The DOJ announced actions Wednesday shutting more than 300 websites “purporting to sell scarce health and safety items.” The department secured restraining orders in federal court against three residents of Vietnam: Thu Phan Dinh, Tran Khanh and Nguyen Duy Toan, who “are alleged to have engaged in a wire fraud scheme seeking to profit from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
R Street Institute Resident Fellow-Technology and Innovation Jeffrey Westling clarified that he doesn’t agree with a past position of a client of NTIA acting Administrator Adam Candeub on Communications Decency Act Section 230 (see 2008100046).
Congress should consider “strengthening the consumer privacy framework” to reflect face-scanning technology and marketplace changes, the GAO said Tuesday. The agency repeated its 2013 recommendation with particular focus on consumer data used for marketing. Face-scanning technology can be used to enable payments, locate shoplifters and monitor COVID-19, but there are concerns, the GAO said: loss of anonymity, lack of consent and the potential for racial bias.
Adam Candeub will become acting NTIA administrator, the agency announced internally Monday. Candeub joined the agency as deputy assistant secretary of commerce in April (see 2005010060). Leadership has been fluid since David Redl left in May 2019. Doug Kinkoph had most recently been acting head and now returns to run the Office of Telecommunications and Information Applications. Having someone take charge at NTIA is “sorely needed,” said R Street Institute Resident Fellow-Technology and Innovation Jeffrey Westling. He noted Candeub’s strong background with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, though the agency hasn’t dealt extensively with the tech liability shield. Candeub previously sought a Section 230 update, suggesting Big Tech should follow the same rules as other regulated industries. NTIA’s role in President Donald Trump’s social media executive order is largely complete (see 2007280053), as it filed its petition for rulemaking with the FCC, Westling said. Candeub is on a leave of absence from Michigan State University, where he's a professor of law and director of the Intellectual Property, Information and Communications Law Program.
The 5G Automotive Association urged the FCC to allocate the upper 30 MHz of the 5.9 GHz band for cellular vehicle-to-everything technology, identify “40 MHz of dedicated, mid-band spectrum elsewhere for 5G-based” C-V2X and “adopt modest safeguards on unlicensed use of the lower 45 MHz portion of the band to prevent harmful interference.” Without the right controls, “unfettered unlicensed operations would cause harmful interference to C-V2X Direct in the upper portion of the 5.9 GHz band and foreclose the ability of American travelers to enjoy the safety benefits,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 19-138.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told FCC Chairman Ajit Pai of concerns (see 2008030005) about a MVDDS 5G Coalition request to remove non-geostationary orbit satellite operations from the 12 GHz band so multichannel video and data distribution service licensees can get new rights. The agency not OK'ing that petition and allowing NGSO operations "proved correct and has been a major success for the Commission," SpaceX said. As the satellite firm is rolling out its service, "the MVDDS licensees are attempting to resurrect their stale 2016 Petition," the company said Musk and others told Pai and an aide. Some company representatives also spoke with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, it reported in a filing posted Friday in RM-11768. "SpaceX cannot simply move to other bands as it has already deployed an expansive network that depends on this band to deliver broadband to consumers." The coalition and backers wanting the regulator to allow two-way mobile services in the Ku band "ignore and/or attempt to minimize the fact that such services are fundamentally incompatible with" direct broadcast satellite, AT&T said. "Operation of terrestrial, two-way mobile service (or otherwise permitting higher-power terrestrial operations) in this satellite band would create an untenable interference environment for DBS subscribers." Dish Network, involved with the MVDDS 5G Coalition, declined to comment.
Roku opposed Charter's request the FCC end some conditions on the cable operator's past purchases of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, requirements the cabler says are no longer in the public interest. Replies were posted through Friday in docket 16-197. "The bases for the safeguards" were "Charter’s incentives to act anti-competitively post-merger and the absence of viable competition" for broadband, Roku said. "Charter’s petition for relief mentions neither." Roku said those contending the operator's "charitable donations and community involvement might temper Charter’s incentive and ability to act in its own economic self-interest by discriminating against Online Video Distributors" ignore "Charter’s role as a gatekeeper for OVDs and as a monopoly in many broadband access markets." Charter "provided copious data that the marketplace for streaming video" has "exploded" since the 2016 conditions, it replied. "This is exactly what the Commission predicted might happen" when it included "a mechanism to sunset them after five years (instead of automatically after seven)," it noted. A footnote in an attachment by NERA Economic Consulting Managing Director Jeffrey Eisenach said Roku is the most streamed U.S. OVD by hours (see report, Aug. 7 issue). Charter wants to end data caps and interconnection conditions in May (see 2007090009).
A professor backed a national task force on connected vehicles to identify applications, look at standards and work with the FCC on a proceeding, in a Day One Project paper Friday. “We could prevent hundreds of thousands of car crashes every year,” said Carnegie Mellon University's Jon Peha, ex-FCC chief technologist. “We could also reduce commute times, fuel consumption, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and the cost of mobile Internet access,” he argued. “Deployment of connected vehicle technology can lay groundwork for better autonomous (self-driving) vehicles. Nevertheless, after two decades of trying, there has been little progress.”
An early sunset of FCC data cap and interconnection conditions from Charter Communications' purchase of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks would hurt consumers and make broadband access more difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic, said the New York State Public Service Commission in a docket 16-197 posting Thursday. Charter's ask for early relief (see 2006180050) "is ill-timed" given the health crisis and the strong need for broadband for such applications as telecommuting and telehealth, it said. Charter didn't comment.
The FCC Wireline Bureau rejected two petitions seeking waivers of the March 1, 2019, deadline to upload and certify geocoded location information data with Universal Service Administrative Co. through the high-cost universal broadband portal (HUBB). Staff acted on a petition by ComSouth and Bloomingdale Telephone and a petition by State Telephone. “Petitioners have not demonstrated that there is good cause to waive the applicable sections of the Commission’s rules and, accordingly, deny the requested relief,” said a Wednesday order in docket 10-90: “It is the responsibility" of all eligible telecom carriers" to familiarize themselves with any applicable rules and ensure that its filings are timely received, regardless of the time and method.”