Alondra Nelson, a former top tech adviser to President Joe Biden, said Thursday she expects continuing administration focus on tech regulation, though she warned that focusing on keeping up with the pace of change is a mistake. Other speakers at an event by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Public Knowledge said the time is ripe to start looking at a new agency to oversee privacy and other technology issues. Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler warned that the U.S. in danger of defaulting on leadership in favor of other countries.
The mobile phone will be the entry point for most people to the world of the metaverse, said Nicole Lazzaro, XEODesign game designer and president, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Wednesday. Speakers agreed the move to the metaverse will be important to adoption of 5G and the growth of the wireless industry.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Wednesday he plans a series of hearings on Communications Decency Act Section 230 with hopes of writing bipartisan legislation potentially dealing with platform liability on amplifying content.
Maryland’s attorney general found no potential constitutional or preemptive problems with a state bill to require kids’ privacy rules, said its sponsor, Del. Jared Solomon (D), at a livestreamed hearing Wednesday. House Economic Matters Committee members appeared to support requirements for websites at a hearing on a bill (HB-901) based on California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. The Minnesota House Commerce Committee voted by voice to advance a similar bill (HF-2257) to the Judiciary Committee at a hearing the same day.
Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., labeled FCC nominee Gigi Sohn Wednesday as potentially “the poster child for terrible presidential nominees,” citing what he considers deficiencies in her “character and fitness” for serving on the commission and her record as “a virulent and unapologetic partisan.” Public Knowledge and others sought to tie News Corp. to what they view as a smear campaign against Sohn. They cited News Corp. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s acknowledgment in a recently released court deposition that several Fox News hosts spread disinformation about voter fraud after the 2020 presidential election.
The House Commerce Committee will rework privacy legislation it passed in 2022 in hopes of strengthening the bill and reaching broader consensus on a comprehensive federal privacy law, Democratic and Republican leadership said Wednesday during a House Innovation Subcommittee hearing.
The end seems nigh for affordable connectivity program (ACP) funding, with dicey odds of Congress acting before its money runs out in early 2024, speakers said Wednesday at ACA Connects' 2023 Washington summit. Small cable operator participation in the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program will depend on the rules governing it, they said.
There's a lot of government interest in fortifying U.S. internet traffic routing security, but it's less clear what it can and should do, said Wilkinson Barker cybersecurity lawyer Clete Johnson Tuesday on an FCBA cybersecurity committee webinar. Noting the FCC's open proceeding on routing security that was launched in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he said routing security doesn't line up well with traditional regulatory tools and their focus on prescriptive compliance. Johnson said the complexity of the issue doesn't necessarily match that approach.
The FCC Media Bureau’s Standard/Tegna hearing designation order is “inappropriate,” based on issues outside the agency’s purview, and Congress should act, said NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt in remarks at NAB’s State Leadership Conference Tuesday (see 2302270066). The HDO sets a precedent expanding the reasons the FCC could refer a deal to an administrative law judge, attorneys and industry officials told us. Congress should act to codify the agency’s 180-day merger shot clock and define what constitutes the public interest in an FCC transaction review, LeGeyt said. The FCC’s current public interest standard has been interpreted to allow the agency “to extract ad hoc concessions whether or not they fall within the FCC's expertise or mandate," LeGeyt said.
A big theme of the Mobile World Congress Tuesday was the potential for what 5G can do, and how new networks are bringing diverse companies together. Industry executives said carriers need to fundamentally change their mindset to refocus on collaboration with other companies and helping customers use all the data 5G makes possible.