Defining the Digital "Common Good" in the Emerging Location/Mobile Internet Era

I just spoke in Burlington Vermont at an event organized by the Center for Media Democracy, CCTV and other community media groups.  The Burlington cable access orgs have successfully created a robust community providing a broad range of public interest video and digital media content and services.  It is is one of the best examples of how the original vision for cable TV as a community medium--developed in the late 1960's--can be fulfilled.
 
We are at a critical moment in the U.S. for digital media, and it's time to define what serving the "common good" in the broadband era should mean.  The pending rapid introduction and growth of localized/community digital media services provides a unique window of opportunity to assert public interest values for what we want from interactive services.  Mobile technologies, wireless payments via Near Field Communication, Smart tags, location-based marketing, Google Wallets, etc. are reshaping our digital environment.  But rather than allow the market to determine how Google, AT&T, Verizon, Foursquare, Facebook, and Comcast, to name a few, should operate in our neighborhoods and towns, the public should define what the expectations should be.  City Councils, neighborhood groups and other community leaders should have a role to play in how these services are used.  For example, local digital advertising will be a $42 billion business by 2015.  What will happen to revenues taken out of communities and neighborhoods by the national giants?  Shouldn't the community benefit and have a reasonable share of the revenues?
 
Beyond financial concerns, the emergence of geo-fencing and other forms of digital targeting will reorder how local community businesses and services are accessed by the public.  Will locally-owned business be visible on these new geo-maps--or be in essence digitally redlined because they can't pay for prominent listings?   Officials should assert that locally owned business be given special treatment to promote sustainability for the community.  NGOs, such as the United Way and other public interest groups, should also receive equitable treatment so the public can better access their services (without them having to buy slots for advertising).  Given the threats to privacy from mobile services that track our financial, health and other data, local government should demand to review the privacy policy of these companies and ask for appropriate safeguards.  There should be policies against the unfair targeting kids and teens as they leave school with ads, such as for junkfood, as well as other vulnerable groups (think seniors and insurance offers, etc).
 
We shouldn't expect there will be public policies coming from the Federal government that will define the public interest for the local digital media.  But we need to take proactive advantage of this moment: the nation undergoing fundamental restructuring in how we live our lives because of changes to our economy; the introduction by Google, phone companies and others of powerful localized digital media services that will impact everything we do-from how we bank, shop, learn, socialize, etc.  We need to lay out a new digital social contract for how companies operating in the digital sphere are to operationalize the "Common Good."  Let's make this time a key moment when we assert larger societal needs over the interests of just a narrow few.  More on this to follow.