Mobile privacy stakeholders may soon have a voluntary code of conduct on mobile applications’ use of short-form notices to inform users how their data are collected and used. Stakeholders participating in the NTIA mobile privacy discussions, including members of the mobile application and online advertising industries as well as civil liberties and consumer advocates, will meet Thursday to discuss the most recent discussion draft of the voluntary code of conduct put forth by a group including the Application Developers Alliance, ACLU, Consumer Action and World Privacy Forum (http://xrl.us/boa4g9).

President Barack Obama urged Congress to authorize a study of the effects that violent videogames have on children, in a speech Wednesday at the White House. The president signed 23 executive orders relating to violence reduction, a month after the elementary school shootings in Newtown, Conn. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said he plans to reintroduce legislation next week to authorize such a study.

Roku will eventually build its operating system into TVs, migrating it from the set-tops and Streaming Stick devices that currently house the technology, CEO Anthony Wood said Wednesday at the Needham investment conference.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., said privacy will be at the forefront of his technology priorities for the committee in the 113th Congress, during a speech Wednesday at the Georgetown University Law Center. Leahy said he will “keep pushing to update our privacy laws to address emerging technology and the Internet,” including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Leahy said he'll seek to pass a reauthorization bill to extend the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA), which expires Dec. 31, 2014. Notably absent from the speech was any mention of pursuing copyright legislation like Leahy’s PROTECT IP Act (S-968), which was stymied last year after Wikipedia, Craigslist and thousands of other websites blacked out their homepages in a coordinated protest of the bill.

Before the FCC can implement its Connect America Cost Model, it must settle a more fundamental question than what capabilities should be added to the model, said commenters on a December rulemaking notice on the features. The real question, they said in filings and interviews, is whether to use a greenfield or a brownfield approach to estimating costs. “Of any changes that could be made to the model, this is by far the biggest,” said Ross Lieberman, American Cable Association vice president-government affairs. The ACA has been a primary proponent of the brownfield model, one option offered in the latest version of the CACM.

The lack of exclusive deals between unaffiliated regional sports networks and multichannel video programming distributors undercuts cable industry arguments that exclusive deals among affiliated RSNs and cable MVPDs create diversity of programming choices, said Verizon and Verizon Wireless in reply comments filed with the FCC Monday. Verizon’s reply and others (http://xrl.us/boax3q) responded to the commission’s rulemaking notice on program access rules, which contained a proposal that would make it harder for MVPDs to withhold RSNs they own from competitors by setting up a rebuttable presumption that such withholding is unfair under the Communications Act. The rulemaking was initiated as the commission allowed a ban on exclusive contracts between affiliated networks and distributors to expire (CD Oct 9 p1).

An FCC proposal to open up to 195 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz band for Wi-Fi is likely to run into opposition, especially from the automotive industry, which plans to use some of the spectrum for a vehicle-to-vehicle warning system, which is already being tested. The FCC is expected to propose use of most of the 5350-5470 MHz and the 5850-5925 MHz bands for Wi-Fi.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., will soon reintroduce a bill to require wireless service providers to accurately disclose the terms of their services to consumers, she said Tuesday at an event hosted by the Broadband Breakfast Club. She said the bill will “ensure that consumers will know what they are getting before committing to a two-year contract.” Eshoo’s senior technology policy adviser, David Grossman, said during a panel at the event the bill will likely drop “in the coming weeks.” Separately, House Commerce Committee Democrats re-elected Eshoo as ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee (see separate report). Ranking members are still subject to approval by the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee and the Democratic Caucus.

The satellite industry backed the FCC’s effort to streamline Part 25 rules for earth and space station licensing processes and offered revisions to some technical standards, in comments in docket 12-267. NCTA, NPR and some satellite entities expressed concerns about rules for the Automatic Transmitter Identification System (ATIS). Comments on the rulemaking notice approved at the Sept. 28 FCC meeting (CD Oct 1 p10) were due Monday.

T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel told the FCC in separate reply comments some kind of local or regional coordination is necessary for public safety answering points (PSAPs) to ensure a smooth transition to a next-generation 911 world. The National Emergency Number Association (NENA), meanwhile, offered some basic principles for an NG911 transition. Reply comments on a Nov. 13 public notice by the FCC’s Public Safety Bureau were due at the FCC Monday. Industry groups filed initial comments last month (CD Dec 17 p7).