FCC Parental-Controls Report to Hill Sets Up Inquiry
A FCC report on parental controls across many platforms due Monday to Congress makes no recommendations for legislation and reaches no conclusions, commission officials said. The report is required by the Child Safe Viewing Act and sets up many issues for a forthcoming notice of inquiry on kids and media, said industry and commission officials. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has said the Media Bureau is working on the notice (CD Aug 21 p1). He listed it as among his near-term media priorities.
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Many parts of the report summarize views in favor of particular parental controls -- including the V-chip -- and arguments that current filtering technologies need improvement, commission officials said. The report covers the Internet, broadcast, cable and satellite TV, wireless devices and consumer electronics devices such as DVRs, and it discusses the possibility of rating systems independent of content producers, they said. The document notes that others, including the Commerce Department, are studying online filtering tools, the officials said. FCC members will vote on the full report, and some may issue separate statements, they said. A commission spokeswoman declined to comment.
Responding to requests that the FCC educate parents about parental controls, much as it ran public service announcements on the DTV switch, the report notes that the commission is trying to make information about TV stations’ educational and informational programming available more readily, an FCC official said. Eighty-three percent of initial comments to the March notice of inquiry about the report opposed blocking and filtering mandates, saying current efforts are adequate (CD April 20 p5). Since the commission got money from Congress for DTV education, the report indicates that any efforts concerning parental controls could be smaller, an FCC official said. The forthcoming notice is said to ask whether the regulator should make industry run PSAs on parental controls.
Bureau staffers are still working on the notice, and it probably will be circulated for a fall vote by the FCC members, an agency official said. The report seems to “say these are the options and let Congress make the decision as to whether they want to give the FCC the power to enforce these things or take actions in these areas,” said broadcast lawyer David Oxenford of Davis Wright Tremaine. Some of the products mentioned in the March notice, such as DVD players and video games, are beyond the commission’s reach without new “authorization from Congress,” he said.
The Parents Television Council thinks the report falls short of what Congress required, because it doesn’t seem to discuss the next generation of parental controls, said Policy Director Dan Isett. It’s “a tremendous missed opportunity for the commission,” he said. “I'm hopeful that there’s more to it than what’s been reported,” and “there’s a real concern if the FCC hasn’t done what Congress has asked it to.”