Who Really Controls Your Electronic Devices?

Always connected means corporations can control, even shut down, your gadget

With Wi-Fi, cable, and cellular connections now virtually everywhere, staying connected to the digital world is a snap. But that connection is a two-way street and it's becoming increasingly clear that corporations can use it to control or even shut down something you own.

The question of who really controls your electronic devices is turning into a thorny issue for service providers, regulators, and consumers, who may falsely assume the gadgets in their home are theirs to do with as they like.

The latest example involves a technology called selectable output control. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has approved a plan by cable and satellite companies there to reach into homes and temporarily shut off analog output connections on set-top boxes during certain programs.

The claim is that it will allow cable and satellite companies to offer premium movies-on-demand, before the movies are released on DVD. The companies say without the new power, viewers might simply record the films on a DVD recorder or other device, through the analog outputs on the back of the set-top box, and then upload copies to the internet. So, the FCC is letting providers embed a signal in new movies that will disable the analog outputs.

"We've got high-value content and we want to make it easily available to consumers, but easily available in a way that can't be easily copied, that's all," Howard Gantman, spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, said in an interview.

The move has plenty of critics who argue that it amounts to temporarily breaking a device and infringes on consumer rights. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based consumer rights' group, is worried cable providers will push for similar limits for popular sporting events, concerts, and other programs.

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Source: law.com
By: Steve Lambert