FCC Not Included in GAO Recommendations for Phony Comments

GAO made recommendations to several federal agencies on phony public comments, but the FCC wasn’t one of them, despite alleged issues with the agency’s 2017 net neutrality NPRM. GAO scrutinized the comment filing systems of the FCC and nine other agencies. It recommended some agencies “more clearly” communicate comment policies and associated identity-gathering information. The FCC received more than 22 million comments through its electronic comment filing system for the NPRM. GAO noted, “Media and others reported that some of the comments submitted to FCC were suspected to have been submitted using false identity information.” GAO said, according to FCC officials, the agency requires the name and mailing address of the commenter or an attorney of record. The commission accepts anonymous comments to comply with Administrative Procedure Act guidelines and to “minimize barriers that could prevent or discourage commenters from participating in the commenting process,” GAO said. It noted the FCC doesn’t collect or “store IP addresses as part of the comment data it collects when a public user ultimately submits a comment.” GAO addressed the issue of when a person claims that a comment was filed under their name without consent. Similar to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency and the SEC, the FCC directs the complainant to file a new comment to correct the record but doesn’t remove the original comment.