The spectrum inventory discussed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Wednesday likely won’t satisfy calls on Capitol Hill for a more exhaustive inventory, industry and FCC officials said Thursday. An official in the chairman’s office clarified that Genachowski was referring to the extensive research the commission did as reflected in its LicenseView and Spectrum Dashboard initiatives when he discussed the FCC inventory Wednesday (CD March 17 p1). The official said different bills proposed in Congress differ on what would constitute an inventory. “The broadcasters are really pushing the need for an inventory before anything happens” and the inventory unveiled by Genachowski probably won’t fit that bill, a second FCC official said.

Bill Clinton indicated he now supports e-commerce taxation, and endorsed redistribution of wealth between and within countries to extend Internet access to those without it. Speaking Wednesday evening at an international meeting of ICANN in San Francisco, the former president did a balancing act -- with a tilt toward the status quo -- concerning government control of Internet administration.

Cutting special access rates in half would raise wages as much as $4.8 billion, create up to 101,000 jobs and add $11.8 billion to $12.4 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product, a study commissioned by Sprint Nextel reported Tuesday. Revenue from special access charges brought AT&T, Qwest and Verizon $18 billion in 2007, nearly double the 2000 figure, the study said. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s staff is drafting a public notice seeking comprehensive data on the special access market and hopes to move to rulemaking or even orders this year, a commission official said.

The FCC should auction the 700 MHz D block if legislation isn’t soon passed about what to do with that spectrum, said Commissioner Robert McDowell, who has long supported selling that spectrum. He said the commission also should act on its own to further the development of white spaces devices, if Congress doesn’t soon pass legislation allowing the agency to hold an incentive auction. Speaking at an event sponsored by Catholic University, McDowell touched on another issue where he’s long been active at the FCC: Getting unlicensed devices on the market that use the spaces between TV channels.

Enhanced penalties for intellectual property crimes are necessary to increase the effectiveness of U.S. enforcement efforts, said White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel. Specifically, Congress should impose felony penalties for illegally streaming content and increase the U.S. sentencing guideline ranges to “address the substantial harm” caused by IP theft, Espinel wrote in a report to Congress Tuesday.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation will appeal a court order from December that grants the government permission to obtain information from the Twitter accounts of defendants in the WikiLeaks investigation. The decision was made in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. The Justice Department requested subscriber information, like user names, screen names and “records of user activity for any connections made to or from the account,” Judge Theresa Buchanan wrote in the order. In January, ACLU and EFF asked the court to vacate the Twitter order and “to unseal all orders and supporting documents relating to Twitter and any other service provider.” The groups appealed on behalf of client Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic Parliament member. In requesting data transfer volume and destination Internet protocol addresses, the Twitter order doesn’t demand the contents of any communication, Buchanan said. “Therefore, as the targets of mere records disclosure, petitioners may not bring a customer challenge” under the Stored Communications Act. The law provides greater protection to the contents of electronic communications than to their records, she said. The court ruling is unfortunate, EFF said. “It raises the question of what kind of access does the government have … about you that’s stored by your service provider,” said Cindy Cohn, EFF legal director. The court relied on two Supreme Court decisions from the 1970s, she said in an interview. “Third parties have a lot more information about us now than they did in the 1970s.” What isn’t publicly available is “the justification for the government needing to obtain this order in secret,” said Aden Fine, ACLU attorney. “Without knowing what the government’s arguments are, it’s difficult for our client to thoroughly defend her rights.” The ruling raises concerns about U.S.-based services, Cohn added. EFF and ACLU plan to file an appeal within the next week, she said.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, urged a hearing on Google business practices. “The powerful position Google occupies in the general search arena creates myriad opportunities for anticompetitive behavior,” the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee said in a letter last week to Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis. Lee is a member of the Tea Party Caucus. There have been “serious questions concerning whether Google has acted to harm competition,” Lee said. “Among other things, commentators have expressed concern that Google may be using its position to harm specialized (or so-called ‘vertical') search sites.” Also, Lee wants the Justice Department to “investigate whether Google’s powerful position as an internet gatekeeper reduces the company’s incentive to compete with other search engines by providing enhanced privacy protection for consumers,” he said. “The combination of behavioral and personal information enables Google to generate consumer data that is unprecedented in scale and scope,” Lee said. “These activities raise serious privacy concerns and may be indicative of an important market that is largely unconstrained by competition. Antitrust enforcement may unlock beneficial competition for the protection of user privacy and avert the need for additional privacy regulation.” A Google spokesman responded, “Given our success and the disruptive nature of the Internet we know that scrutiny comes with the territory, but we're committed to making search even better for consumers.”

A senator in the Tea Party Caucus urged a hearing on Google business practices. “The powerful position Google occupies in the general search arena creates myriad opportunities for anticompetitive behavior,” Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Lee, R-Utah, said in a letter last week to Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis. There have been “serious questions concerning whether Google has acted to harm competition,” Lee said. “Among other things, commentators have expressed concern that Google may be using its position to harm specialized (or so-called ‘vertical') search sites.” Also, Lee wants the Justice Department to “investigate whether Google’s powerful position as an Internet gatekeeper reduces the company’s incentive to compete with other search engines by providing enhanced privacy protection for consumers,” he said. “The combination of behavioral and personal information enables Google to generate consumer data that is unprecedented in scale and scope,” Lee said. “These activities raise serious privacy concerns and may be indicative of an important market that is largely unconstrained by competition. Antitrust enforcement may unlock beneficial competition for the protection of user privacy and avert the need for additional privacy regulation.” A Google spokesman responded, “Given our success and the disruptive nature of the Internet, we know that scrutiny comes with the territory, but we're committed to making search even better for consumers."

The European Commission has published its first annual report to the European Council on trade and investment barriers for EU companies in EU strategic partner countries (the U.S., China, India, Russia, Japan, Brazil and Argentina). The report highlights efforts needed to tackle market access barriers related to government procurement, intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, the sustainable supply of raw materials, and customs-related barriers.

There is a dire need to update the principles of the European Union Data Protection Directive, privacy regulators said Thursday at the International Association of Privacy Professionals’ Global Privacy Summit in Washington. The evolution of technology in the past two decades has led to greater collections of personal data since the directive was implemented in 1995, experts said. The current review aims to address new issues such as a “right to be forgotten,” enhance international cooperation, database registration, international data transfers and introduce greater accountability provisions, they said.