When ICANN's board meets in coming days, Mozilla wants directors to scrutinize the Internet Society's sale of the Public Interest Registry to Ethos Capital. Board members should devise criteria Friday, said a Mozilla blog post Thursday. It said a stewardship charter, B corporation registration with public charter, and public feedback on the first two criteria "should be in place before ICANN considers approving the sale." Mozilla sought a charter giving a PIR stewardship council of .org stakeholders "broad scope, meaningful independence, and practical authority to ensure PIR continues to serve the public benefit." It would guarantee Ethos and PIR "keep their promises regarding price increases, and steer any additional revenue from higher prices back into the dot org ecosystem." PIR won't change because of its "indirect transfer of ownership," an Ethos spokesperson emailed. "ICANN has a clear and specific mandate" here, she added. "ICANN’s exclusive responsibility in reviewing any transfer of control is to ensure that it does not adversely impact the stability, reliability, or security of the registry." PIR post-deal will meet those criteria, she said. "Should ICANN base its decision about this transaction on opinions that have been circulating in public discussion that are unrelated to these criteria, it would set a dangerous precedent. It would put ICANN in the business of subjectively deciding who should own registries based on issues other than the stability, reliability and security of the registry. This becomes a very gray area." It would "create a slippery slope for ICANN, cause significant uncertainty for any company in the future seeking to purchase or sell a domain name registry, create an uncertain and unpredictable business environment for registries and raise serious doubts about whether ICANN is expanding its role far beyond its limited mandate. The enforceability and value of the ICANN contract itself would be called into question." ICANN didn't comment now. It last week extended the time to review PIR's purchase to next month (see 2001210034). ISOC and PIR noted the deal won't change the nonprofit website registrar that's being transferred nor .org. "It’s important all sides of this debate are heard, including ours," emailed a spokesperson on behalf of ISOC and PIR. "PIR will retain the same management team that is in place today, and will continue to operate the .ORG registry in the same way that it has successfully operated the registry for the past 16 years."
Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., filed House companion legislation Tuesday to a bill (S-3153) from Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., targeting Huawei (see 2001080002). The bill would bar the U.S. from sharing intelligence “with any country that permits operation within its national borders” of Huawei-produced 5G equipment. “Huawei is a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party to spy on and infiltrate other nations,” Banks said. “Our allies must choose: Adopt Huawei and lose access to U.S. intelligence, or remain our trusted partner.” The U.S. is trying to convince the U.K. government not to allow Huawei equipment on the country’s 5G infrastructure. House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a co-sponsor of Banks’ bill, said that “allowing Huawei into the U.K.’s 5G networks would pose a national security threat that could not be mitigated or contained. Such a decision would necessarily have negative consequences for the U.S./U.K. relationship in many areas, including trade and intelligence cooperation.”
Two telcos didn't meet all broadband deployment requirements for having received federal funding, they reported Thursday. CenturyLink might not have met milestones in 23 states for the Connect America Fund Phase II USF program, it filed in docket 10-90. Frontier Communications receives CAF II support for 29 states, and may not have met the 87 percent interim deployment milestone for 2019 in 13. States where both appeared to have missed requirements are Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin. The FCC declined to comment. "CenturyLink has been making substantial investments to bring broadband to FCC-designated, high-cost locations in the 33 states where it accepted CAF II money and will continue to," a spokesperson emailed. "Over the last four years, the company has deployed broadband to nearly 900,000 homes and small businesses in FCC-designated census blocks across rural America." The filing said the funding was for about 1 million locations. As the USF recipient approaches completion of CAF II obligations, "the remaining locations are the most challenging to serve," CenturyLink said. "Factors including density and terrain, for example, may have impacted the final number of homes and businesses." Both telcos said they will file a 2019 year-end report by March 1. Illinois Citizens Utility Board Executive Director David Kolata wants to know what the companies will do to catch up. "Generally, citizens in more rural parts of Illinois have been frustrated for a while at the lack of quality broadband options," he told us. "Even in the best of circumstances in large cities, you often don’t have much choice." Rural and sparsely populated places may have no quality wireline or wireless internet service, Kolata said. "It’s a big policy issue and one that I know the governor and general assembly" have been working on. Officials in other states also said they are watching the buildout situation with the two phone companies.
The FTC unanimously finalized settlements with five companies over allegations they falsely claimed certification under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework (see 1909030063), the agency said Thursday. The FTC alleged DCR Workforce, Thru, LotaData and 214 Technologies didn’t have PS certification, as claimed. It alleged LotaData falsely claimed Swiss-U.S. PS certification. EmpiriStat allowed its certification to lapse, failed to verify annually that statements about its PS practices were accurate, and didn’t affirm it would continue to apply PS protections to personal information collected while participating in the program, the commission alleged. “All five companies are prohibited from misrepresenting their participation in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework, any other privacy or data security program sponsored by the government, or any self-regulatory or standard-setting organization,” the FTC said. EmpiriStat must apply protections to personal information it collected while participating in the program, or return or delete the information.
Avnet is at CES looking to reinvent itself as a turnkey IoT provider, Shankar Ramani, vice president-global IT operations, told us Wednesday in Las Vegas. The company launched a partner program, based on Microsoft’s Azure IoT Suite, to help developers build complete IoT platforms that connect certified devices using hardware and software. He compared this to Apple’s App Store: “They didn’t build every app you have on your phone; they went out and got third-party app developers to build, but the platform was secure and created that customer experience that allowed for billing and revenue generation.” When a customer talks about solutions that are “budget-neutral” for an entire city, “people talk less about the actual components and more about the end-user value,” the executive noted. Smart cities have been a CES focus (see 2001090037).
The Commerce Department is amending export administration regulations to control exports of software designed to “automate the analysis of geospatial imagery,” said an interim final rule. The software will be controlled under a temporary holding classification that lasts for one year from the day the final rule is published. Although the agency believes it's in U.S. national security interests to “immediately” control this software, Commerce seeks comment by March 6. The department said in Monday's Federal Register the software would require an export license for shipments to all countries except Canada, subject to case-by-case license application review.
The Commerce Department extended until Jan. 10 the deadline for comments its proposed new procedures for reviewing transactions, including imports, that involve information and communications technology and services and are seen as a potential threat (see 1911260044), says Monday’s Federal Register. Industry groups requested the extension beyond the original due date of Dec. 27.
Net neutrality won a prime spot in New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2020 agenda. The Democrat proposed a bill Thursday that would build on a 2018 executive order that restricted procurement to ISPs that follow open-internet principles, codifying that and banning zero rating and blocking, throttling and paid prioritization. It would direct the Department of Public Service to hold mobile and fixed ISPs accountable by investigating and fining providers that violate net neutrality. ISPs would have to disclose net management practices and annually certify compliance with New York net neutrality rules. The bill would give a private right of action so any New Yorker could bring a complaint against violators. Cuomo said "while the federal administration works to undermine this asset, in New York we are advancing the strongest net neutrality proposal in the nation so big corporations can't control what information we access or stymie smaller competitors.” Assemblymember Patricia Fahy (D) praised Cuomo for seeking to codify his 2018 EO: “The principles of a free and open internet are essential.” Fahy is one of several New York lawmakers with net neutrality bills; legislators were expected to talk before January about possible coordination (see 1910240024). It's "promising and shows that the governor’s team is thinking about the issue comprehensively,” said Free Press Action Fund General Counsel Matt Wood. Public Knowledge also wants to see the text but is encouraged, said Policy Director Phillip Berenbroick. “With the FCC missing in action, it is critical that state governments step up.” New America’s Open Technology Institute also welcomed it. DPS, NCTA and CTIA declined comment; the FCC and USTelecom didn’t respond.
The Wireless Innovation Forum's new 6 GHz Band Multi-Stakeholder Committee said controversies remain, as does work to be done. Getting protections right is important, Wednesday's report said. “A number of licensed users occupy this spectrum, prominent occupants being users of fixed point-to-point links,” it said. “A large fraction of these links serves critical functions that must maintain a high level of availability.” The group filed in FCC docket 18-295 and discussed the report with retiring Chief Julius Knapp and others from the Office of Engineering and Technology. "WinnForum's 6 GHz Committee has accomplished the most important task for any co-existence analysis: Identify suitable protection criteria and propagation models used to predict compatibility," said Andrew Clegg of Google, WinnForum chief technical officer: "It's important that these considerations get buy-in from all stakeholders." Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii (see 1912180064) raised concerns, while Zebra also lobbied the FCC (see 1912180063).
With the House expected to vote this week on ratifying the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on free trade, “we are one step closer to securing a major bipartisan victory for our economy,” blogged U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue Monday. USMCA “will be a boon to manufacturing, services, and agricultural enterprises,” plus small business, said Donohue. While not “without its weaknesses” in the last-minute removal of key intellectual property provisions (see 1912110035), USCMA “is a strong deal overall,” he said.