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Old 24-01-18, 07:40 AM   #1
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - January 27th, ’18

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January 27th, 2018




Montana Becomes First State to Implement Net Neutrality after FCC Repeal
Harper Neidig

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) signed an executive order on Monday requiring internet service providers with state contracts to abide by net neutrality principles.

The order makes his state the first to push back on the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to repeal the open internet rules last month.

“There has been a lot of talk around the country about how to respond to the recent decision by the Federal Communications Commission to repeal net neutrality rules, which keep the internet free and open. It’s time to actually do something about it,” Bullock said in a statement.

“This is a simple step states can take to preserve and protect net neutrality. We can’t wait for folks in Washington DC to come to their senses and reinstate these rules.”

The order says that in order to receive a contract with the state government, internet service providers must not engage in blocking or throttling web content or create internet fast lanes. Those practices were all banned under the Obama-era 2015 net neutrality order.

The Republican FCC voted to dismantle those rules in December.

The FCC's repeal includes a ban on states implementing their own net neutrality rules, but Democratic-controlled legislatures around the country are eager to challenge that provision.

Democrats are fighting back by pushing for legislation in Congress that would wipe out the FCC vote, suing to overturn it and now by implementing laws at the state level. They argue the rules were an important check on the power of companies that control access to the internet, such as Comcast and Verizon.

But most Republicans, including FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, argue the rules were unnecessary and that existing laws are sufficient to preserve an open internet.

Bullock’s office said the executive order goes into effect immediately, but there will be a six-month grace period for companies to ensure that they’re in compliance.

The governor said on Monday that he is encouraging his counterparts and legislators in other states to follow suit, promising to personally email a copy of his order to any who ask for it.

“When the FCC repealed its net neutrality rules, it said consumers should choose,” Bullock said in his statement. “The State of Montana is one of the biggest consumers of internet services in our state. Today we’re making our choice clear: we want net neutrality.”
http://thehill.com/policy/technology...-following-fcc





New York Governor Signs Executive Order to Keep Net Neutrality Rules after the FCC’s Repeal
Colin Lecher

In an announcement today, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he has signed an executive order that would require internet service providers with state contracts to abide by net neutrality rules, even though the FCC recently voted to repeal those rules.

On Monday, Montana’s governor signed essentially the same order; both require service providers with contracts to abide by the widely agreed upon tenets of net neutrality: no blocking, throttling, or otherwise favoring content. But the more populous New York could now become a key battleground over net neutrality.

According to the order, any service provider receiving or renewing a contract after March 1st in New York will be required to sign an agreement saying they will adhere to net neutrality principles. Major companies, including Verizon and AT&T, have signed contracts with the state.

That, however, doesn’t mean the executive order will stand. When it passed its repeal of net neutrality rules late last year, the FCC specifically included a provision blocking states from passing their own rules. New York, like other states that attempt similar plans, will likely face a legal challenge.

On the federal level, meanwhile, a lawsuit from 22 attorneys general, led by New York, was filed earlier this month. The suit sets the stage for another protracted fight over the FCC’s decision.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/24/1...xecutive-order





San Jose Mayor Quits FCC Advisory Committee
David McCabe

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo resigned today from a panel that advises the Federal Communications Commission on broadband deployment, alleging that the committee is dealing internet service providers "a very favorable hand” of policy recommendations.

Why it matters: The Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee is a key element of Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s priority of making sure broadband internet reaches all Americans.

What he’s saying:

• "It has become abundantly clear that despite the good intentions of several participants, the industry-heavy makeup of BDAC will simply relegate the body to being a vehicle for advancing the interests of the telecommunications industry over those of the public,” said Liccardo, a Democrat, in his resignation letter.

• He told Axios that he thought that the committee’s draft recommendations were trying to “steamroll cities” in favor of industry access to infrastructure. He pointed to a draft model law that would give states power over permitting for wireless broadband infrastructure at the expense, Liccardo says, of cities’ interests.

• "It’s obvious that this body is going to deliver to the industry what the industry wants,” Liccardo said.

The details:

• Pai established the BDAC last year to develop recommendations for how the FCC could encourage broadband adoption.

• "I’ve long said that every American who wants to participate in the digital economy should be able to do so," Pai said at the start of a two-day meeting of the committee yesterday. "And the plain reality is that if you live in rural America, you are much less likely to have high-speed Internet access than if you live in a city. If you live in a low-income neighborhood, you are less likely to have high-speed Internet access than if you live in a wealthier area."

• Liccardo was the vice chair of a working group meant to develop model laws that municipalities could use spur broadband deployment.

In a statement, Pai said that the "Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee and its working groups have brought together 101 participants from a range of perspectives to recommend strategies to promote better, faster, and cheaper broadband. Bridging the digital divide continues to be my top priority, and I look forward to continuing to work with the BDAC and many others to remove regulatory barriers to broadband deployment and to extend digital opportunity to all Americans."

Don’t forget: It could be politically advantageous for a Democrat like Liccardo — who is running for re-election — to resign from the panel. Pai has become a more high-profile target from criticism from the left since the panel was formed last year. Liccardo said politics didn't play a role in his decision to resign.
https://www.axios.com/san-jose-mayor...92c1102df.html





New Bill Would Stop States from Banning Broadband Competition
Karl Bode

We've noted for years how state legislators are so corrupt, ISP lawyers and lobbyists have long been able to literally write awful state law protecting them from competition. There's more than 21 state laws across the country written by the likes of AT&T and Comcast that prevent towns and cities from building their own broadband networks, even if incumbent ISPs have failed to deploy adequate service. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

In many instances, these laws even ban towns and cities from striking public/private partnerships with companies like Google Fiber, often the only creative alternative available to them.

A new proposal by Representative Anna Eshoo would prohibit states from making their own decisions on local broadband infrastructure and how best to spend their money.

The Community Broadband Act (HR 4814) declares that no state may pass legislation that would "prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting any public provider from providing, to any person or any public or private entity, advanced telecommunications capability or any service that utilizes the advanced telecommunications capability provided by such provider."

In pushing the legislation, Eshoo cited a recent study highlighting how community-based ISPs traditionally offer dramatically cheaper service, as much as 50% less than private ISPs. That study found that community-run ISPs also tend to be far more forthcoming on pricing, and far less reliant on hidden fees used to jack up the advertised rate post sale.

"Broadband Internet is the most vital tool of the 21st Century economy," Eshoo said in a statement. "Unfortunately, millions of Americans are still acutely impacted by a complete lack of or an inferior broadband connection. The Community Broadband Act is an important step in bridging the digital divide and will help local governments enable connectivity, increase economic growth and create jobs."

Unfortunately, the bill has little hope of running a Congressional gauntlet where blind fealty to incumbent ISPs is the rule, not the exception. Eshoo and others have pushed this legislation several times in the past, only to have it stall in committee. Efforts at the FCC to stop states from rubber stamping these anti-competitive laws were also struck down by the courts. Like net neutrality, retaining the right to build your own broadband network without Comcast interference has broad, bipartisan support.

ISPs could of course nip these efforts in the bud by offering cheaper, faster broadband and better customer service, but thanks to government corruption they've traditionally found it much easier to buy protectionist state law instead. That's not likely to change until the public wakes up and begins voting out lawmakers whose fealty to AT&T, Verizon and Comcast routinely and repeatedly runs roughshod over public welfare.
https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/...etition-141088





More Than 750 American Communities Have Built Their Own Internet Networks

A new map shows that more communities than ever are building their own broadband networks to end big telecom's monopoly.
Karl Bode

More communities than ever are embracing building their own broadband networks as an alternative to the Comcast status quo.

According to a freshly updated map of community-owned networks, more than 750 communities across the United States have embraced operating their own broadband network, are served by local rural electric cooperatives, or have made at least some portion of a local fiber network publicly available. The map was created by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit that advocates for local economies.

These networks have sprung up across the nation as a direct reflection of the country’s growing frustration with sub-par broadband speeds, high prices, and poor customer service. They’ve also emerged despite the fact that ISP lobbyists have convinced more than 20 states to pass protectionist laws hampering local efforts to build such regional networks.

Many of these laws even bar communities from striking public/private partnerships with companies like Google Fiber, even in instances where no private ISP is willing to provide service.

"Municipal and cooperative networks were essential in driving electrification and we are seeing the same dynamic with the expansion of high-quality Internet access"

The Institute's latest update indicates that there’s now 55 municipal networks serving 108 communities with a publicly owned fiber-to-the-home internet network. 76 communities now offer access to a locally owned cable network reaching most or all of the community, and more than 258 communities are now served by a rural electric cooperative.

Many more communities could expand their local offerings according to the group’s data. 197 communities already have some publicly owned fiber service available to parts of the community, while more than 120 communities have publicly-owned dark (unused) fiber available for use by local residences and local area businesses.

The group’s map also highlights which states have erected legislative barriers to hamper these local efforts and explains what these laws actually do.

A recent study by Harvard University researchers indicated that community broadband networks tend to offer notably lower pricing than their private-sector counterparts. The study also found that community broadband network pricing tends to be more transparent and less intentionally confusing than offers from incumbent ISPs like Comcast or AT&T.

With the Trump administration’s recent assault on both net neutrality and broadband privacy protections, interest in local broadband as an alternative to incumbent providers has only grown.

"Evidence from other cities suggests that a real choice in broadband services could reduce Comcast's revenues by millions of dollars per month"

“What this update shows is that, despite federal hostility to community network solutions, more communities are investing than ever,” Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks initiative at the ILSR, said in a statement. “Municipal and cooperative networks were essential in driving electrification and we are seeing the same dynamic with the expansion of high-quality Internet access.”

Much like net neutrality, ISP lobbyists and policy folks have long-framed municipal broadband as a partisan debate in the hopes of derailing such efforts. But the group’s data shows that these networks are most frequently popping up in Conservative areas and have broad, bipartisan support. Our desire for better broadband, and our collective disdain for Comcast, tends to be one of the few things capable of bridging the partisan divide.

Incumbent ISPs have a long history of using dirty tricks to try and derail these efforts. In Illinois, regional cable and phone companies once funded push polls (polls intentionally designed to shape, not measure public opinion) informing locals that community broadband would help subsidize porn production, or result in government rationing of TV viewing.

As we recently saw in Fort Collins, Colorado, ISPs are frequently willing to spend plenty of money in attempts to malign and denigrate community broadband at every opportunity. They’ve long been afraid of this trend taking off and threatening the cash cow that is the overall lack of competition in countless markets nationwide.

"Evidence from other cities suggests that a real choice in broadband services could reduce Comcast's revenues by millions of dollars per month," the group stated in a policy brief late last year. "Competition in Fort Collins would cost Comcast between $5.4 million and $22.8 million per year. In Seattle, robust competition would cost between $20 million and $84 million per year."

ISPs eager to nip these efforts in the bud could offer better, cheaper broadband. Instead, they’ve chose to spend that money lobbying for state laws prohibiting your town or city from even exploring the option.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...-broadband-map





AT&T’s ‘Internet Bill of Rights’ Idea is Just a Power Play Against Google and Facebook
Devin Coldewey

AT&T has placed a few full-page ads explaining that it is pro-net neutrality, it has always been pro-net neutrality and that Congress once and for all should enshrine net neutrality principles in law.

No, it’s not opposite day. This is a clever play by AT&T aimed not at protecting users, but kneecapping edge providers like Facebook and Google. It’s like the fox calling for a henhouse bill of rights.

First, the idea that AT&T is in favor of net neutrality — the net neutrality we all had and enjoyed — is laughable.

The company fought tooth and nail against the 2015 rules while they were being prepared, fought them while they were in force and fought for their rollback and replacement with the new, weaker ones. It fought against municipal broadband, pushed the limits of what constitutes a violation of net neutrality and, of course, the blockage of FaceTime on its network is one of the textbook cases of why we need it in the first place.

Gigi Sohn, once former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s counselor, isn’t having it. “They’ve done everything in their power to undermine consumer protections, competition, municipal broadband… it’s hypocrisy to the tenth degree,” she told me.

But let’s just hear what AT&T has to say.

“Courts have overturned regulatory decisions. Regulators have reversed their predecessors… it’s understandably confusing and a bit concerning when you hear the rules have recently changed, yet again,” writes chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson, who fails to mention that his company has been deeply involved in those changes, spending lavishly on lawyers, lobbyists and the elections of officials friendly to the company.

“AT&T is committed to an open internet. We don’t block websites. We don’t censor online content. And we don’t throttle, discriminate, or degrade network performance based on content,” he continues. “Period.”

In fact, an FCC report issued early last year (just before inauguration day) concluded that “AT&T offers Sponsored Data to third-party content providers at terms and conditions that are effectively less favorable than those it offers to its affiliate, DirecTV.” And of course there’s the FaceTime thing. And the fact that paid prioritization isn’t mentioned by AT&T as a bad thing (it’s not “based on content” if it’s based on whose content it is).

“But the commitment of one company is not enough,” Stephenson writes, as if the company’s commitment was not only real, but the only one extant. “Congressional action is needed to establish an ‘Internet Bill of Rights’ that applies to all internet companies and guarantees neutrality, transparency, openness, non-discrimination and privacy protection for all internet users.”

The privacy protections AT&T lobbied to undermine? Never mind. Leaving aside that AT&T is the last company on earth we should listen to when it comes to such a theoretical Congressional action, this paragraph is where the real sleight of hand happens. Three little words:

“All internet companies.”

Tarring the fortunate ones

These broadband providers aren’t dumb. They’ve been playing the game for a long time now, and it’s pretty clear that regulators are coming for them sooner or later — the last two years were just a preview, and the recent victory in the FCC possibly a short-lived one.

They’ve been resigned to that fate for a long time. But what really gets their goat is the runaway success of edge providers — that is to say, internet companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and so on. The idea that these major companies, which handle all this personal data and are so critical to users of the web, have escaped serious regulation while ISPs are closely watched, this rankles the latter group to their core.

The threat of edge providers is a great way to distract from the threat of broadband providers — which is why it gets brought up so much. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai himself wrote in an op-ed last year:

“Edge providers are a much bigger actual threat to an open Internet than broadband providers, especially when it comes to discrimination on the basis of viewpoint. They might cloak their advocacy in the public interest, but the real interest of these Internet giants is in using the regulatory process to cement their dominance in the Internet economy.”

It shouldn’t be surprising that Pai adopted this argument, so long in use by the broadband companies (Sohn called AT&T “Ajit Pai’s chief strategists”). But as I and others have pointed out again and again, the whole thing is a colossal red herring.

What AT&T is trying to do here is put all internet companies in the same bag, bringing down regulations on a hated rival (edge providers) just after escaping the regulations placed on its own industry. And the idea of shared net neutrality rules is the bait.

“This is absolutely nothing new,” Sohn told me. “For the last seven or eight years, [ISPs] have been saying, ‘Net neutrality? But what about these guys?’ But as powerful as Google and Amazon and Facebook are, they don’t provide access to the internet. They provide their services on the internet.”

The fundamental difference between these industries is plain for anyone to see. Do you regulate farms and grocery stores the same? Of course not. What about cars and gas stations? Don’t be ridiculous. Same for phone companies and the companies that use phones, and internet providers and companies that use the internet to provide things. These are overlapping, but very distinct, magisteria.

A Congressional solution may be required, but don’t forget that the people in Congress AT&T is working with are likely the same ones who gave the company a green light to collect personal information last year. The prospect of Congress rolling back the FCC’s recent decision doesn’t sound quite so sweet, I’m guessing, since Stephenson doesn’t mention it at all.

The sentiment of AT&T’s suggestion is hollow, and the logic is absent. AT&T hasn’t earned your trust, let alone the benefit of the doubt. Don’t take this palaver seriously.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/24/at...-and-facebook/





Kim Dotcom Sues New Zealand Government for Damages
Mary-Ann Russon

Kim Dotcom, the founder of file-sharing site Megaupload, is suing the New Zealand government for billions of dollars in damages over his arrest in 2012.

The internet entrepreneur is fighting extradition to the US to stand trial for copyright infringement and fraud.

Mr Dotcom says an invalid arrest warrant negated all charges against him.

He is seeking damages for destruction to his business and loss of reputation.

Accountants calculate that the Megaupload group of companies would be worth $10bn (£7.2bn) today, had it not been shut down during the raid.

As he was a 68% shareholder in the business, Mr Dotcom has asked for damages going up to $6.8bn. He is also considering taking similar action against the Hong Kong government.

As stated in documents filed with the High Court, Mr Dotcom is also seeking damages for:

• all lost business opportunities since 2012
• his legal costs
• loss of investments he made to the mansion he was renting
• his lost opportunity to purchase the mansion
• loss of reputation

"I cannot be expected to accept all the losses to myself and my family as a result of the action of the New Zealand government," he told the BBC.

"This should never have happened and they should have known better. And because they made a malicious mistake, there is now a damages case to be answered."

Key argument

Mr Dotcom's key argument over his extradition is the warrants used for the raid on his mansion and arrest in January 2012 were based on Section 131 of the 1994 Copyright Act of New Zealand.

"Under the NZ copyright act, online copyright infringement is not a crime," said Mr Dotcom.

"92B of Section 131 - an amendment created by parliament in 2012 - prohibits any criminal sanction against an internet service provider in New Zealand.

"In order for the US to be successful with an extradition, the allegation of the crimes that they are charging someone with also have to be a crime in the country from which they request the extradition."

On 16 January, Mr Dotcom announced that he had received two containers worth of his assets that had been released by the Hong Kong government.

"It's about $2m worth of designer furniture and high-tech stuff," he said.

"But most frustrating is the loss of our family archive of 800 hours of video, the birth of my children, birthdays, holidays - it's really sad."

Fighting extradition

Mr Dotcom is still fighting extradition, and the next hearing for the case will be in the Appeals Court on 20 February.

In December, Mr Dotcom requested a judicial review into his case. The US applied to have the arguments he made for his case to be reviewed struck out.

High Court judge Timothy Brewer rejected seven of the eight arguments because he said the High Court was not the place to bring up a judicial review, however he felt that Mr Dotcom did have a case.

"Given the context of the application, and acknowledging Mr Dotcom's submissions outlined above, I accept there is a reasonably arguable case that the district court judge did not have reasonable grounds to believe that the offence for which Mr Dotcom is sought is an extradition offence," he wrote in the judgement.

Mr Dotcom intends to raise the judicial review at the Appeals Court hearing in February.

Marriage and ICO

On Saturday 20 January - the sixth anniversary of the raid - Mr Dotcom married Elizabeth Donnelly in a private wedding ceremony in Auckland.

"Liz and I got married on the sixth anniversary of the raid so that this special day will always be a happy anniversary in the future," he said.

His new micro-payments business, Bitcache, is also preparing to launch an initial coin offering (ICO) in the next three months, underwritten by crowdfunding investment platform Bank To The Future.

Due to the ongoing legal case against him, the ICO will not be open to residents of the US.

Mr Dotcom says that he is separate from Bitcache to ensure that it cannot be shut down in the event that he is extradited and tried in the US.

Nevertheless, he says the damages case is essential to removing the loss of reputation that has made it difficult for him to do business in many countries.

"That's why it's all so important that I clear my name and all the charges are dropped and this damages claim goes ahead," he said.

"I don't want to be seen as what the US government charges me as."

The charges against Kim Dotcom

The US Department of Justice has said Mr Dotcom and his associates enabled copyright infringement by letting users store pirated files in free cloud lockers.

Users posted links to the pirated content for others to download free, but Megaupload would not close down lockers containing infringing content.

Mr Dotcom has long argued that he did not aid piracy because he had a takedown system that enabled copyright holders to delete links to pirated files, and without the link, a user could not reach the file.

US authorities say Mr Dotcom and others cost film studios and record companies more than $500m (£322m) in lost earnings, while making at least $175m for themselves.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42773038





China's Big Streaming Shift: Paying Instead of Pirating
Sherisse Pham

Not so long ago, China was an oasis for pirated music and videos. CDs and DVDs were easily copied and sold for cheap at roadside markets. If you had a computer and an internet connection, top selling albums and Hollywood movies were widely available for free online.

That's changing. And as is the case with many tech trends in China, it's changing fast.

New technologies and a long-running crackdown on pirated content mean members of the country's growing, smartphone-wielding middle class are increasingly willing to pay to stream videos and music online.

"When you have to spend two-to-three hours digging up pirated content, users are willing to pay a [small] amount of money to get non-pirated content," said Karen Chan, an analyst with research firm Jefferies.

Workers in China earn far less on average than their U.S. counterparts. But for the better paid inhabitants of Chinese cities, streaming content is pretty affordable.

Across major Chinese video platforms, the monthly fee is about 20 yuan ($3); streaming music is even cheaper, ranging from 8 to 15 yuan ($1-$2) per month. Compare that with a basic monthly Netflix (NFLX) subscription in the U.S. at $8, or a Spotify one at $10.

The rapid spread of digital payment platforms like Tencent's WeChat Pay and Alibaba-affiliated Alipay has also played a role, according to Xue Yu, an analyst with research firm IDC.

The platforms created a market of young Chinese consumers comfortable with buying goods and services for a few yuan online, Xue said.

Amber Zhang, a 27-year-old office assistant in Beijing, told CNNMoney that WeChat Pay was one of the key reasons she started spending money on music and video subscriptions back in 2013.

"It became really easy to pay," she said.

Like many other parts of China's cloistered tech industry, domestic companies are reaping most of the profits from online content while foreign firms have faced difficulties.

The video market is dominated by Tencent Video and iQiyi, a subsidiary of internet company Baidu (BIDU). The country's top ecommerce company, Alibaba (BABA), is also a big player with its video streaming platform Youku.

Tencent (TCEHY) also has a near stranglehold on the streaming music industry through its QQ Music, KuGou and Kuwo platforms.

"These services are good enough now, it's very convenient, you can download an app on your phone, you can stream all the videos or audio that you want," said Kevin Chang, a 28-year-old engineer who lives in Beijing.

China's big tech companies dominate

The competition for paying customers like Chang is intense.

Tencent has a virtual monopoly on the streaming of mainstream western music in China. It struck a deal with Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group for the exclusive rights to stream their music in China. Under the deals, Tencent also gets to decide which songs rivals get to stream.

The hope is that by holding the keys to such a vast catalog, Tencent will get more users to sign up for subscriptions on its various music platforms. At the moment, it has around 15 million subscribers. It sounds like a big number, but it's only about 2% of the company's total active user base.

Video streaming has had more success -- both Tencent Video and iQiyi report about 10% of their monthly active users pony up for subscriptions (about 40 million and 30 million users respectively).

Even the Chinese users who are watching videos or listening to music for free on established platforms, are no longer doing so illegally. They generate revenue for the tech companies by sitting through ads.

Although the ads bring in money, the margins from paying subscribers are much higher, according to Chan, the Jefferies analyst.

Premium content is the driving force for getting people to convert to subscriptions -- if you can only watch your favorite TV show with a VIP streaming account, for example, you are more likely to subscribe to such a service.

As a result, Chinese video platforms "have to compete quite fiercely" for content, IDC's Xue said.

Some of the most coveted shows come from U.S. companies, which remain largely shut out from offering content directly to Chinese consumers in the face of heavy government censorship and regulation. Instead, they're opting to go through the big local players.

iQiyi struck a deal with Netflix in April, giving its Chinese subscribers access to popular original series like "Black Mirror," "Stranger Things" and "Mindhunter." Tencent became the exclusive online partner for HBO in China back in 2014, giving its subscribers access to hits like "Game of Thrones" and "True Detective."

Domestic players are also developing original series for the local market. Tencent Video has had a string of successes producing dramas and variety shows in house, as has iQiyi.

And original series give Chinese streaming platforms an even stronger incentive to respect intellectual property laws because they can now make money from their own content by selling it overseas.

Youkou produced "Day and Night," a 32-episode detective series that became a runaway success, garnering some 4 billion views since its debut in August.

It became Youkou's first Chinese internet series to be distributed overseas when Netflix snapped up the exclusive worldwide distribution rights for the show in November.

-- Serenitie Wang contributed to this report.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/24/tech...deo/index.html





Senators Seek to Streamline Music Licensing, Boost Payments to Songwriters
Ted Johnson

A group of senators introduced legislation on Wednesday to streamline the music licensing process and to increase royalty payments to rights holders.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and five others wrote a bill similar to one introduced in the House last month.

The Music Modernization Act updates music licensing laws to make it easier for songwriters to get paid when their music is streamed or purchased online. Songwriters have been seeking legislative changes for years, pointing out that they have not been receiving fair market value for their works on digital platforms like Spotify and Pandora.

“Our music licensing laws are convoluted, out-of-date, and don’t reward songwriters fairly for their work,” said Hatch, who is a songwriter himself. “They’ve also failed to keep up with recent, rapid changes in how Americans purchase and listen to music.”

Alexander said the legislation is “the first major bill that has the support of music creators, publishers, and digital music companies. With such broad support, I’m hopeful we will be able to pass the legislation this spring.”

Also sponsoring the legislation is Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.)

The changes in the bill include:

• In a new standard, mechanical royalty rates will be based on what a willing buyer and a willing seller would negotiate in a free market.
• A single entity will be created to grant blanket licenses for all musical works to digital media companies, and the entity will collect royalties for distribution to copyright holders. Digital music companies will pay the operation costs of the entity, but will also be shielded from liability for statutory damages. Digital music companies and copyright owners will still be able to enter their own voluntary license agreements.
• Rate courts will be able to consider sound recording performance royalty rates when determining musical work performance royalties for digital services.
• ASCAP and BMI are now subject to the same two judges presiding over the rate courts that decide songwriter compensation. Under the legislation, each new rate-setting case would be randomly assigned to a federal judge consistent with other federal litigation.

Elizabeth Matthews, the CEO of ASCAP, said the legislation makes changes “that better reflect the evolution of how people listen to music.”

“While there is more work to be done to ensure that songwriters earn fair compensation, this legislation, like the similar bill recently introduced in the House, represents important progress in an ongoing effort on industry-wide reforms that protect the rights of music creators,” she said.
http://variety.com/2018/politics/new...ll-1202675634/





Print Book Sales Rose 1.9% in 2017
John Biggs

In what amounts to faint praise for the strength of the physical book NPD reported that print book sales rose 1.9 percent in 2017, less than the 3 percent growth posted in 2013-2016. NPD tracks book sales in the US.

They write:

“Returning from the huge sales of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ in 2016, and the rise of adult coloring books, last year’s book sales growth was more modest than the industry has seen in recent years,” said Kristen McLean, books industry analyst for The NPD Group. “Big blockbusters are both a blessing and a curse for the book publishing industry. In the years where they hit, they drive tremendous success for publishers; but afterwards the inevitable drop in sales back towards normal feels like a loss. It is a feast or famine phenomenon, if no blockbusters emerge to take their place the following year.”

What does this mean for readers? First it shows us that physical book sales stall in the absence of any single blockbuster – usually a kid’s title – to buoy the market. Further, children’s books are the last refuge of the print publisher.

“Children’s books continued to thrive with a 3 percent boost in 2017, led by R.J. Palacio’s ‘Wonder’ and Jeff Kinney’s ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid #12: The Getaway.'” the NPD wrote. “There were lifts in early childhood books, with 11 percent year-over-year growth in board books and 20 percent growth in graphic novels, tied to the success of Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man series.”

NPD doesn’t supply any numbers nor did it compare print sales to digital but this sort of flat to slow growth doesn’t bode well for fans of the printed word.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/24/pr...e-1-9-in-2017/





‘Jumanji’ Leads International Box Office, Hits $768 Million Worldwide
Dave McNary

Solidifying its status as a worldwide hit, Sony’s “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” has won the international box office for the fourth consecutive weekend with $32.6 million at 14,800 screens in 93 markets.

The action-comedy has hit $450 million internationally to go along with its $317 million domestic total. The global total has reached $767.8 million, making “Jumanji” 80th on the all-time worldwide list.

China delivered the top take for “Jumanji” with $7.7 million in its second weekend for a total of $65.8 million in that crucial market after two weeks — far better than Disney-Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” with only $40.6 million in three weeks. The U.K. is the second largest with $43.7 million, followed by Australia with $31.9 million.

A pair of international titles took the next two slots with “Secret Superstar,” the latest film vehicle for Indian superstar Aamir Khan, opening with $25.6 million in China. The film — a coming of age story about a teenage girl who wants to be a singer — follows the momentum created by Khan’s previous film “Dangal,” which took in an impressive $193 million in China.

China holdover “Forever Young,” starring Zhang Ziyi, took the next slot with $22.5 million for a $63.5 million total. The historical drama also stars Huang Xiaoming, Chang Chen, Wang Leehom and Chen Chusheng with a focus on four generations of modern Chinese history since World War II.

“Insidious: The Last Key” took in $18.4 million this weekend from 7,600 screens in 52 international markets, lifting the offshore total past $68 million. Sony, which is handling international on the horror title, reported that Russia was the top market with a $4.4 million launch.

Disney-Pixar’s “Coco” followed with $18.3 million in 40 markets, led by a $7.1 million first-place opening in the U.K. The animated comedy-drama has topped $455 million internationally with $183 million in China and $57 million in Mexico, where it is the all-time box office leader.

Fox’s animated family comedy “Ferdinand” took in $17.5 million in 58 markets, led by a modest Chinese launch of $8.7 million. The international total has hit $155.7 million.

Fox also opened “Maze Runner: The Death Cure” with $15.2 million from first-place launches in four markets, led by South Korea with $10 million and followed by Australia with $2.6 million and Taiwan with $2.2 million. It’s the finale of the “Maze Runner” sci-fi trilogy.

The movie’s original release date has been delayed for nearly a year in order to allow star Dylan O’Brien to recover from injuries sustained during shooting. “Death Cure” launches next weekend in the U.S. along with 68 other markets including Brazil, China, Russia and the U.K.
http://variety.com/2018/film/box-off...ce-1202671595/





Decades of Movie Poster History go Online
Erin Willard

It is difficult to envision the sheer volume of the Movie Poster Collection at the Harry Ransom Center. The collection encompasses upwards of 10,000 posters and spans decades: from when the film industry was just beginning to compete with vaudeville acts in the 1920s to the rise of the modern megaplex and drive-in theaters in the 1970s. The sizes range from that of a small window card to that of a billboard.

Even with the large volume of posters, the collection contains many images that stay with the viewer, often through bold, bright colors that have not lost their luster. Some are simple designs, like the poster for West Side Story (1961), with its a bright orange-red background over the title with a silhouette of a fire escape with dancers. Others are more complex, like Africa Texas Style! (1967), which features a realistic image of the protagonist on a horse, lassoing a zebra in front of a stampede of wildebeest, elephants, and giraffes all set against the backdrop of a mountain.

The movie posters collection is currently part of an ambitious digitization project. Each of the 10,000 posters is first transferred to the photography studio and metadata is gathered from the poster to create a database record. Once the poster is correctly aligned with the camera, the height of the camera is adjusted to fit the poster size, and then a high definition photo of the poster is taken. The photographer checks the image for fidelity to the original for preservation purposes and then derivatives are made for the online collection. Handled carefully, the poster is returned to its folder and the whole process starts again.

That process, in short, is what project librarian Lauren Walker and a team in the photography studio, Pete Smith and Jackie Mann, have been working on since late last year. Though this project is ongoing, the first set of digitized posters is now available for anyone to see online. Thus far, 4,000 posters have been cataloged, photographed, and will incrementally be made accessible online.
Jackie Mann digitizes film posters for the online collection.

These posters come from four collections within the Ransom Center, the largest of these being the Interstate Theatre Circuit collection. This collection originated from Karl Hoblitzelle’s entertainment production company of the same name. The Interstate Circuit was one of the most significant Texas exhibition chains, with over 150 theaters in Texas by the mid-1940s. The company was integral to introducing the theater as a center for family friendly, community activity as opposed to the more adult reputation garnered elsewhere by vaudeville theatres.

The digitization of these posters allows greater access while preserving their condition. Making the pieces available online also allows for remote access, easier exploration of the entire collection and provides greater opportunities for research with these materials. The rest of the Movie Poster Collection is expected to be digitized by the end of 2018 or early 2019.
http://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcenter...y-goes-online/





Here’s Why You Can’t Buy a High-End Graphics Card at Best Buy

“Cryptocurrency can’t crash soon enough,” one gamer fumes.
Timothy B. Lee

The market for high-end graphics cards used to work like the market for almost any other piece of computer gear. You'd go to your local electronics store, pick one up off the shelf, and pay an amount right around the manufacturer's suggested retail price.

But the rise of cryptocurrency mining has created an unprecedented global shortage of graphics cards. If you go to your local retailer, you're likely to find bare shelves where the beefier cards used to be. Instead of trading at a discount, used cards routinely sell for well above MSRP on sites like eBay and Craigslist.

And it's driving PC gamers—who used to be the primary market for these cards—crazy.

"Cryptocurrency can't crash soon enough," one gamer wrote on the PCGaming subreddit a few days ago. Gamers thinking about building a new gaming machine are being forced to put those plans on hold until the market settles down. Others, who bought high-end graphics cards a few months ago, are wondering if they should sell at a big profit.

Jared Walton of PC Gamer sums up the situation: "It's a terrible time to buy a graphics card."

The graphics card shortage is happening because high-end graphics cards are the best way to mine Ethereum and other non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies. With the price of these cryptocurrencies rising to unprecedented heights in recent weeks, a powerful graphics card can generate several dollars per day in cryptocurrency. And so a growing community of hobbyist miners has been snapping every graphics card it can get, creating shortages and high prices for everyone else.

“It’s not available in any store”

On Wednesday, I visited my local Best Buy to see the graphics card shortage for myself. A locked cabinet in the gaming section was supposed to hold a wide range of graphics card. But the more expensive ones—cards like the AMD Radeon RX 580 and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 that were best suited for cryptocurrency mining—were sold out. All that was available were a handful of low-end graphics cards not suitable for Ethereum mining.

I asked a sales representative to check to see if I could get an RX 580 at another Best Buy store. No luck.

"It's not available in any store," she told me. "It's not online."

I had an experience that's being played out all over the country and around the world. Sullivan McIntyre, a Redditor from San Francisco, sent us this photograph of the graphics card section at Central Computers. Not only are there hardly any graphics cards available for purchase, but the company has notified customers that it is suspending its return policy for graphics cards.

The reason: graphics card prices have been fluctuating wildly.

According to data from PC Part Picker, you could get an AMD Radeon RX 570 for around $200 last spring, while an average RX 580 cost closer to $250. But prices started to rise over the summer, with both cards costing more than $350 by early July. Prices settled down a bit in the fall, but in recent weeks we've seen an even more extreme price rise: RX 580 cards now cost more than $400 on average.

And this chart of average prices understates the degree of price rise because it includes retail stores that tend to sell closer to MSRP and sell out instantly. If you want to get a graphics card in a timely manner, you'll probably be forced to pay even higher prices to online resellers. As we write this on Thursday, resellers on Amazon are asking almost $500 for an RX 570, while some RX 580s are going for more than $600.

The story is similar for the Nvidia GeForce cards that are popular with miners. Average prices for the GTX 1060 have risen from $275 to $400 since May, according to PC Part Picker, while the 1070 has risen from $425 to $600. And again, these averages probably understate the rise, because if you actually want to get a card promptly you might be forced to pay an online reseller significantly more.

This pattern correlates closely with changes in the price of Ethereum. Graphics card prices started inching upward around June 2017—the same time Ethereum prices started to soar. The current boom coincides with the even more dramatic Ethereum boom of recent weeks.

The cryptocurrency boom is creating big profit opportunities

So who's driving all this demand for graphics cards? Cryptocurrency miners. To understand the phenomenon, we talked to people active in cryptocurrency mining, and they all told us similar stories: mining Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies has become hugely profitable in recent months, which is why so many people are racing to expand their mining operations. And getting graphics cards is the main bottleneck.

Bitcoin mining is no longer profitable on consumer graphics cards because people have built sophisticated custom ASIC-based mining equipment that's far more power-efficient. But Ethereum has a memory-hungry mining algorithm that's resistant to ASIC optimization. That means mining Ethereum is still practical with a consumer graphics card if it has more than two gigabytes of memory. Entry-level graphics cards don't have enough memory, but more advanced ones do.

Most of the people we talked to began mining in the summer of 2017—right around the time graphics card prices started to creep upward.

Matthew Freilich is an IT security professional in Philadelphia, and he told Ars that he started his mining activities last June.

"A lot of cryptocurrencies were starting to rise in value, and a really good friend of mine said he was building a cryptocurrency rig," Freilich told Ars. "Once I started talking to him about that more, I started to get really interested in it. I decided I'm going to build one of these also."

Freilich initially bought six Nvidia GTX 1070 graphics cards from Dell, which at the time still had cards available for the MSRP of around $400. He also ordered a special motherboard capable of accommodating a large number of graphics cards. Freilich used a mining-centric operating system called PIMP OS.

"It was kind of a turnkey solution," Freilich told Ars. "It has the drivers built in and has compatibility with a lot of the motherboards."

Once he was satisfied with that first rig, Freilich started working on a second one. To get better prices, he began trolling Craigslist for graphics cards. Freilich paid cash and got used—but perfectly functional—GTX 1070s for as little as $300.

When I reached Freilich on Tuesday, he had eight graphics cards in his second rig in addition to the six in his original rig. And he was starting work on a third rig. He had just returned from Best Buy, where he had bought yet another GTX 1070. Freilich had paid $429, which is above MSRP but a bargain in today's market.

"I check online every day pretty much and a couple of times a day" to see if his local Best Buy has graphics cards in stock, he told Ars. "If they have them in stock I'll snag it immediately."

It won't take long for Freilich to earn his money back. "I'm making about $50 per day" across his 14 cards, Freilich says. That works out to around $3.50 per card per day. At that rate, a card will need around four months to pay for itself.

Of course, nothing is that simple. The value of cryptocurrency changes rapidly. In the short run, higher cryptocurrency prices mean that miners earn more for the same effort. But Ethereum (and other blockchain networks) automatically raise the difficulty of the mining problem as more people join the network. So if the mining boom continues, difficulty will rise and Freilich's cards will generate less cryptocurrency per day than they're generating now, cancelling out some of the gains from recent price increases.

Other miners told Ars similar stories. We talked to Zach, a high school student in the Chicago area who also got involved in mining last summer. He was able to find a source that would sell him a couple dozen RX 580 graphics cards for the MSRP around $300. He immediately turned around and re-sold them for $400. Those profits helped to finance investments in still more graphics cards that he put to work mining Ethereum and a lesser-known cryptocurrency called Siacoin.

Edward, a software developer in the Memphis area, told us that he uses Nvidia GTX 1060, 1070, and 1080 cards. When we talked on Tuesday, he said his 1060s (which currently sell for around $400) were earning around $5 per day, per card, while a high-end 1080 (worth upwards of $700) could earn as much as $8 per day.

Chris, a software developer in Salt Lake City, had the largest operation of any of the miners we talked to. He had six mining rigs with six video cards in each—"a mixture of AMD RX 580s, Nvidia 1070 TIs, and a few 1060s."

Mining is a global phenomenon

Blockchain networks are global, so people are unsurprisingly having similar experiences around the world. Suleiman Alaquel, a software developer from Riyadh, emailed us about his experiences mining cryptocurrency in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is an attractive place to mine cryptocurrencies because electricity there is cheap. But graphics cards are expensive.

"I went to a store that's well known for PC gamers' tech," Alaquel told us by email. "As soon as I asked for a high-end GPU he said 'you're also one of them miners!' He told me that everything is sold out because of miners!"

A few miners had pre-ordered all of the high-end graphics card shipments the store expected for the next six months, Alaquel said.

He added that you could get high-end graphics cards on the Saudi version of Cragislist, but they were expensive. An AMD Radeon RX 580 goes for around 2,000 Saudi riyal—$530.

Gord Hadrell, a technology consultant in South Korea told us that supplies are less constrained there, perhaps because so much hardware is manufactured in Asia. But graphics card prices were still high.

"Pretty much any computer store will build you a mining rig," Hadrell wrote by email. "You choose the card, choose the number of cards, and select where you want them shipped to."

One big difference from the US or Saudi Arabia, he said, is that electric utilities don't allow mining in residential buildings—so miners generally have their rigs shipped directly to commercial hosting facilities.

"One store I was at a couple days ago was processing 17 rigs for one client," Hadrell told us. "When I tried to buy a mining case a few days ago, the store I went to had about 240 in stock, but they were all allocated and being shipped out... Not a single rack for me from that store."
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...card-shortage/





EFF and Lookout Uncover New Malware Espionage Campaign Infecting Thousands Around the World

Mobile devices compromised by fake secure messaging clients – hundreds of gigabytes of data stolen
Eva Galperin, Cooper Quintin

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and mobile security company Lookout have uncovered a new malware espionage campaign infecting thousands of people in more than 20 countries. Hundreds of gigabytes of data has been stolen, primarily through mobile devices compromised by fake secure messaging clients.

The trojanized apps, including Signal and WhatsApp, function like the legitimate apps and send and receive messages normally. However, the fake apps also allow the attackers to take photos, retrieve location information, capture audio, and more.

The threat, called Dark Caracal by EFF and Lookout researchers, may be a nation-state actor and appears to employ shared infrastructure which has been linked to other nation-state actors. In a new report, EFF and Lookout trace Dark Caracal to a building belonging to the Lebanese General Security Directorate in Beirut.

“People in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Lebanon, and France have been hit by Dark Caracal. Targets include military personnel, activists, journalists, and lawyers, and the types of stolen data range from call records and audio recordings to documents and photos,” said EFF Director of Cybersecurity Eva Galperin. “This is a very large, global campaign, focused on mobile devices. Mobile is the future of spying, because phones are full of so much data about a person’s day-to-day life.”

“Dark Caracal is part of a trend we’ve seen mounting over the past year whereby traditional APT actors are moving toward using mobile as a primary target platform,” said Mike Murray, Vice President of Security Intelligence at Lookout. “The Android threat we identified, as used by Dark Caracal, is one of the first globally active mobile APTs we have spoken publicly about.”

Dark Caracal has been operating since at least 2012. However, one reason it has been hard to track is the diversity of seemingly unrelated espionage campaigns originating from the same domain names. The researchers believe that Dark Caracal is only one of a number of different global attackers using this infrastructure. Over the years, Dark Caracal’s work has been repeatedly misattributed to other cybercrime groups. In fact, EFF’s Operation Manul report from 2016 misidentified espionage from these servers as coming from the Indian security company Appin.

“One of the interesting things about this ongoing attack is that it doesn’t require a sophisticated or expensive exploit. Instead, all Dark Caracal needed was application permissions that users themselves granted when they downloaded the apps, not realizing that they contained malware,” said EFF Staff Technologist Cooper Quintin. “This research shows it’s not difficult to create a strategy allowing people and governments to spy on targets around the world.”

For the full report:
https://www.lookout.com/info/ds-dark-caracal-ty

For more on Dark Caracal:
https://blog.lookout.com/dark-caracal-mobile-APT

For more on how to avoid downloading malware:
https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/how-av...ishing-attacks

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/e...ousands-around





Android Users: To Avoid Malware, Try the F-Droid App Store
Sean O'Brien and Michael Kwet

In the early days of Android, co-founder Andy Rubin set the stage for the fledgling mobile operating system. Android’s mission was to create smarter mobile devices, ones that were more aware of their owner’s behavior and location.“If people are smart,” Rubin told Business Week in 2003, “that information starts getting aggregated into consumer products.” A decade and a half later, that goal has become a reality: Android-powered gadgets are in the hands of billions and are loaded with software shipped by Google, the world’s largest ad broker.

Our work at Yale Privacy Lab, made possible by Exodus Privacy’s app scanning software, revealed a huge problem with the Android app ecosystem. Google Play is filled with hidden trackers that siphon a smörgåsbord of data from all sensors, in all directions, unknown to the Android user.

As the profiles we've published about trackers reveal, apps in the Google Play store share a wide variety of data with advertisers, in creative and nuanced ways. These methods can be as invasive as ultrasonic tracking via TV speakers and microphones. Piles of information are being harvested via labyrinthine channels, with a heavy focus on retail marketing. This was the plan all along, wasn’t it? The smart mobile devices that comprise the Android ecosystem are designed to spy on users.

One week after our work was published and the Exodus scanner was announced, Google said it would expand its Unwanted Software Policy and implement click-through warnings in Android.

But this move does nothing to fix fundamental flaws in Google Play. A polluted ocean of apps is plaguing Android, an operating system built upon Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) but now barely resembling those venerable roots. Today, the average Android device is not only susceptible to malware and trackers, it’s also heavily locked down and loaded with proprietary components—characteristics that are hardly the calling cards of the FOSS movement.

Though Android bears the moniker of open-source, the chain of trust between developers, distributors, and end-users is broken.

Google’s defective privacy and security controls have been made painfully real by a recent investigation into location tracking, massive outbreaks of malware, unwanted cryptomining, and our work on hidden trackers.

The Promise of Open-Source, Unfulfilled

It didn’t have to be this way. When Android was declared Google’s answer to the iPhone, there was palpable excitement across the Internet. Android was ostensibly based on GNU/Linux, the culmination of decades of hacker ingenuity meant to replace proprietary, locked-down software. Hackers worldwide hoped that Android would be a FOSS champion in the mobile arena. FOSS is the gold-standard for security, building that reputation over the decades because of its fundamental transparency.

As Android builds rolled out, however, it became clear that Rubin’s baby contained very little GNU, a vital anchor that keeps GNU/Linux operating systems transparent via a licensing strategy called copyleft, which requires modifications to be made available to end-users and prohibits proprietary derivatives. Such proprietary components can contain all kinds of nasty “features” that tread upon user privacy.

As a 2016 Ars Technica story made clear, there were directives inside Google to avoid copyleft code—except for the Linux kernel, which the company could not do without. Google preferred to bootstrap so-called permissively licensed code on top of Linux instead. Such code may be locked down and doesn’t require developers to disclose their modifications—or any of the source code for that matter.

Google’s choice to limit copyleft’s presence in Android, its disdain for reciprocal licenses, and its begrudging use of copyleft only when it “made sense to do so” are just symptoms of a deeper problem. In an environment without sufficient transparency, malware and trackers can thrive.

Android’s privacy and security woes are amplified by cellphone companies and hardware vendors, which bolt on dodgy Android apps and hardware drivers. Sure, most of Android is still open-source, but the door is wide open to all manners of software trickery you won’t find in an operating system like Debian GNU/Linux, which goes to great length to audit its software packages and protect user security.

Surveillance is not only a recurring problem on Android devices; it is encouraged by Google through its own ad services and developer tools. The company is a gatekeeper that not only makes it easy for app developers to insert tracker code, but also develops its own trackers and cloud infrastructure. Such an ecosystem is toxic for user privacy and security, whatever the results are for app developers and ad brokers.

Apple is currently under fire for its own lack of software transparency, admitting it had slowed down older iPhones. And iOS users should not breathe a sigh of relief in regard to hidden trackers, either. As we at Yale Privacy Lab noted in November: "Many of the same companies distributing Google Play apps also distribute apps via Apple, and tracker companies openly advertise Software Development Kits compatible with multiple platforms. Thus, advertising trackers may be concurrently packaged for Android and iOS, as well as more obscure mobile platforms.”

Transparency in software development and delivery leads to better security and privacy protection. Not only is auditable source code a requirement (thought not a guarantee) for security, but a clear and open process allows users to evaluate the trustworthiness of their software. Moreover, this clarity enables the security community to take a good, hard look at software and find any noxious or insecure components that may be hidden within.

The trackers we’ve found in Google Play are just one aspect of the problem, though they are shockingly pervasive. Google does screen apps during Google Play’s app submission process, but researchers are regularly finding scary new malware and there are no barriers to publishing an app filled with trackers.

Finding a Replacement

Yale Privacy Lab is now collaborating with Exodus Privacy to detect and expose trackers with the help of the F-Droid app store. F-Droid is the best replacement for Google Play, because it only offers FOSS apps without tracking, has a strict auditing process, and may be installed on most Android devices without any hassles or restrictions. F-Droid doesn't offer the millions of apps available in Google Play, so some people will not want to use it exclusively.

It’s true that Google does screen apps submitted to the Play store to filter out malware, but the process is still mostly automated and very quick— too quick to detect Android malware before it's published, as we've seen.

Installing F-Droid isn’t a silver bullet, but it’s the first step in protecting yourself from malware. With this small change, you’ll even have bragging rights with your friends with iPhones, who are limited to Apple’s App Store unless they jailbreak their phones.

But why debate iPhone vs. Android, Apple vs. Google, anyway? Your privacy and security are massively more important than brand allegiance. Let’s debate digital freedom and servitude, free and unfree, private and spied-upon.
https://www.wired.com/story/android-...les-app-store/





Android Can Now Tell You How Fast Wi-Fi Networks are Before You Join Them

This Android 8.1 trick will help you decide if an open network is worth connecting to
Chris Welch

Some of the cool, more subtle features of Android 8.1 are still rolling out weeks after the first significant update to Oreo was released. For instance, today Google announced that Oreo will now display the speed of nearby open Wi-Fi networks to help you decide whether they’re even worth the effort of connecting to. The Wi-Fi settings menu will now display one of four speed labels: Very Fast, Fast, OK, or Slow.

The difference between Very Fast and Fast, according to Google, is that you can stream “very high-quality videos” on the former and “most videos” on the latter. Most coffee shop dwellers should be fine with the OK level, as that’s enough for web browsing, social media, and Spotify streaming.

Public Wi-Fi can be spotty. For the first time, #AndroidOreo 8.1 lets you take out the guesswork & see the speed of networks before you hit connect. Rolling out now: https://t.co/lSzvCFgNk7 pic.twitter.com/60EmoPxUX4
— Android (@Android) January 22, 2018

Private Wi-Fi networks that require passwords don’t display any speed data since it’s really none of your business and Google can’t randomly test them, but they do continue to indicate signal strength. Google says network administrators can also opt out of Android’s Wi-Fi Assistant showing speed info by using a “canary URL.”

So if you thought Android 8.1 was all about cheeseburger emoji and switching on the Pixel 2’s Visual Core chip, it turns out there’s still more neat stuff in there to discover. Once your device gets Android 8.1 to begin with, anyway. Until then you’ll just have to take a chance like the rest of us.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/22/1...ls-new-feature





BMW's Apple CarPlay Annual Fee is Next-Level Gouging

Commentary: Putting a paywall in front of a free service is a terrifying glimpse of what a world without net neutrality could look like.
Tim Stevens

A pricey up-front fee to enable a service freely available elsewhere is a bit hard to swallow in the real world. However, in the heady, premium-package-rich realm of German luxury cars, such price gouging is the norm. Prefer dark silver to light silver? That'll be $1,500 extra. Alcantara inserts instead of leather? $750 at least. USB ports you can actually do something with? Better call your accountant.

If there's a positive to this system, and I'm admittedly stretching here, it's that you can get a car configured exactly to your needs, a car uniquely constructed to your exact specification. I imagine that's a very nice feeling indeed, though I confess I've never had the wherewithal to enjoy such a luxury myself.

While GM and other manufacturers happily include Apple's CarPlay service for free even on their most attainable models, BMW and plenty of others have levied upgrade fees to enable CarPlay, or bundled the service inside pricey packages of widgets you may or may not want. That, sadly, is par for this margin-rich golf course, but when we learned this week that BMW would change from a single, up-front fee to an annual fee, in my mind that changed everything.

Instead of a one-time, $300 fee, starting on 2019 models BMW will charge $80 annually for the privilege of accessing Apple's otherwise totally free CarPlay service. You do get the first year free, much like your friendly neighborhood dealer of another sort, but after that it's pay up or have your Lightning cable metaphorically snipped.

On the surface this is pretty offensive, and it seemed like something must be driving this. The official word from BMW is that this is a change that will save many (perhaps most) BMW owners money. Indeed, the vehicle segments where BMW plays are notorious for short-term leases, and those owning the car for only a few years will save money over that one-time $300. But still, the notion of paying annually for something that's free rubbed me the wrong way. And, based on the feedback we saw from the article, it rubbed a lot of you the wrong way, too.

And then I read that Matt Bubbers, an automotive journalist for the Globe & Mail, was given a curious statement by a representative from BMW Canada. He was told that Apple will be changing its fee structure such that manufacturers would need to pay on a per-car, per-annum basis to keep CarPlay running. That statement has since been retracted and a BMW Canada representative told me that Mr. Bubbers was given "inaccurate information." However, in the confused hours in between initial statement and subsequent retraction, I was left wondering: just what does Apple charge for CarPlay, and indeed what does Google charge for Android Auto?

The answer, as I'd find out, is basically nothing -- though it is a little more complicated than that.

In speaking with multiple sources at various manufacturers who offer cars with Apple CarPlay and/or Android Auto, I was quickly able to confirm that such fees, at least right now, do not exist. CarPlay and Android Auto, which are free for we consumers to use, are also provided for free for manufacturers to embed into their cars.

CarPlay isn't entirely free, however. As Markdown inventor and Apple guru John Gruber pointed out on Twitter, car manufacturers who wish to officially support Apple products must pay a licensing fee to enter Apple's Made for iPhone (MFi) program, just like any other licensed accessory maker. As Gruber was able to confirm, however (and I was able to verify), this is a one-time fee. And, while I could not get anyone to disclose the exact fees entailed, it's quite clear that there's no additional fee for CarPlay on top of the base MFi license.

And there are other potential costs for manufacturers. There's surely additional testing and development required to implement the thin-client interface that serves up Apple CarPlay, plus the potential for software updates down the road. However, the beauty of CarPlay and Android Auto is that they run almost entirely on your phones, and so the cars shouldn't really need updates.

So we're back to square one: BMW is effectively putting a paywall in front of a service that is provided to you and to me for free. As I pondered this I couldn't help but start seeing the parallel to the tenuous state of net neutrality in the USA. Imagine if your internet provider started charging $5 a month to enable YouTube and you're not far off from what BMW is doing here.

This is of course net neutrality in an abstract sense: Automobiles, even the most pedestrian, are private, commercial products. As such, manufacturers are free to charge whatever they like for whatever features they like. That's just like how Electronic Arts is free to charge whatever it wants for DLC and other enhancements to its latest games, and we've all seen how well that's gone lately.
https://www.cnet.com/g00/roadshow/ne...ghway-robbery/





S.F. Couple Recounts Harrowing, Mistaken Arrest by Police Investigating iPhone Heist
Allen Martin and Abigail Sterling

If your cellphone is stolen, what are the chance the police will go after the thief? Pretty slim right?

But, when Apple loses a phone, it can be a different story altogether.

On one recent morning, Rick Garcia and his wife Shannon Knuth woke up to a posse of San Francisco police officers at their front door.

“I peered through the peephole and I saw a police officer and a battering ram,” Garcia said.

“We heard ‘SFPD’ and ‘warrant,’ and I was like ‘what’s going on?’” Knuth remembers.

It felt like a nightmare yet it was real.

Garcia says that within seconds he was dragged into the hallway of his apartment complex, handcuffed, then whisked away to the Taraval Station.

“All my instincts to defend myself, defend my wife, defend my dog, needed to be supressed in order to have the best outcome,” said Rick.

Meanwhile Knuth, who had just got out of the shower, was ordered to sit on the couch.

“I was just wrapped up in a towel,” Knuth said.

Even more humiliating was what the officers did when she asked for clothes.

“One officer went into my closet and they chose an outfit they got a bra and a thong and some stretchy pants and handed it to me and said ‘will this do?’” Knuth said.

Just one thought was racing through her mind: “That they had the wrong person,” she said.

After rifling through the apartment Knuth says the officers finally told her what they were looking for: Her husband’s iPhone X.

According to the warrant, it was stolen but Knuth showed them the receipt which proved her husband bought it.

Once the officers realized their mistake they called the police station and a squad car brought Garcia home.

“They gathered their pry bar and their battering ram and they left,” he said.

So how could a mistake like that happen?

It’s still unclear but it turns out Garcia and Knuth bought the iPhone at an Apple store at Stonestown Galleria just a few weeks after 300 iPhone Xs were stolen from a UPS truck in the mall parking lot.

“It kind of boggles the mind the way San Francisco police handled this,” said Tom Burns.

Tom Burns is a security consultant and former police chief. “Obviously there was some mix up on the original theft from November. The police should have realized this and done more due diligence,” Burns said.

Starting with the suspect descriptions in the actual UPS heist.

“Mr. Garcia is about 5 feet, 120 pounds. The three suspects were very big and husky according to the police report. This was clearly an incident that should have just been a knock and talk, a couple detectives come to the door, knock on the door and they would have gathered the same info that they gathered after they put him in handcuffs and hauled him off to jail,” Burns said.

In a statement to KPIX, San Francisco police confirm “there was an individual detained, upon further investigation it was determined no criminal misconduct had occurred and the individual was released.” But they offered no comment on what led to the mistake.

Apple had no comment either — an insult to Rick and Shannon, who are major fans of the company’s products. Rick over the years bought the first iPhone, the first iPad and the first Apple Watch. “We want Apple to recognize how harmful this was to us,” he says.

As for heavy-handed tactics by the San Francisco police: “I am not surprised. This has been their typical M.O. here in San Francisco,” Garcia said.

Garcia is still recovering from a wrist injury he received from the handcuffs. It’s affecting his design work as an architect for a prominent local firm — a firm that, ironically, does a lot of contract work for Apple.

“I realize how dangerous the situation was. If I had reacted differently it could have had a horrible outcome. I had dreams where I did react differently,” Garcia said.

He adds he didn’t even know what he was being accused of until the squad car brought him back home because the police wouldn’t tell him. And he says no one ever read him his rights.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/201...arrest-iphone/





T-Mobile is Best Mobile Network in All Categories but One, OpenSignal Says
Christian de Looper

T-Mobile is on the way up. OpenSignal’s latest State of Mobile Networks report delves into struggles that the likes of Verizon have been having of late — and it seems as though T-Mobile is picking up a lot of the slack.

As previously reported, Verizon and AT&T’s data speeds took a bit of a hit when they first started offering unlimited data plans, though their speeds now seem to be recovering — even if only slightly. According to the report, T-Mobile, in the meantime, has established itself as the fastest and most responsive mobile network around. In fact, T-Mobile took all of OpenSignal’s awards except for one — 4G latency, which was won by AT&T, though T-Mobile came in a close second. T-Mobile even managed to set a personal record in the fourth quarter of 2017, hitting an average download high of 19.4 Mbps.

Interestingly enough, Sprint is also showing signs of life. OpenSignal’s report showed some pretty big gains by the company in both data speeds and LTE availability in the past year. That’s good news for Sprint, which has reportedly seen customers leave in droves over the past few years.

According to OpenSignal, 2018 could be a pretty unpredictable year for mobile networks. T-Mobile may be a dominant player right now, but competition is heating up, especially as we head into the deployment of 5G. Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile have all said that they’ll begin rollout of 5G networks toward the end of this year, and T-Mobile says that it’s targeting a full rollout by 2020.

As OpenSignal notes, however, Verizon has a history of making big moves under pressure. The company was the first to launch its LTE network, and in 2013, when its 4G network was under strain, it launched a major upgrade that reinstated its high speeds. The same thing seems to be happening now — and we’ll have to wait and see how Verizon responds.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher in 2018. The first 5G networks may still be years away, but the foundations of those 5G services will be built on the 4G infrastructure we use today. The more power the operators build into their LTE systems, the better prepared they’ll be to offer the next generation of mobile services,” said OpenSignal in its report.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile...-january-2018/





Die With Me Is a Chat App That Kills Phones
Dave Parrack

What do you do when your smartphone is about to die? If you’re anything like me you’ll preserve the little bit of battery life you have left until you can plug your phone in. And then let out a huge sigh of relief when you make it with 1 percent left to spare. This is normal.

However, a new app could make you change this rational behavior. Because Die With Me is only accessible when you have less than 5 percent of your battery life left. Which means you instantly have something in common with everyone else present. Still, this won’t be for everybody.

Chat With Anonymous Strangers

Die With Me is a barebones chat app that offers a simple way of chatting with anonymous strangers. All you need to do is create a nickname, and you’re all set. However, the one big barrier to entry is the requirement for your phone to have less than 5 percent battery life left on it.

This puts everyone in the same boat, connecting everyone in the chatroom as their phones slowly die. And when they die you disappear from the chatroom, and find yourself offline and alone again. Which is a peculiar feeling when you have literally just been chatting to random strangers.

Die With Me is a the brainchild of Dries Depoorter and David Surprenant. They presented the idea for the app in 2016, before testing it on a small scale at the International Documentary Film Festival in 2017. And now, Die With Me is available to anyone on Android and on iOS.

Depoorter originally wanted to create a dating app using the low battery barrier to entry, but eventually settled on a chat app instead. And while it’s not intended to compete with WhatsApp or Messenger, it does allow users to share their final moments before being disconnected.

Running Out of Juice Together

Die With Me is either a simple chat app or a social experiment, depending on your point of view. Either way, it taps into something that has become a source of stress for many of us these days. So why not share that stressful experience of your smartphone running out of juice with others?
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/die-wi...-kills-phones/





Will Millennials Kill Costco and Sam's Club?
Abha Bhattarai

There's a Costco to one side of Gwendolyn Hammer's house and a Sam's Club to the other. But when the 28-year-old needs 12-packs of paper towels, or 36 rolls of toilet paper, she heads online instead.

Once a month she uses her smartphone to place a bulk order on Boxed.com, a website founded five years ago as a millennial-friendly alternative to warehouse wholesalers. There is no membership fee, and most orders arrive within two days. Other times, she stocks up using Amazon Prime.

"I've never had a Costco membership, even though I knew shopping there would likely end up saving me money," said Hammer, who lives in Utah Valley, Utah, and grew up shopping at Costco with her parents. "I do like not having to haul my kids to the store."

Warehouse clubs such as Costco, Sam's Club and BJ's Wholesale Club have for decades been an American staple: a place where families can stock up on bulk items, try free samples and spend the better part of a weekend morning meandering through aisles filled with 26-packs of canned salmon and king-size mattresses. But as more of Americans' buying shifts online, some retail analysts say warehouse clubs may largely be left behind.

"The core club customer is older: It's generally someone with a family and a house," said Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at the research firm Forrester. "Costco has been one of the least digitally forward companies out there. This segment has had its head in the sand when it comes to competing with Amazon."

Warehouse retailers, she added, have been among the slowest to shift their business online, offer home delivery or make other sweeping changes to compete with the likes of Amazon.com. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.)

There are signs that the sector is falling behind: Warehouse clubs and supercenters cut an average of 2,500 jobs each month in 2017, reversing a longtime trend of steady growth, according to a Washington Post analysis of Labor Department data. Between 2009 and 2016, warehouse stores had added an average of 3,000 workers each month.

The sector received more bad news this month, when Walmart announced it would close 63 Sam's Club stores, affecting an estimated 10,000 workers. In a tweet, the company said the closures would help "better align" its physical locations with its strategy. (Ten locations will reopen as e-commerce fulfillment centers.)

"Today's adults are not spending a lot of time shopping like my parents' generation did," said Kim Whitler, a marketing professor at the University of Virginia's Darden Business School. "Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, they're all time-starved and want to order groceries while they're riding a bus to work."

---

Chieh Huang founded Boxed in 2013 with a simple idea: Deliver bulk goods to shoppers who don't live near a wholesale club or have a car to get to one.

What he quickly found, though, was a different sort of demand.

"We actually found a bigger problem to solve, which is that folks didn't have the time or patience to go," even if they lived near a Costco or Sam's Club, Huang said recently at the National Retail Federation's annual conference in New York.

In other words, it wasn't physical proximity or access to warehouse stores that were keeping customers away but rather a lack of willingness to shop for toilet paper and dish soap in person.

Huang's company, which began as a mobile app and quickly added an online site, has grown rapidly to fill a niche among young shoppers. Today, the company has more than $100 million in annual sales, up from $8 million in 2014.

More than 60 percent of Boxed shoppers are ages 25 to 44, he said. At traditional wholesale clubs, the demographic skews the other way, with baby boomers and seniors making up the majority of members.

"When we look at the numbers, there's not a lot of overlap between who's going into a physical club and who's coming to us," Huang said, adding that 70 percent of revenue comes from repeat customers. The company also recently began offering wholesale liquor and wine to customers in California.

Boxed's success has not gone without notice: Kroger, the country's largest supermarket chain, is reportedly mulling an acquisition. Huang did not confirm or deny those reports but said "given our scale now, interest from retailers has been more tangible and real."

And, Huang said, he doesn't think today's 20- and 30-somethings will suddenly begin shopping at traditional wholesale clubs - even as they get married, have children and move to bigger homes.

Exhibit A, the 36-year-old said: himself.

Huang has two young children and lives in a New Jersey suburb.

"But I personally am not getting any less lazy as I grow older," he said. "It's not like suddenly I'm like, 'Oh, yeah, let's go spend four hours running around in a store this weekend.' "

---

Stacy Schulz drives to the local Sam's Club in Little Rock, Arkansas, once or twice a month. It used to be a family affair, she said, with her four children scanning the toy aisle or reading books on couch displays while she and her husband shopped. Schulz, who's from Houston, says she's a longtime Costco devotee. But she's had to switch alliances to Sam's Club because although Costco has more than 510 U.S. stores, it has none in Arkansas, a state fiercely loyal to Walmart, which has its headquarters there.

But now that her children, ages 11 to 17, have phones, they're no longer interested in regular trips to the wholesale store. Instead, they do their shopping online, using their smartphones.

"It's like, I'm basically a walking commercial for Costco, but I look at my kids, and they just want to do everything on Amazon," said Schulz, 50. "And it's the same when I go to Sam's Club: I look around, and it's all people in their 50s, 60s and 70s."

That's not to say, experts said, that Costco, Sam's Club and others haven't made efforts in recent years to appeal to younger, time-strapped shoppers. Sam's Club offers in-store pickup for online orders and the option to pay for items using an app instead of standing in line.

Costco, meanwhile, has added more organic produce and meat and has an expansive wine selection. It is also rolling out grocery delivery services that will bring fresh produce, as well as packaged goods and other items, straight to customers' doorsteps.

"I think we're encouraged when we see the level of millennials, if you will, that are signing up, when we see the average age of our membership coming down," Richard Galanti, Costco's chief financial officer, told investors in late 2016. "Now, it was just a couple of years ago when the average U.S. Costco adult member was four-plus years older than the population as a whole. Now, it's a little under two. And that's without a lot of planning, but it's part of what we do."

But, at the same time, competition is stiff. Warehouse clubs tend to target middle- and high-income households, which means there is significant overlap between membership at Sam's Club and Costco (where annual fees are $55 and $65, respectively) and Amazon Prime, which charges $99 per year and stocks a growing supply of essentials in bulk.

Nearly two-thirds of American households have Prime, according to data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. As a result, analysts say, more families may be inclined to rethink paying for additional memberships at wholesale clubs.

"There's a lot of overlap, and people are shopping on Amazon for other reasons as well," said Mulpuru of Forrester. "Retail is a zero-sum game: As consumers shop more at one company, they'll shop less at another."
http://www.courant.com/breaking-news...122-story.html





UK Regulator Puts Brake on Murdoch's $15.7 Billion Sky Deal
Paul Sandle, Kate Holton

Rupert Murdoch’s $15.7 billion (11.26 billion pounds) takeover of Sky is not in the public interest and should be blocked unless a way is found to prevent the media tycoon from influencing the network’s news output, Britain’s regulator said.

The initial ruling complicates a separate plan by Walt Disney Co to buy the majority of Murdoch’s assets, including Sky. Disney had hoped Murdoch would own 100 percent of the European broadcaster by the time it completed its takeover.

Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox agreed to buy the 61 percent of Sky it did not already own in December 2016, re-igniting a political row in Britain about the influence he wields through his ownership of newspapers the Sun and the Times and his stake in Sky, the biggest pay-TV platform.

Critics of the deal argue that Murdoch could hold sway over the editorial output of Sky News, a loss making but award-winning 24-hour channel. Sky warned that were the deal to be rejected because of Sky News, it could shut the channel itself.

The British government, which will take the final decision on the deal, asked the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to judge if Murdoch had too much influence in Britain and would uphold broadcasting standards.

“We have provisionally found that if the Fox/Sky merger went ahead as proposed, it would be against the public interest,” the CMA’s Anne Lambert said on Tuesday.

“It would result in the Murdoch family having too much control over news providers in the UK, and too much influence over public opinion and the political agenda.”

A WAY OUT?

Murdoch’s news outlets are watched, read or heard by nearly a third of Britons and have a combined share of public news consumption that is significantly greater than all other news providers, except the BBC and commercial news provider ITN.

Possible ways to resolve concerns about Murdoch’s influence in Britain could include spinning off or divesting Sky News, or insulating Sky News from Fox’s influence, the CMA said. A third option is to block the deal outright.

But the regulator did clear him on broadcasting standards, saying that recent allegations of sexual harassment at his Fox News network in the United States did not call into question his commitment to upholding standards in Britain.

An objection on broadcasting standards would have likely sounded the death knell for the deal, while on the face of it, the media plurality concerns are surmountable.

Sky shares rose 2.3 percent to 10.26 pounds by 1010 GMT. Fox agreed to pay 10.75 pounds in cash for each Sky share in December 2016.

“The initial reaction would be to suggest there is an easy fix in that Sky News could be disposed of, either by sale or closure or some other form,” said broker Liberum, which downgraded Sky to hold from buy.

“However, the language of the CMA in its provisional findings suggests they are more minded to blocking the deal as a way of addressing concerns.”

Fox has already offered up remedies to protect the independence of Sky News including the establishment of a Sky News Editorial Board.

But the CMA said media regulator Ofcom had received complaints suggesting that previous attempts by Murdoch to guarantee the editorial independence of the Times newspapers in Britain and the Dow Jones company had proved ineffective.

The CMA said a “comprehensive solution” to the questions posed by the deal would be simply to block it.

Fox said it was disappointed about the provisional judgment, although it welcomed the decision that it had a genuine commitment to broadcasting standards.

It said it would continue to engage with the CMA ahead of the final report in May, and it anticipated approval of the deal by June 30.

MURDOCH‘S LONG GAME

An eventual rejection would be a personal blow to Murdoch, who has spent decades building ties with prime ministers and politicians in Britain. His son James oversaw Sky’s growth as chief executive and currently chairs the broadcaster.

The 86-year-old tycoon sought to buy Sky in 2010, but a phone-hacking scandal at his News of the World tabloid forced him to drop the bid. Since then he has split his companies into two to separate the newspapers from the TV businesses.

Fox said when it agreed the deal it did not foresee any regulatory difficulties but the government has taken a strong line against the takeover.

If Fox is eventually blocked, Disney could buy the rest of Sky itself at a later date, and it would face fewer regulatory objections than the Murdochs.

It will buy Fox’s 39 percent Sky stake in its $52.4 billion purchase of Fox assets, a deal that faces its own lengthy regulatory process in the United States.

That level of ownership would normally require an owner to bid for the whole company, but Disney has asked regulators to allow it leeway to decide whether to bid or not.

Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Keith Weir
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-sk...-idUKKBN1FC0NE





Burger King Trolls Net Neutrality Repeal with Whopper 'Fast Lane' Ad
Jackie Wattles

The three-minute ad shows a "social experiment" in which a Burger King store implements a Whopper "fast lane." Anyone not willing to fork over $26 was forced to wait longer for their meals. Customers who refused to pay any surcharges had to wait as long as 15 to 20 minutes.

The ad, called "Whopper Neutrality," was meant to parody (with burgers) what advocates say repealing net neutrality regulations will do to the internet -- allow service providers to favor some websites and apps over others.

President Trump's Federal Communications Commission moved to put an end to Obama-era net neutrality rules in December, giving the issue renewed public attention.

The Burger King customers who appeared in the ad were understandably not pleased.

"You can't give me the sandwich? It's ready but you can't give it to me?" one angered patron asks. "Oh God, this is the worst thing I've ever heard of!"

The commercial ends with Burger King's mascot, a robed king donning a plastic mask and crown, sipping from an over-sized Reese's novelty mug. It's a clear dig at Trump's FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, who is known to whip out a similar mug at press conferences or in his own anti-regulation video.

Pai says he supports the repeal so the government will "stop micromanaging the internet."

The fast food chain's top marketing executive, Fernando Machado, said in a statement that the company believes "the internet should be like Burger King restaurants, a place that doesn't prioritize and welcomes everyone."

Some welcomed the net neutrality explainer and praised Burger King for taking a stance on the hot-button issue.

"This. Is. Brilliant," one YouTube commenter using the name Charissa Ruth wrote.

Related: More than 20 states sue to stop FCC's net neutrality repeal

But for many, the ad came off as an empty marketing ploy.

Engadget's Mallory Locklear wrote that the ad "doesn't really do a great job at explaining net neutrality."

"Of course, this isn't just a PSA, it is an ad after all and rooted in marketing for the brand," she added.

Recode's Tony Romm made a similar point, calling it another sign we've entered the age of "hyper-aware corporate behemoths with gargantuan marketing departments that see in every social and political cause du jour an opportunity for 15 minutes of web infamy."

He points out that Burger King isn't involved in any lawsuits looking to challenge the net neutrality repeal, and it hasn't spent a dime lobbying on the issue in Washington D.C. A company spokesperson confirmed those points to CNNMoney.

Burger King is, however, urging customers to sign a pro-net neutrality petition on Change.org.

Executive Director Christie-Lee McNally of Free Our Internet, a right-wing advocacy group, also issued a statement lambasting Burger King over the ad.

"Burger King's latest attempt to take on a complicated policy issue outside of its own industry reeks of desperation almost as badly as its Cheetos chicken fries. The only Whopper here is that Burger King is grossly misleading consumers into the realm of fantasy by suggesting a totally fictional internet pricing regime," McNally said.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/24/news...-ad/index.html

















Until next week,

- js.



















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