The FTC urged a children's mobile app developer to evaluate its app and determine whether it violates the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The commission said it appears that the app, BabyBus, collects precise geolocation information about users, it said Monday in a news release. The China-based company doesn't get parents' consent before collecting children's personal information, it said. Because "you are collecting precise geolocation information, which is considered 'personal information' under the rule, you must provide notice and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing this information," the letter said.
The FTC should review Oracle’s agreement to buy Datalogix, a digital marketing service, Jeff Chester, Center for Digital Democracy executive director, said in a statement Monday. Oracle announced the proposed acquisition in a news release Monday. “Datalogix aggregates and provides insights on over $2 trillion in consumer spending from 1,500 data partners across 110 million households to provide purchase-based targeting and drive more sales,” Oracle said. The FTC “must examine” the proposed deal’s “impact on competition and also protect the privacy of Americans,” Chester said. In light of the FTC’s consent decree with Facebook, which works with Datalogix, the agency should decide whether that decree “requires additional safeguards,” he said. “The growing consolidation of information on every American and whatever we do … should trigger action, as well as soul searching by both policymakers and the public,” Chester said. Oracle and the FTC didn’t comment.
Any FCC order requiring calls originating or terminating over VoIP to be subject to intercarrier compensation requirements shouldn't be applied retroactively, AT&T said in comments posted Thursday in docket 10-90. Responding to Level 3’s comments saying requirements should be retroactive (see 1412180032), Sidley Austin’s David Lawson, representing AT&T, said “Level 3 misstates the controlling standards.” An order on VoIP calls would be “substituting a new law for an old law that was reasonably clear,” AT&T said. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has ruled that in those cases, “agencies are required to ‘deny retroactive effect,’” AT&T said. Level 3 had no immediate comment.
The FCC is seeking comment on its proposed changes to rules for broadcast licensee-conducted contests, in which website disclosure will suffice instead of the now-required reading of rules over the air. Comments are due Feb. 17, replies March 19, the commission said Friday in a Federal Registernotice. The FCC unanimously voted last month to issue an NPRM on allowing broadcast stations to inform viewers about the terms of contests over the Internet rather than over the air (see 1411210044).
CEO Brian Roberts and other Comcast executives made the case for the company's planned buy of Time Warner Cable to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, saying the approximately $66 billion deal won't hurt broadband competition and the cable operator backs "robust, enforceable, industry-wide net neutrality rules." So said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 14-57 on a meeting that also included Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen, FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet and others. On President Barack Obama's recent support for Title II Communications Act reclassification of broadband, "Comcast is on record as agreeing with every substantive point the President outlined -- a free and open Internet, no blocking, no throttling, increased transparency, non-discrimination rules, and no paid prioritization," the company said. With "much agreement on what the new rules should address" on net neutrality, Comcast said, "there is no upside to be gained from heavy-handed regulation associated with Title II reclassification, only substantial risk of harm. Such harm would be exacerbated to the extent the FCC’s going forward plan includes a Title II approach without broad-based forbearance."
The FCC proposes to modernize its definition of multichannel video programming distributor in a rulemaking notice adopted Friday. It proposes to interpret the definition of an MVPD "to include providers that make multiple linear streams of video programming available for purchase, regardless of the technology used to distribute the programming," it said in a news release. This approach would ensure that nascent, Web-based video programming services "will have access to the content they need to compete with established providers," it said. “Video is no longer tied to a certain transmission technology, so our interpretation of MVPD should not be tied to transmission facilities,” Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement. Under the proposal “any providers that make multiple linear streams of video programming available for purchase would be considered MVPDs, regardless of the technology used to deliver the programming,” he said. The NPRM asks for comment on an alternative interpretation that would require an MVPD to have control over a transmission path, and whether the proposals "would affect the regulatory status of IP-delivered video services by cable operators and [direct broadcast satelite] providers." Comments and replies are to be due 30 days and 45 days after publication in the Federal Register.
Any order requiring calls originating or terminating over VoIP to be subject to intercarrier compensation requirements should be applied retroactively, despite AT&T's and Verizon’s arguments to the contrary (see 1412090017), representatives of Bandwidth.com and Level 3 told officials with the FCC general counsel’s office and Wireline Bureau Dec. 8, said an ex parte filing posted Wednesday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in Qwest v. FCC that adjudications are presumed to be applied retroactively unless there’s a “‘manifest injustice’” in doing so, and neither AT&T nor Verizon has made that case, said the filing in docket 10-90. Representing Level 3 were Joseph Cavender, assistant general counsel, and Harris Wiltshire’s John Nakahata, Chris Wright and Tim Simeone. Morgan Lewis’ Tamar Finn represented Bandwidth.com.
The FCC should act “in short order” to pause, effective June 30, 2014, reductions in intercarrier compensation rates for originating intrastate VoIP traffic, said the National Exchange Carrier Association, NTCA and WTA in a Dec. 16 letter to the commission, posted in docket 10-90 Wednesday. The groups filed an emergency petition July 7, seeking relief from the reductions, and argued they had been approved under the assumption that Connect America Fund reforms would be in place to offset the loss for smaller carriers (see 1409030031). If granted, the pause should remain in place until the USF reforms are enacted, the letter said.
The record before the FCC on net neutrality is “insufficient” to support peering or interconnection regulations, Lauren Van Wazer, Akamai vice president-global public policy, and Harris Wiltshire’s Scott Harris and Brita Strandberg, representing the company, told aides to Commissioner Ajit Pai, said an ex parte filing in docket 14-28 Wednesday. Voluntary industry principles could address those issues, Akamai said at the Dec. 12 meeting.
The FCC is seeking comment on draft recommendations approved for the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15). It also is seeking comment on the draft proposals provided to the FCC by the NTIA, and on the International Bureau’s initial conclusions regarding the WRC-15 Advisory Committee draft recommendations, the bureau said Thursday in a public notice. Comments are due Jan. 16, it said. The bureau said it concluded that it can generally support most of the draft recommendations.