The 463: Inside Tech Policy

The Commonality Between Green & Privacy

For most of the past few decades the environmental movement pushed companies and governments to adopt green policies and procedures. By and large, the response in the U.S. could best be described as begrudging.

In the last two years, a sudden, massive shift occurred as energy prices skyrocketed and awareness of global warming as a reality increased. Companies who previously were about as green as exhaust from a tailpipe became advocates for adopting environmentally responsible policies. And, less cynically, other companies were created or quickly adapted to the green movement and now provide products and services that either increase the supply of alternative energies or reduce the demand for them.

When doing the right thing is also a way to gain competitive advantage in a rapidly shifting marketplace, than you've got a formula for a wholesale change in thinking overnight. This means that same people who scoffed at even saying the term "green" in 2005 are paying millions of dollars to justify how green equals greenbacks today.

I think we're at the precipice of thinking about data privacy in a similar way. It may not be as dramatic as the green movement, and, unfortunately, it may require an inevitable huge data breach to propel the shift, but it will come, nonetheless. Put simply, this means that the companies that collect and control the vast amount of personal information on networks will begin to view their privacy policies as an offensive strategy rather than merely a defensive one.

Evidence of this came last week when Microsoft and Ask played the privacy card to knock Google and Yahoo...

Kiss & Cisco: Best Corporate Vlog Post Ever

This. Is. So. Awesome.

I heard the CEO of a client speak insightfully today about how the future of the Internet will be on a mobile device, and then I come home and have the sublime pleasure of seeing another client's video interview with two pundits on a very similar subject.

Same topic. Drastically different make-up.

Somehow Making the Phrase "700 MHz Spectrum Auction" Sexy. Almost.

There has been so much rhetoric spewed on the 700 MHz auction issue the last couple of weeks that we very well could have our next Net Neutrally-sized policy fight on our hands.

I mean, who thought around Independence Day that they would be seeing this ad a few weeks later

The wireless association ad was running at the National Journal Tech Daily site today and links to this page.

Dang. How soon until we have a Ask the Ninja video about open spectrum? Actually, there already have been videos created on the issue (sans Ninjas). See Public Knowledge. There has also been two congressional hearings in two weeks. Oh, yeah, and a really big preemptive bid that didn't make some people happy.

Confused about how all this came to be so fast and what the hubbub is all about? That's okay. There are many in this industry and watching that are still trying to figure out the ins and outs of Net Neutrality. Just thank Cynthia Brumfield for her brief 700 MHz battleground explanation today at IP Democracy:

Who is Giving to Whom?

While Valley politics stories have been focused on the presidential candidates visits to Google, we can soon expect plenty of coverage on who is giving to who in the race.

And, so far, the techie giving/support is more wide open than I can remember in a battle for the White House. Back in 2000 -- the last incumbent-free election -- Valley Democrats retained their loyalty to Vice President Gore and Valley Republicans didn't take much time in deciding that Governor Bush was their man after vetting the other candidates.

This year, not only are the big names all over the place with their support, but there are also several notables with a past history of being big campaign players who are on the fence.

On the D side, some are waiting for a guy who's name rhymes with "more". This is an inconvenient truth to some of the candidates who have already declared.

And, on the R side, there seems to be bit of a wait and see going on as the money men and women determine who has the most chance to break from the pack.

Still, there has been plently of dollars and pledges of support tossed about thus far. Eric Savitz at Barron's took the time to do an unscientific assesment of where Silicon Valley is leaning so far....

YouTube Debate in Overdrive

Watching, analyzing, and dissecting tonight's CNN*YouTube Democratic Debate so you don't have to is the Tech Daily Dose. If you missed it, just review their coverage.

The guy above asked a good question: Which Republican would you choose as your running mate? TDD said this was the answer from Biden and Edwards:

Joe Biden: Warning that naming names would hurt the designated Republican, Biden named Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

John Edwards agreed that Hagel would be a good choice.

Personally, while the debate format may be So Now that it's gimmicky, this process can't be any worse than the usual stilted debates encumbered by 101 rules and the (metaphoric) cast of thousands that take the life out of the event. A little experimentation is a good thing, And, maybe this will even help bring some life into the Main Event after the primaries.

Yes, I Read the Wall Street Journal

So, yes, I did see the A1 piece on Google in DC.

Publications that have yet to run Google in DC stories...
--High Times
--South Dakota Hunting & Fishing
--Monchichi Enthusiasts
--Spin (not the music magazine, the Asian Cricket one)

That's it. And, maybe the New Yorker. Hopefully, we'll have that before my next beach vacation.

But, give credit to the Journal, unlike their predecessors on the beat, they did tie-in Google's efforts to provide campaign communications services to candidates directly to their more straightforward lobbying strategy.

As Google's ambitions grow -- along with the ranks of its rivals -- the company is relying on people like Mr. Greenberger to reinvent corporate influence-peddling for the Internet Age. Instead of just hiring a roster of lobbyists and tossing out millions of dollars in campaign contributions, Google has embarked on a quiet march through the conference rooms of Washington to explain how its products can help politicians get elected.

And, for those of you following Google closely, you know that there is more to this than just a neat journalistic trick.

This is a First

I've never heard anyone call the Zune "an exceptional product" before. Noel Le of PFF did today as he called out the Zune's DRM critics after Microsoft announced that it has sold 1.2 million of the devices this year.

By the way, I have no opinion on the Zune. How could I? I've never held one in my hand let alone seen someone else using one. But, I have jealously fondled seven different iPhones owned by friends in the last week.

The Unbearable Complexities of Music

We wrote a longtime ago about the complexities of music licensing and nothing much has been solved in the last two years. If anything, new digital efforts have only created more gridlock between the many various rights holders of a single track. This means an era of one step forward of experimentation tempered with one step back of cease and desists and innovative ideas hindered by licensing realities.

Case and point is this little tale from John Healey's BitPlayer blog...

NBC announced Monday that is making it full episodes of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" available online the morning after they air, starting Aug 28th. It's the first time any late-night TV has made it onto the Net, which seems odd -- you'd think that anything on the air after 11 p.m. would be a prime candidate for the Web's time-shifting magic. Vivi Zigler, EVP of NBC Digital Entertainment, explained in an interview that the problem was the cost of obtaining online distribution rights -- for the music on the shows, not the stars or the guests on the couch. Whaddya know -- yet another Internet deficiency to blame on music copyrights!

In the case of Conan's show, Zigler said there's the rights not only to the songs performed by the musical guests and the house band, but also to the brief snippets of music played going into and coming out of commercial breaks. These "bumpers" may last only a few seconds, but the rights still have to be cleared. NBC considered putting Conan's show online without the musical segments, Zigler said, and that would have sped the process considerably. But the network ultimately decided to stick with the complete show, which makes sense, given that the musical guests are a highlight of the show (e.g., the Arctic Monkeys on July 2 and Art Brut on July 11).

And, if NBC Universal has trouble getting rights, just imagine the issues faced by your average entertainment start-up without a bevy of lawyers and deep-pockets.

Off Topic: Spoon's Genius

If all bands were as good as Spoon, the music industry would be in fine shape -- disruptions or not. If you're not already hip to what may be the best straight-up American rock band right now, you can get in on the act and enjoy Spoon by buying their new album "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga". Or see them live. Spoon will be touring for much of the rest of the year.

If you really need a tech connection, Spoon is like the iPhone:
1) The look and feel incredibly simple yet appealing
2) Yet, once you start peeling back layers, you find all sorts of complexity
3) You're constantly surprised

When Obsessions Meet

Because of the obvious impact of Google on the tech policy scene since we started blogging more than 2.5 years ago, the company has had its disproportionate share of coverage here.

Yet, another minor obsession is less obvious. It's the EU's Television Without Frontiers directive that morphed into the less memorable but more palatable "Audiovisual Media Services Directive".  We always thought that its debate was symbolic of clash of emerging technologies with old regulatory structures and thinking.  Potentially treating Web video like the BBC's over-the-air broadcast was worrisome to say the least.  But, regardless, we were seemingly among a handful in the States that cared (or, at least blogged about it).  Our coverage is here, here, here and here.

Yesterday, European policy lead Patricia Moll used Google's shiny new policy blog to try to put a nail in the coffin of any attempt to make user generated content and other on-demand Web mediums part of the catch-all regulatory harmonization...

When discussions on the directive began there was little distinction between the two types of content, meaning that YouTube and Google Video would have had to comply with a complex set of rules designed to control traditional broadcasting. Thankfully, this was changed in the final draft of the legislation, which must still be voted on by the European Parliament. We believe that on-demand content shouldn't be regulated in the same way as traditional broadcasting because the two are quite different. People control the online content they demand, compared to the content which is broadcast on television....

...The directive contains important measures to protect users, particularly children, from harmful and illegal content. There are also new rules to make sure that on-demand content doesn't feature material inciting hatred based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, nationality, disability, religion or belief, age or sexual orientation. Google supports these rules, which reflect the rules we already have in place through our user agreements.

We have talked to politicians and decision makers about the importance of empowering people to use the net and other platforms safely, and to make informed decisions through the use of filtering and labeling systems.