If you want any more evidence of the dangers posed by Europe's proposed Audiovisual Media Services Directive, commonly known as a reform of TV Without Frontiers, the 174-page RAND Europe study released by the U.K.'s Ofcom should be more than sufficient. As Adam has already noted, the report is a damming indictment, and is full of data, solid academic reasoning and in-depth examinations of various industries and business models that could be negatively impacted. I've written about the difficulties of distinguishing between linear and non-linear services, and the report addresses that in a concrete way, also addressing how that distinction could have an artificial influence on business model development and funding. I particularly liked their value-chain-analysis approach to the various industries using Michael Porter's Five Forces Model.

This analysis also led to a discussion, however brief, of net neutrality, particularly through the study's analysis of 2.0 business models and quality-of-service issues. Take this from the executive summary:

Last week, we hosted another successful CEO luncheon featuring Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens. Discussion at the event, now available as a webcast here, managed to cover topics ranging from the COPE bill to customer service. Below is, for me, some of the more memorable moments.

Quick update... Last week I discussed our government's ongoing lost laptop follies after the House Committee on Government Reform reported that more than 1,100 laptop computers had vanished from the Department of Commerce since 2001, including nearly 250 from the Census Bureau containing such personal information as names, incomes and Social Security numbers. And the Committee is still collecting information about lost computers and compromised personal information from other federal agencies including: the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services and Transportation and the Federal Trade Commission.

This week, in response to these findings, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), the Chairman of the committee, has introduced H.R. 6163, the "Federal Agency Data Breach Protection Act." The bill would establish "policies, procedures, and standards for agencies to follow in the event of a breach of data security involving the disclosure of sensitive personal information and for which harm to an individual could reasonably be expected to result." In other words, federal agencies would have to do a better job informing the public when personal data had been lost or compromised. Of course, it might be easier if they just stopped losing so many laptops!

Incidentally, why are government agencies allowing so much sensitive personal information to be kept on laptops, anyway? It doesn't seem to make much sense to me in light of how easy it is for laptops to be taken out of a government building. Why not follow these two simple rules instead: (1) Keep the really sensitive stuff on desktop computers that are bolted to desks and make sure they don't have any external inputs for personal storage devices. (2) If a government employee still finds a way to take that information home and then loses it, fire them immediately (and perhaps consider other penalties). After all, we're talking about personal information about American citizens here. This stuff should not be taken lightly.

Scholars at RAND Europe recently released a comprehensive analysis of the European Union's controversial Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMS), more commonly known as the "Television without Frontiers Directive." This effort, which is being coordinated by EU Commissioner Viviane Reding, aims to bring some rationality to inconsistent EU media regulations. The problem is, in an effort to make the rules more rational, Reding has essentially proposed a significant expansion of government regulation for new media outlets and operators, including the Internet. (See these three papers by my PFF colleague Patrick Ross for a detailed explanation of the dangers of Reding's efforts to expand content regulation).

Thus far, most of the criticism of the AVMS has been based on social / content-related concerns. Rightly so. There is little doubt that the directive will threaten freedom of speech and expression on the Internet and over other new media outlets / services. But the new RAND study takes a different approach to the issue by focusing on the potential economic impact of the AVMS directive on European companies and the EU's competitive standing in the new media world more generally. [An executive summary of the report and the full report can be found on the Ofcom website here].

RAND's conclusions are not encouraging... unless you happen to be an American or Asian company rooting for your European competitors to be handicapped by excessive government regulation!

Dr. John Rutledge, Chairman of Rutledge Capital, President of the Business School at the Mundell International University of Entreprenuership in Beijing, and PFF Director, looks at China:

After spending the last week in China, I can tell you that the Chinese government understands the only way to deliver high growth and increase living standards without further fouling the air and running out of energy is to focus on IT, communications, and the financial service sector. The Chinese are putting a full court press on innovation and entrepreneurship by aggressively investing in tech education and pursuing policies to attract foreign capital to relocate to China--especially such as R&D operations.

What are we doing?

Honestly, I don't get it. How in the world does government lose so many laptop computers? I don't know if you heard this yesterday but Sonoma County, CA authorities reported that they had lost one-time JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr's laptop, which supposedly contains evidence of child pornography that could have been used to help prosecute him. In other words, we basically bought this freak a free plane ride back from Thailand and then gave him a big "Get Out of Jail Free" card. Brilliant. How in the world do you lose the laptop of the guy who has been all over the news for the past month?

But wait, there's more missing laptop news. In response to an inquiry from the House Committee on Government Reform, 17 federal agencies where asked to report any loss of computers holding sensitive personal information. The results, revealed yesterday, are staggering. According to Alan Sipress of The Washington Post: "More than 1,100 laptop computers have vanished from the Department of Commerce since 2001, including nearly 250 from the Census Bureau containing such personal information as names, incomes and Social Security numbers..." The Census Bureau's lost laptops alone could have compromised the personal information of about 6,200 households. Apparently, according to MSNBC, "Fifteen handheld devices used to record survey data for testing processes in preparation for the 2010 Census also were lost, the [Census] department said." (And you thought that the Census was accurate!) Other government departments reporting lost computers with personal information include the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services and Transportation and the Federal Trade Commission.

Of course, all this comes on top of the lost laptop scandal over at the Department of Veterans Affairs this summer. One lost laptop contained unencrypted information on about 26.5 million people and another had information on about 38,000 hospital patients. And in August, the Department of Transportation revealed that a laptop containing roughly 133,000 drivers' and pilots' records (including Social Security numbers) had been stolen.

I honestly don't understand how are government agencies and officials losing all these laptops but next time they tell us that we can trust them with personal information and other sensitive things I hope we all remember these incidents. This is outrageous.

Things are going s-l-o-w-l-y..

In parts 8 and 12 of this series, I've discussed Time Warner's ongoing problems in what was suppose to be mass media paradise. The mega-merger that critics decried as "Big Brother," "the end of the independent press," and a harbinger of a "new totalitarianism" has turned out to be anything but. $100 billion in lost market cap by 2003 alone, AOL bleeding subscribers, and talk of spinning off the cable division have all led Time Warner President Jeff Bewkes to declare the death of "synergy." More poignantly, he went so far as to call synergy "bullshit"!

And now the oldest members of this marriage - - Time and Warner - - may actually be considering a divorce too. Just last week Time announced that it was putting 18 of its 50 magazines up for sale. And, according to David Carr of the New York Times, the fire sale may not be over:

"[C]urrent realities and pressure from shareholders suggest that Time Inc. will either become a smaller, more profitable division of a public company or it will be in play. A very large boat will have to be turned around very quickly with little additional investment. There will be no big magazine start-ups, no significant acquisitions, only the grinding, dangerous task of taking some of the most storied brands in publishing and making them relevant at a time of rapidly changing consumer and advertising dynamics."

It's just another sign of how dynamic the media marketplace really is. See my last book for more details.

For those of you following the potentially historic legal battle currently unfolding in the courts dealing with broadcast indecency regulation, you might be interested in the comments I filed at the FCC today.

Just by way of brief background, on September 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a brief stay of the Commission's latest round of indecency fines and remanded them back to the agency. (The case is Fox Television Stations v. FCC, 2nd Cir., No. 06-1760). The FCC had requested the stay to allow the broadcast networks (and others) more time to provide input on the agency's fines. (In essence, the FCC wanted to make sure that the networks couldn't claim that they didn't have plenty of time to provide input to the agency.)

I've recently discovered the "Geek and Poke" site, a truly unique blog that uses cartoons to talk about technology issues and Internet policy developments. Here's two that I really enjoyed:

... and this one about the popular online multi-player video game Second Life...