Consensus on privacy rules for ISPs is unlikely and the FCC will have to step in said attorney James Halpert, who represents ISPs and others, and John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog privacy project director, on a segment of C-SPAN’s The Communicators taped Tuesday. The FCC is expected to vote on a privacy NPRM at its March 31 meeting (see 1603030066). An announcement is expected as early as Wednesday, industry officials told us.
Notable CROSS rulings
ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé said he’s “confident that we will be able to provide” NTIA with final proposed plans for both the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition and a related set of recommended changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms by the conclusion of the nonprofit corporation’s meeting this week in Marrakech, Morocco. The ICANN board is to vote Thursday on both the IANA transition plan and the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability’s (CCWG-Accountability) proposed recommendations. ICANN’s chartering organizations already have unanimously cleared the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group’s IANA transition plan but are still evaluating the CCWG-Accountability’s proposal, which has become intertwined with the IANA transition plan.
Satellite operators inevitably will have to cede some of the 28 GHz band to 5G applications, and the key question is how best to do that, industry speakers said Tuesday at an FCBA CLE. "The first step is to accept these terrestrial services … are important and they'll get spectrum," said communications lawyer Scott Blake Harris of Harris Wiltshire, saying a majority of FCC commissioners seem committed to allocating some of the band to 5G. So industry priorities have to focus instead on "how to work this process … to have space to flourish," he said. "You have to look at spectrum sharing," he said. "'No' is not an acceptable answer."
Additional intellectual property protections are needed -- including those involving "ancillary copyright laws," and patent and intermediary liability protections -- in certain countries, said Internet and communications trade groups during a public hearing Tuesday of the U.S. Trade Representative's Special 301 Subcommittee. The USTR each year identifies "countries that deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property protection," and recently received written stakeholder comments on the issue (see 1602080061). The public hearing included testimony from representatives of four countries -- Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Egypt and the Ukraine -- detailing their governments' recent efforts to improve IP protections and arguing they should be excluded from the USTR's watch list this year.
With the FCC poised to take on privacy rules for ISPs, the Georgia Tech Institute for Information Security and Privacy released a paper Monday arguing ISPs have only limited access to consumer data and the data they have isn't unique. The paper was by Georgia Tech Professor Peter Swire, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama and advisor to President Bill Clinton on privacy issues. The study was paid for, in part, by Broadband for America, an ISP industry-funded coalition.
Europe has made progress in the digital arena since last year, but continues to lag behind the U.S. and some other countries, said Digital Economy and Society Commissioner Günther Oettinger at Thursday's webcast Brussels Digital4EU conference. The 2016 Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), also released Thursday, measured 30 indicators in all 28 member states. Results showed that although there is forward movement in connectivity, digital skills, public services and other areas, the rate of progress is slowing. "We have to catch up; we're in a race," Oettinger said. Europe has some big players but, unlike the U.S. and some other nations, no clear strategies for developing new digital services, apps and smartphones, he said. The European Commission will publish its first report on digital progress in all 28 member nations in May, he said.
Recreational drone pilots could face civil penalties of up to $27,500 and criminal penalties of up to $250,000 or imprisonment for up to three years if they didn't register their unmanned vehicles with the Federal Aviation Administration by Friday. Some legal experts and other stakeholders said in interviews that those penalties and fines were steep and questioned how the agency would enforce noncompliance.
One final sticking point in squaring away a bipartisan Senate spectrum deal was national security, Senate Commerce Committee leaders told us Thursday. National security fears have hounded the Mobile Now spectrum package since Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., circulated drafts in November and provoked concerns from the Department of Defense and the Armed Services Committee about interference. Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has wanted to make sure the final product won’t endanger the country before affixing his name to the bill. They apparently reached a deal by Thursday evening, when the GOP Commerce Committee Twitter account released a photo of Mobile Now bill text listing both Thune and Nelson as backers.
Technology and Internet industry groups urged the U.S. to continue promoting IP protection among its trading partners, and identified countries that violate existing IP obligations or fail to provide "fair and equitable" market access, in comments filed with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and made public Monday. Stakeholders submitted comments to the USTR in response to the agency's request for written responses to its Special 301 report (see 1602080061), which is meant to "identify countries that deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) or deny fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on intellectual property protection." Commenters also warned of both active and proposed rules by certain global competitors that limit cross-border data flows and encourage digital protectionism.
The 1996 Telecom Act and its implementation drew plaudits and criticisms Monday, the 20th anniversary of its being signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton. AT&T, NTIA and others issued statements that lauded the landmark law, which amended the 1934 Communications Act and set the terms for phone competition, phased out much cable-TV rate regulation, eased some broadcast ownership restrictions, expanded universal service subsidies and encouraged advanced telecom services (now commonly called broadband). But AT&T criticized FCC regulation, and others offered mixed or more critical assessments of the law, with CTIA saying the act was “highly regulatory” and not as effective as a 1993 budget act's spectrum provisions that “took a decidedly different approach to the wireless sector.”