Barack Obama related Press Releases

Personal Cell Phone Account of President-Elect Obama Accessed by Unauthorized Employees

Phil Goldstein — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:34:35 -0500

Thursday November 20, 10:34 pm ET

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Nov. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless President and CEO Lowell McAdam made the following statement today:

"This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, accessed and viewed President-Elect Barack Obama's personal cell phone account. The account has been inactive for several months. The device on the account was a simple voice flip-phone, not a BlackBerry or other smartphone designed for e-mail or other data services.

"All employees who have accessed the account - whether authorized or not - have been put on immediate leave, with pay. As the circumstances of each individual employee's access to the account are determined, the company will take appropriate actions. Employees with legitimate business needs for access will be returned to their positions, while employees who have accessed the account improperly and without legitimate business justification will face appropriate disciplinary action.

We apologize to President-Elect Obama and will work to keep the trust our customers place in us every day."

About Verizon Wireless

Verizon Wireless operates the nation's most reliable wireless voice and data network, serving 70.8 million customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 71,000 employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ - News) and Vodafone (NYSE and LSE: VOD - News News). For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com . To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia .

Presidential Candidates Failing to Win Over Communications Industry Leaders, New Pike & Fischer Survey Indicates

Jim O'Neill — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:00:21 -0400

June 4, 2008 - Communications industry executives are wary about the
ability of any of the presidential candidates to develop sound policies
on such issues as broadband availability and media ownership, according
to results of a new Pike & Fischer Broadband Advisory Services survey.

A slight majority of the more than 280 industry leaders and experts who responded to the survey said they are either unaware of the telecommunications policy platform
of any of the candidates, or simply don’t find any of the politicians’
positions to be viable.

Pike & Fischer conducted the survey over March and April and received responses from executives, engineers
and consultants representing cable, telephone, satellite TV and
technology equipment industries. Academics and government regulators
were also represented in the survey.

Complete results and related analysis will be unveiled at Pike & Fischer's Broadband Policy Summit IV on June 12-13 in Washington, DC.

Among the survey participants who said they were up to speed on the candidates’
positions, most view presumptive Republican presidential nominee John
McCain as having better communications policy ideas than Democrats
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But many others said they are angry
that none of the candidates have a clear understanding or concern about
critical communications issues, such as regulations that affect the
industry’s ability to deliver affordable broadband services to more
Americans.

“The overall state of the economy, the war in Iraq,
and gas prices have dominated the presidential race, while
communications issues such as broadband availability and advanced
communications for public safety have thus far not been major topics of
debate,” said Scott Sleek, director of Pike & Fischer’s
Broadband Advisory Services. “It appears that this has left many
telecommunications industry leaders feeling pretty pessimistic about
the fate of communications policy under the next administration.”

For analyst commentary or to request a briefing, contact Scott Sleek at 301-562-1530, x291, ssleek@pf.com.

To learn more about Broadband Policy Summit IV, visit http://www.broadbandpolicysummit.com.

Crisp Wireless Launches Crisp Wireless IndexÃ¢â€žÂ¢

Jim O'Neill — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:32:44 -0400

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Crisp Wireless (www.crispwireless.com),
the leader in monetizing and powering mobile ventures for top media and
entertainment companies, today announced the introduction of the Crisp
Wireless Index (CWI), a quarterly barometer of consumer activity online
via mobile devices based on usage across sites of select publishers in
the Crisp Network. According to the inaugural Crisp Wireless Index,
Presidential candidate Barack Obama beats rival Hillary Clinton by more
than 2012% to take the number one most searched term on mobile search
engines.

Among the other top search terms the CWI identifies, Heath Ledger was
fourth and Britney Spears was the sixth most searched term. “Sex” and “Porno” were the
number 8^th and 9^th respectively, followed by “American Idol” at number 10. Hillary Clinton came in at number 14.

The CWI also shows that a majority of web traffic, 53%, is driven by
on-deck carrier portals such as AT&T, Sprint/Nextel and Verizon. The
AT&T portal accounts for 29.5% of that traffic, followed by
Sprint/Nextel with 13% and Verizon with 12.5%. Visits via search engines
are 7.5%, and the remaining 39.5% of traffic derives from users who type
in URLs, use bookmarks or access sites from text-based links. The 39.5%
of traffic has gained ground since Q4 2007.

“We created the Index to provide a consistent
and reliable measure of mobile interactions within and across key mobile
content categories identifying important trends in mobile web usage and
adding to our understanding of mobile consumer engagement,” said Boris Fridman, CEO, Crisp Wireless. “The
Crisp Wireless Index data comes from the more 14 million mobile users
who surf the web via Crisp Wireless’ premiere
publisher network of more than 200 mobile web sites. Unlike other mobile
studies that only sample a couple thousand users and then extrapolate
data to make broad sweeping statements about mobile usage, the Index
succinctly identifies very significant and sustained trends where
consumers are spending their time on the mobile web.”

According to the CWI data, users are coming back more frequently
(representing greater “stickiness”)
as Visits/Unique visitor increased 32% from 4Q07 to 1Q08. Sites drawing
the highest percentages of visits per unique are in the Women’s
Lifestyle, Youth, and Television & Entertainment categories, with 3.6,
2.8 and 2.7 Visits/Unique respectively.

The CWI identified a number of other interesting mobile trends and
statistics, including:

Search engine traffic did increase slightly to 7.5% in 1Q08 from 7.3%
in 4Q07. Local newspapers and television sites were the biggest
beneficiaries, with 27% and 12%, respectively, deriving their traffic
from search engines.
Nearly 30% of the search engine traffic for the average nationally
branded mobile web site is driven by users who searched the specific
property name (i.e. USA Today, Elle, etc.).
Average mobile web users with interest in the automotive category
accrue nearly twice as many page views than those of national news
sites (8 Pages/Visit vs. 4 Pages/Visit).
Total traffic in the Crisp Network increased by 24% between 4Q07 and
1Q08
Part the increase in off-deck traffic this quarter can be attributed
to iPhone users who search the Web with Apple’s
Safari browser. Of those sites that have an optimized iPhone site,
iPhone users account for an average of 31% of site traffic

The Crisp Wireless Index is an industry report that is published
quarterly by Crisp Wireless. The index is a measure of unique mobile
interactions within and across key mobile content categories including
but not limited to: National News, Local TV News, Local Newspapers,
Magazines, Online Services, Women’s
Lifestyle, Men’s, Sports, Youth, Autos,
Business, and TV & Entertainment, among others. The information provided
within the report is gathered from select data captured from across
Crisp Wireless’ Mobile Publisher Network of
over 200 premium mobile web sites and its more than 14 million mobile
web visitors. Additional information is available to customers within
the Crisp Wireless Mobile Publisher Network.

To subscribe to receive quarterly updates to the Crisp Wireless Index,
register at http://www.crispwireless.com/analytics/register.

About Crisp Wireless

Crisp Wireless is the leader
in mobile solutions and services which effectively monetize and power
mobile business for top media and entertainment companies worldwide.
Crisp Wireless powers and manages the largest, premiere mobile publisher
network across such vertical industries as news, local, sports,
automotive, and women’s lifestyle.

The Crisp Wireless Publisher Network has more than 200 mobile web sites
from more than 45 major media companies and their brands such as Time
Warner, NBC Sports, Gannett, Tribune Interactive, A&E, Bravo Cable
Network, Discovery Communications, Hachette Filipacchi, and Paramount
Pictures, among others. The company is also one of the top local mobile
site providers with a wide breadth of offerings that cross multiple
vertical segments in all 150 DMAs.

Crisp Wireless plays a critical role in the mobile ad-value chain by
enabling mobile advertising and commerce through its relationships with
prominent mobile search providers, ad networks, carriers, and
publishers, maximizing revenue for its Publisher Network and
advertisers. More than one-third of all unique mobile web users pass
through Crisp’s network, offering advertisers
and ad networks unprecedented levels of ad targeting capabilities such
as behavioral, contextual, usage data and other consumer insights.