Reddit users hit FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen with questions ranging from blunt -- “Does the government have the right to view your data? [Y/N]” -- to detailed and esoteric during the website’s “Ask Me Anything” chat session on Friday. On a right to view data: “This is a critically important topic,” she said. “With respect to the FTC’s role however, our jurisdiction is over commercial privacy, not government privacy.” The questions skewed toward compliance issues with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which Ohlhausen addressed by speaking to the importance of self-regulation, the commission’s investigation of data brokers and the necessity of robust privacy terms to compete in the market.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said on her last business day as acting chairwoman that she leaves that job with her head held high, proud of prison calling reform, 700 MHz interoperability and other things she accomplished since taking the reins in May. Clyburn said both issues “languished” at the commission for many years. Clyburn acknowledged that agency staff are still digging out from the 16-day federal shutdown the first half of October. “I tell people all the time I'm a very unlikely person in this job, even as a commissioner or in this acting chair capacity for the next couple of hours,” Clyburn said Friday.

An FCC open to more foreign investment in broadcasting could be a boon for foreign language stations, media brokers, broadcast attorneys and investment analysts told us in interviews last week. Broadcasters from Spanish-speaking countries have long shown an interest in acquiring U.S. Spanish-language TV and radio stations, and were barred from doing so by the 25 percent cap on foreign ownership, several brokers said. There’s also been interest from Asia in Chinese-language stations, said the brokers. With a draft declaratory ruling in the works that could lead to deals over the cap being approved on case-by-case basis (CD Oct 25 p5), those broadcasters would “absolutely” be interested in buying bigger portions in such stations, said Media Services Group-Chicago Director Robert Heymann. “There are just many cities where there’s a sizable, substantial market of people who want information in their own language,” said Minority Media and Telecommunications Council President David Honig.

A draft rulemaking notice proposes ending the FCC’s 38-year-old sports blackout rule, said agency officials in interviews Friday. Acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn on Friday, her last business day before Tom Wheeler is to start as permanent chairman (CD Oct 31 p1), said she circulated a rulemaking notice to address the rule. Several nonprofits and groups saying they represent fans sought a proceeding to change the rule in 2011 (CD Nov 15/11 p3), with the NAB, NFL and affiliate groups of three of big four broadcast networks opposing the change. Some backing the rule change think the NPRM will be approved without much controversy within the FCC, while a foe said he’s not so sure that will be the case.

The nation’s two largest inmate calling service (ICS) providers asked the FCC to delay implementation of the prison calling order until they can seek judicial review. Global Tel*Link and Securus argued that in requiring ICS rates to be cost-based, the order imposes what is essentially rate-of-return regulation without warning. That’s contrary to administrative rules that require public notice and comment, they say. Reducing high per-minute calling rates to and from prisons was a major priority for acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, who had been pushing for action since long before she became interim head of the agency.

Privacy advocates began sniping hours after the Senate Intelligence Committee cleared proposed surveillance legislation Thursday. It sets the stage for a Senate fight over whether to end or preserve the National Security Agency’s bulk phone metadata surveillance program. Naysayers in the 11-4 committee vote (CD Nov 1 p4) also began slamming the FISA Improvements Act of 2013 (http://1.usa.gov/1gfiYfO), a major effort from Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Feinstein and committee Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., praised its merits Thursday, and other members touted their amendments.

The FCC is seeking comment on the AM radio revitalization NPRM. As expected, the rulemaking notice includes proposals to change nighttime community coverage standards and to open an FM translator filing window strictly for AM licensees. Some AM radio advocates backed the effort, while others remain skeptical of the efficiency of the FM translator proposal. Comments are due 60 days after the item appears in the Federal Register, the NPRM said (http://bit.ly/16SIfUs).

AT&T should be allowed to buy Leap Wireless only if it’s also required to divest spectrum in some markets and provide voice and data roaming on terms at least as favorable as those offered by Leap, the Competitive Carriers Association said in reply comments on the proposed deal. The FCC posted replies Friday on AT&T/Leap, wrapping up the comment cycle on a deal that is expected to be an early test of FCC merger policy under new Chairman Tom Wheeler. AT&T and Leap rebuked initial arguments against the deal in an Oct. 23 opposition (http://bit.ly/1ghoJcW).

The FCC’s new accessibility rules for user interfaces, program guides and other functions are “probably the most difficult statutory provisions” Commissioner Ajit Pai has encountered during his tenure with the commission, he said in a statement released with the order implementing sections 204 and 205 of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, which was adopted Tuesday. The order classifies all navigation devices that use CableCARDs -- such as cable set-top boxes or TiVo boxes -- under the more narrow requirements of Section 205, which requires accessible program guides. All other digital apparatus, such as non-CableCARD TVs and some mobile devices, fall under Section 204, and will be required to have certain “essential” functions that are accessible.

Congress “is going to have to take the lead” on cybersecurity, said former Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., at an FCBA event Wednesday night. Stearns is now a senior adviser at APCO Worldwide. Although President Barack Obama issued a cybersecurity executive order in February, Stearns said he believes “it has gone nowhere. You need some kind of leadership in the House and Senate to say ’this is the basic standards that we've got to go forward with.’ Absent that, industry is going to have to work within themselves.” Although the House passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act earlier this year, similar information sharing legislation will be difficult to pass in either the House or Senate following leaks about the controversial National Security Agency surveillance programs, Stearns said.