FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Tuesday the agency thinks it's on a strong legal foundation for whatever challenge may come after its 3-2 approval of a net neutrality remand order, despite an expected legal challenge or reconsideration petition (see 2010150026). The two Democratic commissioners dissented. There also were full or partial dissents to decisions ending some ILEC unbundling and resale requirements with varying transition periods for different network elements, a robocalls enforcement order wireless infrastructure rules and the 5G Fund creation (see 2010270034). But there was no clash on other orders. No approved order texts were released Tuesday.
The FTC’s cases against Facebook and Google show a paradigm shift in privacy enforcement, Consumer Protection Bureau Director Andrew Smith told an FCBA event Monday. The Facebook case (see 1907240042) provided a new model for relief, while the Google case, which involved Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) allegations (see 1909040066), established a new approach for liability, said Smith. The broader message in the Google case is that if users are violating the law, the platform can’t necessarily escape enforcement when there’s knowledge of the violations, he said.
Giving laptops and hot spots to students who lack good internet won’t solve distance learning problems exacerbated by COVID-19, state and local officials said Monday. The California Senate Education Committee and the Special Committee on Pandemic Emergency Response jointly held a hearing Monday about online learning gaps. Earlier in the day at the virtual Mountain Connect conference, Chattanooga public and private officials said they’re using municipal broadband to provide free fiber internet to students in low-income households.
President Donald Trump’s recent actions against TikTok “certainly” gave the company “profile and visibility,” but it would have been better had that not happened, ex-CEO Kevin Mayer told the Technology Policy Institute in an interview shared Friday (see 2009280028). Profile and visibility are “usually not bad things,” he said. It's a “good enough product with a good enough team behind it and good enough technology behind it, that it would have succeeded just fine, and it was succeeding just fine without any of that.”
Election watchers expect California to revamp its state privacy law through a Nov. 3 ballot vote. The replacement for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) could have national ramifications, experts told us. If voters agree, the proposed California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), or Proposition 24, would take effect Jan. 1, 2023. “The one-two punch here for the biggest platforms would be CPRA passing and Democrats sweeping the elections,” said Cowen analyst Paul Gallant.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will seek voluntary testimony from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey “probably after the election,” Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters Thursday. The comment came after the committee majority voted unanimously to subpoena testimony from the CEOs. Democrats boycotted the hearing over Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Facebook and Twitter declined comment.
Broadcasters see the progress of the ATSC 3.0 rollout as one of several promising signs for the future of broadcast TV, despite the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic, said industry officials at the virtual NAB Show New York event Thursday. COVID-19 is “a double-edged sword” because the increase in TV and over-the-top viewing brought by the pandemic plays to 3.0 strengths, said John Taylor, LG Electronics senior vice president-public affairs and communications.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai told the Technology Policy Institute virtual conference Thursday that he's only following the advice of the Commerce Department and the FCC general counsel in proposing a rulemaking examining FCC control of internet platforms under Communications Decency Act Section 230. Pai emphasized the FCC is considering a narrow legal question. On a panel, experts said the FCC is underperforming on closing the digital divide.
Tension in relations between the U.S. and China on technology issues such as data security, privacy and telecom gear are making life complicated for some U.S. companies, experts told the Technology Policy Institute. They generally agreed aspects of the current U.S. approach may be unique to this administration and may have shortcomings. Neither the White House nor China's Embassy in Washington commented Wednesday, when the TPI video was released as part of its ongoing conference.
Efforts to create a standardized system for access to private domain registrant data are in disarray after ICANN constituencies objected to portions. The system for standardized access/disclosure (SSAD) proposal is phase 1 of an expedited policy development process (EPDP) for compliance with EU's general data protection regulation (GDPR). Some claimed opponents are trying to cling to the old Whois system despite its illegality. The EPDP team now must look into two more contentious issues.