Big Cable’s Plan to Lock Down Your Future

Portland Observer

There are two paths to choose from and two destinies for television viewers: one better, the other far worse. The path taken will have lasting political consequences.

One leads to a future where new technology offers millions of video channels streaming in and out of American homes via fast online networks. The other involves a handful of local cable monopolies controlling what programming is aired — and blocking anything that might loosen their grip on viewers.

One future looks like the people-powered Internet, where choice is boundless and the audience is in charge. The other is a throwback to cable television’s “gilded age,” where powerful gatekeepers picked what people watched, when they watched it, and how much they paid for the privilege.
One future spreads power over information to the many, while the other concentrates it back into the hands of the few.

According to a recent comScore survey, the number of people watching long-form videos via the Internet grew by 47 percent in just the last year. This trend is the driving force for online video services like Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon, companies that allow viewers to bypass Big Cable — with its costly bundles of channels — and go straight to the videos they want to see.

The rise of online video is causing fits among executives at cable giants like Comcast and Time Warner Cable. They aren’t about to abandon monthly subscriber rates and premium packages to indiscriminately move data for Internet-empowered users.

They’ve instituted “data caps” to stifle the budding population of people who’ve tossed their cable remotes in favor of a browser-based television experience. Caps make it expensive for anyone wishing to tear down the artificial divide that separates a television screen from an Internet monitor.

And the cable companies aren’t stopping there. They’ve rolled out plans to disadvantage the upstarts that are building these alternatives to cable. In March, Comcast announced that some videos viewed on its own Xfinity service wouldn’t count against its customers’ Internet data caps. If you’re accustomed to using popular movie and television streaming services like Netflix, however, you’re out of luck.
Cable companies are also implementing verification systems to ensure that only cable subscribers are able to access certain types of online programming. These schemes allow cable companies to favor their online content while penalizing people who prefer going elsewhere.

Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist

Public Intelligence

A flyer designed by the FBI and the Department of Justice to promote suspicious activity reporting in internet cafes lists basic tools used for online privacy as potential signs of terrorist activity. The document, part of a program called “Communities Against Terrorism”, lists the use of “anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address” as a sign that a person could be engaged in or supporting terrorist activity. The use of encryption is also listed as a suspicious activity along with steganography, the practice of using “software to hide encrypted data in digital photos” or other media. In fact, the flyer recommends that anyone “overly concerned about privacy” or attempting to “shield the screen from view of others” should be considered suspicious and potentially engaged in terrorist activities.

Logging into an account associated with a residential internet service provider (such as Comcast or AOL), an activity that could simply indicate that you are on a trip, is also considered a suspicious activity. Viewing any content related to “military tactics” including manuals or “revolutionary literature” is also considered a potential indicator of terrorist activity. This would mean that viewing a number of websites, including the one you are on right now, could be construed by a hapless employee as an highly suspicious activity potentially linking you to terrorism.

The “Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities” contained in the flyer are not to be construed alone as a sign of terrorist activity and the document notes that “just because someone’s speech, actions, beliefs, appearance, or way of life is different; it does not mean that he or she is suspicious.” However, many of the activities described in the document are basic practices of any individual concerned with security or privacy online. The use of PGP, VPNs, Tor or any of the many other technologies for anonymity and privacy online are directly targeted by the flyer, which is distributed to businesses in an effort to promote the reporting of these activities.

House GOP votes to overturn net neutrality

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives voted on Friday to reject Internet "neutrality" rules that were adopted last year to keep big Internet service providers from blocking certain traffic

House Republicans, in a 240-179 vote, pushed through a measure disapproving the Federal Communications Commission's rules. Tech and telecom giants such as Verizon Communications Inc and Microsoft Corp could be affected.

The outlook for further progress by the Republicans in rolling back the FCC's actions was uncertain, however.

While a similar measure has been offered in the Senate and has 39 co-sponsors, the White House said on Monday that President Barack Obama's advisers would recommend that he veto any such resolution.

The FCC's rules, approved in late December, banned Internet service providers from blocking traffic on their networks, while allowing providers -- such as Verizon, Comcast Corp and AT&T Inc -- to "reasonably" manage their networks and charge consumers based on usage.

Republicans argued in House debate that the FCC's rules needlessly impose government regulation on the Internet.

"The FCC has never had the authority to regulate the Internet," said Republican Representative Cliff Stearns.

House Republican Leader Eric Cantor called the House's vote "an important step to bring down the FCC's harmful and partisan plan to regulate the Internet."

Democrats argue that the FCC rules are needed to curb the growing market power of large service providers.

Disapproving the FCC rules "would give big phone and cable companies control over what websites Americans can visit, what applications they can run, and what devices they can use," said Democratic Representative Henry Waxman.

Democratic Representative Anna Eshoo called the Republican push against the FCC's rules "an ideological assault on a federal agency and its ability to provide basic consumer protections."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Monday dismissed challenges to the FCC rules that had been filed by Verizon and MetroPCS Communications Inc, ruling that the challenges were premature.

"In most parts of the country, companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast have a virtual monopoly over access to the Internet," Waxman said. "Without regulation, they can choke off innovation by charging for the right to communicate with their customers."

Olbermann Departs, as Media Consolidate Further

Informed Comment
Professor Juan Cole

People are blaming the abrupt departure of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC on that company’s merger with Comcast and Olbermann’s loss of the protection and patronage of Jeff Zucker, the former head of NBC programming. MSNBC says that the issue has nothing to do with Comcast.

It seems Olbermann is too extreme for US television. But Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, now they are mainstream. What universe could that proposition be true in? That of cranky old white billionaires. And television news is owned by them. Not by you.

Whether Comcast is the villain of the piece directly, things like the Comcast merger with MSNBC are responsible for there being very few voices on American television (and despite the proliferation of channels) like Olbermann’s. And for there being relatively little news on the “news” programs. Time Warner, General Electric and Comcast (partners in NBC), Viacom, Disney, and Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp own almost all television news. In other words, six big corporations determine what you will hear about the world if you get your news from television. There are fewer and fewer t.v. news outlets that do not belong to one of these six, a process called media consolidation.

For reasons of profit-seeking, when Disney acquired ABC, it looted the company’s news divisions. Profits are not to be had in hard news, but rather in tabloid news. It used to be that human interest stories would be ‘desert,’ but they have become the main meal.

Ironically,former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw was one of Olbermann’s biggest critics, afraid that the latter’s flamboyant and polarizing style would tarnish the reputation of regular NBC newsmen for objectivity.

What Brokaw seems not to have noticed is that NBC and MSNBC did, like most television news, a miserable job of covering the Iraq issue in 2002-2003–mainly buying White House propaganda. The powerful bias toward the point of view of the rich and powerful and well-connected in Washington demonstrated by all the major tv news outlets in 2002-2003 makes Olbermann look like a staid centrist.
Senator Al Franken, a former NBC employee, fulminated against the Comcast/ MSNBC merger:


But the FCC has passed it.

We’ll miss Keith. But it isn’t about him. It is about the ever-narrowing character of public comment in the US, about the few having most of everything. It is about media consolidation.

"Cable-ization of the open Internet": Comcast/NBCU deal approved

The Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice have blessed the mega-merger of Comcast and NBC-Universal. The combined company has agreed to a huge list of conditions, most of which will be made public later, that eroded much of the resistance among four FCC Commissioners. But the lone holdout, Commissioner Michael Copps, lived up to his unofficial title as the Grumpy Old Man of the FCC (and we mean that in the most complimentary way).

Copps' statement after the vote is stuffed with some truly inspired ranting. One bit in particular stands out:

The Comcast-NBCU joint venture opens the door to the cable-ization of the open Internet. The potential for walled gardens, toll booths, content prioritization, access fees to reach end users, and a stake in the heart of independent content production is now very real.

As for the future of America’s news and journalism, I see nothing in this deal to address the fundamental damage that has been inflicted by years of outrageous consolidation and newsroom cuts. Investigative journalism is not even a shell of its former self. All of this means it’s more difficult for citizens to hold the powerful accountable. It means thousands of stories go unwritten. It means we never hear about untold instances of business corruption, political graft and other chicanery; it also means we don’t hear enough about all the good things taking place in our country every day.

The slight tip of the hat that the applicants have made toward some very limited support of local media projects does not even begin to address the core of the problem. Given that this merger will make the joint venture a steward of the public’s airwaves as a broadcast licensee, I asked for a major commitment of its resources to beef up the news operation at NBC. That request was not taken seriously. Increasing the quantity of news by adding hours of programming is no substitute for improving the quality of news by devoting the necessary resources.

Make no mistake: what is at stake here is the infrastructure for our national conversation—the very lifeblood of American democracy. We should be moving in precisely the opposite direction of what this Commission approves today.

The size of the deal leaves mere mortals reaching for thesauri. The new company will control Comcast's US-leading cable network, 234 NBC affiliate stations, the Telemundo Spanish-language network, the NBC television network, TV production studios, the Universal movie studio, the Universal theme parks in LA and Florida, channels like MSNBC and CNBC, and a stake in Hulu. Comcast already controls its own empire of content, including TV channels like E! and G4, and it runs the Philadelphia Flyers NHL franchise and the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers.

As part of the deal, Comcast avoided requirements to open its network to other ISPs and cable operators at wholesale rates. It did, however, agree to a host of conditions that it would not use its programming or network as an anticompetitive bludgeon. In addition, Comcast/NBCU must provide its TV programming to online distributors who want it and cannot "exercise corporate control over or unreasonably withhold programming from Hulu."

Comcast is also prohibited from "unreasonably discriminating in the transmission of an online video distributor's lawful network traffic to a Comcast broadband customer." In addition, the company must continue to offer at least 12Mbps broadband service in areas where it has upgraded its network. Comcast is also required "to give other firms’ content equal treatment under any of its broadband offerings that involve caps, tiers, metering for consumption or other usage-based pricing."

The sheer number of specific conditions attached to the deal led the two Republican FCC Commissioners to issue a joint statement attacking the merger proceedings as an old-fashioned stick-up.

"The Commission’s approach to merger reviews has become excessively coercive and lengthy," they wrote. "This transaction is only the most recent example of several problematic FCC merger proceedings that have set a trend toward more lengthy and highly regulatory review processes that may discourage future transactions and job-creating investment."

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts called this "a proud and exciting day for Comcast,” and he expressed enthusiasm for the consumer benefits that will rain down upon a thirsty land.

“Our original vision for the combination remains intact so that consumers will benefit, and our competitors will be treated fairly," he said—the interests of "competitors" and "consumers" being the two chief things that massive cable networks have always been well-known for prioritizing.