Techdirt

Last year we wrote about a New York insurance company called Lemonade being forced by a German court to cease using the color pink/magenta in its branding in Germany after a dispute with Deutsche Telekom, parent company of T-Mobile. See, DT has a long, long history of using insane trademarks its been granted for the color magenta to go after all kinds of other companies, whether they're actually using that same color or not, and regardless of whether they compete in the same marketplace or not. While Lemonade complied with the court, it then took two further steps. First, it released a Chrome browser extension that strips the color pink out of, well, everything in the user's browser. This was coupled with a #FreeThePink PR campaign. And the, for added measure, Lemonade set out in various European courts to invalidate any claim DT might have to the trademark for the color in the field of financial services.Well, the first resolution of one of those cases is out and it's a full win for Lemonade. Note that much of the text in the quotes below is from a press release, but the factual aspects of it still stand.

Summary:Every platform hosting user generated content these days is pretty much required (usually by law) to have policies in place to deal with copyright-infringing material. However, not all content on these platforms is covered by copyright, and that can potentially lead to complications, since policies are often built off of the assumption that everything must be covered by some form of copyright.Australia-based music technologist Sebastian Tomczak, who has a PhD in computer generated music, created from scratch a 10 hour “low level white noise” recording, which he placed on YouTube. He created the file himself, then made a video version of it, and posted it to YouTube. In early 2018, he discovered that there had been five separate copyright claims on the video from four separate copyright holders.Each of the claims argued that other videos of white noise held the copyright on white noise, and that Tomczak’s video infringed on their own. Amusingly, each claim designates which short segment of the 10 hour video infringes on their own work -- even though the entire 10 hours is literally the same white noise.None of the claims demanded that Tomczak’s video be taken down, but rather sought to “monetize” it under YouTube’s ContentID offering, which allows copyright holders to leave up videos they claim are infringing but divert any advertising revenue to the copyright holder.Somewhat incredibly, one copyright holder claims that Tomczak’s video infringes on two separate videos of their own, both of which also offer white noise.

This is kind of fascinating. The group Americans for Prosperity have announced they've filed FOIA litigation against the Commerce Department after it has refused to respond to a FOIA request seeking communications between two former top NTIA officials that we've discussed here recently, regarding Section 230.As background, you'll recall that after Twitter added two fact checks on Donald Trump's misleading tweets about mail-in ballots, Trump issued a bizarre executive order, demanding that (among other things) NTIA ask the FCC to reinterpret Section 230. Trump needed to order NTIA to do this because the FCC is supposed to be an independent agency and the President isn't supposed to order it to do anything. Indeed, as you'll recall, when Barrack Obama merely made a public statement about net neutrality, without directing the FCC to do anything, basically every Republican, including Donald Trump, whined that he was illegally trying to "bully' the FCC to do his bidding.It quickly came out that two NTIA staffers were responsible for crafting the Executive Order: Adam Candeub, a long term critic of Section 230 who had just been hired to NTIA, and Nathan Simington. Candeub was later promoted to run NTIA and just this week was given a top job in the Justice Department. Simington, despite little qualifying experience, has been made an FCC Commissioner.This was despite a separate FOIA request that revealed that Candeub and Simington, together, had emailed with a Fox News producer, asking to get Fox News host Laura Ingraham to attack Section 230 to help move the NTIA petition forward, and noting that it was important to do so to help re-elect Trump and help with down-ballot Republicans. This, of course, should be disqualifying for either of them to hold government jobs. When you get a job in the government you represent everyone and not just your own political party. You are not supposed to be using your government job to bully the media to do things for purely political reasons.Given that, there should be tremendous interest in just who Candeub and Simington were talking to about Section 230. And Americans for Prosperity sent a FOIA request seeking exactly that information, asking for any emails between the two of them about Section 230 with a short list of known anti-Section 230 folks, including former Fox lobbyist (and the person responsible for getting FOSTA passed), Rick Lane, anti-230 FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, AT&T (a company protected by 230, but which has decided to attack the law because it hates Google), DCI Group (a famously sketchy lobbying organization) and a bunch of others.The full complaint details what happened:

As a director of a state broadband program, one of my biggest challenges is data. I know lots of areas in my state have inadequate or no service. I get those emails every day. We have a public facing broadband map which is based on the data that the internet service providers (ISPs) provide to the FCC on what is known as the Form 477. The notorious problem with the 477 data is that gross inaccuracies are built into the reporting. ISPs report advertised speeds based on census blocks, where if one home in a census block is served, or could reasonably be served, the entire census block is considered served.What this means, besides extreme frustration on the part of state broadband authorities and communities, is that we do not have the information needed to make decisions on where resources (money and time) should be spent. States have tried for years to get their ISPs to provide better information. I even changed the statute this year to require it. To no avail. So what should states like Maine do?I firmly believe that it is time to pull the power from the ISPs and give it to the community. ISPs are businesses, and we have great partnerships with many of them in our state. But our interest as a State is to get people broadband. All people. And high-quality broadband that meet the use requirements that have only grown under COVID. Our mission and an ISP's mission are sometimes at odds. And that is ok. But we must take the power of information on who is served and who is not (and at what quality service) back and put it in the hands of consumers. Or, in state government speak, taxpayers.Luckily, others across the country have the same goal. This past year a number of states have contracted with GeoPartners to undertake a comprehensive speed testing strategy. The platform is easy for the end user to navigate and use. There are other companies doing similar work, and M-labs, a consortium of research, industry, and public-interest partners, also provides the largest collection of open Internet performance data on the planet.In Maine, the state broadband office, ConnectMaine, is working closely with the Maine Broadband Coalition with a variety of community partners including Island Institute, Greater Portland Council of Governments, Maine Community Foundation, Maine West and others to roll out this strategy. A strong marketing strategy, and outreach to get as many people as possible to take the test is a critical factor in the success of this initiative. Maine launched the project through a community building project called the Maine West Boot Camp in mid October, and plans to expand it statewide by the end of the year.So why are states doing this? Maine has had a community planning process in place for about four years. While we have seen some successes in expanding service to those areas, we have also discovered roadblocks. One of them is who in a community has service at what level. Prior to this citizen lead speed test initiative, that knowledge was all in the hands of the incumbent ISP.Engaging communities in this process does a couple of really important things: it puts an important piece of the puzzle squarely in the hands of the consumer, removing a road block that can hang a community up for months waiting for answers from the ISP. It puts the power of determining the scope of the project firmly in the hands of the community. It can motivate other communities who are not connected to jump into and begin the process of improving their service.Crowdsourced speed tests also provide state broadband offices with the information they need to justify funding, direct resources, and lay out a strategy to address the real problem in there state, not the problem defined by inaccurate FCC data.Also, not to be understated: it gives states, in my case Maine, the power and the data to challenge the FCC data. Right now, the FCC is preparing to give out $16.4B based on data that everyone acknowledge (even the FCC) is accurate.Yet they persist. And not for the first time. CAFII provided billions of dollars to rate of return carriers to bring 10/1 Mbps (a substandard speed when the started the program seven year ago) to more people. They just extended that program another year. Despite the evidence that some providers have not built out as required.Many of Maine's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) areas are in what we call "unorganized territories", which are exactly what the name implies: not towns and not that populated. In other words not one that is targeted. Areas like the RDOF-eligible area northeast of Baxter State Park with its 825 possible locations probably will likely not get served any other way (if in fact they even get served with this program.) But RDOF proposes to spend $10 million in subsidies to bring service to 825 possible locations while many, many unserved rural communities that the FCC deems as "served" with their mapping are not eligible for a dime. That is a waste of resources. And without good data, states are powerless to protest.In response, we are going to go out and get our own data, and empower those communities to take up this gauntlet and take charge of their own future.As executive director of ConnextMaine, Peggy Schaffer manages the Authority's rulemaking efforts, investment decisions and policy recommendations. Peggy was the Small Business Advocate for the Secretary of State's office, and served as the Co-chair of the Maine Broadband Coalition, a statewide group advocating for high speed broadband.

This sort of thing will never stop amazing me. For any American President, one would assume they would have all kinds of advisers on all matters regarding security and best practices when it comes to the systems and technology they use. I'm old enough to remember when everyone freaked out over Barack Obama using a Blackberry, but at the time I hand-waived any such concerns under the assumption that there were checks in place to make such technology secure.So how in the world did Donald Trump, often called America's first Twitter President, manage to have his Twitter account accessed using a laughably predictable password and 2-factor authentication?

Grab your camera, capture amazing photos, and learn to process them in Photoshop, Lightroom, and GIMP with the Pro Photography and Photoshop 20 Course Bundle. You'll learn how to take your camera skills to the next level, and then how to process those photos to truly capture the look you were envisioning. From layers and filters to levels and curves, you'll come to grips with essential photo editing concepts, and refine your skills over several courses. It's on sale for $40.Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

So, just as I was finishing off the post on Wednesday's antitrust lawsuit against Google brought by 10 states, news broke that the other big state antitrust case against Google had been filed as well. This one involves 38 states, led by Colorado and Nebraska. I'm assuming that this is the main state antitrust lawsuit that states had been talking about, as compared to the first lawsuit with fewer states. Whereas the first state lawsuit focused on display ads, this one focuses on the market for search.You can read the full filing, which I'd recommend. I think this one is the most interesting of the three antitrust lawsuits that have been filed against the company. Part of the argument more or less rehashes the DOJ's weak case that because Google pays Apple an astounding amount of money to be the default search on iPhones, that's proof of anti-competitive behavior. That's an argument that still just doesn't make any sense to me at all. If the accusation is that Google is abusing its position, you'd think it wouldn't be paying $8 to $12 billion dollars to Apple. If anything, that suggests that it's Apple who has the market power, rather than Google.Where the case gets potentially more interesting is in the part where it argues that Google is abusing its search advertising tool, called SA360, in anticompetitive ways:

To be clear, AT&T has no shortage of nasty habits, whether we're talking about how the company routinely does too little to thwart criminals eager to rip off AT&T customers, or the way it can routinely be found hoovering up taxpayer money in exchange for, well, less than nothing. But one thing the company did get correct (or at least more correct, more quickly than other counterparts in cable and TV) was that streaming was the future.Most cable TV companies refused to fully embrace streaming, worried they'd cannibalize existing traditional cable revenue and thinking they could milk a dying cash cow forever. AT&T jumped in with both feet early on, launching a dizzying array of different streaming services. Sure, AT&T then proceeded to lose seven million pay TV and streaming customers in just three years thanks to a series of bone-headed mergers, rate hikes, and idiotic branding choices, but its original instinct to get out ahead of the problem was the right one all the same.Earlier this month, AT&T announced that Covid had forced it to effectively put a bullet in traditional movie release windows, resulting in the company releasing new Warner Brothers films on streaming the same day they're released in theaters. It's obviously a necessary response to an unprecedented threat, and it comes with some caveats. One, it's only a one-year trial. Two, movies will still hit theaters. Three, you'll probably pay more for home viewing than is sensible. It's likely a temporary shift in tactics that's geared as much toward goosing lagging HBO Max subscriptions as it is public safety.Still, the decision resulted in no limit of consternation in Hollywood, which was already sore about AT&T's steady parade of layoffs at Time Warner properties (HBO, DC) it acquired in 2018 (promising no limit of amazing synergies), and the general annoyance of having bumbling telecom executives stumbling around a more creative, competitive sector than AT&T's used to. Director Christopher Nolan was particularly pissed off:

The Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement agencies needed a warrant to obtain cell site location info. The ability to turn third parties (like telcos) into proxy long-term tracking devices concerned the court, which decided this wasn't permissible under the Fourth Amendment. Every American carries a cellphone. But just because they do doesn't mean they agree the government should be able to track their movements with them.No problem, said federal law enforcement agencies. We'll just get the same data from new sources -- ones not specifically mentioned in the Carpenter decision. Data brokers harvesting location data from phone apps sell access to government agencies, allowing them to bypass the warrant requirement.This new source of data location has become a concern for some legislators, which have demanded answers from agencies like the IRS and CBP about their acquisition and use of this data. One company -- Venntel -- is currently facing a Congressional investigation of its data selling practices. This hasn't stopped CBP from buying data to track immigrants. But it has perhaps led to one agency -- one with a long history of bulk collection violations -- to ditch its contract with Venntell. Joseph Cox fills in the details at Motherboard.

One of the more delightful oddities of 2018, a year that was at least a zillion times better than this one, was the emergence of Chinese President Xi's razor-thin skin when it comes to being compared to Winnie the Pooh. This all got spotlighted here in America when John Oliver dove into Chinese political leadership, mentioning the Winnie the Pooh thing, and got his name and HBO's site effectively banned from the Chinese internet. It's all rather funny until you realize both that this is a symptom of the horrifying restrictions on freedom the Chinese government has put in place and when you consider that the subsequent two-plus years has seen China supercharge its own thin-skin and exert pressure on spineless Western companies to do its censoring for it. All of the sudden, the laughter falls away.Which brings us to GOG, the video game online store run by CD Projekt Red. At 4am on December 16th, Red Candle Games, makers of the well reviewed horror video game Devotion announced on Twitter that the game would be published to GOG on December 18th. By 9:14am the same day, GOG announced that the game in fact would not be released on GOG, citing "messages from gamers."

Look, I get the fact that people are concerned about big technology companies. I'm very concerned about big technology companies too, and think it's important that we figure out ways to build more competition, and to get away from reliance on many of these companies. But the way in which so many assume that antitrust is the only way to get there is problematic. And it's even more problematic when the antitrust lawsuits they file seem to be mostly based on misunderstanding or misrepresenting certain things with totally innocuous explanations. That keeps happening.The DOJ's antitrust lawsuit against Google is embarrassingly weak, and seems to confuse who has market power (e.g., claiming that Google paying billions to Apple is some sort of proof of its own dominance). The FTC and nearly all states' antitrust suits against Facebook are fundamentally stronger than the DOJ's case against Google, but still, astoundingly weak in terms of actual evidence of antitrust violations.This week, there are two new entrants. One lawsuit was just announced today, and we'll explore that one later, but yesterday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was one of the earliest Attorney Generals who spoke out in favor of going after Google, has now done so, with a an interesting antitrust lawsuit against the company, done with the support of 9 other states, all with Republican Attorneys General. Notably, some of the states (though not all) also signed onto the DOJ's antitrust lawsuit.This lawsuit takes a different approach from the DOJ's lawsuit, which focused on the market for general search services and search advertising. This one focuses on general display advertising. And maybe there's an argument that Google is doing something bad in how it handles the display advertising market. Indeed, some of the complaint (though heavily redacted), suggests some potentially sketchy behavior on the part of Google, to block competition in the ads space. If that's proven, that would be bad, and it would be good if the lawsuit forced Google to change those practices and enable more competition.There's also a heavily redacted section, that hints strongly that Google and Facebook worked out some sort of agreement to keep Facebook from competing as directly with (and undercutting the pricing of) Google's display ads business. And that does sound like a potentially huge deal -- one that very well might truly be anticompetitive. But the details and what's redacted are important.It would be great if the lawsuit focused on things like those two points. But it also includes other things that seem to suggest a near total and fundamental misunderstanding of how technology works, which does not provide much confidence that the Attorneys General know what they're talking about in the other parts. Notably, there's this scary bit that started making the rounds on Twitter, with people asking what the fuck was going on:

Back in August, the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned on a flight to Moscow. Despite initial doubts -- and the usual denials by the Russian government that Vladimir Putin was involved -- everyone assumed it had been carried out by the country's FSB, successor to the KGB. Remarkable work by the open source intelligence site Bellingcat, which Techdirt first wrote about in 2014, has now established beyond reasonable doubt that FSB agents were involved:

According to the Department of Justice (and countless other law enforcement agencies), civil asset forfeiture is a valuable tool that harms criminal organizations and lowers crime rates. It's a deterrent they assert actually exists, despite there being no accompanying arrests of these supposed criminals.I don't know what criminal organizations are being dismantled at less than $1,000/seizure, but that's the reality of asset forfeiture. A large majority of forfeitures involve amounts too small to be disputed in court, where legal fees quickly outpace any expected recovery.That's how the system "works." Cops grab what they can and hope the system tilted in their favor pays off. Any incidental effects on crime rates are a bonus. But lowering crime isn't the focus, no matter what's asserted by defenders of legalized theft.And the facts say otherwise. A study released last year showed asset forfeiture has zero effect on crime rates or drug sales. All it does is take cash from people who need it the most, as is borne out by low dollar amounts most frequently seen in forfeiture cases.Now, another study is confirming the obvious: asset forfeiture enriches police departments… but not the lives of the people they serve. The study had a great data set to work with. Back in 2015, New Mexico outlawed civil asset forfeiture. If cops wanted to take stuff, they had to secure a conviction. If asset forfeiture was the valuable crime-fighting tool New Mexico law enforcement agencies claimed it was, crime rates would be expected to increase. But that's not what happened, according to the Institute of Justice's study.

The Complete Google Cloud Course Bundle has 2 video courses and 8 eBooks to help you master one of the most powerful cloud platforms out there. You'll learn about TensorFlow, machine learning, AI, data analysis, and much more. It's on sale for $30.Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Late on Tuesday evening, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr suddenly issued a weird and misleading anti-230 Twitter thread, claiming (falsely) that supporters of Section 230 (who he incorrectly calls "Big Tech's lobbyists") "routinely conflate statutory protections with First Amendment rights." Here's the thread in plain text, with my responses and corrections interjected.

In West Virginia, incumbent telco Frontier has repeatedly been busted in a series of scandals involving substandard service and the misuse of taxpayer money. State leaders have buried reports detailing the depth of the grift and dysfunction, and, until a few years back, a Frontier executive did double duty as a state representative without anybody in the state thinking that was a conflict of interest. The result has been about what you'd expect: West Virginia routinely shows up as one of the least connected states in the nation.Frontier has spent years taking taxpayer money then failing to adequately upgrade its network. So when the FCC recently threw another $9 billion in subsidies at the broken U.S. telecom sector, lawmakers like Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, were kind of annoyed to find Frontier again slated to get $371 million to "expand broadband" across eight states. $250 million was doled out to Frontier in West Virginia despite its shaky history in the state, something that alarmed Capito in a letter to the FCC last week (pdf):

To the detriment of our nation's future, the future of our nation is increasingly being subjected to law enforcement's presents (and presence). On the plus side, it will help students grow up with a healthy distrust of their government.We've put cops in schools so kids can be subjected to the same brutality adults receive. Disciplinary problems long-handled by schools and parents are now handled with handcuffs and criminal charges. The same questionable science that leads cops to believe future criminal acts can be predicted by algorithms and checklists is being wielded against children, turning their bad grades and spotty attendance records into criminal predicates.Now, there's this: the use of high-tech hacking tools to forensically scrape kids' phones for evidence of alleged criminal acts.

Let's be clear: that fact that there are people all over America that for any reason would want to display the Confederate battle flag is monumentally stupid. For starters, the flag is the symbol of a rebellion launched over southern states' desire to own other people. Don't give me the "states rights" argument; it's entirely invalid, unless the states right you're talking about is slavery. On top of that, the Confederacy, you know... lost. Proudly displaying the symbol of loserdom is both hilarious and befuddling.Now that that's out of the way, entirely too often the folks who abhor the Confederate flag participate in a massive over-reaction to it. We saw this after Dylann Roof proved just how evil humanity can be in shooting up a historical African American church, with far too many people and companies focusing on displays of the flag, as though that were the real issue.And now, in a move far more disappointing, Andrew Cuomo has signed into law a ban in New York State on the sale of the Confederate flag and other "symbols of hate" on public property.

Summary:Vimeo, the video-hosting website created by CollegeHumor's parent company in 2004, has always presented itself as a destination for creators who wished to free themselves from YouTube's limitations and aggressive monetization. Vimeo remains ad-free, supporting itself with subscription fees.Other efforts were made to distance Vimeo from YouTube. Its fairly aggressive content policy forbade plenty of things that were acceptable on Google's platform, including videos promoting commercial services.The terms of service didn't explicitly forbid content that related to commercial services but were not attempts to sell services directly to other Vimeo users, but user experience consultant Paul Boag found his videos targeted by Vimeo and given a week to move them to another hosting service. While some videos of Boag's rode the edge of the terms of service ban on commercial videos, others provided nothing more than marketing advice or reviews of browser plugins.At that point, Vimeo also banned the embedding of hosted content on sites that also served up ads. Unfortunately for Boag, his own site contained ads, making it a violation of the terms of service to embed his own videos on his own site. And this rule wasn't set in stone: Vimeo rather unhelpfully clarified it did allow embedding on some sites with ads, but it was a decision only Vimeo could make.

Although the digital divide didn’t start with COVID-19, the pandemic has put into stark relief the need to bridge this divide once and for all. The solution—providing tens of millions of Americans with high-speed, reliable broadband—might seem like a daunting task. But our research has found that Colorado and other states are leading the way in connecting communities to high-speed, reliable internet.The digital divide is a costly challenge to solve: A 2017 report from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) found that 14% of residential and small and medium-sized businesses lacked access to broadband and that it would cost $40 billion to get fiber optic cable—which carries broadband signals—to 98% of those premises. It would cost another $40 billion to serve the last 2 percent.When it comes to closing gaps in broadband connectivity, “the easy stuff … has been done,”and the hard work remains. In addition to cost, the challenge of solving the digital divide is compounded by geography, demographics, and the types of entities that provide service, which can leave one rural community unserved while a local telephone company or electric cooperative is available to provide a neighboring community “fiber to the home and to the farm and to the cabin.”States will be key to completing the job of expanding access to broadband; they play a critical and often overlooked role in shaping the way broadband reaches our doorsteps and enables stakeholders from the public and private sectors to participate in connectivity efforts.State governments recognize that a single policy or a one-time funding initiative is not enough to get their citizens online. So, they are creating policies and programs that reinforce each other and will help reach the goals that are necessary to fully deploy broadband. For example, state legislatures have passed complementary policies that set service speed targets, set up funding and financing mechanisms, designate who can provide service, and regulate access to the infrastructure that providers need to build and operate networks. These policies create and support the work of state broadband programs.States also have the tools and expertise already in place—including dedicated staff—to help local stakeholders overcome the barriers to internet access. These staff members on state broadband programs serve as a point of contact for addressing broadband challenges, providing information on state programs, and responding to questions from grantees and others. They also work to build strong relationships with local groups, and often play a central role in facilitating coordination among communities and providers to advance broadband projects and policy.Colorado illustrates this multifaceted approach to closing gaps in broadband access by funding both middle and last mile projects, providing support for planning, evaluating and improving existing deployments, and collaborating closely among agencies engaged in broadband efforts.The state’s broadband programs are led by the Colorado Broadband Office (CBO), which is housed in the Governor’s Office of Information Technology. The CBO focuses on federal funding, public-private partnerships, and broadband data. It also coordinates with the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) and the Department of Regulatory Affairs (DORA), which house the state’s broadband grant programs, as well as with other state agencies engaged in broadband deployment, including the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). Pew’s report on How States Are Expanding Broadband Access provides a more detailed explanation of Colorado’s program.Several key elements have contributed to the progress being made by Colorado’s broadband initiatives. First, the state’s broadband grant programs provide funding for both middle and last mile infrastructure. According to the CBO’s executive director, the middle mile projects bring fiber as close as possible to communities, which are then able to form public-private partnerships to leverage this middle mile infrastructure for last mile projects—some of which are funded through a last mile grant program. Together, this work helps extend broadband service to rural and unserved communities.Like several other states highlighted in our report, Colorado has invested in planning to build the local capacity needed to then be able to apply for support for broadband infrastructure projects. These grants, funded through DOLA, provide support for the development of regional broadband strategies. The planning process has helped educate community leaders about the importance of broadband and develop local broadband champions capable of moving projects forward; combined with the infrastructure funding, the investment in planning has led to the development of multiple networks that meet local and regional needs, including the Region 10 middle mile network and Project THOR.Further, the state has continued to evaluate the impact of its broadband efforts and make recommendations for next steps. The CBO manages data and mapping, which helps the state assess its progress and—because DOLA and DORA grant recipients are required to provide geographic information system data on network operations for five years—helps ensure the accountability of public funds.Colorado also focuses on how future broadband needs should inform its policies and programs. In October 2020, an interagency working group published a report that found that “policies must be updated to support the actual bandwidth needs of Coloradans” and made recommendations to concentrate on technology solutions and policies to meet those needs.And, finally, although Colorado’s broadband initiatives are run through different agencies, the departments collaborate closely. The CBO leads a biweekly interagency meeting that helps ensure that DOLA, DORA, the Department of Transportation and other state agencies are aware of each other’s activities—creating opportunities for efficiencies and for troubleshooting any issues that arise.A suite of policies creates the framework that supports Colorado’s broadband program and goals, including the executive order that created the CBO and enabling legislation for the DORA grant program—as well as policies focused on expanding broadband access and ensuring the quality of those services, such as addressing barriers to broadband deployment by electric cooperatives and requiring DORA grantees to adhere to the principles of net neutrality.Other states are taking a similarly comprehensive approach, including steps to ensure that grants and loans support projects that meet connectivity needs over the long term. For example, states have set speed goals that exceed the FCC’s 25 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload standard for deployment, such as Minnesota’s goal of border-to-border residential access of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload by 2026, Washington’s goal of 150 Mbps symmetrical service by 2028, and Vermont’s goal of 100 Mbps symmetrical service by 2024.Like Colorado,Maine and North Carolina provide planning and technical assistance to aid communities in identifying local solutions. California and Virginia have provided grants for middle mile infrastructure to help decrease the cost of deploying last mile service to homes and businesses, in addition to grants targeted toward building last mile infrastructure. And Tennessee and Minnesota have technology neutral grant programs that can provide funding to any technology that delivers internet service at broadband speeds, and either encourage or require that grant-funded networks are built in such a way that they can be upgraded to significantly higher speeds.As all levels of government work to address gaps in broadband access, policymakers can learn from states about effective strategies to expand high-speed internet. These efforts are built on multiple, mutually reinforcing activities that address components of what makes broadband deployment so difficult—from setting goals that look to future needs, to building expertise at the local level, to funding support to reduce the cost of infrastructure deployment. Through these efforts, states are making meaningful progress in ensuring that their citizens have access to reliable, high-speed internet access.Anna Read is an officer with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ broadband research initiative.

I still am perplexed at why so many politicians hate Section 230. They've yet to provide any compelling reason at all. But, hate it, they do. Lindsey Graham, who has been at the forefront of senators wrongly attacking Section 230, has now decided to introduce yet another bill to attack Section 230. This comes just days after Graham tried to move forward on one of his many anti-230 bills, the Frankenstein's monster bill called the Online Content Policy Modernization Act, that simply grafted together two bad bills: the dangerous and unconstitutional copyright CASE Act with the Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act, that would basically force websites to host any hate speech.The hearing was yet another of Lindsey Graham's flying circuses, with lots of grandstanding and misleading nonsense about 230, but after (as everyone knew going in) there wasn't enough agreement on just how to destroy Section 230, Graham withdrew the bill entirely:This was all for show. He knew he was going to withdraw it, but wanted to get some extra attention and air time before he did.And, apparently, he's decided that attacking Section 230 is good for business, so now he's back yet again with a new bill, which is basically a ticking time bomb for Section 230. If it became law, the bill would create a sunset for 230, saying that it goes away if there's no reform of the law by January 1, 2023.Almost everything Graham says in his announcement about the bill is wrong or misleading. It's pretty stunning in just how wrong it is.

Internet Of Things (IOT) is set to impact every modern industry, and proficiency in IOT technology opens an array of opportunities. With 7 courses, the IoT Skills Bundle will give you extensive insights on Raspberry Pi, Linux, Arduino programming, and basic knowledge about IoT systems such as its architectural elements, security, and more. You will also be taught how to create IoT ecosystems in which physical objects are connected and can be accessed through the internet. This bundle also offers numerous hands-on projects, exams, and quizzes to measure your progress. It's on sale for $30.Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Earlier this fall, Facebook was (not surprisingly) the first big internet company to cave and to tell Congress that it was open to Section 230 reform. I say not surprisingly, because it's done this before. Facebook was the company that caved in and supported FOSTA, which was the first major reform of 230. We heard from multiple people who said that Facebook recognized that it could weather the storm much better than its smaller competitors.Indeed, Facebook's executive team seems to have recognized that reforming 230 is a strong anti-competitive weapon. It weakens smaller competitors, making them ripe for buying out, and scares off investors from funding new upstarts. It still strikes me as incredible that the same people who are demanding we dismantle 230 are also calling for antitrust actions -- because those two things work in directly opposite ways. Undermining 230 will do serious harm to competition. But that's why Facebook is so eager to jump on board. The company already admits that it spends more than all of Twitter's revenue on content moderation. So, it's not really relying that much on 230 anyway.And, of course, it's advocacy for FOSTA has already paid off. After FOSTA passed, a number of dating sites shut down... just in time for Facebook to launch its own dating site.Of course, when Facebook caved on FOSTA, what happened was Congress announced that "tech" was on board -- pretending that Facebook's move suddenly meant every other internet company approved too (when the reality was that every other internet company was basically furious with Facebook).So, this puts many other internet companies in an impossible position: if they continue to completely fight changing Section 230 (as they should), then Facebook becomes the only voice in any reform "negotiations." And, seeing how Congress handled this last time, it likely means that Facebook gets to shape the "reform" in a way that helps Facebook and harms everyone else. But, Congress, of course, will pretend that Facebook's blessing means the rest of the internet agrees as well.The end result, then, is that smaller companies, which absolutely rely on Section 230, feel pressure to get into the negotiations as well. And that's why the NY Times now has a story saying that Snap, Reddit and TripAdvisor have told Congress they're willing to talk about reform options:

However spotty and uncompetitive U.S. broadband is, it's particularly bad when it comes to faster speeds. Why? Because in many areas regional telcos simply refused to upgrade their aging DSL lines since doing so wasn't profitable enough, quickly enough for Wall Street's liking. As a result we've literally let these networks fall apart with no regulatory attention. That, in turn, has given cable giants like Comcast massive monopolies that cover huge swaths of the U.S., resulting in spotty coverage, higher prices, slower speeds, and routinely poor customer service.Granted, the Ajit Pai and Trump FCC haven't been a big fan of data that accurately measures this problem. The agency has been caught time and time again leaning on data it knows isn't accurate to paint a rosy picture of U.S. broadband, which is designed to justify repeatedly kissing the ass of U.S. telecom monopolies.Last week, the agency was again caught aggressively overinflating the availability of gigabit-speed broadband in the U.S. According to the official FCC tallies, gigabit broadband speeds are available to roughly 84% of the U.S. public, up from just 4 percent in 2016. This, the FCC will be quick to tell you, is thanks to its decision to kill net neutrality and neuter its consumer protection authority over giant broadband providers.But when researchers at BroadbandNow did their own independent research to verify that data, they found that time and time again, the FCC's data was not just inaccurate, but immensely incorrect. Places the FCC claimed had gigabit broadband service consistently did not:

As was noted here earlier, up to 18,000 customers of globally-dominant network infrastructure vendor SolarWinds may have been compromised by malicious hackers. The hackers -- presumed to be operating on behalf of the Russian government -- deployed tainted updates (served up by SolarWinds) that gave them backdoors to snoop on internal communications and exfiltrate sensitive data.The attack was so widespread and potentially catastrophic, the DHS's cyber wing issued an emergency directive that stated the only way to mitigate damage was to airgap devices and uninstall affected Orion software. Meanwhile, SolarWinds filed an update with the SEC detailing the extent of the damage. It was limited, but only if you consider 18-33,000 potential infections "limited." It's only a small percentage because Solarwinds's customer base is so large. The company boasts 300,000 customers, among them several government agencies and all five branches of the military. (It's not boasting much these days. It has memory-holed its "Customer" page during this trying time.)Unfortunately, the directive from CISA was delivered a bit too late. CISA itself was compromised by the hack, something acknowledged by the DHS less than 24 hours after its dire directive was issued.The fallout from this hacking -- which may have begun as early as March of this year -- will continue for a long, long time. But this latest news -- delivered by Zack Whittaker -- adds another layer of irony to the ongoing debacle. Orion is Solarwinds' one-stop shop for IT software. It promises to secure customers' IT infrastructure by bundling in the company's network security products.No doubt the company claims to take security seriously. But while users are being subjected to password requirements that demand them to utilize most of the alphabet and multiple shift key presses, internal security isn't nearly as restrictive. Here's the "OMFG are you goddamn kidding me" news via Reuters, which first broke the news of the malicious hacking.

We cover a great many ridiculous and infuriating trademark disputes here, but it's always the disputes around overly broad terms that never should have been trademarked to begin with that are the most frustrating. And that most irritating of those is when we get into geographic terms that never should be locked up by any single company or entity. Examples in the past have included companies fighting over who gets to use the name of their home city of "Detroit", or when grocer Iceland Foods got so aggressive in its own trademark enforcement that the -- checks notes -- nation of Iceland had to seek to revoke the company's EU trademark registration.While it should be self-evident how antithetical to the purpose of trademark laws are to even approve of these kinds of marks, I will say that I didn't see it coming that a company at some point would attempt to play trademark bully over the "planet."

In 2018, we wrote about a law professor named Adam Candeub, who was one of the lawyers for white supremacist Jared Taylor, suing Twitter in a doomed lawsuit for kicking him off its platform. I had a confusing email exchange with Candeub which I wrote about in that piece, which suggested that he was either unaware of Section 230 at the time he filed the lawsuit, or simply confused about the long list of decisions around 230 that made the lawsuit an obvious loser (which is what happened). Candeub and his co-counsel were very angry about my article, and insisted that their alternative interpretation of Section 230 would win the day.Since being proven wrong, Candeub has spent a tremendous amount of energy trying to twist and torture Section 230 interpretations into his own belief of what they should be. Back in May, Candeub was hired by the Trump administration to be deputy assistant secretary, where he helped guide Trump's ridiculolus executive order on 230 a few weeks later. It recently came out that he, and new FCC commissioner Nathan Simington, abused their government jobs to try to get Fox News to attack Section 230, telling a producer of Fox News host Laura Ingraham's show that doing so may help get Trump and down-ballot Republicans elected in the fall.In normal times, federal government officials are supposed to represent everyone, and not just their own political party. They are not supposed to engage in campaigning or electioneering on the public's dime, and they certainly aren't supposed to be working with the press to help elect their own party. Yet, that's exactly what Candeub and Simington did. In response, Simington got his FCC commissionership (despite basically no relevant telecom law experience) and Candeub... has now been promoted to a senior level Justice Department job:

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »In a couple weeks, the public domain in the US will expand for the third year in a row, as works published in 1925 finally run out of copyright protection — and just like we have for the past two years, we're celebrating and showing off the benefits of a robust public domain with a game jam: Gaming Like It's 1925.We're inviting everyone to try their hand at using newly public domain material from 1925 to create a digital or analog game this January. Whether you're an experienced game designer or just someone trying their hand at it, the public domain is an excellent source of all kinds of game material from story inspiration to art and music assets, so sign up for the jam at itch.io. The jam page has full details on the rules, links to some lists of material entering the public domain, and information on easy game-building tools that can help newbies and veterans alike with the challenge of creating a game in a month.As usual, we'll be awarding prizes in six categories (the winners of the last jam are linked below, and you can read our judges' thoughts on them here):

The Chinese government's war against its own citizens continues. The repression and persecution of China's Uighur population has been well-documented. The Chinese government is fighting a surveillance war on multiple fronts, beginning with its own citizens, who must maintain a positive "citizen score" to live life without too much government harassment. Its attempt to hold Hong Kong to the same oppressive standard has been met with significant resistance. But, in the end, China will consummate its takeover of Hong Kong with a removal of its independence.Uighur Muslims have been the focus of the government's unmitigated wrath for years. China wants these residents either locked up or living in another country entirely. And it's pressuring tech companies to assist in their oppression. Far too many have complied. Documents seen by the Washington Post show Huawei has decided to be the Chinese government's posse, helping the government locate and target Uighur residents.

Welp. Everything is compromised. Again.Reuters was the first to report suspected Russian hackers had gained access to hundreds of SolarWinds customers, including US government agencies.

The Ultimate 2021 Web Developer And Designer Super Bundle has 14 courses to help you master coding fundamentals and kickstart your career in web development. You'll learn about JavaScript, CSS, HTML5, and more. Courses also cover the basics of how websites work, how to build responsive sites, and how to build simple games among other topics. It's on sale for $35.Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

On Monday, the FTC announced that it was issuing what's known as 6(b) orders to nine social media and video streaming companies, demanding a fairly massive amount of information regarding their data collection and usage policies, as well as their advertising practices. To me, this is a huge missed opportunity. If the FTC is truly trying to gain a better understanding of data collection, privacy, and advertising practices, perhaps to better inform Congress on how to, say, pass a truly comprehensive (and useful?!?) privacy legislation, then there are ways to do that. But this... is not that. This looks like a weird fishing expedition for a ton of unrelated information, from an odd selection of nine companies, many of whom are in a very different business than the others. It leaves me quite perplexed.First, let's look at the odd selection of companies. The letters are going to:

For a country that likes to talk about "being number one" a lot, that's sure not reflected in the United States' broadband networks, or the broadband maps we use to determine which areas lack adequate broadband or competition (resulting in high prices and poor service). While the U.S. government doesn't genuinely know who has broadband and who doesn't (in part thanks to telecom lobbyists who have fought more accurate mapping to obfuscate monopolization) the best estimates we do have aren't pretty.An estimated 42 million Americans (double FCC claims) still don't have any broadband whatsoever, despite 30 years of industry subsidization. Another 83 million Americans live under a broadband monopoly, usually Comcast. Tens of millions more Americans live under a duopoly where their only choice is again either Comcast, or some regional phone company that can't be bothered to upgrade its aging DSL lines because it's not profitable enough, quickly enough for Wall Street's liking.Enter Space X's Starlink, which is promising to cover the night sky in a constellation of low orbit satellites capable of delivering fairly decent broadband, pretty much anywhere. Early beta impressions have been promising, delivering speeds upwards of 100 Mbps for $100 per month (plus a $500 up front hardware fee). It's very promising tech, if you ignore the night sky pollution the technology creates (which Musk promised wouldn't occur) that's hampering scientists and researchers.It's promising enough that the FCC this week doled out $886 million in subsidies from the agency's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), to deliver broadband to 642,925 rural homes and businesses in 35 states. It's part of a total $9.2 billion in new funding being thrown at an industry that doesn't have a particularly good track record on actually spending this kind of money responsibly. It's not entirely clear why Musk's wealthy business empire needed the extra taxpayer help, or what Starlink exactly intends to do with the money (since it didn't want to tell the press):

Long-time Techdirt readers may recall that the "Derby Pie", a notable dessert sold in Kentucky chiefly around the time of The Kentucky Derby, has been the previous subject of trademark issues. Way back in 2013, the EFF posted a special recipe for its "mean-spirited censorship pie" after Kern's Kitchen, headed by Alan Rupp, went on a threat blitz against a bunch of blogs for posting their own recipes for "derby pie". Rupp has a trademark on the term, see, and seems to think that trademark means that he is in universal control of anyone using it for their own recipes, regardless of whether those recipe posts cause any customer confusion, are used in actual commerce, or generally violate the other aspects of trademark protection statutes. He's wrong about that, of course, but his threats are often met with shivering compliance.But Rupp took this to a whole new level when he filed a trademark suit in 2018 against the Louisville Courier-Journal, a newspaper, for both posting its own Derby Pie recipe and for mentioning that other bakeries had derby pie products. The court promptly dismissed the lawsuit.

One of President Trump's main goals while in office was to roll back anything his predecessor had put in place. One of his earliest executive orders removed the (minimal) restrictions Barack Obama had placed on the Defense Department's 1033 program. This program allowed local law enforcement agencies to acquire military gear at almost zero cost -- something that had been used and abused for years until the sight of an armored vehicle rolling up on protesters in Ferguson, Missouri proved to be a bit too much for Americans and their Congressional representatives.Trump's reopening of the 1033 program was based on a couple of factors: his all-encompassing love of all things law enforcement and some dubious research that claimed giving cops access to war gear actually reduced crime.That was the point made by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions ahead of the rollback.

How much do consumers pay for internet service in the United States? The question might seem relatively simple, but the answer has stymied the federal government for years—because no agency collects this data. Throughout 2020, my organization, New America’s Open Technology Institute, published the Cost of Connectivity series to crack open the black box of internet pricing. The collective takeaway of these studies is clear: the cost of internet service is alarmingly high, and there is substantial evidence of an affordability crisis in the United States.Our research found that U.S. consumers pay some of the highest broadband prices in the world, at an average $68.38 per month. Most of these plans advertise a temporary promotional rate, after which the monthly cost jumps an additional $22.25, on average. Of the 760 plans we surveyed across Europe, Asia, and North America, U.S. plans are the most expensive. Prices are particularly high in rural and Tribal communities. Unfortunately, these higher prices don’t appear to give U.S. consumers faster speeds than consumers abroad.Moreover, we found that internet pricing typically includes a byzantine maze of ancillary fees and hidden costs. The fees for equipment rentals, data overages, and contract terminations can be substantial. For example, modem rental fees can add an additional 75 percent to the total cost of monthly internet service in the United States, compared to just 30 percent abroad. Consumers struggle to navigate this maze and determine their total cost of service.But it’s not all bad news: we found evidence of cheaper, faster service in a handful of U.S. cities that offer municipal networks. The most affordable U.S. city in our survey is Ammon, Idaho, a city with a locally-owned open access network. Ammon offers dozens of inexpensive, high-speed plans, including several for less than $10 per month. What’s more, if consumers find a better deal, they can switch providers within seconds using the city’s website—no equipment changes or lengthy customer service appointments required.Unfortunately, this kind of affordable, customer-friendly internet service is rare in the United States. The reasons for this dynamic are multifaceted, including a lack of competition, a lack of transparency, and years of policy failures at all levels of government. Today, U.S. internet service is dominated by just four companies—Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Charter—and they’ve carved up the market so that most Americans have, at best, one or two providers serving their home. This lack of choice negatively affects the quality and cost of internet service.Broadband has become even more unaffordable during the COVID-19 pandemic, as millions of people struggle to pay for basic necessities amid widespread job and income losses. It’s clear that the federal government needs to take action to make internet service more affordable, both during the pandemic and beyond. There are many steps that Congress and the Federal Communications Commission should take, including, but not limited to:

Back in May, you may recall, Donald Trump issued his silly executive order on Section 230 in response to Twitter adding a couple fact checks to blatant conspiracy theory nonsense that Trump was posting. A week later, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) sued over the executive order, arguing that it was unconstitutional, and clearly retaliatory against Twitter.When CDT filed the lawsuit I noted that the big question would be whether or not CDT could show standing in order to challenge the order, as it would be harder to prove that it impacted CDT directly. CDT argued that because the executive order would divert its attention and resources away from other, more important, fights regarding free speech online and government surveillance, it injured the organization.On Friday, a judge agreed with my initial gut reaction and said that CDT failed to show standing. Basically, since the order only directed the government to do a bunch of stupid things, it didn't really impact CDT.

The Complete MATLAB Programming Bundle has 7 courses to help you get started with MATLAB. MATLAB is a leading software in numerical computing and building algorithms that are widely used by engineers, programmers, researchers, teachers, colleges, and entrepreneurs. You'll begin by using it in some elementary mathematics problems, move on to produce 2D and 3D graphs, and build your own algorithms. You'll learn how to simulate power electronic circuits, solar energy systems, synchronous generators, and more. It's on sale for $35.Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Another day, another op-ed that totally misrepresents Section 230. This one comes from USA Today, and is written by faux-conservative Rachel Bovard, who is doing this on purpose. Sometimes we see op-eds where it's clear the author is unfamiliar with how Section 230 works. Other times they are deliberately misrepresenting it. Bovard is in the latter category. She works for an organization, with dark money funding, that pretends to be for "transparency" about the tech industry -- which is hilarious since that organization's own funding is kept secret. The only known funding for that organization comes from Oracle, a company that has made it clear it wants to do away with Section 230 (despite the fact that it wants people to use its cloud services). Bovard has had many, many experts in Section 230 explain to her why she's misrepresenting the law. And she has never once changed her arguments, nor admitted to being wrong. She just keeps repeating the bullshit.I get it. That's her job. Everybody's gotta make a buck, and apparently this is the best she can do. However, why is USA Today sullying its own reputation by allowing her to misrepresent the law on its pages? Let's go through some of the misrepresentations.

The FCC last week held a reverse auction to dole out $9 billion to, purportedly, improve patchy U.S. broadband. But consumer groups say the auction did nothing of the sort, instead delivering $9 billion to a dodgy roster of companies with existing histories of fraud that will be using much of the funds to expand broadband to affluent areas where broadband is often already available.The reverse auction involved doling out billions from the FCC's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), paid into via Universal Service Fund (USF) contributions affixed to your broadband and phone bills. To be very clear: some of this money will absolutely help shore up access in underserved communities. But after digging into the FCC maps of the winning bidders, consumer groups like Free Press say something ugly is afoot. The group found a long list of examples where companies got millions of dollars to dole out broadband to a handful of wealthy homes in affluent areas, many of which already have service:There are plenty of examples of this in the data. Like this affluent section of LA:Or here at LAX, where a company is getting ratepayer money to deploy broadband to a whopping two already-served locations near the airport:Ajit Pai and friends are, you'll recall, the same folks who like to hyperventilate over community broadband as an inevitable taxpayer boondoggle (it isn't, but that doesn't stop them). There's an absolute ocean of telecom-linked consultants, lobbyists, policy wonks, academics, and think tankers who'll be happy to go on at great lengths about how localized community broadband networks are some kind of socialistic hellscape of taxpayer fraud. But bring up how we throw way, way more money at AT&T in exchange for reduced investments, empty promises, and layoffs and...crickets.Enter this new auction data, which indicates your money is being thrown at ISPs that already have long histories of dodgy behavior and being misleading about how subsidies are spent. That includes Frontier Communications, which has faced repeated accusations of subsidy fraud in places like West Virginia. And Charter Communications (Spectrum), which almost got kicked out of New York State recently for repeatedly lying to regulators about broadband deployment efforts. These are companies with pretty long histories of extremely dodgy behavior, being given millions to do something they've already failed to do, repeatedly.Of course there are some new players getting money for dubious reasons too. Like Starlink, which is owned by one of the wealthiest men in the history of the planet, getting a billion dollars so it can deploy broadband to, according to the FCC's own logic and data, parking lots near the Pentagon:Why does one of the wealthiest men in America need ratepayer subsidization to deploy broadband to areas his project was already targeted to serve? Good question! The company wouldn't respond to reporter inquiries asking why the money was needed or what it plans to do with it, which is always a good sign.There's a good early breakdown of the results and how this auction was supposed to work by Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self Reliance. Telecom consultant Doug Dawson also does a good job breaking down what went wrong, noting that because the FCC let fixed wireless providers pretend fixed wireless is the equivalent of fiber (it's most certainly not), a lot of genuine fiber expansion efforts got the short end of the stick:

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment on our post about Florida State Police raiding the home of COVID whistleblower Rebekah Jones:

Five Years AgoThis week in 2015, the confluence of the Paris attack, the San Bernardino attack, and the rise of ISIS created a perfect storm for the anti-encryption, pro-surveillance crowd. President Obama was hinting at asking Silicon Valley to magically block terrorists from using tech products, while Hillary Clinton was doubling down on her attacks on the tech industry and mocking free speech online in the exact same way Donald Trump was — while Mitch McConnell was promising to offer up whatever bill the president wanted to ban encryption, Dianne Feinstein was bringing back a bill that would force internet providers to report on "suspicious" behavior by customers and teaming up with James Comey to mislead people about encryption, and Michael McCaul was proposing a commission to "force" encryption backdoors. Even a former FCC commissioner was getting in the game, idiotically claiming that net neutrality helps ISIS. In France, law enforcement released a "wish list" of draconian measures including banning open WiFi, which got at least a tiny bit of pushback from the Prime Minister — while Spain brought in a new law allowing widespread surveillance, and Kazakhstan was breaking the internet with an all-out war on encryption.Ten Years AgoToday there's a lot of controversy around Visa and MasterCard blocking Pornhub, but this same week in 2010 the exact same conversation was going on around Wikileaks. The week kicked off with PayPal cutting off payments, a Swiss bank found a technicality that allowed it to freeze the site's bank account, then Mastercard blocked any payment systems that work with Wikileaks, and were soon joined by Visa (I wonder if that had anything to do with its most recent leak). But attempts to kill Wikileaks were just contributing to its spread, and the government was contradicting itself in its panicked attempts to internally block the site, or just doing really dumb things like blocking any site with Wikileaks in the title, and making extremely silly requests like the State Department asking Wikileaks to "return" the leaked cables (ironically around the same time it was hosting World Press Freedom Day).Fifteen Years AgoThis week in 2005, big telcos were doing their usual thing and freaking out about competition, even going so far as to punish New Orleans for offering free wifi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, or just completely contradicting themselves on fiber optic broadband, which they hate when municipalities try to offer it but which they are happy to sell themselves. Sony's DRM woes were far from over, with yet another security vulnerability found in one of their products, as well as a vulnerability in the patch the company issued to fix it. The recording industry was showing it would never be happy no matter what Kazaa did, and really going hard on its new obsession — unauthorized song lyrics — by attacking an app that displays them and even calling for people who host them to be thrown in jail.

In November, as we were finally coming to the day when CD Projekt Red's newest opus, Cyberpunk 2077, was going to be released to the world, we wrote about how the developer had included a setting for the game specifically to keep streamers safe from copyright strikes. Essentially, the setting was meant to strip out all licensed music from the game and replace it with music that wouldn't land streamers in copyright jail while doing let's-plays. On the one hand, it was nice to see a developer so in favor of having its games streamed do this sort of thing. On the other hand, the fact that CD Projekt Red had to do so showed both what a failure Amazon/Twitch and the like have been at supporting their streamers through music licensing deals and, more importantly, what a hellscape copyright enforcement has become that all of this was even necessary.Well, as it turns out, that hellscape is so complete that even the game's stream-safe setting failed to keep streamers safe.

Summary:Since its inception, Facebook has attempted to be more "family-friendly" than other social media services. Its hardline stance on nudity, however, has often proved problematic, as its AI (and its human moderators) have flagged accounts for harmless images and/or failed to consider context when removing images or locking accounts.The latest example of Facebook's AI failing to properly moderate nudity involves garden vegetables. A seed business in Newfoundland, Canada was notified its image of onions had been removed for violating the terms of service. Its picture of onions apparently set off the auto-moderation, which flagged the image for containing "products with overtly sexual positioning." A follow-up message noted the picture of a handful of onions in a wicker basket was "sexually suggestive."Facebook's nudity policy has been inconsistent since its inception. Male breasts are treated differently than female breasts, resulting in some questionable decisions by the platform. Its policy has also caused problems for definitively non-sexual content, like photos and other content posted by breastfeeding groups and breast cancer awareness videos. In this case, the round shape and flesh tones of the onions appear to have tricked the AI into thinking garden vegetables were overtly sexual content, showing the AI still has a lot to learn about human anatomy and sexual positioning.Decisions to be made by Facebook:

Each time you visit a website, your browser interacts with a domain name system (DNS) resolver that converts web addresses to an IP address understood by the machines along your path. Historically however this traffic exchange isn't encrypted, making it possible for your broadband provider or another third party to monitor your browsing data based on your DNS queries. DNS inventors in the 80s didn't really bet on a future where all DNS queries would be tracked, monetized, or weaponized by third parties.Experts for a while have been arguing (including here at the Techdirt Greenhouse policy project) that it's important that we start encrypting these pathways to bring a little more security and privacy to the equation. Companies like Mozilla have been at the forefront of implementing "DNS over HTTPS," a significant security upgrade to DNS that encrypts and obscures your domain requests, making it more difficult (though not impossible) to see which websites a user is visiting. Recently, even Comcast (a company that's no stranger to monetizing your online habits) joined Mozilla's efforts to take the idea mainstream.But even DNS over HTTPS (DoH) doesn't fully thwart DNS resolvers from seeing your browsing activity. Enter a new joint effort from Cloudflare and Apple, who say they have joined forces to back a new internet protocol dubbed ODOH, based in turn on existing research out of Princeton (pdf). Cloudflare explains how it works this way:

Each time you visit a website, your browser interacts with a domain name system (DNS) resolver that converts web addresses to an IP address understood by the machines along your path. Historically however this traffic exchange isn't encrypted, making it possible for your broadband provider or another third party to monitor your browsing data based on your DNS queries. DNS inventors in the 80s didn't really bet on a future where all DNS queries would be tracked, monetized, or weaponized by third parties.Experts for a while have been arguing (including here at the Techdirt Greenhouse policy project) that it's important that we start encrypting these pathways to bring a little more security and privacy to the equation. Companies like Mozilla have been at the forefront of implementing "DNS over HTTPS," a significant security upgrade to DNS that encrypts and obscures your domain requests, making it more difficult (though not impossible) to see which websites a user is visiting. Recently, even Comcast (a company that's no stranger to monetizing your online habits) joined Mozilla's efforts to take the idea mainstream.But even DNS over HTTPS (DoH) doesn't fully thwart DNS resolvers from seeing your browsing activity. Enter a new joint effort from Cloudflare and Apple, who say they have joined forces to back a new internet protocol dubbed ODOH, based in turn on existing research out of Princeton (pdf). Cloudflare explains how it works this way:

25 years ago, then NTIA Administrator Larry Irving warned that the rising importance of the internet had the downside of creating what he coined a “digital divide."15 years later, the National Broadband Plan reported that as “more aspects of daily life move online and offline alternatives disappear, the range of choices available to people without broadband narrows. Digital exclusion compounds inequities for historically marginalized groups.” In light of these trends, the plan warned “the cost of digital exclusion is large and growing.”Judging by the limited government response to those described dangers, both warnings arguably were ahead of their times. In those eras, many viewed internet access as a luxury and saw many other needs as higher priorities for government funds.That changed this past spring. COVID accelerated the momentum of the economy and society towards "remote everything," revealing that the divide was more costly and urgent than the country had realized. This then launched countless editorials from a wide spectrum of political views, that called for government action to get networks everywhere, get everyone on them, and use them to improve the delivery of essential public goods like education, health care and job training.That is progress but it is still far from an achievement.To get networks everywhere, we first need accurate data, something that on a bipartisan basis Congress recognized the FCC has not collected. We also need the FCC to revisit two issues: what now constitutes being unserved, and the minimum standards for any government subsidized deployment. While many have offered their instinctual views on the answers to both, COVID created a real world experiment for high-bandwidth use cases that we should use to illuminate how we answer those questions for a remote everything economy and society.Once we have a better map and understanding broadband need, Congress should provide funding, at a minimum, to pay for the capital expense of building out networks where no further operating expenses are necessary. Those funds should be allocated in ways that use market forces to assure the public funds are efficiently distributed.That is not always true today. For example, recently the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utility Service (RUS) awarded Beehive Telephone Company Inc. a $2.3 million ReConnect grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network to four residents, four farms, and four businesses in Washington County, Utah. It also doled out a $2.7 million grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network to connect 147 people in Elko County, Nevada. These average out to be more than $33,000 per home passed.That compares rather unfavorably to the FCC’s recent Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) reverse auction which averaged about $1,770 per home passed. There are concerns about that auction, particularly as other such auctions have experienced a number of defaults owing to technological, economic or competitive factors. Further, the mapping failure likely led to millions spent on unnecessary subsidies. Still, the auction demonstrates that if we had good maps and devoted the appropriate resources, we can finish the job of getting networks everywhere.Helping everyone connect is tougher and statistically more important. After all, three times as many Americans have access to networks but have not adopted service as those who simply have no available networks. Yet we devote far more to the availability gap than we do the adoption gap. in 2019 the ratio was greater than five to one—even though the cost to America of an individual not adopting is similar to the cost of an individual not having access.To get everyone on, we have to address two critical issues: digital readiness and affordability. For digital readiness, we need a more focused effort at the local, state and federal level, for developing, testing and improving such efforts for targeted communities of non-adopters.Affordability, however, is the most significant factor. Affordability can mean two things. First, it can mean the price of an average service. Second, it can mean the entry level price for a baseline service. Policy needs to explore both; if we are looking at the challenge of affordability for the currently unconnected, we have to prioritize addressing the second.The current program for addressing that affordability is called Lifeline. It is inadequate in many respects, most obviously in the subsidy it offers, of $9.25 a month. It also is distributed poorly, with only 7 million of the 38 million eligible homes taking the benefit. But if the FCC increased both the subsidy and the number of recipients, it would blow up the current funding mechanism, which is based on an assessment on certain phone services that is already at 30%.Further, even if the monthly subsidy could be increased, it would not necessarily lead to broadband where we need it. We should approach Lifeline reform by recognizing that certain public goods are enhanced with greater broadband in homes. We all benefit when all school children have to tools to do their homework and engage in other online learning in their homes. We also benefit when all can take advantage of telehealth in the home, both improving community health and lowering costs for the overall system. We all benefit when the unemployed are not cut off from on-line training or the tools to search, apply and interview for new jobs, diminishing the time they are unemployed.The current Lifeline program does little to capture these benefits as in practice it is an important but limited mobile service. Simply increasing the subsidy and distribution mechanisms would not capture the benefits of home use.We need to continue to improve efforts to connect all to voice services, but we also need to capture the public benefits of in home broadband. As to the benefits for school children, Congress to step up, as it did with the school lunch program and other federal support for schools serving low income students, ensuring that they have a baseline access to educational opportunities outside the classroom, which are overwhelming online. We also need to examine how the health and unemployment insurance programs can assist in getting such persons connected. Such programs can provide both efficient distribution mechanisms and use savings to the program to help offset the costs of a broadband benefit.Some might argue that the FCC should use its authority to assess charges on other parts of the communications networks so as to fund in-home broadband needs itself. While that might make some theoretical sense, there are multiple problems.First, as the recent legal battles on classifying carriers under Title I or II of the Communications Act have shown, any FCC assessment that is used to subsidize broadband has significant legal vulnerabilities until the classification controversy is resolved. Second, even if the courts were to uphold a Title II classification—the most favorable outcome for expanding FCC authority for increased assessments—the revenue base may still be too limited and charges on it tend to be regressive. Third, the issue is fraught with political difficulties, which is why, a decade after the National Broadband Plan called for reform, every FCC Chair has chosen to let his successor face the consequences of the unsustainable trends.In short, counting on FCC action to reform the current system would likely delay closing the availability and adoption gaps for many years.Finally, there is a utilization gap; the gap between how our communications networks are used today and how they could be used to improve outcomes in delivering essential services.Yes, we need all students online to be able to continue learning outside the classroom, but we also need for tools that provide teachers the support they need to enable students to maximize the effectiveness of digital content. Yes, we need low income persons to be able to access telehealth, but we also need to improve how we use digital technologies to target and treat diseases that disproportionately afflict low-income communities. Yes, we need the unemployed to stay connected while searching for a job but we also need to us AI and other technologies to improve how we empower people to upgrade their skills for the jobs of the future. And we need to upgrade government services so that all can access critical information and assistance on a 24/7/365 basis.There is no silver bullet for closing any of the three gaps. All three require multiple actions by multiple government institutions across different jurisdictions. By my rough and preliminary estimate, there are over 100 federal government actions that would useful in addressing one of the key questions for government in the next decade: how can we use the tools of the information society to create a more equitable and inclusive economy and society?But it is also one area where there is a distinct possibility of a bipartisan effort to make progress. When I discuss these issues with Republican friends, I always ask if they think the country would be better off if there were broadband networks everywhere, if everyone who wanted to be was on, and if we used the networks to improve how we deliver health care, education and job training. The answer is always yes, something that was not true prior to COVID. I then ask if they think market forces alone will achieve those goals. The answer is always no. While we may disagree on specific policies—and while compromises will likely result in policies all sides view as sub-optimal—those answers set the stage for productive conversations and policies considerably better than we have today.In contrast with the attitudes of decades past, COVID has created a broad and deep understanding that costs of digital exclusion are too great for our economy and society to tolerate. Congress and the incoming Administration, aided by an FCC that hopefully will take its role as an expert agency seriously, to finally assure that there are networks everywhere, everyone can get on, and that we use them to improve how we deliver essential services.Blair Levin is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Policy Analyst for New Street Research, a global telecommunications and tech equity research firm. Previously he was Chief of Staff to the Chairman of the FCC, from 1993-1997, Executive Director of the effort that produced the 2010 United States National Broadband Plan, and he has consulted with a numerous cities, states and countries on broadband policy.

We're one step closer to free access to federal court documents. The House has passed the Open Courts Act of 2020, moving it on to the Senate, which will decide whether the bill lands on the president's desk.Yes, this sort of thing has happened before. And previous efforts have always died on their way to the Oval Office. But this one might be different. A growing collection of case law says the US Courts system has been overcharging users and illegally spending funds meant to improve the PACER system and, yes, lower the cost for users.This latest effort has a bit more momentum than its predecessors. And that seems to worrying the US Courts, which has fought back with dubious assertions and even more dubious budget estimates. The court system claims it will cost at least $2 billion over the next several years to overhaul PACER and provide free access to documents. Experts say it will cost far less.

Salesforce Admin Certification is for the Salesforce administrators to validate their knowledge of Salesforce applications, configuration, and management of Salesforce with additional capabilities. This bundle gives you a 3-hour course to help you prepare yourself for the actual certification exam. It also comes with 3 full-length mock exams. It's on sale for $20.Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.