Samsung Electronics America asked the FCC to move quickly on its request to market and operate a 5G base station radio that works across citizens broadband radio service and C-band spectrum (see [Ref:2303100019). Charter Communications was the lone commenter to urge caution. As with initial comments, there were two replies, posted Wednesday in docket 23-93. “Both commenters in the record -- one operator and one manufacturer -- support grant of a waiver,” Samsung said. “Defer acting on Samsung’s petition until interested stakeholders have had a reasonable opportunity to review and comment on the results of Samsung’s tests on whether and how its novel dual-band transmitter satisfies the CBRS out-of-band emissions and in-band emissions levels in each mode in which the Samsung base station can operate,” Charter said: If the FCC decides to approve the radio now it should “condition any grant on Samsung immediately ceasing operations if the base station causes harmful interference to CBRS operations.”

Businesses said privacy protections are too limited in a comprehensive Florida bill approved by a Senate panel Tuesday. The Senate Commerce Committee voted 9-0 for SB-262, a third attempt in three years by Sen. Jennifer Bradley (R) to pass a privacy bill. "We'll continue to work on it,” the state senator said at the webcast hearing.

Satellite and earth station operators largely -- but not unanimously -- agree on some steps the FCC can take to streamline its satellite application and approval process, according to reply comments this week in docket 22-411. There also were some notes of caution by some about use of shot clocks. The licensing streamlining NPRM was adopted 4-0 in December and in initial comments numerous operators pushed to eliminate the commission's rule that it won't consider applications for operating in a frequency band not allocated internationally by the ITU (see 2303060052).

California Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman overturned Amazon’s demurrer seeking to dismiss Attorney General Rob Bonta’s (D) antitrust lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court. Bonta sued Amazon Sept. 14 alleging violation of California’s Cartwright Act and Unfair Competition laws. Amazon argued its agreements and policies aren't “per se illegal under California law,” said the Thursday order (docket 22-601826). Bonta’s detailed factual allegations “adequately state a claim” that Amazon’s agreements and policies had the “anticompetitive effect of raising prices on competing retail marketplaces” and on its third-party seller websites, he said. Whether Amazon’s agreements and conduct had a substantial anticompetitive effect “raises factual questions that cannot be decided on demurrer,” he said. Whether a given practice is anticompetitive, or “procompetitive,” as Amazon contends, “often does not lend itself to bright-line rules,” he said. The industry- and market-specific contexts of the case raise issues that “almost certainly be the subject of competing expert testimony,” and raise factual issues that also can’t be decided on demurrer, Schulman said. Since the court concluded a cause of action for violation of the Cartwright Act, it also states a viable cause of action for violation of the Unfair Competition Law, he said.

Eleven Kentucky school districts and one in Oregon added their names Thursday to the ranks of districts nationwide bringing lawsuits against social media companies for their alleged roles in a growing youth mental health crisis in the U.S.

Entertainment retailer Vintage Stock doesn’t and can’t deny allegations of Telephone Consumer Protection Act wrongdoing because those allegations “are obviously true,” said plaintiffs Sheila and Dennis Thompson in their legal memorandum Wednesday (docket 4:23-cv-00042) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Missouri in St. Louis in opposition to Vintage Stock’s motion to dismiss count 2 of their amended complaint and to strike all their class allegations (see 2303020017). Vintage Stock unlawfully sent the Thompsons dozens of text messages to numbers listed on the national and Missouri do not call registries, said their memorandum. The text messages “were generic and obviously directed to many people,” it said. Vintage Stock doesn’t contest, and the Thompson have properly pled, the defendant “was not allowed, under any circumstances, to send any advertising text messages,” it said. But it did so anyway, in violation of the TCPA, it said. Vintage Stock improperly “is raising issues of class definition at the motion to dismiss stage of this case, but issues of class definition are determined at the class certification phase and not on a motion to strike or dismiss,” said the memorandum. The Thompsons should be allowed to do discovery on the members of the class that received Vintage Stock’s unlawful text messages, it said. The Thompsons can then amend their complaint “in conformity with the evidence, or move for class certification for a proper class supported by the actual evidence,” it said.

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, urged Agriculture Committee leaders Thursday to “consider” making changes to the Agriculture Department's ReConnect program before allocating it “any new funding” as part of the 2023 farm bill. Cruz noted his priority of “rigorous oversight of the massive amounts of federal taxpayer money -- calculated at over $175 billion -- dedicated to broadband over the last five years” via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other legislation. Cruz and Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., in recent months repeatedly raised concerns about broadband spending (see 2301260055).

A lawsuit over an expired comparability finding for New Zealand's West Coast North Island multispecies set-net and trawl fisheries should be dismissed since the comparability findings “are not capable of repetition yet evading review,” the U.S. said March 29. There is no “reasonable expectation” that anyone will be subjected to the same findings, the government said. The challenge should be dismissed because the proceeding deals with whether certain fish can enter the U.S. during a discreet time period that has now passed, the U.S. said (Sea Shepherd New Zealand v. U.S., CIT # 20-00112).

The Commerce Department didn't adequately address questions raised by countervailing duty respondent Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials Co. over the agency's use of certain benchmark information for the land program, the Court of International Trade ruled in a March 21 opinion made public March 29. Upholding parts and sending back parts of the 2016-17 administrative review of the CVD order on aluminum foil from China, Judge Timothy Reif said Commerce must reconsider its analysis of the contemporaneity of data it used for the land program benchmark.

NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson assured attendees at an NTIA listening session on a national spectrum strategy Thursday the administration understands the need for concrete action and a spectrum pipeline for 5G and 6G. Twenty other speakers signed up to offer comments, which covered all the usual spectrum issues, from the importance of unlicensed and dedicated license spectrum to evolving sharing technologies to the potential role for THz spectrum.