Muthusamy, a member of the Internet Society India Chennai, originally applied for .idn, which he wanted to use as a bridge to enable internationalized domain name registrants to open their Web spaces for users outside their language communities, he said in his reconsideration request. When it became clear that the domain name would encounter problems because it’s a country-code domain for Indonesia, Muthusamy sought to change his application to .internet.

The three-judge panel selected to hear Verizon’s appeal of the 2010 FCC net neutrality order (CD June 26 p1) could be a good panel from the agency’s perspective, but there are few certainties in appellate law, said attorneys following the case closely. While Republican-appointed judges outnumber by 9-5 those appointed by Democrats at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, two Democratic appointees, David Tatel and Judith Rogers, were selected for the panel, as was Laurence Silberman, widely viewed as the intellectual leader of the conservative appellant movement.

Prison calling reform has long been a top issue for acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, but Clyburn acknowledged Wednesday that taking action raises some tough questions for the agency. During a workshop at FCC headquarters in Washington, speakers weighed in from law enforcement, prison calling companies, the states and those representing the interests of prisoners and their families.

If any agency has jurisdiction over the Internet, it’s the Federal Trade Commission, Verizon Senior Vice President-Public Policy and Government Affairs Craig Silliman told a packed Hudson Institute crowd Wednesday (http://bit.ly/Xj9V2P). For Verizon, which has long been committed to an open Internet, the case is a matter of agency jurisdiction, he said: “This is about where the FCC’s jurisdiction ends and the FTC’s jurisdiction begins, frankly, in terms of regulation over the Internet ecosystem.” FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen said her agency found in 2007 that there wasn’t much of a consumer protection problem on the Internet, and if there were, the FTC’s traditional antitrust analysis and consumer protection authority could address any problems that might arise.

The Internet will have rules and backstops, but those should be handled by the FTC, Silliman said. “The FTC, for example, has plenty of jurisdiction to protect consumers to deal with competition issues, but we feel the FCC should not be creeping its jurisdiction into these areas.” As the FCC takes an expansive view of its jurisdiction on the Internet using an ancillary theory, that “concerns” Verizon, he said: For instance, the Open Internet order said the FCC would forbear from applying its rules to Wi-Fi in coffee shops. That forbearance itself is an “implication that it could apply the FCC’s jurisdiction to Wi-Fi in coffee shops,” he said.

All federal cybersecurity efforts that don’t directly relate to defense should be consolidated within the Department of Commerce, former Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., told the House Commerce Committee’s Oversight subcommittee Tuesday. The subcommittee hearing focused on determining ways to best solve cybersecurity threats to U.S. intellectual property.

All federal cybersecurity efforts that don’t directly relate to defense should be consolidated within the Department of Commerce, former Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., told the House Commerce Committee’s Oversight subcommittee Tuesday. The subcommittee hearing focused on determining ways to best solve cybersecurity threats to U.S. intellectual property.

A group of eight Canadian and U.S. meat trade associations sued the U.S. government over new requirements for the labeling of meat products. The suit, filed July 8 with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said the new country of origin labeling (COOL) requirements that are being implemented by the Agriculture Department's Agriculture Marketing Service (AMS) are unduly burdensome and violate First Amendment protections by compelling speech. The suit was prompted after AMS issued a final rule on regulations in May (see 13052317). The suit calls for preliminary injunctive relieve to stop implementation and enforcement of COOL regulations.

Groups opposed to an FCC order approving Progeny’s controversial E-911 location service in the multilateration location and monitoring service band asked the commission to reverse itself, in various petitions for reconsideration. The FCC approved the Progeny order by a 3-0 vote soon after Mignon Clyburn became acting chairwoman, though most of the work on the order was complete before former Chairman Julius Genachowski left office May 17 (CD June 7 p1). The filings, posted by the commission Tuesday, raise challenges that could form the basis for a legal challenge to the order, industry officials said.

Representatives of the online advertising and content industries said they more guidance from the FTC about the updated Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act rule, which was unveiled by the FTC late last year and took effect July 1 (WID July 1 p1), and outlined potential harms of the new rule, while representatives from the FTC explained it, during a policy briefing hosted by TechFreedom Monday.