CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom had meetings with aides to all FCC commissioners to discuss a broad safe harbor as part of robocalling rules. “Adopting a broad safe harbor based on reasonable analytics will give voice service providers the clarity and certainty needed to meaningfully advance the Commission’s goal of protecting consumers from the scourge of illegal and unwanted robocalls while protecting legitimate calls,” the groups said, posted Monday in docket 17-59.
Telecom carriers and interconnected VoIP providers must file annual certification documenting compliance with Customer Proprietary Network Information rules by March 2, the FCC's Enforcement bureau said in an advisory in docket 06-36 in Wednesday's Daily Digest.
Google is investing in connected TV ad solutions to reach households at scale with messages that are relevant to users “and respectful of their privacy,” blogged Jake Jolly, product manager-Display & Video 360. A Comscore analysis commissioned by Google found marketers can reach 76 percent of all connected TV households in the U.S. and 89 percent of ad-supported connected TV households, or more than half of all Wi-Fi households. That will grow as connected TV penetration broadens, Jolly said Thursday. In addition to YouTube, Display & Video 360 provides access to nine of the top 10 most watched U.S. ad-supported connected TV apps from cable and broadcast channels. Google uses Identifier for Advertising (IFA) to manage connected TV ad frequency, and it can be disabled or reset by the user. Now, it’s working with inventory providers to support IFAs at the exchange and publisher levels, and advertisers can control frequency in a “user-first” way on apps such as Hulu, Pluto TV or Lifetime.
The South Dakota House voted 62-0 Wednesday to stop telemarketers from using misleading caller ID. HB-1131 would empower the state attorney general to investigate upon receiving a complaint. It goes to the Senate.
Venture capitalists and antitrust enforcers share similar values and goals of favoring dynamic competition and seeing disruption as often a positive, DOJ antitrust head Makan Delrahim said in an address Wednesday, according to prepared remarks. He said DOJ is interested in whether any current digital platforms are so dominant, with the ability to restrict access to inputs or to distribution of products, that investors shy away from developing products relying on those platforms. He said there's a debate about the value of keep private data regarding how people interact with technology and websites, but there also are questions of what that information might be worth in different markets and how consumers might be served by rules that allow that data's collection and use.
Congress is likely to pass privacy legislation, hopefully this year (see 2002110055), due to the California Consumer Privacy Act, EU's law and Cambridge Analytica apparently misusing Facebook data, said NCTA Vice President-State Affairs Rick Cimerman Tuesday at NARUC. Businesses think the CCPA will be costly and would prefer one national privacy standard instead of 50 possibly conflicting state laws, said Jordan Crenshaw, U.S. Chamber of Commerce policy counsel. Industry supports a pre-emptive federal law and opposes private right of action, he said. Such legislation moved from “if” to “when” after California passed a comprehensive law, and it can get bipartisan support, said Joseph Wender, senior policy adviser for Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. Once the state had a real privacy law, industry started applying pressure on Congress to save it from a patchwork of state laws, Wender said Tuesday. More state laws on the way will add pressure, he said. Congress must deal with “elephants in the room” including how much to pre-empt states, whether there will be a private right of action, and if there will be a federal rulemaking, the Markey aide said: “We’ll never do anything weaker than California.” Compromise is much more likely on privacy than on net neutrality, Wender said.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) released revised draft rules to implement the California Consumer Privacy Act, based on suggestions in about 200 received comments. The AG office wants comments on revisions by Feb. 24, it said in a Friday notice. The AG expects to start enforcing the law July 1, though some are seeking delay (see 2001290040). The AG added guidance on what is personal information, saying it “depends on whether the business maintains information in a manner that ‘identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could be reasonably linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household.’ For example, if a business collects the IP addresses of visitors to its website but does not link the IP address to any particular consumer or household, and could not reasonably link the IP address with a particular consumer or household, then the IP address would not be ‘personal information.’” Service providers “shall not retain, use, or disclose personal information obtained in the course of providing services except” to perform services specified in the written contract with the business providing it, to retain and employ a subcontractor, for internal use to build or improve services and to detect data security incidents or combat fraudulent or illegal activity, the revised draft says. Another addition says a business may not require a consumer to pay a fee to verify requests for or to delete information. “For example, a business may not require a consumer to provide a notarized affidavit to verify their identity unless the business compensates the consumer for the cost of notarization.” A business may deny a request for specific personal information if it can’t verify the identity of the requestor, said another addition. “If the business has no reasonable method by which it can verify any consumer, the business shall explain why it has no reasonable verification method in its privacy policy.” Notices should be “reasonably” accessible to people with disabilities, said another clarification. The AG also adjusted definitions of some terms including household and added examples illustrating certain rules. "If there are no further changes, the Attorney General will finalize the text of the regulations and other documents in the rulemaking file," a Becerra spokesperson emailed. "The Office of Administrative Law will have 30 business days to review the regulations, and if OAL approves, the rules will go into effect."
The FCC voted 5-0 to propose rules to register a consortium of industry-led efforts to trace the origin of suspected unlawful robocalls, posted in docket 20-22 Thursday. The NPRM proposed a "simple registration process." The Enforcement Bureau would issue an annual public notice, by April 28 this year, seeking registration of a single such consortium. The rules are mandated by March 29 by the Pallone-Thune Telephone and Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement (Traced) Act. It asks the consortium to be a neutral third party; maintain written best practices; focus on fraudulent, abusive or unlawful conduct; and notify the FCC in advance of registration. Chairman Ajit Pai circulated the item last week (see 2001310053).
It’s not possible to create an encryption back door for police that wouldn’t be “discovered and exploited by hackers” and other criminals, CTA CEO Gary Shapiro said Wednesday. “Encryption is critical in protecting our country and our most private information,” he wrote. “But the current encryption debate wrongly pits technology and national security against each other.”
T-Mobile, Sprint and Comcast all are making secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) and secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) technology available. It will "give customers peace of mind that calls from the Sprint network to the T-Mobile network (and vice versa) are really coming from the number listed on their caller ID display,” the mobile carriers said Tuesday. Comcast and Sprint said the call authentication tech has been implemented in Sprint's mobile network and in Comcast's Xfinity Voice landline phone network for calls between the two companies' customers. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai pressed carriers for adoption of the call authentication technology to help combat illegal robocalls (see 1907110023). The agency on Tuesday said it had written gatgeway service providers to seek their assistance in tracking foreign illegal robocalls' origins (see 2002040069).