The satellite broadband market likely can sustain three to four operators, given demand for connectivity, with one of those probably a non-North American constellation, OneWeb CEO Neil Masterson said Wednesday at a Satellite 2021-related forum. He said the amount of money nations want to put into having their own constellations could help determine that number.
U.S. officials sent the European Commission an initial offer to replace the Privacy Shield and address concerns in the Schrems II decision, industry officials and advocates told us (see 2103250023). An initial U.S. offer was sent a few weeks ago, but it “wasn’t as strong" as the European Commission hoped, said Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna, a former adviser to the European Data Protection Supervisor in Brussels. Now senior counsel at the Future of Privacy Forum, Zanfir-Fortuna advised in the development of the first Privacy Shield agreement and the general data protection regulation.
The FTC's decision not to seek Supreme Court review of its antitrust case against Qualcomm (see 2103300003) leaves standard-essential patent (SEP) and competition issues on the table, tech officials said in interviews after last week's decision. A Qualcomm proponent argued the FTC knew it had a weak case and wanted to avoid setting bad precedent before the high court.
CTA and NCTA announced an extension of a voluntary agreement for ongoing improvement to set-top box energy efficiency. The extension, beginning in 2023 and running through 2025, highlights IP set-top boxes, which are becoming the most common set-top box type in video distribution, they said Tuesday.
Google copying Oracle’s Java code for Android was fair use, the Supreme Court ruled 6-2 Monday, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissenting (see 2010290055). Justice Amy Coney Barrett didn’t participate.
LG’s inability to come up with a “differentiated offering” to retain or win market share led to its exit from the mobile phone space, Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta told us Monday, after LG said it was exiting the “incredibly competitive” mobile phone segment. Getting out of mobile business will allow LG to focus resources on other markets, including electric vehicle components, connected devices, smart home, robotics AI, business-to-business solutions and platforms and services, it said.
Doreen Bogdan-Martin has a good chance of being elected secretary general of the ITU next year, experts said. The U.S. government signaled its support, including statements by Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. In 2018, Bogdan-Martin was elected director of the ITU Telecom Development Bureau, after a campaign led by Donald Trump administration officials including then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and then-NTIA Administrator David Redl. She won on the first ballot, with support from the Americas and parts of Europe and Africa (see 1811010052).
In a win for companies facing Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawsuits, a unanimous Supreme Court Thursday sided with Facebook, favoring a narrow definition of what constitutes an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) in Facebook v. Duguid. SCOTUS reversed and remanded an earlier decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said any device that stores and automatically dials telephone numbers can be considered an ATDS under TCPA.
Legislators advancing a data broker privacy bill should amend it to exempt entities covered by federal laws and data in the public domain, industry groups told Nevada’s Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday. AT&T, which supported a Nevada privacy bill in 2019, testified that it remains neutral on the latest bill until amendments are presented and supports continued collaboration on “meaningful, common-sense privacy reform.”
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr asked whether state laws on online content moderation could open the door to weakening Communications Decency Act Section 230 immunity. Moderating a New Civil Liberties Alliance discussion Tuesday, Carr noted laws in Florida and potentially in Texas provide speech protections that might override 230.