ITS America and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn last year’s 5-0 FCC order splitting the 5.9 GHz band between Wi-Fi and auto safety (see 2011180043). “The Commission’s actions … are in excess of the statutory authority,” they said. The decision to “reallocate 45 MHz of the 5.9 GHz band for use unrelated to automotive safety curtails the usefulness of the Safety Band, undercuts the goals of the Congressionally-established ITS program, and directly contravenes the recommendations of the agency responsible for designing and overseeing the [intelligent transportation system] program,” the groups said Wednesday, noting opposition by the Department of Transportation to the order. Vehicle-to-everything "technologies continue to be our best available tool to significantly reduce crashes,” said ITSA President Shailen Bhatt. The agency isn’t expected to rethink its approach (see 2105210047). The order “ensures much-needed Wi‑Fi capacity for consumers while also promoting the development of new connected car technologies,” WifiForward said in a statement: “The FCC acted well within its authority.” The commission didn't comment.
Amazon practiced “anticompetitive restraint” at least until two years ago by barring its third-party sellers through a “price parity provision” (PPP) in its contracts from offering their products on a competing online retail sales platform, alleged District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine (D) Tuesday in a D.C. Superior Court antitrust complaint. “Competition and consumers were directly harmed by virtue of higher prices, as well as through the loss of choice, innovation, and competition among online retail sales platforms.” Other e-commerce platforms “were not able to use lower product prices to lure buyers and sellers” to “capture some of Amazon’s dominant market share,” it said. Amazon removed the PPPs in 2019 “under intense scrutiny from Congress and U.S. government regulatory officials” but quickly replaced it with “an effectively-identical substitute,” it alleged. “There is a dangerous probability that Amazon will be successful in achieving its goal of obtaining monopoly power in the online retail sales market (if it has not already done so).” The lawsuit seeks statutory and punitive damages and asks for a “corporate monitor” to enforce any remedies the court may order. The D.C. attorney general "has it exactly backwards," responded an Amazon spokesperson. "Sellers set their own prices for the products they offer in our store. Amazon takes pride in the fact that we offer low prices across the broadest selection, and like any store we reserve the right not to highlight offers to customers that are not priced competitively. The relief the AG seeks would force Amazon to feature higher prices to customers, oddly going against core objectives of antitrust law.” But Public Knowledge hails the complaint because consumers "are paying more than they should for what they buy online as a direct result of Amazon’s conduct," said Policy Counsel Alex Petros. "Third-party sellers should be allowed to contract freely with platforms that offer them the best deal to reach customers -- not limited by Amazon’s self-enriching terms."
The FTC, Arizona, California, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin sued Frontier for allegedly charging customers for DSL speeds it failed to deliver, said a news release Wednesday. They allege Frontier violated the FTC Act by subscribing customers to and charging them for a “higher and more costly level of internet service than Frontier actually provided or was capable of providing.” This “practice of providing slower-than-purchased DSL speeds” is “not limited to those made at or near the point of sale, but continue,” plaintiffs told the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The telco said the lawsuit is “without merit” and it plans a “vigorous defense” against the “baseless allegations.” The service "in some of the country’s most rural areas that often have challenging terrain, are more sparsely populated and are the most difficult to serve" has "many satisfied customers," it said.
New York "exercised its police powers to protect its most vulnerable residents" when it required affordable internet plans, said Attorney General Letitia James (D) Monday. The AG opposed (in Pacer) ISP groups asking the U.S. District Court for Eastern New York (case 21-cv-2389) to stop the state law taking effect June 15 (see 2104300065). ISP plaintiffs “overstate the effect of federal statutes and regulations, which expressly preserve rather than displace the States’ exercises of their police powers,” said James. This isn’t rate regulation but "an accessibility requirement,” the AG said. Don't OK a preliminary injunction, she asked.
After agreeing to pay $20 million to settle an FTC complaint it misused credit reports to help unqualified customers obtain financing, Vivint is “pleased to put this matter behind us,” said CEO Todd Pedersen on a Q1call Thursday: It strengthened compliance policies and will continue to make it a priority. Sales staff stole personal information to approve others for loans, said Daniel Kaufman, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection acting director. Vivint uses door-to-door sales representatives working on a commission-only basis to sell home security devices and monitoring, said last month's complaint. Vivint added 60,127 subscribers in Q1, a 20% year-on-year increase, and revenue grew 13% to $343.3 million. It had over 1.7 million subscribers, up 10%, said Pedersen. The attrition rate was the lowest in the last nine quarters, he said. The stock closed 20% higher Friday at $14.01. The company maintained its 2021 outlook despite logistics challenges in the supply chain and hiring constraints, said Chief Financial Officer Dale Gerard. The provider is in “good shape” with cameras but higher adoption rates than expected -- or a disruption in chip manufacturing or getting cameras from ports -- could limit Q3 and Q4 selling, Gerard said: It’s also challenged by finding enough installers and service professionals.
Voice of San Diego settled with the FCC, FAA and Department of Transportation in its Freedom of Information Act legal fight, said a notice (in Pacer, docket 20-cv-00990) issued this week in U.S. District Court in San Diego. The nonprofit media outlet sued last May over not getting records for a defense contractor's proposed drone test flight over San Diego. The FCC had said its Office of Engineering and Technology gave VOSD a link to the agency experimental licensing system where it could retrieve responsive applications, while FAA said it hadn't finished processing the FOIA request.
Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said she’s an optimist but also “clear-eyed” about the challenge in stopping robocalls. Commissioners vote next week on rule changes to accelerate the secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) (see 2104290082). The problem of cheap, easily deployed robocall tech won’t be fixed without collaboration among the FCC, state attorneys general and other agencies, Rosenworcel told a National Association of Attorneys General 2021 virtual conference Tuesday. She called on state officials to reach out the FCC. “Collectively, we should be able to make a difference,” she said. Acting FTC Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter said older rules -- such as the do-not-call list -- no longer prevent robocalls because the primary actors aren’t legitimate businesses. The FTC, FCC and other federal agencies have been “laggard and lacking” in enforcing their rules, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., in recorded remarks. If laws aren’t enforced, they're a dead letter, he said. Following the Supreme Court invalidating the FTC’s ability to seek monetary redress for consumers (see 2105040057), the FTC will have to partner with state AGs more frequently, Slaughter said. “They have access to redress authority we no longer have.” The FTC will plead rule violations more frequently to get access to civil penalties, Slaughter said. Separately, Rosenworcel said the FCC will seek information from state and local officials as part of its broadband mapping efforts. The agency has “a lot of lawyers” spending time on making the information gathered in that mapping effort as public as possible in the face of nondisclosure agreements, she said. Rosenworcel praised the New York AG’s office for its report on fraudulent net neutrality comments filed at the FCC under her predecessor, former Chairman Ajit Pai. Government agencies should care about fake public comments and keeping lines of communication to citizens open, Rosenworcel said. See our article on the AG's report here.
Sony Interactive Entertainment and parent Sony Group are forcing owners of the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition to buy digital copies of games for the console exclusively through the PlayStation Store and not through the competitive retail channels that sold content on physical Blu-rays for previous PlayStation console generations and continue doing so for the standard PS5, alleged a complaint (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in San Francisco that seeks class-action status. The PS5 DE, $399, lacks the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray-compatible disc drive of the standard PS5 priced for $100 more. Game discs for the standard PS5 are readily available for sale at Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Walmart, but both console versions are sold out nearly everywhere as Sony struggles to meet unexpectedly strong demand (see 2104280003). “Sony eliminated competition in the PS5 video game distribution market by refusing to allow retail outlets to sell digital copies" of videogames for the PS5 DE, said the complaint Friday. “This conduct is anticompetitive and violates federal antitrust law.” Consumers are forced to buy games through the Sony-owned and operated PlayStation Store app that’s preloaded on the PS5 DE, said the suit. Sony disallows other apps that enable consumers to play videogames on the PS5 DE, and doesn’t let digital download codes sold by retailers to be redeemed through the PlayStation Store, it said. The lack of a “truly competitive environment” has reduced the “output and supply” of PS5 games “because developers are barred from selling these games at prices below Sony’s mandated and inflated 30% marked-up price” at the PlayStation Store, it said. The suit identifies the potential class as all U.S. consumers who bought a game digitally through the PS5 DE’s PlayStation Store app from the console’s Nov. 12 launch to the present. It seeks treble damages, plus an injunction “permanently enjoining Sony from continuing the unlawful conduct alleged here.” Sony didn’t comment Monday.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals remanded to a district court in California “for any further proceedings consistent” with the Supreme Court’s April decision in Facebook v. Duguid, said a Friday order (in Pacer) in docket 17-15320. In what was seen as a win for companies facing Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawsuits, a unanimous court sided with Facebook, favoring a narrow definition of what constitutes an automatic telephone dialing system (see 2104010063).
Video-based social media platform Triller, which is suing an array of sites and YouTube channel operators for allegedly pirating a stream or MVPD broadcast of the Jake Paul/Ben Askren boxing match to which it owned the rights, is offering amnesty at $50 per viewer. It said June 1 is the deadline for people who watched via a pirated signal but weren't involved in the sale or distribution to be "eligible to receive a one-time settlement and release for their unlawful acts." It set up a website for registering and making payments. Triller in a copyright infringement complaint last month (in Pacer, docket 21-cv-03502) in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles said the pirating of the April 17 bout cost it upward of 2 million views, and sought damages in excess of $100 million. The defendants include Filmdaily.com, Accesstvpro.co, Online2livestream.us, Crackstreamslive.com, Sports-today.club, My-sports.club, Bilasport.com, Trendy Clips, Eclipt Gaming, ItsLilBrandon, the H3 Podcast and H3H3 Productions. In a motion Wednesday, it asked for expedited discovery so it could serve subpoenas on online platforms including Google's YouTube to discover defendants' identities.