A group of cable foes have formed a coalition to urge the FTC and the FCC to make approval of Comcast’s and Time Warner’s purchase of Adelphia contingent on closing a “loophole” in the 1992 Act. DirecTV, EchoStar Communications and RCN have formed an alliance with The America Channel, Center for Creative Voices in Media, Media Access Project and Mid-Atlantic Sports Network to form the Competition and Diversity Coalition on the Adelphia Transaction, according to this piece by the National Journal’s Drew Clark.
The coalition wants to condition the antitrust and FCC approvals on both Comcast and Time Warner giving competitive programming distributors the rights to carry terrestrially delivered video programming. Under the 1992 Cable Act, vertically integrated companies (companies that own both cable systems and cable networks) have to give rivals access to programming — but only if it’s delivered via satellite.
Networks that are delivered via land-lines or microwave — particularly Comcast’s popular regional sports networks — can remain exclusive to cable. When News Corp. bought EchoStar, that deal was contingent upon News Corp. agreeing that it would not withhold Fox networks from competitors, such as cable operators.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 5:53 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Even as Google faces off with the Justice Department, the search giant may also be ready to go toe-to-toe with broadband pipe owners.
In his blog at Networking Pipeline, Preston Gralla reports that:
BellSouth and Verizon have been trying to force big Web sites to pay extortion-type fees if the sites want adequate bandwidth, with Google a prime target. But Google has news for them: It won’t pay.
Google told Networking Pipeline’s Paul Kapustka in no uncertain terms that it won’t give in to the cyberextortion. And despite reports to the contrary, Google says, it isn’t talking with any carriers about the issue.
Google’s Barry Schnitt told Paul in an email: “Google is not discussing sharing of the costs of broadband networks with any carrier. We believe consumers are already paying to support broadband access to the Internet through subscription fees and, as a result, consumers should have the freedom to use this connection without limitations.”Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 5:03 PM | Print | Comments (0)
The chilling news today is that the Bush Administration wants Google to divulge search records in an apparent effort to revive and protect the constitutionality of the now-defunct Child Online Protection Act. The Department of Justice has subpoenaed Google asking for a million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches over a one-week period, seemingly as some kind of statistical exercise.
DOJ wants the search data to document how frequently p*rn shows up in web searches. Google, to its great credit, plans to fight the government’s effort, calling the subpoena “overreaching.” The government contends that other search engine companies are more willing to spill the beans.
One privacy advocate, Lauren Weinstein, had this to say about the government’s pursuit of search data:
“It’s interesting and disappointing that other search engines would provide this material. It’s what we’ve been worried about all along. The fact that Google is refusing the subpoena…my initial reaction is three cheers for Google.”
I agree with Good Morning Silicon Valley’s John Paczkowski who says (in an uncharacterically earnest fashion, so different from his usual sardonic wit):
Here’s hoping the company prevails. The release of such records sets a truly unsettling precedent. And if the goverment’s claim that other, unspecified search engines have already agreed to release similar information proves true, we have already lost our footing on a very slippery, very dangerous slope.
Update: Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Watch has this most excellent analysis of the DOJ’s request, why it really doesn’t involve personal data but still isn’t a good idea and how the law that DOJ is seeking to revive doesn’t really do anything about child p*rn. Based on statements from Yahoo and MSN.com, they complied with the same (or similar) subpoena from the feds, but because no personal data was involved, they didn’t view the hand-over of search data as an invasion of privacy.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 2:12 PM | Print | Comments (0)
If I were a Google executive, I’d just stop reading any analysts’ assessments of the company. In just a few short weeks, Google has gone from hero to has-been, if two divergent analyst reports are any indication. First, right after the New Year, Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy raised the one-year target price on Google to over $600/share, sparking all kinds of crazy speculation ($1,000? $2,000? $3,000?) on how just how high Google’s stock can go.
Rashtchy’s recommendation: buy.
Now S&P’s Scott Kessler is saying Google is out of steam. Kessler warns of Google’s “ABCs,” which he says pose a risk to Google’s growth. A stands for “absence of material diversification,” meaning that Google’s revenues are 99% dependent on click advertising. B stands for “building competition,” which means that Google is facing stiffer rivals, such as Yahoo, in the search market.
And C stands for “click-fraud.” Kessler thinks that click-fraud on Google is substantial and once the amount of fraud becomes known, it could hurt Google’s shares.
Kessler’s recommendation? Sell.
Oh brother.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 1:23 PM | Print | Comments (0)
The New York Times’ Glenn Fleishman has this piece today on how community Wi-Fi advocates are gaining grassroots skills. Despite the article’s central thrust — community Wi-Fi proponents are political forces to be reckoned with — the piece makes these public broadband proponents sound a little quaint and zany. (“His [Matt Westervelt, head of Seattle Wireless] organization raised $2,500 for a climber to place network equipment on a cellular tower on Capitol Hill, one of the highest spots in Seattle. The cost of upkeep is to be donated by a private company.)
But the heart of the piece is how wireless advocates might turn into important players in the net neutrality debate.
Wireless advocates “have done more to bring forward the concerns of network neutrality as well as open access” than anyone else in the political process, Mr. Richardson [Greg Richardson, head of muni-broadband consulting firm Civitium] said. “They have a very loud voice in an advocacy role.”
Update: As the article’s author Glenn Fleishman notes in the comment to this item, the article really focused on community Wi-Fi advocates, who, while closely aligned with the muni-Wi-Fi folks, are a different breed. I’ve changed the headline and text to more accurately reflect this distinction. Moreover, Fleishman says these local Wi-Fi proponents aren’t zany or quaint.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 12:27 AM | Print | Comments (1)
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