internet

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at why we should pity the oil industry, how invasion of privacy is sold as a good thing, and kids fighting back. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we look at Philip Morris's ability to see into the future. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

Charter Communications, one of the largest Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the U.S., recently sent letters to some of its 2.7 million customers with details of a new initiative. "Charter is billing its new web tracking program as an 'enhancement' for customers' web surfing experience. ... The pilot program is set to begin next month. 'Browsing the web can become more like flipping through your favorite magazine, where you see ads that are appealing to you and enhance your enjoyment and the utility of the experience,' the company's letters read." Charter says that it is piloting the program in four of its markets: Ft. Worth, Texas; San Luis Obispo, California; Oxford, Massachusetts, and Newtown, Conneticut. The "enhancement" will be difficult to refuse. "Users can opt out of the system, but have to give their full name and address to get an opt-out cookie. The process would have to be repeated for every browser on every computer in a home to block the service, and would have to be reset if cookies are ever deleted." Wired's Ryan Singel says the plan "effectively turns the ISP into the ultimate third-party tracking network." Charter's plan is similar to one developed in the U.K. by Phorm, "a London company with alleged spyware roots." But consumer outrage in Britain has prevented any ISPs from putting it in place.

Consumer Reports Webwatch and the Mediatech Foundation have published a study of how young children interact with the internet, warning that "Publishers of many major children's Web sites should do a better job disclosing sales and advertising information to parents, especially as more kids at younger ages go online to play and meet friends." The study asked families to keep journals and use video cameras to track the way their children used sites such as Club Penguin, Webkinz, Nick Jr. and Barbie.com. (They've posted some of the footage on YouTube, where you can watch it yourself.) It found that children as young as two years old are surfing the web and observed "repeated examples of attempts to manipulate children for the sake of commerce. ... We believe publishers of children's Internet content need to be reminded they are dealing with an audience that thinks differently than adults. Considering how easily millions of adults are regularly fooled by offers of 'free credit reports,' deceptive advertising, and 'order before midnight' commercials, we think it is unreasonable and irresponsible to subject children to the same hard-sell tactics."

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is suing NextClick Media, Inc., an Internet advertising company, over Web sites they operate that offered "free 10-day trials" of an herbal stop-smoking patch called "Nicocure," "Stop Smoking 180" and "Zero Nicotine." The sites claimed the product worked better than nicotine patches and had a "97% success rate." People who signed up for the "free trial" got a 30-day supply instead of a 10-day supply, then were told they had to pay for all 30 days if they chose to keep it. If they returned the product, they were assessed a $7.95 restocking fee. People who agreed to the "free trial" also found themselves enrolled in a "continuity program" that automatically billed their credit or debit card a monthly charge of up to $99.95 until they canceled. Customers found contacting the company to get out of the arrangement nearly impossible. None of the costly terms of the "free trial" were disclosed on the company's Web sites. After the FTC sued the company, NextClick agreed to halt its deceptive practices.

Buried in junk mail...what to do?A recent blog about the pro-junk mail lobby and its front group, Mail Moves America, drew many comments. Mail Moves America is a coalition of businesses that oppose efforts to create a legislated "Do Not Mail" list to protect citizens from being showered with unwanted junk mail,Junk mail is clearly a hot topic that arouses strong emotions on all sides. As electronic mail moves closer to overtaking paper mail as the medium of choice for written communication, it is clear that the Post Office remains an essential way to communicate and transfer goods. Still, many people are overwhelmed with junk mail and have little idea how to stop it.

As part of its plan to expand online "information operations," the Pentagon is launching "a global network of foreign-language news websites ... and hiring local journalists to write current events stories and other content that promote U.S. interests," reports Peter Eisler. The Pentagon launched Matawani.com last year, an Arabic-language site with Iraq news; other sites are being developed for Asian and Latin American audiences. Like the Pentagon's older "news" sites, aimed at North Africa and Southeast Europe, the new sites only disclose U.S. Defense Department involvement on a single page reached via a small "about" link at the bottom of the site. The goal of the Pentagon's "Trans Regional Web Initiative" is to launch "a minimum of six" websites run by regional U.S. military commands. Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Vickers said, "Our adversaries use the Internet to great advantage," so the Pentagon must counter their messages with "truthful information, and these websites are a good vehicle." Harvard University's Marvin Kalb called the websites "deliberate deception" that "weakens the image of journalism as an objective bystander."

An April 7, 2008 citizen journalism task asked people to investigate tobacco industry brainstorming documents at the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. That request led to a marvelous blog titled "The Sick and Crazy Science Tobacco Companies Pursue to Get You Hooked," posted on Alternet by Scott Thill, in which he describes some of his finds, including a bizarre research project to investigate the effect of a chemical in cigarette smoke called nitric oxide on cat penises. From nacho cheese-flavored cigarettes to on-pack contests to win everything from Clearasil to used celebrity underwear, tobacco industry brainstorming documents contain an untold number of bizarre marketing, advertising and product design ideas. Thill's blog praises TobaccoWiki's Brainstorming documents page, as well as citizen journalism and the new ways that research wikis are allowing people to compile and share information.

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at the Pentagon's pundits, a stealth campaign on Wikipedia, and how Monsanto's not feeding the world. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," does Torie Clarke really believe it's a post-spin world? The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

This Sunday's stunning, front-page New York Times revelations of the Pentagon military analyst program have been met with a wall of silence and cover-up on network television news. America's TV networks -- ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN and FOX -- are where most Americans get most of their news, and they are the main culprits in allowing Donald Rumsfeld and Torie Clarke to turn them into the primary propaganda tool for selling the Iraq war to the public.

PBS NewsHour covered this issue in a televised debate April 24 pitting me against Robert Zelnick, former ABC Pentagon correspondent and now chair of the Boston University journalism department. (Zelnick is also affiliated with the Hoover Institute, a conservative think tank.) No one from the Pentagon would agree to appear on the PBS show, nor would anyone appear from any of the guilty TV networks.

My debate with Zelnick is now on YouTube, where you can watch it yourself. The NewsHour report on the Pentagon pundits that preceded our debate is also online, and if you have a slow internet connection (or if you find my face and voice too irritating to tolerate), you can also read the online transcript.

A review article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) suggested that tanning at the beach or an indoor tanning booth can help avoid the dangers of vitamin D deficiency. However, the NEJM didn't disclose that the article's author, Michael Holick, has received more than $150,000 in research funding from the artificial tanning industry. Martin Weinstock, a dermatologist at Brown University and an expert on the link between tanning beds and skin cancer, says he informed NEJM Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Drazen about Holick’s industry connections prior to the article's publication, adding that "the quality of evidence" behind Holick's recommendations was "poor." The Indoor Tanning Association (ITA) has also hired Berman & Co., a notorious Washington, D.C. PR firm, to develop what ITA called "an aggressive media relations and public relations campaign." Berman, who has created numerous web-based front groups for the food, alcohol and tobacco industries, created a new site called SunlightScam.com. He's also running advertisements that attack medical groups, calling the Skin Cancer Foundation and the American Academy of Dermatology part of the "sunscam industry" and dismissing as "hype" their warnings of the link between tanning and melanoma.