Morning tech tip sheet: Friday, May 7 — Reaction to the FCC’s plans, teleworking, Twitter and more

STORIES OF NOTE:

Bill to expand federal teleworking falls short in the House (WashPo) — Ed O’Keefe reports: “Legislation that would give federal workers the option to work from home ran into a significant roadblock Thursday, failing to get the two-thirds majority in the House that would have expanded telework options across the government. … The bill drew 268 votes of support in the House but fell nine short of passage because it was brought up under special fast-track rules. It could return to the floor later in the legislative calendar, but that is not assured. … Similar legislation awaits a vote in the Senate.”

Cable stocks fall after news of FCC plan (WSJ/Digits) — Jennifer Valentino-DeVries some of Thursday’s market woes to the FCC announcement. She writes: “Cable-company stocks fell Thursday on concern about the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to regulate Internet lines. … Comcast shares were down almost 4% in early afternoon trading, while Time Warner Cable fell by nearly 6%. Cablevision, which also reported earnings Thursday, was down more than 6% as well. Telecom companies, which also could be affected by the plan, fared better, with Verizon down less than 1% and AT&T down about 1%.”

EU adopts rules to boost mobile broadband (Tech Daily Dose) — From Juliana Gruenwald: “The European Commission Thursday adopted harmonized technical rules for its member states aimed at avoiding interference as part of its efforts to boost the deployment of high-speed wireless Internet services. … Like in the United States, European spectrum is being freed up as part of many EU member states’ conversion from analog to digital television. Those countries that choose to use this newly available spectrum for wireless broadband must apply the “harmonized technical rules” adopted by the commission for the 800 megahertz frequencies, the commission, the European Union’s regulatory arm, said in a statement.”

Library of Congress responds to privacy gripes, makes tweet archive less useful (Tech Dirt) — It seems the Library plans to cut back its plans to store Twitter archives for research purposes. Notes Karl Bode, ” Late last week a little more detail of the archiving process leaked
out, the LOC saying that in response to privacy complaints they wouldn’t
store deleted tweets, and they’d also be placing all tweets under
embargo for a period of six months (for whatever that’s supposed to
accomplish). For good measure, they’re also apparently locking
down the Twitter archive to “qualified researchers” and considering
further restrictions.”

BP turns to Twitter, Facebook for spill information (Reuters) — From the wire: “Phone lines at the command center where teams are directing clean-up of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are often jammed, but media-savvy fishermen, residents and others can find the latest updates on Twitter and Facebook. … News that the massive containment dome to be placed over one of the leaks had arrived above the leak off the Louisiana shore appeared first on the popular social media sites. So did word that controlled burns of the oil slick would go ahead on Wednesday after a week of bad weather. … ‘We want to ensure that we can get out
information about the response to this incident and spill as rapidly and
widely as possible,’ David Nicholas, a BP spokesman wrote in an email.“

FRIDAY’S EVENTS:

NEW: What should the next communicaitions act look like?
Progress
and Freedom Foundation
Where: National Press Club
When: 9 a.m. –
10:30 a.m.
Note: Big names to attend, offer insight, only days
after the FCC will make its landmark move on net neutrality. Slated to
show are Tom Tauke, executive vice president of Verizon; Peter Pitsch,
associate general councel for Intel; Walter McCormick, the president and
CEO of United States Telecom Association and a host of other industry
leaders and analysts.

American
National Standards Institute and the Internet Security Alliance 

Cybersecurity

briefing on Capitol Hill to present new report

Where: Cannon 311C

When:

Friday, May 7, 11:30 a.m. RSVP required