper partners will “target” them. When Yahoo! acquired rich media ad firm AdInterax last month, they noted that “Rich media technology enables marketers to create more compelling and interactive advertising units online using sight, sound and motion to deliver a message to target consumers. Yahoo! plans to further integrate rich media capabilities into its current leading offerings by developing a self-service model for marketers based on the AdInterax platform. This new rich media solution will enable advertisers and agencies to create and run rich media campaigns coupled with other Yahoo! capabilities including behavioral targeting, geo-targeting, demo-targeting, and dayparting.” The release also noted that “the AdInterax tracking and reporting module tracks traditional metrics including impressions, clicks, and reach and frequency, in addition to other key branding and direct marketing data.”

Newspapers should be protecting the privacy of the public—from both the excesses of government as well as commercial interests. Journalistic-related companies should make deals with online marketers such as Google and Yahoo! which place the privacy interests of readers/users first. We suggest that the editors from the papers now working with Yahoo! commission stories that will explain the deal in terms of what data is being collected and how it will be used. Then, the papers should run editorials calling on Congress to pass meaningful privacy safeguards on electronic data gathering. But—if they did that—wouldn’t it now threaten the very deal they just made? We will be tracking this story.

PS: We also want to see the same privacy-related disclosure from the 50 papers now involved with Google, via a deal announced earlier this month. They include the New York Times and Washington Post.

AT&T’s “30-Month” Net Neutrality Merger Trade-in Offer: What a Joke!

So desperate to become a digital colossus once it swallows BellSouth, AT&T offered the dissident Democrats on the FCC a network neutrality “concession” today. Unbelievably, AT&T offered to operate its broadband Internet system as an open and democratic network—but only for 30 months! The offer illustrates how unethical and cynical the top executives are at Ma(d) Bell. `Yes, U.S. public,’ they say. `We will give you a democratic Internet for a brief moment, if you let us grow as an even larger unaccountable monopoly.’ AT&T’s offer underscores why permanent network neutrality safeguards are worth fighting for. The very companies who will provide the vast majority of broadband service, such as AT&T, really don’t want the public to have it.

AT&T is trying to sell to FCC Commissioners Copps and Adelstein the digital equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge. They should say: “sorry, wrong number.”

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What Google-YouTube Means for the Public Interest

Here’s a new piece I wrote for The Nation magazine online that summarizes my concerns about what is happening with our digital media system–and what we should do about it.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061030/chester

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Way to Go on AT&T Broadband Monopoly! FCC Commissioners Copps and Adelstein

I’m sure the sell-outs who make up most of the Washington telecom lobbying corps believe that FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein must come from another planet. But these all too rare two officials represent so much about what is right with the U.S. They are doing more than standing up for the public interest and demanding merger safeguards. Each has made a powerful and honest critique about what is at stake. They recognize that the U.S. broadband digital media system has been handed over to an ever-shrinking few. They realize that the U.S. media system, especially news, is in a deep crisis. Copps and Adelstein correctly critiqued what the Bush Department of Justice just did yesterday when it blessed the merger without safeguards. How refreshing to have officials who work for the public–and not really on behalf of a handful of self-serving media giants who place corporate and personal profit before the real needs of a democratic U.S.

Copps and Adelstein: Onwards to the Noble Peace Prize (Media Policy division!). Nobel citation: Trying (probably in vain) to restore honesty, integrity, and real public service to the FCC.

The Tribune Company’s Bad Journalistic Karma: Why Promoting Media Consolidation Can Come Back to Haunt You

A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions continues at the troubled Tribune Company. It has dismissed the Los Angeles Time publisher who bravely stood with those at the paper opposing further editorial budget cuts. The once-glorious Times Mirror chain–including its Los Angeles Times jewel–has been seriously journalistically wounded by the Tribune Co.

Perhaps no company lobbied the FCC as hard to sweep away media ownership safeguards as did Tribune. During the Michael Powell era, it used raw political power—and editorial might—in an attempt to eliminate the key federal safeguard promoting diversity of news ownership (the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule). Trib DC lobbyists—and top executives such as Jack Fuller—staked the company’s future on television. The shortsighted strategy was based on greed. If only the company could own more TV stations in the same places where it owned newspapers, all kinds of positive financial synergies would emerge (think cost-cutting). Tribune execs especially desired the quick and easy profits from the TV syndication market, where it sells such programs as Beastmaster and Mutant X.

So the Tribune Company paid more attention to pleasing Wall Street than its mission to provide serious support for print journalism. Now, the empire is unraveling—although too many good reporters, editors (and it appears) even publishers will suffer as a consequence. We believe that profits beyond covering expenses must come second when running a news media business. The seeking of ever-higher revenues cannot be the principle corporate mission for journalism. That’s why Congress needs to exempt publicly-traded news companies from having to place the needs of shareholders ahead of the public interest. Nor should media companies lobby to promote further concentration of ownership. Indeed, we need to break-apart the news organizations now in the hands of vast entertainment empires. Running a theme park and a movie studio–along with a news organization–creates all kinds of conflicts and distractions. Media consolidation is not the answer. But producing a quality news product—especially a newspaper—is. It’s time for reporters and others who care about news to seek new policies that would ensure independent and serious journalism thrives in the digital era (which is one of the key reasons why the U.S. needs to restore network neutrality for broadband).

YouTube Pitches itself to Advertisers: Everything Can Go!

According to today’s paidcontent.org, YouTube’ founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are “[N]ow exploring “complementary” advertising, Hurley said the site can help redefine the $74 billion TV ad industry by combining context, like Google’s text ads, with the sensory power of TV to present “a compelling brand image”. Hurley and Chen are open to anything apparently – ideas include user-generated ads, behind-the-scenes ad footage, sponsored vlogs and “event marketing” shoots at film festivals. The home page video ad, which NBC and ESPN use to plug new shows, generates around $175,000 and 400,000 viewers. (Update: that’s per day, according to this piece.)”

Where will the boundaries be? How will privacy be truly protected? What kind of special treatment will the big media and marketing companies receive when they fork out all that daily dough? Stay tuned for more coverage on Web 2.0.

Google’s Grandiose Ad Ambitions

Look, we all know that Google is in the business of delivering eyeballs and clicks. That’s where it makes 99% or so of its revenue. But have they no sense of bounds for the evolving role of interactive marketing? According to Mediapost, Tim Armstrong, Google’s vice president for ad sales, said today that “[A]t the end of the day, we’d like to see Madison Avenue get bigger.” The online publication reported that “Google wants to combine Madison Avenue with Silicon Valley to forge what [Armstrong] hopes will be the largest marketing platform around.” Armstrong made these comments at Google’s new offices located in New York City’s Chelsea district.

There need to be meaningful safeguards to govern the new media marketing world. The folks at Google shouldn’t be so glib about creating a system of digital platforms where over-consumption permeates our identity—online and off.

Source: “Google Sets Sights On Madison Avenue.” Wendy Davis, Just an Online Minute via Mediapost. Oct. 2, 2006

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PBS Runs Banner Ads

It’s October 1 and the new PBS online ad deal kicks in. Throughout PBS.org one will experience more interactive ads (they call it “sponsorship banners”). There aren’t many yet–one a pitch for the Christian Children’s Fund on the “Home & Hobbies” page. There are also promos for its ad partner Google: a number of pages promote PBS programs available via video.google.com. The site still contains Google-operated “sponsored links,” including from the Pottery Barn, the College of Body Arts, and Culinary Art Schools. Our favorite for the moment is the “Lose 20 Lbs in 3 Weeks: Amazing Chinese fat-loss secret. As seen on Oprah & 60 Minutes.” As we noted before, PBS should not be engaged in interactive advertising–on its website or via other digital platforms. We recommend the recent analysis of the PBS ombudsman on the issue here. Eventually, the ad money–and relationships with powerful corporations such as Google–will affect programming decisions. Best to foresake it now. But a Google, Microsoft and others should donate considerable sums to a public telecommunications trust–a bank account to ensure that non-profit public service programming can be produced regardless of who controls the Hill or White House. Or whether we have to click on the ad for weight control.

NetCompetition.Org: They Have Drunk Too Much Cable/Telco Lobby Kool-Aid

We hate to focus too much on this Telco-Cable industry funded lobbying effort. But its latest [9/29] self-heralded “one-pager” attacking network neutrality proponents requires a response (we admit we may have come down with a Sen. Stevens form of `fetish’ about this lobbying site). Netcompetition’s analysis comes from a naive view of the realities of the broadband market. The paper paints a glowing picture of what it believes is emerging broadband competition. Hence, with such prospective abundance of networks and content likely, it argues that the country ignore the calls for safeguards coming from net neutrality supporters. We are, suggests Scott Cleland, experiencing “unfounded pessimism and fear about the future of broadband…”

First, we have to say that history is on our side. Despite all the talk and proclamations about bypass and competition—we haven’t had much in the multichannel and telecom sector. It’s been a sad story of consolidation and broken promises. Two, Mr. Cleland is ignoring the powerful triple/quad play now being deployed by his funders. Their networks—and content applications and partnerships—will dominate our TV, PC, and mobile experience for many years. The current state of broadband concentration–along with the emerging marketplace conditions–should be unthinkable in a democracy. Two companies control the cable industry; two will dominate the telephone market. Already, old media incumbents are swallowing new players—such as the News Corp. takeover of MySpace. There is tremendous consolidation throughout the digital content marketplace.

Hey Netcompetition. Your argument that just over the hill our digital media system is awash in a Wizard of Oz golden glow doesn’t cut it. We need safeguards now.

It’s not pessimism, but honest realism with an eye on the needs of our democracy. That’s a currency in too short supply in the nation’s capital.

Shame on the GOP and Dems in California: Gutting Community Oversight of Broadband

If we ever needed evidence about how both major political parties are in the pocket of the telecommunications industry’s very deep pockets, all we need to do is look at California. The new cable law kills the historic and critical role local governments have played in ensuring cable systems are held accountable and required to do public service. Now all franchising (the licensing of cable systems) will be governed by a single statewide agreement. Doling out these “one-size fits all, lowest common denominator” deals will be the feckless Public Utility Commission.

Democratic honcho Fabian Nunez, the Speaker of the Assembly, concocted the new law. Yesterday, GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed it. According to the Los Angeles Times, “AT&T spent $18 million through June lobbying and running television and full-page newspaper ads urging consumers to support the Nuñez bill — and then to thank Nuñez after it passed the Legislature.” [registration required]

The argument that Nunez and his Verizon and AT&T pals made to pass the bill was that only by gutting local oversight could California see cable competition. Boy, these folks should be ashamed. They have removed the key mechanism designed to ensure broadband networks serve local needs. There won’t be any serious competition—in either price or content. Just a few extra giants who are now free to run roughshod over both the cable TV and broadband business.

But money and power talks—and Nunez, Schwarzenegger and company played ball. Both parties in California have helped turn over a sizeable part of the country’s broadband resources to the very same interests which eliminated network neutrality.

PS: We note in the Los Angeles Times story the generally approving comments for the bill from USC’s Jeff Cole, the executive director of its Center for the Digital Future. Cole should have said [and the reporter should have identified if he did] that his center’s “Board of Governors” includes executives from AT&T (and other interests that supported the bill). As I said, money talks—with policymakers and too many “educational” institutions.

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