Sunday, November 8, 2009

Proposed NBC Comcast Merger under Intense Review

Comcast has proposed to purchase 51% of NBC from General Electric, which would give Comcast the controlling stake in NBC.

Public interest groups are already raising red flags at this possible merger. Comcast owns the majority of cable systems throughout the US, so many are concerned that NBC will receive special privilege from Comcast over its competitors. Interest groups like the Free Press and The Center for Digtal Democracy hope the Obama administration will closely scrutinize this merger, and that he will continue to live up to his campaign promise to work towards a more diverse media.

Another big concern with the merger is the impact of the Internet video market. Currently, NBC owns a 30% stake in Hulu, a website that allows users to watch TV or film clips online. According to the group Media Access Project, a public interest law firm, Comcast is threatened by websites like Hulu, which may possibly lead to the limitation of free television episodes.

I spent over 8 years with NBC, so I will be very interested to see how this merger develops.

Here is a link to the full NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/media/09comcast.html

I also found a couple of additional realted articles:
http://www.reuters.com/article/innovationNews/idUSTRE5A801F20091109?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=11624

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Spamming/Scamming

I found this section of the lecture particularly interesting, because my husband was recently scammed/spammed.

Yesterday, I noticed three strange charges on our banking account. As it turns out, these were charges from two different companies who specialize in selling cyber dollars. This scammer found my husband's debt card number, expiration date, and code on the back of his card. We are not sure what site his information was stolen from. He uses Paypal and various other sites to buy products, so who knows where they obtained his information.

We spoke with both companies about the scam, and they both agreed to reverse the charges. One of the companies told us that they receive about 100 orders a day and 2 of those orders are scams. It is really scary to realize how quickly these unethical "black hat" scammers can steel people's private information. In the future, we will definitely be more diligent to protect our online privacy.

I found a couple of good articles on the subject.

Cyber security: Beyond black and white

New scam with a taste of old con