U.S. Senate: READI Act 2019 re-introducted

Fri Oct 25 18:21:17 UTC 2019

On Thu, 24 Oct 2019, Michael Thomas wrote:
> Content provider is pretty ill defined -- everything is "content". But I'm 
> not sure why it should reside in smart assistants either. What if I don't 
> want or use any of them? They're awfully invasive. And it doesn't seem that 
> you need them for amber alerts, and the new earthquake alerts here in 
> california. What would be good imo is to define how alerts are sourced and 
> distributed and put requirements on what devices need to implement it, but 
> leave the actual UI a design decision. That's a pretty well tested route in 
> the past cf, ietf and other standards bodies that don't touch UI with a ten 
> foot pole.

I think I've been down this road before.

The international alert standards already exist.  google.org/publicalerts 
aggregates alerts from dozens of countries around the world.

If you prefer, call it the mediation layer, i.e. the smart device's 
operating system.  You really don't want each App on a device doing 
its thing.  That was tried by the cellular industry in the early 2000s. 
The results weren't pretty.

On smartphones, the iOS or Android operating system mediates the emergency 
alerts for all the Apps running on the device.  Whether you are using 
Netflix, or Hulu, or Audible, or Spotify, or some other random App; the 
user interface for alerts is handled by the mediation layer.

That way users's don't experience different emergency alert user 
interfaces for each App.  If the user turns off Amber alerts at the 
device mediation layer (smart device operating system), its turned off for 
all the Apps.

Yes, its possible to download specialized Apps on your iOS or Android 
device to get extra alert information.  There are a bunch of weather Apps 
which add weather radar and other stuff.  But those Apps aren't really 
reliable for imminent emergency alerts, just read the App's Terms of 
Service :-)

So... The READI act, for example your Samsung TV mediation layer is called 
Bixby. Whether you are watching Hulu, or Netflix, or over-the-air TV 
station, Bixby would act as the mediation layer for emergency alerts 
on that Samsung TV no matter which App you are using.

Likewise, your smart speaker operating system (Amazon, Google, Apple, etc) 
would act as the mediation layer for all emergency alerts, no matter which 
smart app you were using, i.e. spotify, amazon music, audible books, 
podcasts, etc.