Michael Phelps voted AP male athlete of year

Now that he's away from the pool, Michael Phelps can reflect — really reflect — on what he accomplished.

Pretty amazing stuff.

"It's kind of nuts to think about everything I've gone through," Phelps said. "I've finally had time to myself, to sit back and say, '... that really happened?' It's kind of shocking at times."

Not that his career needed a capper, but Phelps added one more honor to his staggering list of accomplishments Thursday — The Associated Press male athlete of the year.

Phelps edged out LeBron James to win the award for the second time, not only a fitting payoff for another brilliant Olympics (four gold medals and two silvers in swimming at the London Games) but recognition for one of the greatest careers in any sport.

Phelps finished with 40 votes in balloting by U.S. editors and broadcasters, while James was next with 37. Track star Usain Bolt, who won three gold medals in London, was third with 23.

Carl Lewis is the only other Olympic-related star to be named AP male athlete of the year more than once, taking the award for his track and field exploits in 1983 and '84. The only men honored more than twice are golf's Tiger Woods and cyclist Lance Armstrong (four times each), and basketball's Michael Jordan (three times).

"Obviously, it's a big accomplishment," Phelps said. "There's so many amazing male athletes all over the world and all over our country. To be able to win this is something that just sort of tops off my career."

Phelps retired at age 27 as soon as he finished his final race in London, having won more gold medals (18) and overall medals (22) than any other Olympian.

No one else is even close.

"That's what I wanted to do," Phelps said. "Now that it's over, it's something I can look back on and say, 'That was a pretty amazing ride.'"

The current ride isn't so bad either.

Set for life financially, he has turned his fierce competitive drive to golf, working on his links game with renowned coach Hank Haney as part of a television series on the Golf Channel. In fact, after being informed of winning the AP award, Phelps called in from the famed El Dorado Golf & Beach Club in Los Cabos, Mexico, where he was heading out with Haney to play a few more holes before nightfall.

"I can't really complain," Phelps quipped over the phone.

Certainly, he has no complaints about his swimming career, which helped turn a sport that most Americans only paid attention to every four years into more of a mainstream pursuit.

More kids took up swimming. More advertisers jumped on board. More viewers tuned in to watch.

While swimming is unlikely to ever match the appeal of football or baseball, it has carved out a nice little niche for itself amid all the other athletic options in the United States — largely due to Phelps' amazing accomplishments and aw-shucks appeal.

Just the fact that he won over James shows just how much pull Phelps still has. James had an amazing year by any measure: The league MVP won his first NBA title with the Miami Heat, picking up finals MVP honors along the way, and then starred on the gold medal-winning U.S. basketball team in London.

Phelps already had won the AP award in 2008 after his eight gold medals in Beijing, which broke Mark Spitz's record. Phelps got it again with a performance that didn't quite match up to the Great Haul of China, but was amazing in its own right.

After the embarrassment of being photographed taking a hit from a marijuana pipe and questioning whether he still had the desire to go on, Phelps returned with a vengeance as the London Games approached. Never mind that he was already the winningest Olympian ever. Never mind that he could've eclipsed the record for overall medals just by swimming on the relays.

He wanted to be one of those rare athletes who went out on top.

"That's just who he is," said Bob Bowman, his longtime coach. "He just couldn't live with himself if knew he didn't go out there and give it good shot and really know he's competitive. He doesn't know anything else but to give that kind of effort and have those kind of expectations."

Phelps got off to a rocky start in London, finishing fourth in the 400-meter individual medley, blown out of the water by his friend and rival, Ryan Lochte. It was only the second time that Phelps had not at least finished in the top three of an Olympic race, the first coming way back in 2000 when he was fifth in his only event of the Sydney Games as a 15-year-old.

To everyone looking in, Lochte seemed poised to become the new Phelps — while the real Phelps appeared all washed up.

But he wasn't going out like that.

No way.

Phelps rebounded to become the biggest star at the pool, edging Lochte in the 200 IM, contributing to a pair of relay victories, and winning his final individual race, the 100 butterfly. There were two silvers, as well, leaving Phelps with a staggering resume that will be awfully difficult for anyone to eclipse.

His 18 golds are twice as many as anyone else in Olympic history. His 22 medals are four clear of Larisa Latynina, a Soviet-era gymnast, and seven more than the next athlete on the list. Heck, if Phelps was a nation, he'd be 58th in the medal standings, just one behind India (population: 1.2 billion).

"When I'm flying all over the place, I write a lot in my journal," Phelps said. "I kind of relive all the memories, all the moments I had throughout my career. That's pretty special. I've never done that before. It's amazing when you see it all on paper."

Four months into retirement, Phelps has no desire to get back in the pool. Oh, he'll swim every now and then for relaxation, using the water to unwind rather than putting in one of his famously grueling practices. Golf is his passion at the moment, but he's also found time to cheer on his hometown NFL team, the Baltimore Ravens, and start looking around for a racehorse that he and Bowman can buy together.

Phelps hasn't turned his back on swimming, either. He's got his name attached to a line of schools that he wants to take worldwide. He's also devoting more time to his foundation, which is dedicated to teaching kids to swim and funding programs that will grow the sport even more.

He's already done so much.

"His contribution to the way the world thinks about swimming is so powerful," Bowman said. "I don't think any other athlete has transformed his sport the way he's transformed swimming."

Phelps still receives regular texts from old friends and teammates, asking when he's going to give up on this retirement thing and come back the pool as a competitor.

He scoffs at the notion, sounding more sure of himself now than he did in London.

And if there's anything we've learned: Don't doubt Michael Phelps when he sets his mind on something.

"Sure, I could come back in another four years. But why?" he asked, not waiting for an answer. "I've done everything I wanted to do. There's no point in coming back."

___

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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Recipes for Health: Marinated Olives

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Marinated olives.

These are inspired by Patricia Wells’ “Chanteduc Rainbow Olive Collection” in her wonderful book “The Provence Cookbook.” It is best to use olives that have not been pitted.

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

5 bay leaves

2 large garlic cloves, peeled, green shoots removed, thinly sliced

Strips of rind from 1 lemon (preferably organic)

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

2 cups imported olives (black, green or a mix) (about 3/4 pound)

 

1. Combine the olive oil, vinegar, bay leaves and garlic in a small saucepan and heat just until warm over low heat. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon rind, thyme, rosemary and fennel seeds.

2. Place the olives in a wide mouthed jar and pour in the olive oil mixture. Shake the jar to coat the olives. Refrigerate for two hours or for up to two weeks. Shake the jar a few times a day to redistribute the seasonings.

Yield: 2 cups, serving 12

Advance preparation: These will keep for about two weeks in the refrigerator.

Nutritional information per ounce (does not include marinade): 43 calories; 4 grams fat; 0 grams saturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 1 gram carbohydrates; 0 grams dietary fiber; 468 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 0 grams protein

 

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Boehner Tax Plan in House Is Pulled, Lacking Votes

Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio leaving a meeting Thursday with fellow House Republicans on talks over the “fiscal cliff.”

WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner’s effort to pass fallback legislation to avert a fiscal crisis in less than two weeks collapsed Thursday night in an embarrassing defeat after conservative Republicans refused to support legislation that would allow taxes to rise on the most affluent households in the country.

House Republican leaders abruptly canceled a vote on the bill after they failed to rally enough votes for passage in an emergency meeting about 8 p.m. Within minutes, dejected Republicans filed out of the basement meeting room and declared there would be no votes to avert the “fiscal cliff” until after Christmas. With his “Plan B” all but dead, the speaker was left with the choice to find a new Republican way forward or to try to get a broad deficit reduction deal with President Obama that could win passage with Republican and Democratic votes.

What he could not do was blame Democrats for failing to take up legislation he could not even get through his own membership in the House.

“The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement that said responsibility for a solution now fell to the White House and Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the majority leader. “Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff.”

The stunning turn of events in the House left the status of negotiations to head off a combination of automatic tax increases and significant federal spending cuts in disarray with little time before the start of the new year.

At the White House, the press secretary, Jay Carney, said the defeat should press Mr. Boehner back into talks with Mr. Obama.

“The president will work with Congress to get this done, and we are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly that protects the middle class and our economy,” he said.

The refusal of a band of House Republicans to allow income tax rates to rise on incomes over $1 million came after Mr. Obama scored a decisive re-election victory campaigning for higher taxes on incomes over $250,000. Since the November election, the president’s approval ratings have risen, and opinion polls have shown a strong majority not only favoring his tax position, but saying they will blame Republicans for a failure to reach a deficit deal.

With a series of votes on Thursday, the speaker, who faces election for his post in the new Congress next month, had hoped to assemble a Republican path away from the cliff. With a show of Republican unity, he also sought to strengthen his own hand in negotiations with Mr. Obama. The House did narrowly pass legislation to cancel automatic, across-the-board military cuts set to begin next month, and shift them to domestic programs.

But the main component of “Plan B,” a bill to extend expiring Bush-era tax cuts for everyone with incomes under $1 million, could not win enough Republican support to overcome united Democratic opposition. Democrats questioned Mr. Boehner’s ability to deliver any agreement.

“I think this demonstrates that Speaker Boehner has a real challenge,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat. “He hasn’t been able to cut any deal, make any agreement that’s balanced. Even if it’s his own compromise.”

Representative Rick Larsen of Washington accused Republicans of shirking their responsibility by leaving the capital. “The Republicans just picked up their toys and went home,” he said.

Futures contracts on indexes of United States stock listings and shares in Asia fell sharply after Mr. Boehner conceded that his bill lacked the votes to pass.

The point of the Boehner effort was to secure passage of a Republican plan, then demand that the president and the Senate to take up that measure and pass it, putting off the major fights until early next year when Republicans would conceivably have more leverage because of the need to increase the federal debt limit. It would also allow Republicans to claim it was Democrats who had caused taxes to rise after the first of the year had no agreement been reached.

That strategy lay in tatters after the Republican implosion.“Some people don’t know how to take yea for an answer,” said Representative Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, a Republican who supported the measure and was open about his disappointment with his colleagues.

Opponents said they were not about to bend their uncompromising principles on taxes just because Mr. Boehner asked.

“The speaker should be meeting with us to get our views on things rather than just presenting his,” said Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, who recently lost a committee post for routinely crossing the leadership.

Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting.

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Arrests Made in Maple Syrup Theft From Quebec Warehouse

Francis Vachon

Danny Ayotte prepares maple syrup for pasteurization. The authorities are trying to recover six million pounds of stolen syrup.

OTTAWA — It was an inside job of sorts. Thieves with access to a warehouse and a careful plan loaded up trucks and, over time, made off with $18 million of a valuable commodity.

The question is what was more unusual: that the commodity in question was maple syrup, or that it came from something called the global strategic maple syrup reserve, run by what amounts to a Canadian cartel.

On Tuesday, the police in Quebec arrested three men in connection with the theft from the warehouse, which is southwest of Quebec City. The authorities are searching for five others suspected of being involved, and law enforcement agencies in other parts of Canada and the United States are trying to recover some of the stolen syrup.

Both the size and the international scope of the theft underscore Quebec’s outsize position in the maple syrup industry.

Depending on the year, the province can produce more than three-quarters of the world’s supply. And its marketing organization appears to have taken some tips from the producers of another valuable liquid commodity when it comes to exploiting market dominance.

“It’s like OPEC,” said Simon Trépanier, acting general manager of the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers. “We’re not producing all the maple syrup in the world. But by producing 70 to 78 percent, we have the ability to adjust the quantity that is in the marketplace.”

Since 1999, Quebec’s maple syrup industry has used a marketing system found in other Canadian agricultural sectors, particularly dairy and poultry.

Put simply, the supply management system sets strict quotas for producers and, in the case of maple syrup, requires them to sell their product through the federation.

The sap that becomes maple syrup after being boiled down often flows for only a short period each spring. Weather changes can introduce wild fluctuations in how much emerges from sugar maple trees.

To maintain stable and high prices, the federation stockpiles every drop its members produce beyond their quota. During bad seasons, it dips into that supply.

“In the States you have the strategic oil reserve,” Mr. Trépanier said, continuing with his petroleum analogy. “Mother Nature is not generous every year, so we have our own global strategic reserve.”

Mr. Trépanier estimates that the reserve now holds 46 million pounds of syrup.

The spring of 2011 produced so much maple syrup that the federation added a third rented warehouse, in an industrial park alongside a busy highway in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, to accommodate the overflow. The surplus was pasteurized and packed into 16,000 drums, each holding 54 gallons, and left to rest except for inspections twice a year.

Lt. Guy Lapointe of the Sûreté du Québec, the police force that led the investigation, said that the thieves rented another portion of the warehouse for an unrelated business. That enabled them to drive large trucks into the building.

“They were basically inside guys,” Lieutenant Lapointe said. “The leader wasn’t with the federation, but he had access to the warehouse that would not attract any suspicion.”

When no one else was around, Lieutenant Lapointe said, the thieves gradually began emptying syrup barrels. Some Quebec news reports indicated that they also filled some barrels with water to disguise the theft.

Over time, the thieves helped themselves to six million pounds of syrup. Mr. Trépanier said their work was discovered in July, when inspectors found a few empty barrels. The full extent of the theft, he said, became clear once the police arrived.

The police spared no resources. Lieutenant Lapointe said that about 300 people were questioned and 40 search warrants executed. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement service joined the investigation.

Like many thieves, the maple syrup gang was faced with how to unload a large quantity of a commodity that is not easily moved. But unlike most thieves, Lieutenant Lapointe said, they found a way to get full price on the open market.

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Brazilian company releases the ‘IPHONE’ after trademarking the name back in 2000

Title Post: Brazilian company releases the ‘IPHONE’ after trademarking the name back in 2000
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Cruz: Meeting Pinto family was "toughest by far"

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — For much of his hour-long visit with the family of a 6-year-old boy killed in the Connecticut school shootings, Victor Cruz talked about football, life and young Jack, the child who idolized him.

Tears were shed. Feelings were shared. Cleats and gloves worn by Cruz to honor Jack Pinto at Sunday's game against Atlanta were given to his family.

The New York Giants wide receiver somberly recounted Wednesday his meeting with Pinto's parents and brother in Newtown, Conn.

He struggled in his retelling only when asked about the family's decision to bury the child in the receiver's No. 80 Giants jersey. The father of an infant girl, Cruz stopped for a moment, and his eyes became watery.

"You never go through some circumstances like this and circumstances where a kid faces or a family faces something of this magnitude at their school," Cruz said. "This definitely was the toughest by far."

Jack Pinto was buried on Monday and Cruz telephoned the family to ask whether he could visit them Tuesday.

The family disclosed after Friday's massacre that Cruz was Jack's favorite player. The boy was one of 20 first-graders and six adults killed in the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Cruz drove to Newtown with his girlfriend, Elaina Watley, and their daughter, Kennedy.

"I had no expectations. I was a little nervous," Cruz said. "I just didn't know how I was going to be received. You never know when they are going through something like that. You never know how it is going to go down."

Seeing the family outside the home along with some local children made Cruz feel better.

"They were still pretty emotional, crying and stuff like that," Cruz said. "I saw how affected they were by just my presence alone. I got out and gave them the cleats and the gloves and they appreciated it. The older brother (Ben) was still emotional, so I gave them to him."

Cruz had written "Jack Pinto, My Hero" and "R.I.P. Jack Pinto" on his cleats before the Giants' loss to the Falcons Sunday in Atlanta.

The 26-year-old player best known for his salsa dances after touchdowns, signed autographs for the children before heading inside.

"I didn't want to go in there and make a speech," Cruz said. "I just wanted to go and spend some time with them and be someone they could talk to, and be someone they can vent to, talk about how much of a fans they are of the team, or different times they watched the Super Bowl."

Cruz spent that part of the visit sitting in the chair where Jack's father, Dean, sat when he watched the Giants' Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots in February.

It was a day Jack got to see his favorite team win a championship.

"It was just an emotional time," Cruz said. "I spent a little bit of time with them. We got to smile a little bit, which was good for them. It was a time where I just wanted to be a positive voice, a positive light in the tunnel where it can really be negative, so it was a good time. They are a great family and they're really united at this time and it was good to see."

Cruz said it was strange thinking about a child being buried in his jersey. He did not know how to react. Should he thank the family?

"It leaves you kind of blank," Cruz said. "I am definitely honored by it. I am definitely humbled by it, and it's definitely an unfortunate but humbling experience for me."

The visit also gave Cruz time to reflect, especially looking at his daughter.

"Ever since it happened I've kind of been spending more time with her, just cherishing the little moments, the little time you get with her because you never know when that can be taken from you," he said.

Giants coach Tom Coughlin said he was incredibly proud of Cruz for visiting with the Pinto family.

"Hopefully some of their grief might at least temporarily be suspended in being able to embrace Victor Cruz," Coughlin said, adding what he did speaking volumes of what he has inside.

Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice said what Cruz did took heart.

"You've got to be able to put yourself in that family's situation to understand at least what they're going through," Rice said in a conference call with the New York media about Sunday's game against the Giants. "That's what it's about. That's something that you don't just say, 'I'm going to do it.' You do it from the heart, from within and what he did was amazing."

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Europe Proposes New Tobacco Rules

BRUSSELS — Health warnings should cover 75 percent of cigarette packs but governments should also have leeway to require plain packaging, the European Commission said Wednesday.

Yves Logghe/Associated Press

European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy Tonio Borg held up a mock package of cigarettes during a news conference on proposals to revise the Tobacco Products Directive, at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday.

The commission’s proposal would also ban cigarettes containing large quantities of flavorings including menthol and vanilla, restrict the sale of slimmer cigarettes and maintain a ban in most of the European Union on a form of chewing tobacco called snus.

The proposals still are less strict than in Australia, where a prohibition on logos and colorful designs went into effect this month. But the proposed ban on slim and super-slim cigarettes that are marketed to young women “is a positive development and a world first,” said the Smoke Free Partnership, a European organization that promotes tobacco control and research.

Tonio Borg, the E.,U. commissioner for health and consumer policy, said the overall goal of the so-called Tobacco Products Directive was to make smoking less attractive and to discourage young people from tobacco consumption.

“Consumers must not be cheated,” Mr. Borg said. “Tobacco products should look and taste like tobacco products, and this proposal ensures that attractive packaging and flavorings are not used as a marketing strategy.”

But Unitab, a European association of tobacco growers, said regulators had declared “total war” on their industry. The increased restrictions on branding would make price the deciding factor in tobacco sales; that in turn would favor suppliers from countries with lower production costs and put thousands of jobs in Europe at risk, the association said.

Written health warnings already must cover about 40 percent of a cigarette pack in the Union, although some countries also use pictorial warnings. In the future, Mr. Borg would like pictorial warnings to be mandatory, and for the warnings to cover three-quarters of the front and back of each pack of cigarettes, and half of each side.

E.U. officials conceded that the entire top and bottom sides of cigarette packs sold in Europe still could be used for branding under Mr. Borg’s proposals. Member states could opt to require plain packaging, however.

The directive also would require that smokeless electronic cigarettes providing more than a certain amount of nicotine should be available only in outlets like pharmacies. National or Europe-wide “test panels” would determine what quantities of flavoring like menthol should be banned, they said.

Much of the interest in the legislation in recent months had focused on apparent attempts to influence its wording.

Mr. Borg’s predecessor, John Dalli, resigned in October after the commission concluded that he had probably known about an attempt by a lobbyist to solicit a multimillion-dollar payoff in exchange for easing the ban on snus. The product can be sold only in Sweden, where some people consider it a safer alternative to smoking.

Mr. Dalli denied the allegations and said he was forced to resign under pressure from José Manuel Barroso, the president of the commission. Mr. Dalli also said his ouster had jeopardized chances for the revised directive to be passed before the current term of the European Parliament, which must approve the legislation, expires in 2014.

Mr. Borg suggested Wednesday that the law still could be adopted before the Parliament’s term expires, and go into force in 2015 or 2016.

But the Smoke Free Partnership warned that lobbying still could water down the proposals on labeling and packaging, as well as the ban on flavors and slim cigarettes. Governments and members of the European Parliament “are likely to face attempts by the tobacco industry to further block, weaken and delay this important legislation,” said Florence Berteletti Kemp, the director of the partnership.

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Challenging France to Do Business Differently

Pool photo by Bertrand Langlois

President François Hollande must find a way to make palatable a shift in French labor practices.

PARIS — Louis Gallois, one of France’s most influential industrialists, knew he was about to make waves for the country’s Socialist president.

It was late October, and President François Hollande, faced with an alarming deterioration in the economy, had turned to Mr. Gallois for advice on how to put corporate France on a more competitive footing with the rest of Europe.

Mr. Gallois didn’t sugar-coat the message. His report called for a “competitiveness shock” that would require politicians to curb the “cult of regulation” he said was choking business in France.

The report said that unless France relaxed its notoriously rigid labor market, the country would continue on an industrial decline that had destroyed more than 750,000 jobs in a decade and helped shrink France’s share of exports to the European Union to 9.3 percent, from 12.7 percent, during that period. The report also called for cuts to a broad range of business taxes used to pay for big government and France’s expensive social safety net.

But some wonder whether those measures, even if they can be adopted, would suffice. For them, there is a larger question: Can France be fixed?

While the European crisis has made the French acutely aware of the need to modernize the economy, the country may be running short on time. And there are mixed signals on whether the Hollande government is willing to heed the advice.

As details of the report leaked, the French news media went into a frenzy over whether their country — so resistant to change that the government still controls the price of a baguette of bread — was prepared for such upheaval.

Mr. Hollande quickly provided an answer: a competitiveness “pact” between business and government would better suit French society.

As Mr. Hollande’s finance minister, Pierre Moscovici, hastened to explain, “A shock causes trauma, whereas a pact reassures.”

But many observers say reassurance may no longer be an option.

Even the Germans are alarmed: Behind closed doors, Chancellor Angela Merkel and officials in her entourage are said to be worried that a failure by Mr. Hollande to improve competitiveness could ricochet back to the weakening German economy, further stalling what had long been twin engines of growth for Europe.

“The concern is not just that France could be the next candidate affected by turbulence” from the euro crisis, said Lars P. Feld, an economics professor at the University of Freiburg and an adviser to the German government. “The fear is that it doesn’t manage to cope with the loss of competitiveness and therefore produces little growth or perhaps even stagnation for the next few years,” Mr. Feld said. “And that after that, it could become the new sick man of Europe.”

France still has much working in its favor. Second only to Germany as Europe’s biggest economy, and the fifth-largest in the world, France is a wealthy country with a high savings rate, large foreign direct investment and world-class research and development capabilities.

And the interest rate on French 10-year bonds is only about 2 percent. That is much closer to Germany’s rate than to those of the euro zone’s staggering giants, Italy and Spain, which are above 4 percent and 5 percent respectively, as they struggle to clean up their economies.

Yet, last week the French central bank warned that growth would shrink 0.1 percent in the last three months of 2012, after stagnating for most of the year. Last month Moody’s Investors Service followed Standard & Poor’s in stripping France of its triple-A credit rating, saying the government was failing to ignite competitiveness fast enough.

Meanwhile, an ambitious effort Mr. Hollande began shortly after his election in May to cut the deficit to 3 percent next year from 4.5 percent through tax increases and spending cuts may dampen growth further and ratchet up unemployment, which recently neared 11 percent, twice the rate in Germany.

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For Modernizing Thais, Monastic Life Loses Allure

Young monks rehearsed an evening candlelight ceremony at the Chedi Luang temple in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The country’s Buddhist temples are as much a part of the landscape as rice paddies and palm trees. But many temples in rural Thailand have fallen quiet.

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Instagram tests new limits in user privacy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Instagram, which spurred suspicions this week that it would sell user photos after revising its terms of service, has sparked renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.

In forcefully establishing a new set of usage terms, Instagram, the massively popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, has claimed some rights that have been practically unheard of among its prominent social media peers, legal experts and consumer advocates say.

Users who decline to accept Instagram’s new privacy policy have one month to delete their accounts, or they will be bound by the new terms. Another clause appears to waive the rights of minors on the service. And in the wake of a class-action settlement involving Facebook and privacy issues, Instagram has added terms to shield itself from similar litigation.

All told, the revised terms reflect a new, draconian grip over user rights, experts say.

“This is all uncharted territory,” said Jay Edelson, a partner at the Chicago law firm Edelson McGuire. “If Instagram is to encourage as many lawsuits as possible and as much backlash as possible then they succeeded.”

Instagram’s new policies, which go into effect January 16, lay the groundwork for the company to begin generating advertising revenue by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information such as who users follow in advertisements.

The new terms, which allow an advertiser to pay Instagram “to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)” without compensation, triggered an outburst of complaints on the Web on Tuesday from users upset that Instagram would make money from their uploaded content.

The uproar prompted a lengthy blog post from the company to “clarify” the changes, with CEO Kevin Systrom saying the company had no current plans to incorporate photos taken by users into ads.

Instagram declined comment beyond its blog post, which failed to appease critics including National Geographic, which suspended new posts to Instagram. “We are very concerned with the direction of the proposed new terms of service and if they remain as presented we may close our account,” said National Geographic, an early Instagram adopter.

PUSHING BOUNDARIES

Consumer advocates said Facebook was using Instagram’s aggressive new terms to push the boundaries of how social media sites can make money while its own hands were tied by recent agreements with regulators and class action plaintiffs.

Under the terms of a 2011 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook is required to get user consent before personal information is shared beyond their privacy settings. A preliminary class action lawsuit settlement with Facebook allows users to opt-out of being included in the “sponsored stories” ads that use their personal information.

Under Instagram’s new terms, users who want to opt-out must simply quit using the service.

“Instagram has given people a pretty stark choice: Take it or leave, and if you leave it you’ve got to leave the service,” said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Internet user right’s group.

What’s more, he said, if a user initially agrees to the new terms but then has a change of mind, their information could still be used for commercial purposes.

In a post on its official blog on Tuesday, Instagram did not address another controversial provision that states that if a child under the age of 18 uses the service, then it is implied that his or her parent has tacitly agreed to Instagram’s terms.

“The notion is that minors can’t be bound to a contract. And that also means they can’t be bound to a provision that says they agree to waive the rights,” said the EFF’s Opsahl.

BLOCKING CLASS ACTION SUITS

While Facebook continues to be bogged in its own class action suit, Instagram took preventive steps to avoid a similar legal morass.

Its new terms of service require users with a legal complaint to enter arbitration, rather than take the company to court. It prohibits users from joining a class action lawsuit unless they mail a written “opt-out” statement to Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park within 30 days of joining Instagram.

That provision is not included in terms of service for other leading social media companies like Twitter, Google, YouTube or even Facebook itself, and it immunizes Instagram from many forms of legal liability, said Michael Rustad, a professor at Suffolk University Law School.

Rustad, who has studied the terms of services for 157 social media services, said just 10 contained provisions prohibiting class action lawsuits.

The clause effectively cripples users who want to legally challenge the company because lawyers will not likely represent an individual plaintiff, Rustad argued.

“No lawyers will take these cases,” Rustad said. “In consumer arbitration cases, everything is stacked against the consumer. It’s a pretense, it’s a legal fiction, that there are remedies.”

Instagram, which has 100 million users, allows consumers to tweak the photos they take on their smartphones and share the images with friends. Facebook acquired Instagram in September for $ 715 million.

Instagram’s take-it-or-leave-it policy pushes the envelope for how social networking companies treat user privacy issues, said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

“I think Facebook is probably using Instagram to see how far it can press this advertising model,” said Rotenberg. “If they can keep a lot of users, then all those users have agreed to have their images as part of advertising.”

(Additional reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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