Expect at least two Capitol Hill hearings on Comcast’s proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable (see separate story in this issue), members of Congress said Thursday less than 24 hours after the merger was announced. Lobbyists and observers predict lawmakers will exert their influence and provide an important source of debate, even though real action will come at the agencies and in the administration. Comcast, however, is seen to have strong Washington muscle it doesn’t hesitate to flex.
Protests must be filed at the port where the contested CBP decision was made in order to be eligible for a subsequent court challenge, ruled the Court of International Trade on Feb. 14 as it dismissed an importer’s tariff classification suit. The regulatory requirement that “protests shall be filed with the port director whose decision is protested” is a requirement for CIT jurisdiction, it said. Just as with the requirements that protests be filed on time and duties be paid before the trade court can take up a challenge, so must the importer meet the requirements of CBP’s “place-of-filing” regulation, it said.
The generic top-level domain (gTLD) rollout has raised concerns about the ability of domain registries to adequately protect against cybersquatting, particularly in foreign countries, said a Verizon official, in comments submitted to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in its Special 301 review Friday (WID Feb 10 p8). Confusing intellectual property protections with “censorship” is counterproductive, said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in comments. China presents some intellectual property concerns, said both the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
The specter of changes to the FCC’s rules for joint sales agreements among TV station owners could complicate its response to public interest objections to Gannett’s $2.73 billion purchase of Belo, said broadcast attorneys in interviews Friday. Gannett and two companies with which it is involved in such arrangements responded Friday to an application for review filed last month by Free Press and Georgetown University’s Institute for Public Representation. The public interest application for review “invites the Commission to remove any certainty that the Commission’s ownership rules (and presumably other rules, as well) will be enforced in a fair and uniform way,” said Tucker Operating Co. It and Sander Media are the two companies involved in sharing agreements with Gannett under the Belo deal.
New questions are starting to percolate about the conventional wisdom that, given expanding demands for data bandwidth, the AWS 3 and TV incentive auctions will each be a huge success, raising billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury. The two are the first major auctions since the 700 MHz auction, which was under way at this time six years ago.
The FCC in the next few months may look to require that Internet video clips be captioned, whether by a draft order requiring it or a rulemaking seeking comment on such a rule, said agency, industry and public-interest officials in interviews Wednesday. They said that’s even though all industry filings opposed new rules in initial comments that were due Monday (see separate report below in this issue) (http://bit.ly/N458Bf) on a Media Bureau public notice (http://bit.ly/MtDRaK) on whether to require such captioning (WID Feb 5 p7). Chairman Tom Wheeler has signaled he’s interested in acting on disabilities access issues, and ensuring short videos online have captions so they can be understood by the hearing impaired could be an issue drawing his attention, said stakeholders opposed to such a requirement, those favoring it and those without policy stances.
The FCC in the next few months may look to require that Internet video clips be captioned, whether by a draft order requiring it or a rulemaking seeking comment on such a rule, said agency, industry and public-interest officials in interviews Wednesday. They said that’s even though all industry filings opposed new rules in initial comments that were due Monday (see separate report below in this issue) (http://bit.ly/N458Bf) on a Media Bureau public notice (http://bit.ly/MtDRaK) on whether to require such captioning (CD Feb 5 p10). Chairman Tom Wheeler has signaled he’s interested in acting on disabilities access issues, and ensuring short videos online have captions so they can be understood by the hearing impaired could be an issue drawing his attention, said stakeholders opposed to such a requirement, those favoring it and those without policy stances.
The wireless industry asked the FCC to move forward on proposals to make wireless siting faster, especially in light of upcoming spectrum auctions that will require additional buildout. The FCC began a rulemaking in September (CD Sept 27 p10) on speeding wireless siting, especially for distributed antenna systems and small cells. Local government groups are raising concerns about the loss of local control on zoning decisions (CD Feb 4 p11). The FCC logged nearly 100 comments in the initial comment cycle. Industry officials said work on the NPRM presents FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler with a series of issues that will inevitably prove controversial.
The need for the FTC to have stronger “tools” to go after cybercriminals was raised at a Senate Banking Committee’s Finance Subcommittee hearing Monday. Senators questioned whether the FTC had the proper authority to pursue criminals and enforce better data security on the part of companies. There was support for Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV) technology, which would increase credit and debit card security, but EMV would not have stopped the Target breach, said Edmund Mierzwinski, U. S. Public Interest Research Group consumer program director.
The need for the FTC to have stronger “tools” to go after cybercriminals was raised at a Senate Banking Committee’s Finance Subcommittee hearing Monday. Senators questioned whether the FTC had the proper authority to pursue criminals and enforce better data security on the part of companies. There was support for Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV) technology, which would increase credit and debit card security, but EMV would not have stopped the Target breach, said Edmund Mierzwinski, U. S. Public Interest Research Group consumer program director.