A key definition within the new spectrum law has raised questions among communications lawyers about possible drafting errors and/or congressional intent, the lawyers said. The concerns are with the definition within the bill of “reverse auction,” which seemed to limit the authority to only broadcast spectrum, said the lawyers. The confusion is largely due to a misunderstanding of legislation and the bill is meant to allow FCC interpretation, said House and Senate aides.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement won’t get an easy ride in the European Parliament, the author of the legislative response to the treaty said Tuesday at a press briefing. David Martin, of the U.K. and Socialists and Democrats Party, said he doesn’t come to the debate with a set position but with an open mind. But he stressed that there are problems with the digital copyright and other provisions of the agreement which, if not resolved by the European Court of Justice or the European Commission, will likely lead to its death. Meanwhile, nearly 2.5 million people petitioned lawmakers to “stop ACTA, save our Internet."

Depending on who you listen to, FCC regulation of interconnection agreements between IP networks is either crucial to the future of telecommunications, or is the latest example of government overreach in an Internet-based industry that has flourished at the hand of private deals. In comments filed Friday, carriers large and small tried to sway the commission on what’s best for the public interest.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Jones decision has set the federal government scrambling by setting constitutional privacy law on its ear, the FBI’s chief lawyer said. “What a sea change that is perceived to be in the Department” of Justice, said Andrew Weissmann, the bureau’s general counsel. First, the Supreme Court ruling in January that warrantless official GPS tracking is unconstitutional sent the government rushing to turn off the technology and then try to find and retrieve its tracking gear, Weissmann said late last week. The FBI alone had 3,000 devices to locate -- without benefit of GPS -- he said at a conference at the University of San Francisco’s law school.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Jones decision has set the federal government scrambling by setting constitutional privacy law on its ear, the FBI’s chief lawyer said. “What a sea change that is perceived to be in the Department” of Justice, said Andrew Weissmann, the bureau’s general counsel. First, the Supreme Court ruling in January that warrantless official GPS tracking is unconstitutional (WID Jan 24 p2) sent the government rushing to turn off the technology and then try to find and retrieve its tracking gear, Weissmann said late last week. The FBI alone had 3,000 devices to locate -- without benefit of GPS -- he said at a conference at the University of San Francisco’s law school.

The FTC approved age-verification provider Aristotle International as a safe-harbor program under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The commission’s COPPA Rule allows industry groups or others to submit self-regulatory guidelines to the FTC for approval as a safe-harbor program. In a letter (http://xrl.us/bmur8r) to Aristotle General Counsel Blair Richardson, dated Feb. 15 but only made public Friday, FTC Secretary Donald Clark said the commission received six comments responding to Aristotle’s application (WID July 26 p4), with “several” raising concerns about issues such as how Aristotle “will treat data collected from parents and children during the verification process, the components of member operators’ privacy policies, and Aristotle’s monitoring and enforcement of member operators.” But the commission was satisfied with Aristotle’s response to those comments and revised safe-harbor application submitted in November, Clark said. Aristotle is the fifth organization approved to run a safe-harbor program under the COPPA Rule, following the Children’s Advertising Review Unit of the Better Business Bureaus, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, TRUSTe and Privo.

Passage of wide-ranging spectrum law left room for more legislation to improve spectrum efficiency and free up underutilized federal spectrum, current and former lawmakers said. The House is preparing to review receiver standards, while the Senate is expected to conduct oversight in 2012 on the spectrum legislation that was signed into law last week. More work on spectrum is important in case authorization of voluntary incentive auctions is not the “golden goose” that some expect, a Senate GOP aide said.

The FCC’s Consumer Affairs Committee is looking at the FCC’s controversial new website, with an eye on whether it’s user friendly for consumers, CAC member Ed Bartholomew of Call for Action said during a meeting of the advisory committee Friday. Bartholomew, who chairs the Consumer Empowerment Working Group, said CAC members are planning a call with FCC officials to ask about the commission’s goals in making major changes to the website.

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Public policy over rampaging global data flows remains trapped in confusion and conflict defined by geography, a Microsoft executive said. The world must upend its privacy concepts and orient them toward protecting “digital personas” instead of the “physical entities” that they have always concerned, said Dan Reed, the company’s vice president for technology policy.

U.S. Internet players will abide by the spirit of net neutrality for the foreseeable future, regardless of the outcome of appeals against the FCC’s 2010 rules, the agency’s recently departed chief of staff predicted. Net neutrality has become the “norm” in the U.S., Eddie Lazarus told an Information Technology & Innovation Foundation event Thursday. The type of heated rhetoric that occurred over net neutrality and this year over legislation that’s now being debated on intellectual property rights could be the harbinger of future debates, Lazarus said. He voiced hope there will be more wireless competitors, and that LightSquared’s spectrum will eventually be put to more use, and has no regrets about how the commission handled the company’s waiver.