On April 2, the FCC released new rules designed to protect consumer privacy when it comes to information held by communications service providers (the Commission’s order is 101 pages — PDF here). Largely designed to prevent the practice of pretexting, whereby someone poses as a consumer to gain access to private information (think HP scandal), the rules have created quite a ruckus, with early reports predicting, perhaps erroneously, that the new regs would doom the cable industry’s mobile voice consortium formed with Sprint-Nextel.
On the heels of the decision’s release, the Wall Street Journal ran this piece which cites an unnamed Washington attorney who said one aspect of the rules would block cable companies from sharing their customer information with Sprint-Nextel. In its order, the FCC barred telecommunications companies from sharing customer data with “joint venture partners or independent contractors” without first obtaining customer opt-in permission to do so.
Both the attorney cited in the article and a Comcast spokesperson said that the rules seem to block cable companies from communicating crucial customer data to Sprint, a prohibition that would severely hobble the important joint venture. But, as it turns out, that may not be the case. The prohibition is limited to cases where the information is used for marketing purposes, and Sprint claims that the joint venture partners don’t do this.
The companies share customer information in order to “initiate, render, bill and collect for telecommunications services,” activities that are specifically allowed by the new rules.
“The FCC order does not jeopardize the cable partnership in any way,” Sprint spokeswoman Melinda Tiemeyer said. The rule, she added, “is not news to Sprint. We anticipated it. And we have developed sound practices that ensure privacy, will comply with the law and will ensure the success of the cable partnership.”
Phone companies, meanwhile, oppose the FCC’s directive because, they say, it will impede competition by limiting carriers’ ability to work with outside marketing firms. US Telecom CEO Walter McCormick said that
“We are deeply concerned that the FCC is taking an overly broad approach, far beyond protecting the legitimate privacy interests of call detail information to preventing any marketing of new services, bundled offerings and new applications—using joint venture partners or independent contractors—that can save consumers money.”Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 12:33 PM | Print | Comments (0)
YouTube’s new parent company Google may be having a difficult time landing deals with major media companies, but YouTube is certainly becoming the prime channel for political videos on the web. Two days ago Google officially announced the launch of YouTube’s new political vlog, Citizentube.
Although seemingly intended to showcase local citizen-made videos, the site appears to currently serve as a central location for all the political videos that appear on YouTube. Users can sign up for subscriptions to various “channels” on Citizentube, getting feeds of various candidates’ videos, along with feeds of popular political video sites.
But, as BBC News points out, YouTube’s growing role in politics is not limited to the U.S. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has launched a Labor Party channel on YouTube. In a video, Blair explains that the channel is designed to bring the message to citizens “unmediated.”
Despite the rush by top leaders to embrace the Internet and web video, a lot of the innovative efforts appear to be one-way messaging. Top blogger and political observer Jeff Jarvis thinks the candidates can do a better job of making their web presences truly interactive. Although some candidates actively encourage feedback and questions, so far these appeals have received little response.
“On his web site, John McCain asked people to send in questions via YouTube,” he said. “But the last time I looked, no-one had.”Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:42 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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