Legislators Introduce Student Digital Privacy Bill; New York Times, 4/29/15

Natasha Singer, New York Times; Legislators Introduce Student Digital Privacy Bill:

"Months after President Obama proposed to strengthen digital privacy protection for students, two legislators on Wednesday introduced a comprehensive bill in Congress intended to accomplish that goal.

Titled the Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act of 2015, the bill would prohibit operators of websites, apps and other online services for kindergartners through 12th graders from knowingly selling students’ personal information to third parties; from using or disclosing students’ personal information to tailor advertising to them; and from creating personal profiles of students unless it is for a school-related purpose.

The bill would give parents access to information held about their children and allow them to correct it; to delete information about their children that schools do not need to retain; and to download any material their children have created."

Once Comcast’s Deal Shifted to a Focus on Broadband, Its Ambitions Were Sunk; New York Times, 4/23/15

Jonathan Mahler, New York Times; Once Comcast’s Deal Shifted to a Focus on Broadband, Its Ambitions Were Sunk:

"If there was a single moment when the winds seemed to shift against Comcast, it came in November, when President Obama released a video on the White House website in which he spoke about the future of the Internet. For the first time, Mr. Obama, who had long offered support for the idea of net neutrality but had always stopped short of suggesting how it might be achieved, was unambiguously clear about what he wanted. He called on the Federal Communications Commission to adopt “the strongest possible rules” to regulate the Internet.

“For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access into and out of your home or business,” he said. “It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information — whether a phone call or a packet of data.”...

It meant that a lot of Americans living in rural areas no longer had what qualified as high-speed Internet access — making Comcast’s already large share of the broadband market considerably larger."

Obama faces digital divide growing wider on heels of FCC court ruling; FoxNews.com, 1/27/14

Barnini Chakraborty, FoxNews.com; Obama faces digital divide growing wider on heels of FCC court ruling:

"The great digital divide that President Obama repeatedly has pledged to fix could grow even wider, after a recent federal court ruling put the president's promise of leveling the tech playing field in jeopardy...

Last year, the president pitched a plan aimed at making sure "99 percent of students across the country" would receive access to high-speed broadband and wireless Internet at their schools within the next five years. During his 2011 State of the Union address, he stressed the need to upgrade all Americans.

"This isn't just about faster Internet or fewer dropped calls," Obama said at the time. "It's about connecting every part of America to the digital age."

But on Jan. 14, a federal appeals court struck down the Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet Order pertaining to so-called "net neutrality." The decision paves the way for Internet service providers to potentially block any website or app of their choosing...

Barbara Stripling, president of the American Library Association, argues that by allowing ISPs to preferentially charge for a tiered access, not only will public libraries suffer, but so will the communities that rely on them. She believe the hardest hit would be school children in grades K-12.

"Schools, public and college universities rely upon public availability of government services, licensed databases, job-training videos, medical and scientific research, and many other essential services," she wrote in a Jan. 16 opinion piece on Wired.com."

Wikipedia Kills Page Linking Obama Slogan to Socialist Movement; New York Times, 5/8/12

Noam Cohen, New York Times; Wikipedia Kills Page Linking Obama Slogan to Socialist Movement:

"After a debate among readers who also cast votes on the issue, the Wikipedia administrator essentially killed the page by having it redirect to the general article on the Obama-Biden presidential campaign; all that is left of the original article is the simple statement: “On April 30, 2012, the campaign announced that its slogan would be ‘Forward.’”"