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Following the push of the Connectivity Standards Alliance’s certification program to 2022, ADT won’t likely participate in the first certification round, ADT Vice President-Product Engineering Mark Reimer, told us Monday. “I want to watch and make sure that everything goes really well, and then we’ll be most likely in the second certification round.”
The FTC should have privacy enforcement authority over common carriers, Commissioner Noah Phillips said Monday. Whether online platforms should be considered common carriers for purposes of speech and First Amendment issues is a “very active debate” before Congress and the courts, he told the Hudson Institute.
Strength in the custom electronics channel drove a 34% sales increase to $253 million in Q2 at Snap One, which rebranded from SnapAV in June, said management Thursday on the company’s first earnings call. The company completed an initial public offering in July that generated $270 million. Cost of sales grew 39% to $152.1 million year on year due to net sales growth and higher costs from suppliers and inbound freight costs, said the company. Net loss for the quarter ended June 25 was $1.1 million vs. a net loss of $3.2 million in the comparable year-ago period.
The FCC unanimously approved an order and NPRM on FY2021 regulatory fees released Thursday, shelving a proposed increase to broadcaster fees (see 2108260050), adopting subcategories of non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite regulatory fees based on system complexity, and seeking comment in docket 21-190 on getting regulatory fees from tech companies and unlicensed device manufacturers in the future. A proceeding on extending the payer base of fees is likely to be a struggle, said Pillsbury broadcast attorney Scott Flick, who represented state broadcast associations in the reg fee proceeding. “Almost any result would be better than the current approach,” he said.
Shorter attention spans, competition for entertainment time share and continually rising rights fees are ongoing challenges as the TV sports world straddles traditional pay-TV and over-the-top video models, said panelists on a Thursday FierceVideo webcast on TV monetization in the sports industry.
State and congressional lawmakers are trying to build momentum for passing right-to-repair legislation, after renewed focus from the FTC and the White House (see 2107210061) and 2107090010). Microsoft and TechNet told us industry-authorized repair services are the best, safest option, but advocates accused industry of profit-seeking self-interest.
The FTC’s amended case against Facebook should survive a new motion to dismiss and go to trial due to solid evidence in the amended complaint demonstrating market power and the rising price of advertising, former FTC officials said in interviews.
Employers and students gave high marks to FCBA’s new diversity pipeline program. The program offers first-year law students a tech, media and telecom (TMT) law and policy certificate and matches them with employers for internship programs. This summer, it placed 19 students into paid internships with eight law firms, five companies, four trade associations and one nonprofit advocacy group-law firm partnership. FCBA members Rudy Brioche and Celia Lewis initiated the project. Participants said they hope FCBA will place more interns in the future.
Consumers are overloaded with content, and it has become difficult to manage, said TiVo executives on a Thursday webcast for the company’s biannual video trends report, based on a Q2 survey of 4,500 respondents 18 and older in the U.S. and Canada.