FCC Bringing Back 100,000 Call Center Jobs From Overseas

FCC: Call centers in coalition creating 100K jobs

A coalition largely made up of call center companies is planning to hire 100,000 new employees in the U.S. over the next two years thanks to advancements in broadband access, with some of the jobs returning from overseas, the Federal Communications Commission chairman said.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski was in the southern Indiana town of Jeffersonville on Thursday to announce the jobs, saying the program would help communities hard-hit by the economic downturn.

"It's our hope that this is not going to be a one-time thing, but that this is part of a virtuous cycle of job creation and demand generation that will lead to more job creation," Genachowski said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Genachowski announced the jobs commitment at a site where Accent Marketing Services is building a new facility that will add 175 jobs that pay about $13 an hour.

Accent Marketing is part of Jobs4America, a coalition that also includes the nonprofit American Teleservices Association trade group, Sprint Nextel Corp. and other companies and organizations.

The jobs will help revive communities hard hit by the economic downturn, Genachowski said. For example, Novo 1 has created 300 jobs in Holland, Mich., and LiveOps plans to add 100 jobs by the end of the year in Newark, N.J. Aegis Global has committed to hiring more workers in St. Lucie, Fla., and has set a goal of adding 4,000 jobs nationwide over the next two years.

The total commitment is 100,000 jobs, and "we expect that each of these companies will deliver on their commitments," Genachowski said.

Some of those jobs will be returning from India and the Philippines. While some American customers were frustrated by dealing with language and cultural barriers in dealing with overseas operators, improvement in broadband availability was key to the jobs returning, Genachowski said.

Broadband also will allow some people to work from home, he said.

"It's not like the old days where a call center operator is taking a call and answering questions with a few pieces of paper in front of them. Modern call centers involve people in front of computers with access to a quantity of information that only broadband connectivity can provide," Genachowski said.

About 20 million Americans don't have access to broadband, and another 100 million choose not to access it either because of the cost or concerns about security, according to the FCC. President Barack Obama's administration has said ensuring all parts of the country have high-speed Internet access is critical for economic development.

"Bringing broadband to your town and home in the 21st century is like bringing in electricity in the 20th - connecting you and your community to the larger economy and opening up new worlds of commerce and opportunity," he said.

Sources: CBS News, Wikipedia, Youtube

Debt Settlement Companies Targeted By FTC: New Rules Curb Scams

New Federal Rules Take Aim At Shady Practices Of Debt-Settlement Companies


Got debt?

Well, if you do, the Federal Government has made it more difficult for unscrupulous or sham debt-settlement companies to make false claims that much of your debt can be easily erased.

Debt-settlement or debt-relief services promise to renegotiate or in some way change what you owe to an unsecured creditor or debt collector.

As the economy tanked, many people fell behind on their consumer loans and as a result were drawn in desperation to firms that claimed they could, in some cases, cut debts in half. The promised assistance might have included finding ways to reduce a debt balance, an interest rate or penalty fees.

Law enforcement officials have increasingly been receiving complaints about companies that collected fees but did little, if anything, to settle people's debts.

The Better Business Bureau said that since the recession started in late 2007, it has received thousands of consumer complaints from all 50 states about debt-settlement companies that have driven people deeper into the hole, in some cases causing them to be sued by creditors or even to have wages garnished.

To curb deceptive practices, as of Monday, new rules being implemented by the Federal Trade Commission require debt-relief companies to make specific disclosures to potential customers, such as how long it will take to get results, how much the service will cost and the potential negative consequences that could result from seeking debt relief. The firms are also prohibited from misrepresenting what they can do for debtors, in particular the percentage of debt that is typically erased.

For example, in calculating how well a company has done for customers, a debt-relief service has to include those customers who dropped out or otherwise failed to complete the program.



The new rules amend the Telemarketing Sales Rule and specifically cover telemarketers of for-profit debt-relief services, including those offering credit counseling, debt settlement and debt negotiation services. Legitimate nonprofit organizations that help people renegotiate their debts aren't covered under the new rules. However, companies that falsely claim nonprofit status are subject to the FTC standards.

It's important to note that the rules cover telephone calls made to potential customers and calls made by debtors in response to advertisements and other solicitations, including people working on behalf of a debt-relief firm.

Another phase of the law will take effect next month, and it's significant. Beginning Oct. 27, it will be illegal for a debt-relief service to charge upfront fees. Companies that sell their services over the telephone won't be able to get paid until they successfully settle or reduce a customer's credit card or other unsecured debt.

The fees are often based on a percentage of the amount of debt that you want help with. Let's say you owe $20,000 on four credit cards. You might be charged a fee of 15 percent ($3,000) of the debt you want reduced. Here's the problem. You would pay the fee regardless of how many of the accounts, if any, are actually settled, according to the Consumer Federation of America.

There are also provisions on how money set aside for a settlement offer is to be handled. Customers are told to stop paying their bills and instead send money to the debt-settlement firm with the intention of offering creditors a lump-sum offer for less than what's owed. Under the new rules, a dedicated account has to be established at an insured financial institution, and the money belongs to the client, who can withdraw it anytime without penalty.

These new rules are a great first start, but Congress needs to close some loopholes. The rules don't limit the amount of fees companies can charge. There's just too much room to gouge people. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has introduced legislation that would limit debt-settlement fees.

Further, the rules need to expand beyond debt-relief services offered by telephone. Providers who meet face to face with people before signing them up are exempt from most of the new provisions.

This effort should help stem the scams, but it won't stamp them out. There are just too many desperate debtors willing to believe anything if it means getting relief from their bills.

"It's significant that the FTC is cracking down on the offending debt-settlement companies, but real protection for consumers will mean enforcing the rules, and that'll be harder," said Chris Viale, chief executive of the nonprofit Cambridge Credit Counseling.

If you're in debt, learn about your new protections. Otherwise, you'll just make a bad situation worse. And don't believe in easy fixes. There aren't any.

Sources: BBB, Cambridge Credit, CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, Youtube

Yes, Government Control (Limited) Should Be Allowed In Cyberspace...Preventing Viruses, Terrorist Attacks, etc.,

How much Government control in Cyber Crisis?

There's no kill switch for the Internet, no secret on-off button in an Oval Office drawer.

Yet when a Senate committee was exploring ways to secure computer networks, a provision to give the president the power to shut down Internet traffic to compromised Web sites in an emergency set off alarms.

Corporate leaders and privacy advocates quickly objected, saying the government must not seize control of the Internet.

Lawmakers dropped it, but the debate rages on. How much control should federal authorities have over the Web in a crisis? How much should be left to the private sector? It does own and operate at least 80 percent of the Internet and argues it can do a better job.

"We need to prepare for that digital disaster," said Melissa Hathaway, the former White House cybersecurity adviser. "We need a system to identify, isolate and respond to cyberattacks at the speed of light."

So far at least 18 bills have been introduced as Congress works carefully to give federal authorities the power to protect the country in the event of a massive cyberattack. Lawmakers do not want to violate personal and corporate privacy or squelching innovation. All involved acknowledge it isn't going to be easy.

For most people, the Internet is a public haven for free thought and enterprise. Over time it has become the electronic control panel for much of the world's critical infrastructure. Computer networks today hold government secrets, military weapons specifications, sensitive corporate data, and vast amounts of personal information.

Millions of times a day, hackers, cybercriminals and mercenaries working for governments and private entities are scanning those networks, looking to defraud, disrupt or even destroy.

Just eight years ago, the government ordered planes from the sky in the hours after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Could or should the president have the same power over the Internet in a digital disaster?

If hackers take over a nuclear plant's control system, should the president order the computer networks shut down? If there's a terrorist attack, should the government knock users off other computer networks to ensure that critical systems stay online? And should the government be able to dictate who companies can hire and what they must do to secure the networks that affect Americans' daily life.

Government officials say the U.S. must improve efforts to share information about cyberthreats with private industry. They also want companies to ensure they are using secure software and hiring qualified workers to run critical systems.

Much like the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, cybersecurity has attracted the interest of a number of House and Senate committees, all hoping to get a piece of the oversight power:

* Bills in the House Homeland Security Committee bills would protect the electric grid and require the department to secure its networks.

* The Senate Homeland Security and Government Reform Committee is writing legislation aimed largely at federal agencies.

* The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is working on a bill that promotes public awareness and technical education, raises the planned White House cyberadviser to a Cabinet-level position and calls for professional cyberstandards. An early draft would have given the president the power to shut down compromised federal or critical networks in an emergency.

Bloggers howled that the government was taking over the Internet. Business leaders protested, and Senate aides reworked the bill. Early versions of the second draft are more vague, giving the president only the authority to "direct the national response" to a cyberthreat.

Committee spokeswoman Jena Longo said the bill "will not empower a government shutdown or takeover of the Internet and any suggestion otherwise is misleading and false."

She said the president has the constitutional authority to protect the American people and direct the response to a crisis — including "securing our national cyberinfrastructure from attack."

Privacy advocates say the government has not proven it can do a better job securing networks than the private sector.

"The government needs to get its own cybersecurity house in order first before it tries to tell the private sector what to do," said Gregory T. Nojeim, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Nojeim said the Senate Commerce Committee bill appears to leave "tough questions to the president, and that isn't comforting because some presidents will answer those questions in troubling ways."

U.S. officials acknowledge that their networks are scanned or attacked millions of times a day. Spies have breached the electrical grid. In July, hackers simultaneously brought down several U.S. government Web sites and sites in South Korea.

Home computers are targets, too. A study by security software provider McAfee Inc. says as many as 4 million computers are newly infected each month and turned into "botnets" — armies of computers used by someone without their owners' knowledge. As many as 10 percent of the world's computers might be unknowingly infected.

Shutting down a compromised system may sound like a good idea, but "it's not like the Internet has an on-off switch somewhere you can press," said Franck Journoud, manager of information security policy for the Business Software Alliance.

Most industries are federally regulated, so the government should work within those systems to plan for disasters, said Journoud, whose group has met with lawmakers and the White House on cyberpolicies.

Rather than setting minimum standards, business groups say the U.S. should endorse existing voluntary industry ones.

Cyberexperts also argue that when hackers infiltrate a critical network, the solution is not to shut down the system, but to isolate and filter out the offending computer codes.

Private companies are willing and able to protect their systems without government mandates, said Tom Reilly, president of ArcSight, a cybersecurity software company. He said the government should concentrate on protecting critical infrastructure and data privacy, and promote education on cybersecurity.

"People want to know if they are one of the 10 percent of the computers that are infected," he said. "They just don't know what to do. Most people just hope they're one of the other nine."



Justice: No privacy problems in Cyber program

The US Justice Department has concluded that a beefed-up surveillance program that monitors federal employees' Internet traffic does not violate their rights or those of private citizens who communicate with them.

But the review of the Einstein 2 program was limited and leaves important questions unanswered, said the vice president of an Internet freedom watchdog group.

Einstein 2 is a second-generation automated program designed to detect cyber attacks on government computer networks.

The review, completed last month and released Friday, said the system addresses potential privacy concerns by warning employees when they log in that their communications may be monitored.

Such warnings "eliminate federal employees' legitimate expectations of privacy" on government computers, acting Assistant Attorney General David J. Barron wrote.

The review reaches the same conclusion as a study undertaken by the Justice Department during the Bush administration.

Jim Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said his group agrees with the report's conclusion, as far as it goes.

"If you send an e-mail to the government, you can't complain that they read it," Dempsey said, after reviewing the two reports.

But the memos do not address how Einstein works in practice, including whether it also monitors communications between private parties and if so, what it does with any information it collects, Dempsey said.

"Those questions haven't been fully answered and they deserve to be," he said.

The memos also do not deal with the next-generation program, Einstein 3, which is intended to both detect and stop cyber attacks against government computers.



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Sources: MSNBC, Wikipedia, AP, Google Maps

FCC Chief To Propose More Bandwidth, Net Neutrality For Consumers...Thank You

U.S. as Traffic Cop in Web Fight


The U.S. government plans to propose broad new rules Monday that would force Internet providers to treat all Web traffic equally, seeking to give consumers greater freedom to use their computers or cellphones to enjoy videos, music and other legal services that hog bandwidth.

The move would make good on a campaign promise to Silicon Valley supporters like Google Inc. from President Barack Obama, but will trigger a battle with phone and cable companies like AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp., which don't want the government telling them how to run their networks.

The proposed rules could change how operators manage their networks and profit from them, and the everyday online experience of individual users. Treating Web traffic equally means carriers couldn't block or slow access to legal services or sites that are a drain on their networks or offered by rivals.

The rules will escalate a fight over how much control the government should have over Internet commerce. The Obama administration is taking the side of Google, Amazon.com Inc. and an array of smaller businesses that want to profit from offering consumers streaming video, graphics-rich games, movie and music downloads and other services.

Julius Genachowski, head of the Federal Communications Commission, is also expected to propose in a speech Monday, for the first time, that rules against blocking or slowing Web traffic would apply to wireless-phone companies, according to people familiar with the plan.

Wireless carriers, which have been among the fiercest opponents of such regulation, continue to restrict what kind of data travels over the airwaves they control. For example, earlier this year, AT&T restricted an Internet-phone service from Skype so iPhone users couldn't place calls on AT&T's cellular network. At the time, AT&T cited network congestion concerns.

"We believe that this kind of regulation is unnecessary in the competitive wireless space as it would prevent carriers from managing their networks -- such as curtailing viruses and other harmful content -- to the benefit of their consumers," said Chris Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA, the wireless industry's trade group.

If the FCC does force U.S. wireless carriers to open their networks to data-heavy applications like streaming video, it could push them beyond the limited capacity they have. Already, in areas like New York and San Francisco, a high concentration of iPhones has caused many AT&T customers to complain about degrading service.

In such a scenario, wireless carriers may have to rethink how much they charge for data plans or even cap how much bandwidth individuals get, said Julie Ask, a wireless analyst at Jupiter Research.

The FCC's proposal will take into account the bandwidth limitations faced by wireless carriers, according to people familiar with the plan, and would ask how such rules should apply to current networks.

The rules could encourage big Internet companies to launch new data-intensive services by establishing that their traffic can't be slowed or blocked. In the business market, companies that make Internet-phone services or video-conferencing software may invest more heavily in those services, some analysts say.

The rules are likely to be a big boon to smaller tech companies, like Silicon Valley start-ups and small makers of mobile software for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and other devices, that wouldn't be able to afford paying Internet providers for special access.

"Any company or piece of software that becomes popular, generating a lot of traffic, would tend to benefit," said Jonathan Zittrain, the co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

The FCC has four "net neutrality" principles, which call on Internet providers to avoid restricting or delaying access to legal Internet sites and services. Carriers are permitted to block access to illegal services and sites.

Mr. Genachowski is expected to propose the agency clarify its current principles and turn them into formal rules. He will also tack on a new one, which would require carriers practice "reasonable" network management. The agency will ask for guidance on how to define "reasonable."

Most Internet providers have resisted "net neutrality" rules in the past, saying they have a right to control traffic on networks they own and it's not a good idea for the government to micro-manage Internet traffic.

Phone companies including AT&T have argued that they can live with the FCC's existing principles, but they've argued there's no reason to put more formal rules put into place.

Representatives from AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Comcast and Sprint Nextel Corp. declined to comment ahead of the FCC's anticipated announcement.

The proposals come as the FCC faces a federal appeals court case over its authority to regulate Web traffic. Comcast is fighting an FCC decision last year to ding it for violating the agency's "net neutrality" principles when it slowed traffic for some subscribers who were downloading big files. Comcast said it didn't violate any rules because the FCC had never formally adopted any, but it did change how it manages its network.

Republicans are likely to oppose the FCC's new proposal -- both at the FCC and in Congress -- arguing that the FCC is trying to fix problems that don't exist and that the agency should take a more hands-off approach to the fast-changing industry.

"With only a few isolated instances of complaints alleging net neutrality-like abuses ever having been filed, it is a mistake," said Randolph May, president of Free State Foundation, a free-market oriented think tank.

The concept of network neutrality originated with the nation's longtime telephone monopoly. AT&T and its successors were prohibited from giving any phone call preference in how quickly it was connected. Since the Internet was born on phone wires, the concept survived into the Internet age largely by default.

That notion was challenged toward the end of the 1990s, as cable companies began offering Internet service. Cable companies argued since they were content companies not phone companies, the principle of network neutrality didn't apply to them.

Phone companies responded by getting into the content business as well, with television service. As a result, both the cable companies and phone companies had incentives to create conditions on the Internet -- either through pricing or slowing or speeding up certain sites -- to favor their own content.

In 2005, the FCC deregulated the Internet business, by ruling that Internet providers were communications companies and not phone companies and, importantly, were therefore no longer subject to the old phone rules such as network neutrality.

The FCC instead created its four "guiding principles" for protecting network neutrality. They were vague enough to embolden those looking for ways around it. Major phone companies like AT&T subsequently said they were considering creating "fast lanes" on the Internet, available at a higher price -- plans they put on hold amid an outcry.

Now, by codifying the principle, the FCC is seeking to limit erosion of network neutrality.

Mr. Genachowski is expected to set plans to open a formal rule-making process on the issue at the FCC's October meeting. The rules would have to be approved by a majority of the FCC's five-person board; whose three Democrats support net neutrality.



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Sources: Wall Street Journal, FCC, Google Maps