What we're following on the morning of Monday, May 3...
FCC likely to hire outsider to oversee NBC-Comcast review (Hillicon Valley) -- The FCC may soon hire an outsider to oversee its review of Comcast's bid for NBC, in part to free up the commission's resources so that it may focus primarily on its new broadband agenda. The ink is hardly dry on that contract, and details about who would lead the review, under whose purview the coordinator would fall and how long his or her contract would last still remain unclear. But a source with knowledge of the situation did tell Hillicon Valley on Sunday that both NBC and Comcast had already been informed of the FCC's forthcoming announcement.
Online advertisements that target users' browsing histories may be more effective, but many companies are now scaling back those ad campaigns to avoid public backlash, according to a new study.
A report by the Ponemon Institute, released this week, finds that most companies agree online behavior-based advertisements are 50 percent more effective than standard, run-of-the-mill ad campaigns. However, these advertisers are are using these behavior-based ads 75 percent
less than they would prefer, the study notes.
According to the Institute's founder, who recently spoke with The New York Times' Bits blog, "privacy fears are definitely having an economic impact."
Those fears seem to stem in part from the growing number of interest groups pushing lawmakers and federal officials to regulate targeted ads. Three in particular -- the U.S. PIRG, Center for Digital Democracy and the World Privacy Forum -- even urged the Federal Trade Commission in early April to probe whether Google, Yahoo and others are wrongly tracking or profiting from users' online behavior.
Lawmakers, too, have expressed those concerns. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) began airing complaints about behavioral advertising last year, stressing federal regulation would be necessary to assuage consumers' concerns while ensuring private corporations could advertise in a way they found lucrative.
"Despite clear benefits, privacy advocates and regulators pose serious
challenges to online advertisers and marketers who wish to use [online
behavioral advertising]," according to Ponemon's study.
Stuck in a hours-long hearing with the House Ways and Means Committee? At least you'll be able to tell the world about it, now that the hearing room itself is a venue on Foursquare.
The committee announced appropriately via Twitter on Friday that social network mavens could now update their Facebook and Twitter accounts to inform friends when they are sitting in or near the committee room.
It is not immediately clear whether committee members or staff, or an interested bystander, added the venue to the Foursquare site. Still, only one user so far has "checked in" -- or updated his or her Twitter account to show he or she recently entered the room.
But the House Ways and Means Committee is hardly the only area of the U.S. Capitol already registered on the growing, geo-location website.
A brief search reveals that the House Foreign Affairs, House Judiciary, House Energy and Commerce, House Oversight, Senate Banking and Senate Commerce Committee hearing rooms are all venues currently listed on Foursquare.
So too is the entire House of Representatives, and the lower chamber's floor -- which has a "mayor," or a most checked-in user, who isn't the House Speaker -- as well as the Senate, the Senate dining room, and a series of other offices scattered across the Capitol.
Elsewhere, the White House Rose Garden, Visitor Center, Conference Center, South Lawn and Oval Office (somehow) have also been added to Foursquare. Those entries could be fake, however, as many users often try to dupe the system and make it seem as if they are in locations they are not.
The nation's largest telecom companies signed a letter to the FCC today reaffirming their position that reclassifying broadband for the purposes of net neutrality is "both deeply flawed and entirely unnecessary."
AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, CTIA and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, among others, said the FCC actually has never classified any kind of Internet service in the way public interest groups and pro-net-neutrality companies are now advocating. Therefore, the FCC shouldn't be able to change the law now with the intention of going forward with net neutrality.
"The Commission is not free to change that classification simply because some parties might now prefer a different outcome," the companies said. " Any assertions to the contrary misstate regulatory history, misread the law and ignore many of the necessary byproducts of any such reclassification."
The argument over "reclassification" has been raging since a federal court ruled that the FCC does not have authority to enact net neutrality regulations while it is classified as a Title I "information service. So the FCC is contemplating reclassifying it as a Title II "telecommunications service" so it will have broader jurisdiction over the increasingly important networks.
Twenty-six lawmakers kicked off a new caucus today dedicated to making government more transparent and accountable.
The Congressional Transparency Caucus held its inaugural event today on Capitol Hill. It's chaired by Reps. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who said at the event today that the time is ripe for reform to make government more accountable.
With popularity and trust in government at an all-time low, Quigley said it's lawmakers' jobs to show citizens that they're doing their best in office.
"These are complex decisions we all make at all levels and it's very difficult to lead if we don't have the public's trust," he said.
To support the caucus's mission, the Sunlight Foundation has created an Advisory Committee on Transparency. The committee will provide information and advice to members of Congress on open government issues. A new website, TransparencyCaucus.org, is designed to publish reports and white papers on topics relevant to transparency and accountability in the public sector.
Here is a list of the Caucus membership as of this morning: Melissa
Bean, Bruce Braley, Jason Chaffetz, Lloyd Doggett, Vernon Ehlers, Bill
Foster, Eleanor Holmes-Norton, Steve Israel, Darrel Issa, Walter Jones,
Jim Jordan, Mark Kirk, Doug Lamborn, Blaine Leutkemeyer, Daniel
Lipinski, Dave Loebsack, Patrick McHenry, Walt Minnick, Patrick Murphy,
Jared Polis, Mike Quigley, Tim Ryan, Aaron Schock, Mark Souder, Jackie
Speier, Greg Walder.
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