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A new report from the Federal Trade Commission found that mobile apps for kids get failing grades when it comes to protecting their privacy. 

In a survey of the thousands of apps available in the Apple App Store and the Android market, the FTC staff found it "almost impossible" to figure out what data an app was collecting from children, how it was being shared, or who would have access to it.

With the report, the FTC sent a warning that developers and companies in the "kids app ecosystem" needed to do a lot more to disclose whether the app connects with social media, whether it contains ads, and whether data is collected and shared.

"Companies that operate in the mobile marketplace provide great benefits, but they must step up to the plate and provide easily accessible, basic information, so that parents can make informed decisions about the apps their kids use," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz stated in a press release.

The FTC is currently in the process of updating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule, which requires operators of online services, including mobile apps, to provide notice and obtain parental permission prior to collecting information for children under 13. In August, the agency fined its first mobile app under the rule, slapping a $50,000 fine on W3 Innovations, LLC (Broken Thumbs Apps) for a series of apps (Emily's Girl World, Emily's Dress Up) that collected and disclosed personal information from children under 13 without obtaining parental information.

The FTC said that in the next six months, it would begin investigating whether other mobile apps are violating COPPA.

Privacy groups took the opportunity of the FTC's report to call for even stricter rules and new legislation to ensure childrens' and all consumers privacy.

"Today's report is a wake-up call that Congress should pass a privacy 'Bill of Rights' to protect all consumers online. It's time Congress put a stop to these 'wild west' mobile data collection practices," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. 

Last year, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) introduced the Do Not Track Kids Act of 2011 that would update COPPA and enhance and update provisions relating to the collection, use and disclosure of children's personal information. 

Hammering out the differences into the wee hours of Thursday morning, a bipartisan, bicameral Congressional committee took the historic first step toward unleashing more wireless spectrum to feed an increasingly hungry mobile marketplace.

The bill, which authorizes the Federal Communications Commission to auction off spectrum voluntarily relinquished by broadcasters, will likely be passed Friday by Congress as part of a broader package to extend the payroll tax and unemployment benefits through the rest of the year. President Obama has said he will sign it as soon as it reaches his desk.

Passing spectrum legislation has been a long time in coming. Negotiations between GOP and Dems over the details stalled several times last year, giving varied business interests— including broadcasters, wireless companies like AT&T and Verizon, and the public safety community—plenty of time to lobby.

“We found a good balance,” said Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), whose Jumpstarting Opportunity with Broadband Spectrum (JOBS Act) formed the basis of the spectrum legislation that is included in the payroll tax package.

Though the conferees have yet to sign off on the final language, Walden was optimistic about its prospects. “I’m not happy with every provision so the other side must be happy," he said. "There should be broad acceptance.”

Broadcasters worried early in the debate that they might be forced to give up spectrum. But, thanks to Walden, a former broadcaster, they pretty much got everything they wanted. The bill takes care of broadcasters that choose to hold onto spectrum, making sure the FCC makes every effort to preserve TV station coverage areas and population reach. No station will be forced to move to VHF, an undesirable band that limits reach. To help broadcasters relocate, $1.75 billion is set aside in the bill to cover costs.

“Special thanks go to Chairmen Rep. [Fred] Upton (R-Mich.) and Walden for steering this bill to conclusion, and to Reps. [John] Dingell (D-Mich.) and [Brian] Bilbray (R-Calif.) for a critically important amendment guaranteeing continued viewer access to TV station signals along the Canadian and Mexican borders,” said Gordon Smith, president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters.

In addition to authorizing the FCC to conduct spectrum auctions, the bill sets aside spectrum to create a nationwide public safety network for police, fire and EMS, one of the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission. The bill also sets aside money to set up a “next generation 9-11” network system and gives the FCC authority to set aside some spectrum for unlicensed use.

Though Apple and the late Steve Jobs have been praised (with justification) for improving, streamlining, face-lifting and otherwise revolutionizing the cellphone, it’s only fair to note the one thing Jobs and his company did not do: invent the contraption. That honor belongs to Motorola engineer Martin Cooper, who gave the world its first commercially available cellphone in 1984: the DynaTAC 8000X, yours for only $3,995. This was the phone that would later be dubbed “the brick,” and which became famous when Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko used it in the 1987 film Wall Street.

Meanwhile, Finnish competitor Nokia was working furiously to deliver the counterpunch. It came in 1988 with the P-30, a phone that appeared in the U.S. the same year as the Radio Shack CT-301, shown in the ad at right. This nifty chunk of high tech was close to 19 inches long (including the antenna), weighed nearly two pounds and would only set you back $1,499. Go ahead, laugh.

Given the tectonic changes that have hit the cellphone market since then (2 million Americans owned cellphones back in 1988; today it’s 300 million), it’s hard to find much that’s similar about the two ads on these pages. Nevertheless, if you look past the obvious differences in technology, you might notice something interesting: The marketing psychology at work here is identical.

“Both ads are talking the exact same way to the exact same person,” said Stuart Leslie, president of design and innovation firm 4sight inc. “The key element is lifestyle. Whether it’s a golf course or a sushi restaurant, they’re nailing your aspirations and dreams.”

Let’s back up a moment. Aside from doing the necessary work of explaining what a cellphone was, the 1988 Radio Shack ad takes the critical step of inviting the reader to imagine himself using the device. The CT-301 “lets a person make or take calls at a job site, in a rental car, on a service call, or even on the golf course.” Leslie said that phrase alone lures the would-be buyer into imagining himself as the Goldfinger of his world: “This phone was the essence of cool at the time. You pull it out and everybody admires it. So you’re the guy, it’s your time, you’ve arrived. It’s brilliant marketing.”

The pitch, in other words, isn’t really about the phone; it’s about the phone as a facilitator of the sophisticated lifestyle that’s yours if you buy the phone. And that, Leslie said, is also what Apple is doing 22 years later with its ad (opposite) for the iPhone 4S.

“Apple’s focus in not on the device; it’s what’s going on in your life,” Leslie said. “It speaks directly to your emotional state: ‘Hey, I feel like sushi.’” Then Siri, the 4S’s “intelligent personal assistant” leads you to that sushi. “We all want to find a great sushi place. It’s a real-world thing,” Leslie said. Take your chums to an awesome restaurant, and you’re the man—just like you’d have been back in 1988 had you pulled our your CT-301 on the fairway. (There was just no Siri back then. Oh, and no Internet either.)

None of which means that 22 years from now, we won’t be laughing at the design of the iPhone 4S. “We absolutely will,” Leslie said. But at least it looks better than a brick.

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For the second time this year, the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday held its monthly meeting short of two Commissioners. It may stay that way for a while longer.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has no intentions of lifting his hold on FCC nominees Republican Ajit Pai and Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel, who are caught in the middle of Grassley's beef with how the FCC has handled LightSquared's requests to build out a wireless network. While Grassley's position hasn't changed, the FCC's on LightSquared has. On Tuesday, the agency said it would withdraw LightSquared's preliminary approval for building out its network because it interfered with GPS devices.

For Grassley, the FCC's reversal just confirmed for him what he suspected all along.

“The FCC’s action seems to acknowledge the point I’ve been making since April. Prematurely granting a conditional waiver in a rushed process is not the way to get the right result.  Now that the interference issue is settled, we need to find out more than ever why the FCC did what it did,” Grassley said.

Grassley has made repeated requests to the FCC to hand over documents related to the agency's temporary approval of the wireless project, but the FCC has refused because Grassley sits on the Judiciary not the Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the FCC. Grassley put the nominees on hold soon after the nominees were voted out of the Senate Commerce Committee in December. 

Guess which companies are having early success as part of YouTube’s massive 96-channel rollout? The ones that have done it before.

YouTube natives like Maker Studios and Vlogbrothers are off to strong starts since launching new channels backed by Google’s much-hyped $100 million production fund. Conversely, less experienced (and perhaps more substantive) content producers like Slate and The Intelligent Channel are struggling to attract large numbers of subscribers, as least according to the early view numbers they're generating on YouTube. And so far, Madonna’s celebrity, along with her well-received Super Bowl halftime performance, has failed to translate into a mass audience—though it’s still early.

For example, Maker Studios, perhaps best known for nurturing comedic YouTubers like Ray William Johnson and Nice Peter, started off strong with its mothers-oriented channel The Moms' View, which has amassed nearly 60,000 subscribers and 2.1 million views since launching in December; and Tutele, its more narrowly focused Hispanic-themed channel, which claims close to 25,000 subscribers as of Wednesday (Feb. 15).

Similarly, but perhaps more unexpectedly, Vlogbrothers' SciShow, which discusses such topics as lake discoveries in Antarctica and solar storms, has landed about 100,000 subscribers while generating 1.7 million views. Vlogbrothers’ other YouTube channel, Crash Course, has fewer subscribers (113,305) but has exceeded 720,000 views.

Like Maker, Vlogbrothers is a YouTube fixture. The brothers existing channel has over 200 million views, so it arrived at the channel strategy with a running start. That’s not the case with Slate, which has attracted fewer than 8,400 subscribers for Slate News Channel since making its debut Jan. 2. Slate, known for its smart, opinionated editorial, has at least generated plenty of views (34 million). The Intelligent Channel, which features Paul Holdengraber, director of public programs at the New York Public Library, conducting interviews, has proven a tough draw, pulling in just 2,277 subscribers and 16,960 video views.

While egghead interviews may eventually catch on, dance, fitness and parenting would seem to be perfect for YouTube’s niche programming strategy. But so far, big names with little YouTube experience going after such niches have exhibited mixed, if not lousy results. For example, Madonna’s DanceOn has nabbed nearly 35,00 subscribers—fewer people that attend some of her concerts—but has also generated close to 35 million views. To be fair, a rep for DanceOn said that the site's premium video content isn't due to arrive until April. Meanwhile, Lionsgate’s health-oriented BeFit looks like a bust, as the channel has collected just 7,663 subscribers since going live in January, though those folks have amassed 466,137 views.

Surprisingly, the hip, fast-growing parenting site CafeMom has struggled programming to moms while Maker, which previously had little to no mom credibility, has scored. The CafeMom studios channel has just 4,134 subscribers. However, those users are responsible for a ton of volume—1,463,742 views—or 354 views each. It should be noted that you don’t have to be a subscriber to watch videos on any of these channels.

Also having some trouble pulling in subscribers is Deca, the Web distributor behind the popular Momversation blog. Its KinCommunity has 8,807 subscribers and 869,754 views. Several of its clips have been viewed just a few hundred times.

Is it way too early to evaluate a programming lineup that has been live in some cases just five or six weeks, with varying levels of output, frequency and promotional backing? Probably. But in a media landscape that declares million-dollar network TV pilots dead after one viewing, YouTube programmers should expect heavy scrutiny, with their view numbers naked for the world to see.

And to hear most in the industry tell it, programming to a YouTube audience is a very specific skill, one that probably requires much experimentation and recalibration. It seems to help if you’ve done it for a while. Just look at Young Hollywood, another media company with a strong Web heritage. It already claims 37,141 subscribers and an stunning 79 million views.

There are of course, some early exceptions to this rule of thumb. For example, Demand Media, one of the most prolific YouTube programmers, has seen its new channels initially fall flat: eHow Home has just 13,942 subscribers, though it has produced 8.8 million views, while Livestrong Women has just 3,575 subscribers and 72,270 views to date.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal, not exactly known for its viral videos, is off to a strong start, proving that traditional media can do YouTube. Its 12,384 subscribers have already accounted for 12.9 million views.

Alas, not every traditional player can make the same claim. Reuters' original YouTube channel has just 4,591 subscribers and 184,619 views.

It was only a matter of time before Congress got wind of reports that certain apps have been collecting consumers' address books without their consent. While the social networking app "Path"—which recently received a public flogging for doing just that—was quick to recant the practice, the issue leaves some lawmakers with questions about whether Apple's policies with its app developers leaves consumer privacy unprotected.

In order to seek answers, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), ranking member of the Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee, sent a letter Wednesday to Apple CEO Tim Cook with a list of questions about the company's developer and consumer privacy policies.

"Claims have been made that 'there is a quiet understanding among many iOS app developers that it is acceptable to send a user's entire address book, without their permission, to remote servers and then store it for future reference. It's common practice, and many companies likely have your address book stored in their database,'" Waxman and Butterfield wrote quoting recent reports.

Apple has until Feb. 29 to respond.

Regardless of Apple's policies, the Mobile Marketing Association, which last month released privacy policy guidelines for mobile apps, says it's up to the app developer to get in line.
If apps don't, congressional intervention is inevitable. "We specifically wrote privacy app guidelines for bullshit like this," said Greg Stuart, the global CEO of the MMA. "The challenge with Apple is they run such a proprietary system that they get tagged for this, but I don't know if they have real culpability. [Path] violated all three MMA guidelines of transparency, notice and choice."

Specifically, MMA's guidelines state: "If the Application collects information from and/or for social networking platforms (e.g., pulling contact information, friends lists, login information, photos or check-ins), the Application should ensure that the prior consent of the user is obtained."

Update:

The usually reticent Apple responded that developers accessing address book data without the consumer's permission are violating Apple's guidelines. "We're working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release," Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AllThingsD.

ABC News has extended its partnership with social TV analytics firm Bluefin Labs through next year’s presidential inauguration. ABCNews.com executive producer Ed O’Keefe announced the extension during a Social Media Week panel on Feb. 15.

Bluefin Labs is a social media analytics company backed by Time Warner Ventures and several other top VC firms. The company has quickly established itself as a key source of data in the burgeoning social TV arena.

Starting in December and continuing throughout the recent Republican primary debates, Bluefin Labs has been analyzing social media reactions and valuing candidates’ performances for ABC News. O’Keefe said the values assigned to candidates has “almost perfectly” correlated with major campaign events.

“When Mitt Romney had a bad night [during the Dec. 10 debate] and Newt Gingrich had a very good night, the next morning the intersecting values of their stock totally changed,” he said.

But ABC News doesn’t solely rely on Bluefin Labs’ algorithm to surface social sentiment. Because of the volume of social data and novelty of sentiment analysis, ABC News augments the technology with employees who monitor the analysis.

“We needed some way to regulate that conversation, so we do have a manual level of our experts over the top of the social sentiment market as well,” O’Keefe said.

That social sentiment market is not limited to politics. ABC News is working with Bluefin Labs on a similar initiative tied to the Academy Awards. That Oscars Stock Market program values nominees in six major categories—including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress—based on social sentiment and expert analysis.

Telemarketers won't be able to interrupt your dinner anymore. The Federal Communications Commission Wednesday voted unanimously to adopt new rules cracking down on those annoying robocalls that seem to come at the most inopportune moment.

The new rules close current loopholes in the law by requiring telemarketers to obtain prior written (or electronic) consent from consumers before delivering robocalls on the telephone or text messages on mobile devices. With each call, telemarketers must also offer an easy, interactive opt-in feature.

Voting to pass the rules was a no-brainer for the three commissioners. "Consumers have complained by the thousands," said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

Like the current rules, charities and political speech are exempt.

Who better to capture a day in the mobile life of New York than one of the city’s most individual observers? Best known for his 2009 cover of The New Yorker, the first for a major magazine created with the iPhone, Lisbon-born Jorge Colombo has lived in New York since 1998 and in that time has borne witness to technology’s inexorable influence on all our lives. “Personal devices are now like Swiss Army knives: one simple tool in your pocket that does the jobs a bunch of different ones used to do,” he says. “Networking sites became the town square, the coffeehouse, the front porch.” For all the attention they get, Colombo says his smartphone drawings really aren’t all that different from those he does with a pencil and pad. “It’s not about the tool—it’s about the observation and the quick capture,” he says. But for the artist, whose collection of cityscapes was published by Chronicle Books last year and who teaches a series of workshops at the Museum of Modern Art this month, reportage has its hazards. “Crowds bump into me,” he says, “but everyone thinks I’m just typing a very long email.”
 

Click the image below to view a gallery of Jorge's portraits

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A service aimed at cable TV cord cutters is set to launch in New York on March 14. The service, called Aereo, streams live broadcast TV channels to all Internet-enabled devices, from smart phones to tablets, for the monthly fee of $12.

To lure new customers, Aereo is offering New Yorkers a 30-day free trial.

The service also announced Tuesday $20.5 million in financing led by Barry Diller's IAC. Diller, the chairman and senior executive of IAC, has joined Aereo's board of directors.

"Aereo is the first potentially transformative technology that has the chance to give people access to broadcast television delivered over the Internet to any device, large or small, they desire," Diller said in a press release. "No wires, no new boxes or remotes, portable everywhere there's an Internet connection in the world, truly a revolutionary product."

The timing may be right. As cable fees continue to climb, consumers are looking for less expensive video options, like Hulu or Netflix.
New York is also logical launch pad for the service, since it solves over-the-air reception problems inherent to New York's urban canyon environment.

What's particularly interesting about the subscription-only service, is the way it works. Aereo uses tiny antennas the size of a dime to pick up the local TV stations in the market, which are then delivered via an Internet player. Each subscriber is assigned one antenna.

In a sense, the consumer is renting a personal antenna from Aereo. That's how how Aereo intends to get around the copyright and retransmission regulations that have shut down other alternative subscription TV services.

Broadcasters, who would not get a dime from Aereo under its current business model, haven't yet mounted a legal challenge. But that doesn't mean one isn't coming.

"While it sounds like it has some capital behind it, they will need a lot more to fend off litigation if they can't work out separate deals with the networks," said Scott Flick, a broadcast attorney with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in D.C. "It will also be very important as to exactly how they 'process' the broadcast programming on its way to the consumer. After all, any one with a DVR and a set of rabbit ears could collect their own broadcast programming for free. That being the case, the monthly charge makes it look less like an equipment rental service, and more like a retransmission service, particularly given the stated intent to relay the content to phones and other screen devices that are not designed for reception of broadcast signals."