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Senate Wants Netflix, Spotify To Send Out Federal Emergency Alerts (techcrunch.com)
Senators in Hawaii and South Dakota have introduced a bill, called the "Reliable Emergency Alert Distribution Improvement (READI) act, that would "explore" broadcasting alerts to "online streaming services, such as Netflix and Spotify," amongst other changes to the Emergency Alert System. TechCrunch reports: Some of the other things the bill touches on:
- Users on many phones can currently disable federal alerts; they want to get rid of that option
- Building a better system for reporting false alarms and figuring out what happened
- Updating the system to better prevent false alarms, and to better retract them when they do happen
- Users on many phones can currently disable federal alerts; they want to get rid of that option
- Building a better system for reporting false alarms and figuring out what happened
- Updating the system to better prevent false alarms, and to better retract them when they do happen
The current alert systems are tower-based. A particular set of towers are told to transmit the alert and that determines the area it covers.
Netflix doesn't know where I am. My IP appears to be near Seattle instead of San Francisco (my ISP is small and happens to be based in Seattle). My Apple TV doesn't have a GPS chip AFAIK. I pay for Netflix through iTunes so Netflix also doesn't have a billing address. I don't use Spotify.
So what are they going to do? Ask for my Zip code so I can receive alerts?
What's the Zip of that town that has 1 resident?
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.