Industry and state broadband officials emphasized the need for better data on broadband availability and public-private partnerships as NTIA prepares to administer its broadband, equity, access and deployment program, speaking at USTelecom's broadband investment forum Wednesday. Some raised concerns about regulatory requirements in the BEAD program and ensuring state broadband offices are prepared to administer funding to subgrantees.

FirstNet’s band 14 license “expired” Tuesday without being renewed by the FCC. But FCC officials said there’s no reason to worry -- FirstNet’s current license remains active as long as the renewal application is pending in the agency’s universal licensing system. The FirstNet Authority board met Wednesday, but members didn’t express concerns about the renewal. Authority officials said the initial band 14 deployment is now scheduled to be completed in March.

The Court of International Trade on Nov. 16 released the public version of its Nov. 15 opinion dismissing a conflict-of-interest suit filed by plaintiffs led by Amsted Rail Company seeking to removeDaniel Pickard and his firm Buchanan Ingersoll from an International Trade Commission injury proceeding for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Judge Gary Katzmann ruled that while the court does have the jurisdiction to review the ITC's decision to grant Pickard and Buchanan access to business proprietary information (BPI), it does not have this jurisdiction under Section 1581(i) -- the court's "residual" jurisdiction. The judge left the door open for the plaintiffs to refile their case under Section 1581(c) "once a claim under" this provision "is ripe."

The Supreme Court is likely to rule in favor of Axon in its challenge against administrative law judge proceedings at the FTC in docket 20-15662, a former FTC trial attorney and legal experts said Tuesday (see 2211070049 and 2211040042).

An Oct. 24 decision from U.S. District Judge William Bryson for Delaware held that certain claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) germane to the controversial practice of web scraping “were sufficient to survive" the defendants' motion to dismiss, Jeffrey Neuburger, co-head of Proskauer’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications Group, said in an analysis Thursday. Bryson's opinion (docket 1:20-cv-01191) “potentially breathes life into the use of the CFAA to combat unwanted scraping,” said Neuburger. Low-cost European airline Ryanair sued five travel booking companies in September 2020, alleging they engaged in web scraping to collect data from myRyanair, the restricted-access section of the airline’s website, then used that data to enable users to book Ryanair flights on their own websites, often at higher fares than Ryanair was offering. Ryanair also alleged that the web-scraping defendants circumvented the technology that Ryanair installed to prevent unauthorized users from accessing myRyanair. The Delaware court allowed the unauthorized access claims to go forward, on grounds that Ryanair had raised a "plausible" argument when it asserted that the myRyanair portion of its website was nonpublic, "thus making the defendants’ continued access to those pages unauthorized for purposes of the CFAA,” said Neuburger. The ruling suggests that a “cognizable vicarious liability” claim under the CFAA is “certainly possible in certain circumstances,” he said. Those scenarios include where the commissioning party has the requisite knowledge and control over the scraper’s actions or if a party induces another to commit violations of the CFAA, he said. Bryson's ruling also is noteworthy because it suggests that a CFAA intent to defraud claim might be pleaded, “based on actions taken by data scrapers to avoid anti-scraping technologies,” he said. “It remains to be seen how future courts would characterize specific anti-detection measures under the CFAA.”

FDA on Nov. 15 released its final rule setting new record-keeping requirements for foods it deems high-risk. Set for publication in the Nov. 21 Federal Register, the “traceability” rule requires entities at key points in the supply chain to keep records of certain high-risk foods as they move through the supply chain, and also to provide more general records of their traceability record-keeping program.

The much-scrutinized 911 center in Washington, D.C., has completed about two-thirds of the recommendations from a D.C. audit report since a follow-up audit said little progress was made, Office of Unified Communications (OUC) acting Director Karima Holmes told D.C. council members Thursday. At a three-hour Judiciary and Public Safety Committee virtual meeting, members picked up on concerns raised at a September hearing (see 2209280058), pressing Holmes on recent audits and specific incidents where incorrect addresses and miscommunication led to dispatching delays.

The Court of International Trade does not have jurisdiction under 19 U.S.C. Section 1581(i) -- the court's "residual" jurisdiction -- to hear a case over whether former counsel for Amsted Rail Co. should be barred from certain antidumping and countervailing proceedings, the U.S. told the court. Concurrently filing an opposition to ARC's motion for a preliminary injunction, which would bar ARC's former counsel, Daniel Pickard and law firm Buchanan Ingersoll, from participating in the proceedings, and a motion to dismiss, the U.S. said that the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case and that the plaintiffs are not likely to succeed in the matter (Amsted Rail Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00316).

The Federal Maritime Commission’s proposed definition for a carrier’s “unreasonable” refusal to accommodate U.S. exports is too broad and doesn't meet congressional intent, said Reps. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., and John Garamendi, D-Calif., who led the House’s passage of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022.

In the Nov. 9 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 56, No. 44), CBP published a proposal to revoke rulings on wireless headphone sets.