Media News - Thursday, May 10, 2012

Dutch Net Neutrality to become reality after Senate approves law

The Netherlands is the first country in Europe to adopt a net neutrality law, and the second country in the world, after Chile. The Dutch Senate adopted the net neutrality provisions in a new Telecom Law approved on Tuesday evening. The changes to the law were approved unanimously, according to the Senate website. The net neutrality law will ensure that access to the Internet is neutral and it is forbidden to filter the Internet. The law aims to prevent telecom providers from blocking or throttling services such as Skype or WhatsApp, an Internet SMS service. Internet providers will also be prohibited from making prices for their Internet services dependent on the services used by the subscriber. ISPs may throttle traffic to prevent congestion or protect the network - but only if they treat all traffic of the same type equally - and they may not block traffic unless it is necessary in order to protect the integrity and security of the network or users' terminals. There is one notable exception which allows Internet users to request an ISP to filter their Internet traffic by blocking certain services and applications based on ideological grounds, according to the approved changes in the law. Although the clause is intended to allow filtering at the request of the customer, many Dutch politicians see it as opening the door to Internet censorship, and want to see it removed. (PC World)

News Corp. profits increase despite scandal

News Corporation said its net income, driven largely by its strong cable television division, was USD 937m in the third quarter, which ended March 31, or 38 cents a share, compared with USD 639m, or 24 cents a share, in the period a year earlier. Revenue was up 2 percent to USD 8.4bn because of double-digit gains at cable channels like Fox News and FX, which has enjoyed a ratings increase on the strength of original dramas like “Justified.” Chase Carey, News Corporation’s president and chief operating officer, strongly objected to a British parliamentary panel’s report last week that said Rupert Murdoch, the company’s chairman and chief, was “not a fit person” to lead a major corporation. He said the company had no expectations that it would have to divest its 39 percent stake in the British Sky Broadcasting Group. The British regulatory body Ofcom is investigating whether News Corporation is “fit and proper” to hold a broadcast license. News Corporation’s equity earnings from its BSkyB stake were USD 262m in the quarter. News Corporation has largely appeased investors despite the tumult at its British businesses with an aggressive USD 5bn stock repurchasing program. The company said Wednesday that it would extend its buyback program by an additional USD 5bn to be completed roughly by the end of the 2013 fiscal year. (New York Times)

Britain to seek curbs to ‘libel tourism’

Even as the British government delves into evidence of excesses at its notorious tabloids, it appears ready to offer new legal protection for serious journalism. In a traditional speech to open a new session of Parliament, Queen Elizabeth II announced Wednesday that the coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron would introduce a bill overhauling Britain’s libel laws, which critics see as overly friendly to claimants. The announcement was cheered by free-speech campaigners, who called it the clearest signal yet that the government was serious about curbing practices like “libel tourism,” in which foreigners have turned to the British courts for redress even when their complaints have little or no connection to Britain. Critics say this and other practices have turned London into the libel capital of the world, stymieing authors, journalists and bloggers who wish to publish sensitive material about companies, wealthy individuals and others with the means to sue. (New York Times)

Study: Outside media changing N. Korean worldview

A U.S. government-funded study says North Koreans have unprecedented access to foreign media, giving them a more positive impression of the outside world. But it says North Korea still has the world's most closed media environment, and those changing perceptions are unlikely to translate into significant pressure on their repressive government in the short term. The study was commissioned by the State Department and conducted by a consulting group, InterMedia. It is based on research involving several hundred North Korean defectors and refugees during 2010-11. The study, titled "A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media Environment," says restrictions that threaten years in prison and hard labor for activities like watching a South Korean soap opera or listening to foreign news broadcasts have been tightened since the mid-2000s, but are enforced less than in the past. Nearly half of those interviewed said that while in North Korea they had watched a foreign DVD, the most commonly used type of outside media. About a quarter of people had listened to a foreign radio news broadcast or watched a foreign news station. Nearly one-third of television watchers whose sets were fixed to state-run programing had modified them in order to capture a signal from outside stations detectable along the Chinese and South Korean borders. The authors caution that the interviews and surveys on which their research is based are not statistically representative of North Korea's population. A disproportionate number lived in proximity to the Chinese border before they fled. (AP)

Twitter challenges US subpoena seeking user data

Twitter is challenging a court order to turn over to law enforcement data on one of its users involved in Occupy Wall Street in a case described by a civil liberties group as a major test of online freedom of speech. The motion filed Monday in a New York state court said the order would require Twitter to violate federal law and denies the user the ownership rights to his Twitter messages. The case involves a Twitter user, Malcolm Harris, who is being prosecuted for disorderly conduct in connection with the Occupy Wall Street protest on the Brooklyn Bridge last year. Last month, a judge denied a motion by Harris to quash the subpoena, saying he lacked legal standing. The judge said the data stored on the Internet is not physical property and therefore does not have the same protection, The judge also said that while a Twitter user's information and tweets contain a considerable amount of information about the user, "Twitter does not guarantee any of its users complete privacy." Twitter responded with the motion saying its users have rights to their own tweets and other information. (AFP)

Tokyo seeks bloggers for cyber-charm tourism drive

A sales clerk of a souvenir shop, Arab Spring democracy activists and a Chinese children's author are among an eclectic group of bloggers invited to Japan in a cyber-charm offensive to woo back tourists after last year's disasters. The idea is the latest bid by Tokyo to repair a reputation that was badly hit by the quake and tsunami disasters in March 2011 and the subsequent nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima. The bloggers were chosen on the basis of their online popularity and include Khaled Hamza, who edits the Muslim Brotherhood website in Egypt, and Tunisian pro-democracy activist Slim Amamou, Tokyo's foreign ministry said Wednesday. Zheng Yuanjie, who writes books for China's children and has 2.5 million followers on the Chinese version of Twitter, was also invited, a foreign ministry official said. "We are trying to convince foreign tourists to come back to Japan and trade partners to resume imports of Japanese food by showing influential bloggers that Japan is safe," the official said. "We have invited foreign journalists from major newspapers and broadcasters, but these bloggers have direct channels to the audience, to whom established media do not necessarily appeal." Japan's diplomatic missions research the scale of nominees' cyber-audience before offering them a one-week trip to Japan, the official said. (AFP)

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