... separate nutritional standards for each of ten product categories, taking effect no later than December 31, 2013.

Which in real terms means that after that date member companies will not advertise to children any foods that do not meet the CFBAI criteria. 

The ten product categories are: juices; dairy products; grains, fruits and vegetable products; soups and meal sauces; seeds, nuts, nut butters and spreads; meat, fish and poultry products; mixed dishes; main dishes and entrees; small meals; and meals. Each category has its own set of criteria, such as:

• Juices. For juices, no added sugars are permitted, and the serving must contain no more than 160 calories.
   
• Dairy. This category includes products such as milk and yogurt. For ready to drink flavored milk, an 8 fluid ounce portion is limited to 24 grams (g) of total sugars. For yogurt products, a 6 ounce portion is limited to 170 calories and 23 grams of total sugars. These sugars criteria include both naturally-occurring and sugars added for flavoring.
   
• Grains, fruits and vegetable products (and items not in other categories). This category includes products such as cereals, crackers and cereal bars. Foods with ≤ 150 calories, such as most children’s breakfast cereals, must contain no more than 1.5 g of saturated fat, 290 milligrams (mg) of sodium and 10 g of sugar (products with > 150−200 calories get proportionately higher limits). Foods in this category also must provide ≥ ½ serving of foods to encourage (fruits, vegetables, non- or low-fat dairy, and whole grains) or ≥ 10% of the Daily Value of an essential nutrient.
   
• Seeds, nuts, nut butters and spreads. Foods in this category, which includes peanut butters, must have no more than 220 calories, 3.5 g of saturated fat, 240 mg of sodium and 4 g of sugar per 2 tablespoons. Foods in this category also must provide at least one ounce of protein equivalent.
   
• Main dishes and entrees. Foods in this category, such as canned pastas, must have no more than 350 calories, 10 percent calories from saturated fat, 600 mg of sodium and 15 g of sugar per serving. Foods in this category also must provide either ≥ 1 serving of foods to encourage or ≥ ½ serving of foods to encourage and ≥ 10% of the Daily Value of two essential nutrients.

The new rules are based on "food science" and US dietary guidelines, and "fill in gaps" in its current system by establishing category-specific limits for calories, saturated fat, transfat, sodium and total sugars. Plus requirements for "nutrition components to encourage."

The new rules also eliminate companies' ability to define products as acceptable for advertising based solely on a product's meeting a "reduced" claim ("25% less sodium") or being marketed in portion-controlled packages (eg: "100-calorie").

According to CFBAI vp/director Elaine Kolish, the new criteria "represent a huge step forward, further strengthening" major food/beverage companies' voluntary efforts to improve the nutrition of the foods they advertise to kids.

The standards are designed to include "challenging yet feasible" goals, and to take into account "the real-world difficulties of changing recipes of well-known foods," as well as to encourage development of new products with less sodium, saturated fat, sugar and calories, CFBAI says.

The standards also "recognize the inherent differences in food categories and their roles in the diet."

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... dating and similar websites.

Under a first-of-its-kind proposal [SB242], social-networking sites would have to allow users to establish their privacy settings when registering on the site - rather than after they sign-up. New members could view their profile and decide in advance what information would be public. Sites would also have to set user defaults to 'Private'.

Needless to say, the draft bill - authored by Senator Ellen Corbett [Democrat-San Leandro] is vehemently opposed by most in the internet industry.

Although Facebook has not yet formally objected to the bill, Corbett alleges that the social-networking giant has worked in "stealth mode" to oppose it.

The bill would require social sites to explain their privacy controls in "plain language" with willful violations of the law resulting in a $10,000 fine for each violation.

Says Corbett:"You shouldn't have to sign in and give up your personal information before you get to the part where you say, 'Please don't share my personal information'."

The bill also would require social-networking sites to remove personally identifying information if requested by a user and/or the parent of a user under 18.

Unsurprisingly, the bill is facing fierce opposition from online companies who argue it to be both unconstitutional and unworkable. They also claim that such a measure actually would decrease privacy for those who use social networking sites.

The bill passed through a legislative committee last week and is now headed to the Senate floor, where it will face an even more intense assault from the industry.

Tammy Cota, executive director of the Internet Alliance trade association, claims the law would have myriad unintended consequences.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which approved the measure, Cota argues that it "would force users to make decisions about privacy and visibility of all information well before they even used the service for the first time, and in such a manner that they are less likely to pay attention and process the information."

Concerns about the bill's impact and the possibility it might drive internet businesses out of the state, is resulting in opposition among some lawmakers.

Toeing a predictable party line, Senator Sam Blakeslee [Republican-San Luis Obispo] said a single mid-level manager who willfully violates the provisions for one million users would expose his/her employer to $10 billion in fines.

Blakeslee also argues that the state Capitol is the wrong place to address online privacy.

"I think it is certainly something that should be addressed at the national level. That's the appropriate place to deal with internet laws," he said.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... robust restraints on the current personal data-collection free-for-all. The draft bill aims tocentralize various privacy efforts already under way from industry trade groups, government regulators and the Obama administration.

In recent weeks, President Obama has called on Congress to establish a digital privacy law. The online ad industry, meanwhile, had mounted its own self-regulatory program in the past year. 

According to the bill's co-sponsor, Senator Kerry,  the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act will:

• "Keep our private data safe by laying down fair information practices;
   
• "Ensure that businesses collecting personal information will secure that information and will allow those people to say whether or not they want that information used."

Concedes Kerry, however: "All of this information sharing can be good to customers -- we acknowledge that [but] the data deluge is worrying at the same time."

The bill is one of the few currently on Congress's plate with bipartisan support, and given the Obama administration's recent push for a privacy law, insiders say it has a good chance of passing.

The Washington grapevine, however, remain cynical about the bill's prospects.

"It's going to get watered down," warns one person familiar with the process. "If we don't start with the highest possible standard, it's going to turn into a digital Dorian Gray."
 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Association of National Advertisers and the American Association of Advertising Agencies. And, according to Stu Ingis, counsel for the Digital Advertising Alliance, all are frantically parlaying with browser-makers including Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Google's Chrome and Mozilla's FireFox.

This sudden hyperactivity marks a major shift from the industry's former 'don't call us; we'll call you' stance - a seachange attributable to fears that the FCC will intervenein the absence of voluntary action by the industry.

A do-not-track tool available across all browser platforms would enable surfers to indicate their objection to the monitoring of their online activity.

Microsoft and Mozilla have already built such features into their recently updated browsers, but the tools are reliant on ad networks and others to honor people's do-not-track requests.

Says Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, an industry-funded privacy think tank in Washington, DC: "It's a dramatic turnaround from where the industry was just weeks ago."

But whether or not the moves are sufficient to appease the internet privacy lobby remains to be seen.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... Italy, Portugal and Greece. The result, according to the Financial Times, "would be an age of American austerity".

Continues the FT: "No category of federal spending, from defence to Medicare, would be spared. Taxes on most or all individuals and businesses would rise. Economic growth would slow. The consequences for America’s international role, and for world stability, would be profoundly negative.

"America’s debt is piling up at a rate not seen, outside of the second world war, since record-keeping began in 1792. Federal debt has nearly tripled in the past 10 years, from $3,500bn to more than $9,000bn.

"The ratio of debt to gross domestic product has doubled. Federal debt, of course, is the dollar-for-dollar product of deficits. Each of the past three years has seen trillion-dollar deficits, each larger in both absolute and proportionate terms than ever recorded before 2008."
 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... standards should be put in place to guarantee balanced media coverage - the lack of which, he argues, has stirred-up hatred, political extremism and violence.

Says Clyburn: "Free speech is as free speech does. You cannot yell 'fire' in a crowded theater and call it free speech; and some of what I hear, and is being called free speech, is worse than that."

Fellow Democrat, Representative Bob Brady (Pennsylvania) is of like mind, appearing on cable news programs to demand legislation that would make it a federal crime to use images or language that threaten public officials - for example Sarah Palin's use of targets on a map.

The legislation would give federal lawmakers and officials the same level of protection as the President.

Meantime, The National Hispanic Media Coalition is urging the Federal Communications Commission to examine and report upon the extent and effects of hate speech in media. The organization has also requested that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration update its 1993 report, The Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crimes.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... it's rare that net neutrality advocates and internet service providers are in agreement about anything!

On this occasion, however, there's zero dissent on either side of the fence that the Federal Communications Commission has created years of legal uncertainty by voting to regulate broadband carriers.

The FCC's oversight rules have yet to be published, although officials have said the order bans wireline providers from blocking or degrading content and from engaging in "unreasonable discrimination."

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski earlier opined that such discrimination could include paid prioritization, or fast-lane treatment for companies that pay extra, but the extent of that restriction isn't yet clear.

The order also bans wireless providers from blocking sites or applications that compete, but fails to impose a similar restriction on wireless carriers.

Even though the substance of the rules offers wireless carriers a great deal of leeway, some ISPs condemned the decision. They argue that the FCC's order could result in years of litigation because it's not clear that the agency is legally empowered to enact neutrality regulations.

Verizon warned in a company blog that the FCC's "assertion of authority without solid statutory underpinnings will yield continued uncertainty for industry, innovators, and investors."

That smackin' sound you hear in the background is the licking of lawyers' lips!

 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... behavioral advertising - or serving ads to web-users based on data collected about them whilst online. The report also also urges that site-owners' privacy policies should be streamlined and simplified.

Companies should make a greater effort to ensure that consumers are making informed decisions about allowing online tracking. States the report: "To be most effective, choices should be clearly and concisely described and offered when - and in a context in which - the consumer is making a decision about his or her data."

Predictably the Interactive Advertising Bureau opposes any attempt to legally enforce privacy. "At this time we believe our self-regulatory program is capable of providing the functional equivalent of do-not-track; thus there is no need for government regulation," counters Mike Zaneis, IAB senior vp and general counsel.

The FTC invites comments on the privacy report from interested parties up to January 31 2011.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... pitching their services as monetizing route for internet service providers to snatch a share of the lucrative online ad market.

Kindsight and Phorm claim they now protect surfer's privacy, purportedly obtaining prior consent to the recording of personal information. The companies also say they don't use the full power of the technology, and refrain from reading email and analyzing sensitive online activities.

This quasi-restricted use of DPI  would still enable advertisers to selectively display to people ads based on detailed profiles of their web activities.

But why would any rational adult opt-in to be profiled by the likes of Phorm and Kindsight?

They'll be tempted by such offers as a free security service, plus customized web content - for example news articles tailored to users' interests.

The cyber-spooks say they will share the resultant ad revenue with participating ISPs.

Kindsight claims its technology is sufficiently sensitive to detect whether a particular person is online for work or leisure purposes - and target its ads accordingly.

Warns David C Vladeck, director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection: "If you're trying to engage in one-stop-shopping surveillance on the internet, deep packet inspection would be an awesome tool,"

When such technology is used for targeted ads, the FTC has instructed that broadband providers "should, at a minimum, notify consumers that the ISP was mining the information and obtain clear consumer consent."

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... reflect legislation proposed earlier this year by the outgoing Democratic chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Congressman Henry Waxman.

Despited winning support from most of the big telephone and cable companies, the draft legislation is opposed by many Congressional Republicans. Waxman's bill, had it been passed, would have prohibited wireless carriers from blocking websites and prevented phone and cable groups from “unjustly or unreasonably” discriminating against lawful internet traffic.

Although most telecom and cable companies initially resisted the proposals mooted by Waxman and FCC boss Julius Genachowski, the new bill, if passed next month, could be grudgingly welcomed by the larger cable and telecoms firms.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.