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A Majority Of The Public Still Approves Of NSA Dragnet, 4 Graphs
I’m not a fan of the National Security Agency’s secret dragnet program, but I’m honest enough to admit that I hold a minority view. Recently, a string of stories have wrongly implied that the public has become more privacy-happy in response to the scandal surrounding the leak of the NSA’s telephone and Internet metadata surveillance program. So, to test whether public opinion had actually changed over the last month, we ran our own national opinion surveys and found that, like last fall, about 56 percent of Americans approve of the government collecting their data to investigate terrorism.
Perhaps more importantly, Americans think the government is collecting the actual content of email and phone calls, and approval of the program slightly increased in the last month.
In future surveys, I’m hopeful that public opinion will, at the very least, support more transparency in mass surveillance programs, but, in the meantime, let’s explore the facts as they are.
Little Shift In Public Opinion
Since January 2006, about twice as many Americans have consistently thought it more important to “Investigate terrorist threats” than to “Not intrude on privacy”. The last column in the graph is our own Google Survey CrunchGov Poll. You can view the methodology and wording here.
Our results show about a 4 percent dip from Pew from last month, but it’s almost within the margin of error (2 percent) and it’s slightly different wording, so it’s doubtful there’s much of a change, if any, in public opinion.
Fortunately, Google Survey also gives us an idea of why people answer the way they do. A few responses:
–”protect me within the rules of the law”
–”investigating terrorist threats at the sake of privacy is fine as long as the information isn’t used for any other purpose and the focus is on terrorism and not anything else”
About the NSA specifically, a slight majority (54 percent) favored the current dragnet program. Some of the justifications:
–”acceptable for the investigation of terrorist but evidence cannot be used for anything else”
–”acceptable if done by keywords”
–”i’m not as upset at that invasion of privacy as the irs”
Privacy-advocates may not like the way Pew framed the questions, but I think they’re fair. It explicit asked if it’s ok to track millions of Americans’ phone records. In fact, I thought Pews wording was too negative against the NSA. A more balanced framing would have qualified that the data are unlikely to be read (which is true. most data is swept but no human ever sees it).
Public Thinks Government Collecting Content And Still Approves
Oddly enough, Pew found that not only does the public think the government is collecting more information that they disclose, but the public’s approval of the practice has slightly increased in the last month (48 percent to 50 percent, probably within the margin of error).
In this next graph, we see that the public thinks the government is lying about how much data they actually collect, since 63 percent apparently believe the government is recording phone calls and collecting the content of emails (the NSA denies this).
Now, some critics have pointed to a graph showing that for the first time on record, more Americans think the government has gone too far in restricting civil liberties. However, this shift occurred sometime over the last two years, and isn’t specific to the NSA:
So we can exhibit all the outrage we want, but critics are in the minority. I suspect Americans would want more transparency in the process, and that will be the subject of future CrunchGov polls. Until then, we need to be honest about what the American public actually believes.
With JFrog, Binaries Get A Bit Of Respect, As Developers Face Open-Source Licensing Woes
Binaries, those pieces of an application that go with all that sexy code, are increasingly becoming important as documentation for how software and services are built.
It’s this documentation that is often overlooked with open-source software, according to a survey of 150 developers at Fortune 500 companies by JFrog, an Israeli company that manages binaries for developers. The survey results are a bit self-serving, but they do illustrate the state of the application-development market. Here are some highlights:
- Sixty-five percent of developers surveyed said it’s this poor documentation and licensing that are the biggest issues when it comes to open-source software. Some of the top issues are unknown owners, legal issues, and inefficient instructions about the software. JFrog recently made it a requirement to attach a license to the open-source binaries posted on the Bintray service, its community SaaS social-based platform to distribute and serve binaries.
- Ninety percent of developers use source control and binary repositories as their primary means of exchanging libraries and code with other developers. That means they are not using internal file sharing, disks or USBs like they once did. The world is collaborative now — developers need ways to share their binaries as much as their source code.
- About 42 percent of the developers are using binary repository managers. That reflects how much the market has changed. JFrog representatives point out that three years ago, 90 percent of them wouldn’t have even know what it means to have an online repository.
JFrog offers services such as Bintray and Artifactory, which allows organizations to set up their own online private repositories. With these collaborative services, JFrog is trying to establish itself as the dominant platform for binaries. Their efforts have been bolstered since Google changed its policy for binary hosting, and GitHub made changes of its own when it deprecated an uploads feature that had allowed users to store arbitrary files separate from the source code hosted on GitHub. According to a spokesperson, as it existed, that feature wasn’t as high-quality as the rest of the GitHub experience, and it didn’t fit well into most user workflows.
To counter this shift, JFrog announced in April the ability to automatically migrate GitHub binaries into its service. Since then, JFrog has witnessed a 140 percent growth in new registrations. When Google Code announced it was closing binary support, registrations also jumped.
The reality is, Google excels in offering developer resources to help developers build apps through a rich set of services and APIs. GitHub’s sweet spot is in helping developers collaborate on their code.
JFrog hopes to be the company that can be an equally important collaborative platform for binaries and help ease the woes of OSS licensing.
Apple Acquires Low-Energy Chipmaker Passif, Could Boost Passive Communication Efforts
Apple has recently bought Passif, a Silicon Valley-based low-energy chipmaker, according to a new report from Jessica Lessin and confirmed by Apple. The company works on communication chips that practically sip power, and offer up radio communication using tech like Bluetooth Low Energy, which is good indicator of why Apple probably came calling.
Apple’s iOS 7 contains a new feature called that uses low energy tech to enhance location awareness, and could potentially make it possible for Apple devices to talk to receivers and transmitters installed in museums, shops and other locals, to call up contextually-relevant apps, Passbook passes or other information (Computerworld has a good overview of its potential here). It could work with systems like those described in Apple’s patent filing this morning regarding adjusting in-car and at home environment settings automatically.
This kind of tech is also very useful in providing power savings benefits while devices like the iPhone are connected to and communicating with devices like fitness trackers and other wearable tech. That means a Passif purchase could help with the development not only of future smartphones and tablets at Apple, but also potentially still-unannounced devices like the rumored iWatch.
Apple has purchased chip engineering firms in the past, including Intrinsity and PA Semi, and this purchase also might fit with its recent buy of indoor positioning company Wifislam. It’s a tantalizing acquisition indeed, especially as iOS 7′s launch and the wide availability of its new location beacons tech is set for this fall, and CEO Tim Cook and other Apple execs have teased big releases through the end of 2013 and into next year.
White House Undermines Snowden As No “Whistleblower,” Calls Russian Asylum An “Extreme Disappointment”
Following yesterday’s fresh revelations of the NSA program XKeyscore, which can pull up the content of email with the simple input of an address and date range, the White House used its podium today to slap Russia and label leaker Edward Snowden as neither a “dissident” or a “whistleblower.”
Russia has granted Snowden one year of asylum, finally ending the legal circus that trapped him in an airport for five weeks. That goat rodeo is over. Through Press Secretary Jay Carney, the White House was not hard to parse in its response to the decision, calling the move “extremely disappointing” and viewing Snowden as a felon that should be returned home for castigation. When do we simply point a finger and laugh?
This matters, as it underscores the current administration’s continued view of what constitutes whistleblowing or dissent. By fair estimate, Snowden’s actions fall under the rubric of either term. In fact, he manages to embody both at once: He used information to blow the whistle on government action that he considered to be a misdeed, and he acted out a firm act of dissent. Regardless of your view of Snowden and his actions, this cannot be denied.
What Snowden revealed about the NSA and its various programs have made liars out of many in the highest levels of our government repeatedly. It has sparked international dialogue on data surveillance and forced the NSA itself to explain itself. It has raised the profile of personal privacy to its proper place: as key to a free society.
What I must point out is the incredible mendacity and bad faith that the federal government has consistently employed to obfuscate and lie to the electorate. To put this into perspective, here’s TechCrunch yesterday on the XKeyscore program that is the most recent revelation via Edward Snowden’s leaked information:
Further leaks have revealed an NSA project called XKeyscore that, with a few keystrokes, can give a data analyst access to nearly everything a user does on the Internet – from chat sessions to email to browsing habits. [...]
The system is available to NSA analysts and can be accessed without a warrant. According to training manuals produced in 2010, the system requires analysts to request data on certain individuals. The system then scans traffic beginning and terminating in the United States using keyword searches. The system can also search Facebook comments, as well as other social media data.
The NSA responded to the leak with something so frail that you wonder if its original progenitor felt dirty penning the words: “Allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true. Access to XKeyscore, as well as all of NSA’s analytic tools, is limited to only those personnel who require access for their assigned tasks.” Well then. I feel fine.
Either we have a right to digital privacy as a component to our larger right to personal privacy, or we do not. It’s my estimation that we do. This is the precise discussion we need to have. And thanks to the dissenting whistleblower Snowden, we are having it.
Sorry, Carney, but you’re off base on this one.
Top Image Credit: Mark Skrobola
HootSuite Raises $165M Series B Round From Insight, Accel And OMERS To Go Large On Enterprise Social Media Monitoring
It was a little over a year ago when we reported that Vancouver-based HootSuite, the platform that lets enterprises manage social media accounts, was raising a $50 million round at a $500 million valuation. Fast forward one year later it looks like investors are instead tripling down: HootSuite is today announcing a Series B round of funding of $165 million to take its business to the next level. This latest round — led by Insight Venture Partners with participation from Accel Partners and existing investor OMERS Ventures — is one of the biggest for a startup this year, and brings the total raised by HootSuite to date to nearly $187 million.
When it looked like the funding deal last year went quiet, I asked HootSuite’s CEO Ryan Holmes what was up, after he earlier didn’t deny the reports I’d heard. He told me that it was because the company decided didn’t need to raise the money at the time. Indeed, in a climate when other enterprise social media startups were getting snapped up by bigger players (Salesforce bought Buddy Media for $689 million; Oracle bought Vitrue for $300 million), HootSuite — a groundbreaker as one of the first “social media management” platforms for enterprises opening for business in 2008 — was expanding its platform to cover more social media networks and adding more clients. And it was already profitable.
Today, the company now has more than 7 million users in over 175 countries, including 237 of the Fortune 500 and big brand names like the WWF, PepsiCo, Virgin, Fox and Sony Music, and alongside a particularly close relationship with Twitter, one of its closest partners, it incorporates some 56 other social media services into its management platform, it noted last month, when it also noted that its revenues grew by 300% over the same quarter a year ago. And it wants now to take that into a higher gear. The plan will be to use the money to expand its operations globally — it now has over 300 employees worldwide — launch more products and add more sales and marketing. And maybe make a strategic acquisition or two.
Indeed, at a time when smaller startups full of talent and good ideas may be finding it hard to raise their next round of funding, HootSuite is shoring up as a big player in its own right. “As demonstrated by their remarkable growth and widespread adoption, HootSuite clearly leads the market in the development and delivery of a social relationship platform,” Jeff Lieberman, MD of Insight Venture Partners, noted in a statement. “Insight’s investment will help HootSuite capitalize on the global demand for their solutions, and accelerate the company’s pace of product innovation.” With this round of funding, Leiberman, along with Accel managing partner Ryan Sweeney and OMERS CEO John Ruffolo all join HootSuite’s board of directors.
The funding also underscores another trend that extends outside of the world of venture capital: it is a sign of how social media companies that have built themselves geared to paying enterprise users are seeing a lot of traction to their businesses.
“What’s become apparent is that social channels are also becoming THE manner in which small businesses through the Fortune 500 are opting to communicate with their customers and target markets. By every metric HootSuite’s social relationship platform is powering this evolution in corporate communications, and we are thrilled to now be their partner as they continue to scale,” noted Sweeney at Accel.
The deal, too, comes with a little bittersweet element: just a day before the funding got announced, HootSuite’s VP of partnerships and corporate development, Matt Switzer, sent out a message to shareholders from the Seesmic deal from last year, asking them to sell off their stakes to “clean up their cap table.” We’re embedding that note below, and it doesn’t look like anyone was being ordered to do anything, but in any case it’s a sign of how HootSuite is looking for bigger, greener pastures up ahead.
We’re speaking with CEO Ryan Holmes in a moment and will update this post with his comments after that.
Update: Some good comments from Holmes that draws together some of the pieces. Worth reading these…
What the funding does, Holmes says, is “take off some of the pressure” in HootSuite either going to an IPO or looking for a buyer. “We’re focused on building a great brand and great product,” he told me. “Both IPO or acquisition are possibilities and I’d never say no to either but I’m just working on building out a great product.”
He says that while HootSuite was profitable a year ago, “We’re running the company at cashflow neutral intentionally and this funding will add even more gas to the fire.”
The company operates a “freemium” model for its services — in that it has a free offering, as well as a paid one. Holmes says this continues to work well for HootSuite. “The shift to paid services from free, as we have been building up over the past several years, has worked,” he says. “We’ve been with a cohort of companies that prove that freemium works in enterprise. Companies like Evernote, Dropbox and Yammer and Survey Monkey are all helping that concept.”
Having said that, the proportion of paid to free users at HootSuite today is 96.5% free and the rest are paid. “But that 96.5% is a great asset,” he says. “We see a natural upgrade into our pro product. Over 50% of those were free users who wanted extended features and functionality.”
That doesn’t mean HootSuite isn’t looking elsewhere, too. “We’re very bullish on social advertising,” he says. This started with the company’s work as an ad API partner for Twitter, and will soon extend also to cover Facebook. This is also where HootSuite may be acquiring expertise, too. “We are looking at acquisitions in this space and it will be very beneficial for us,” he says. That should also include advertising analytics, just as essential in social media monitoring.
On the share sale noted below, Holmes says this: “When we did our Seesmic acquisition, it was a stock acquisition, and this is a secondary sale we’re offering. They’ve got a few days to make up their mind and decide whether to sell.”
Dear HootSuite (& former Seesmic) Shareholder,
Since the acquisition of Seesmic, HootSuite has continued to grow our platform and deliver on the promise of empowering the Social business. This past quarter we signed-up our 7 millionth user and onboarded our 320th employee. To support our continued growth, we are in the final stages of a large Series B financing. I wanted to reach out for a few reasons:
One of the goals of the financing is to clean up our cap table. To this end, we are allowing former Seesmic shareholders to liquidate their positions. At the current valuation, you will realize an almost 40% return in the 11 short months that you’ve been an investor. We would greatly appreciate your help by selling your stake.
Regardless and independent of whether you decide to sell, we are asking you to sign the shareholders resolution supporting the deal. You will find this in ‘HootSuite – Amalgamation Resolution’ which will be circulated by our legal advisors shortly.
Please keep this information confidential until we announce publicly and at that point, please ONLY reference our marketing announcement. If the media reaches out for comment, please put them in touch with media@hootsuite.com.
You will be receiving a package from our legal advisors which lays out details of the transaction and includes documents that require your signature. Given the tight timing we are looking to receive a signed copy of the resolution and all other docs back from you by 1pm PST on Wednesday August 7th.
Thank you for your continued support and for respecting the confidential nature of this communication.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Regards,
Matt
Snaptee, The App That Makes Designing And Ordering Custom T-Shirts Easy, Officially Launches With New Editing Features
Snaptee, the custom T-shirt iOS app that we profiled back in February, is launching to the public today with a fresh look and more options, including a women’s tee and upgraded shipping. Snaptee’s first Android app will also be available by the end of this month.
The app was created to make designing and ordering custom T-shirts as easy as applying a filter to a smartphone photo. Snaptee’s updated interface features Instagram integration, a wide choice of fonts and colors, custom filters and design templates. Finished designs can be printed onto 100% organic cotton T-shirts for $19.99 each and shipped anywhere in the world. Regular shipping is $5 worldwide, while the new upgraded shipping option is $26. Users can also sell their designs for a 10% commission per order.
“We’ve gotten rid of the clutter of the old layout and background and have gone with a minimalist, clean look that makes both designing and exploring designs much more enjoyable and aesthetically appealing,” chief communications officer Catherine Shao told me by email. “The icons and buttons have been adjusted (bigger!) and simplified, making the user’s progression through the design and ordering process much more seamless and self-explanatory.”
Don’t feel like designing a shirt from scratch? The Remix button allows users to “unlock” their designs so they can be altered by other people. Albums by seven Instagram photographers from around the world are currently available as starting points for designs by other users.
Shao says the startup wants users to see Snaptee as a community instead of just an editing tool.
“We envision Remix growing and playing a part in friends and collaborators designing together in Snaptee,” she says. “To us, a T-shirt is more than just an article of clothing, it’s a blank canvas for expression.”
Since its soft launch earlier this year, Snaptee built up a base of over 130,000 users in 45 countries, including its key markets of the U.S., Japan and Germany. The app has been used to create more than 160,000 unique T-shirt designs.
Shao says Snaptee is now focused on finding partnership opportunities with other companies and brands and plans to target Australia, the UK, South Korea and Southeast Asia as their next core markets.
ShopClues Backs CEO Sandeep Aggarwal Amidst Insider Trading Charges, Investors Fall Silent
The board and executive team of ShopClues has backed besieged co-founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal after he was charged with insider trading offences by allegedly providing confidential information about a 2009 Microsoft-Yahoo deal.
On July 30, FBI officers arrested 40-year old Aggarwal of Gurgaon, India, who, as a research equity analyst for a San Francisco financial services firm in mid-2009, allegedly tipped off SAC Capital hedge fund portfolio manager Richard Lee about the then-pending Internet search engine partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo.
Aggarwal was charged with civil offences by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and now faces criminal charges from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, including conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud — offences that carry a maximum of five and 20 years in jail, respectively.
“As alleged, Sandeep Aggarwal leveraged his contacts in the technology industry to obtain an illegal edge in the form of inside information about a highly anticipated development, and then lied about his criminal conduct,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.
Despite these allegations, ShopClues.com said the e-commerce company’s near 350-strong staff and management are behind co-founder Aggarwal, who was released on a $500,000 bond.
“Sandeep Aggarwal is fully cooperating with the investigating agencies and has complete faith in the US judicial system,” the company said. “The case relates to events that occurred prior to ShopClues inception, and therefore does not involve the business of ShopClues.
“The charges contained in the complaint are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.”
However, the company, in its statement, stressed the credentials of the remaining management team. Last year, the site, a subsidiary of U.S. corporation Clues Network, processed 3.5 million orders on behalf of merchants, and it currently manages and distributes an inventory of 1.8 million products worth over $750 million (45 billion rupees).
In the past year ShopClues, with offices in Gurgaon, New Delhi, and Mumbai, raised $14 million from a number of institutional investors, including Helion Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, and Tokyo-based Netprice.
When contacted by TechCrunch, Nexus Venture Partners’s managing director and ShopClues board member Anup Gupta, whose firm led a $4 million Series A investment round, declined to comment.
Icahn Sues Dell Over Potential Delay In Vote On Michael Dell's $13.75 Per Share Offer
Oh no you did not, or at least won’t, Dell, if Carl Icahn has his way. The activist investor has sued Dell and its leadership over a decision to delay a vote on the buyout offer of Michael Dell and Silver Lake, which totals $13.75 per share, following a mild $0.10 per share sweetening offered in late July.
According to CNBC, the lawsuit, filed in a Delaware court, would block the new meeting date; this would force a vote more quickly, and as Icahn obviously thinks, a vote that is not likely to go in favor of Michael Dell’s rival offer to his own bid. Icahn is in this for money, and that’s utterly fine, but gumming the Michael Dell offer could be, in the end, a bad move for Dell.
Icahn’s tender offer would not take Dell fully private, but instead remove most of its shares from public trading. This would raise the per share earnings of that stock, which Icahn would own the majority of; his plan would use debt to enrich the value of his own shares. Again, financial engineering is not to be mocked prima facie, but at this point Dell’s sickness is known, and the prescription isn’t more debt and continued status as a public company.
But Icahn is a shareholder, and a wealthy one at that, with legal counsel to spare. So, here we are.
Rewinding slightly, Dell rejected the voting premise in Michael Dell’s latest offer, but was “willing to establish a new record date for a vote on a $13.75 per-share transaction under the existing voting standard.” So they took the higher price, but dumped the new terms that Michael wanted to staple to it. I didn’t know that was legal.
However, things went sideways when a new voting date was established to, in the view of Daniel Ritort, give the board time to “drum up more support.” That is precisely what Icahn wishes to avoid; if Dell shareholders accept the Michael Dell offer, he’s out a metric [redacted] of money. Well, potential earnings, at least.
Still, I can’t sit here and not say the following: In my humble view, Dell does in fact need time as a private company to rebuild its crumbling OEM business and potentially lucrative business service arm. Icahn does not offer that to the firm.
If Icahn’s injunction sticks, we’ll have a vote this week. If not, the next. $13.75 and going private of Icahn’s financial gymnastics. Again, it’s time to choose.
Top Image Credit: Ethan Lindsey
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