Samsung “will ensure” that future ads for what it calls “LED TV” clarify that the sets are LCD panels with LED backlighting, the company’s U.S. and U.K. branches told us. The statement follows a ruling by Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority that the ads and promotional materials were “likely to mislead” and “must not appear again in their current form” (CED Aug 19 p1).
It’s not bad to be worried about the FCC’s national broadband plan, because that response probably will increase creative thinking as the commission develops its recommendations, plan coordinator Blair Levin said Wednesday at an event held by the Udwin Breakfast Group. “To a certain extent, I want you to be worried. I want everyone in this room to be worried. I'm worried.” The country’s broadband problems aren’t easy to solve, he said. “What should worry you is if we have a knee-jerk reaction.”
Establishing the right benchmarks to assess U.S. progress in deploying broadband must be viewed as a critical part of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, said Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld during a commission broadband workshop on benchmarks Wednesday afternoon. Other panelists warned that benchmarks themselves, especially those that rely on comparisons to the rest of world, could provide little meaningful data.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued an interim final rule, effective September 1, 2009, containing CPSC's interpretation of the statutory factors it considers in determining civil penalty amounts for "knowing" violations1 of the prohibited acts in the CPSA, FFA, and FHSA2, as amended by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA).
Internet and communications companies risk litigation over “every blog post, electronic mail, voice mail, instant message, text message, and ’tweet'” if owners of unregistered works can sue for copyright infringement, according to a friend of the court brief filed with the Supreme Court. The Computer and Communications Industry Association and the NetCoalition, which includes Google, Yahoo, InterActiveCorp and Bloomberg, asked the high court to uphold a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision. The appeals court tossed out an $18 million settlement between publishers and freelances in Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick over posting of freelance work online, saying it didn’t have jurisdiction over the unregistered works covered by the settlement (WID March 3 p5).
Fault lines emerged quickly at the newly reconstituted FCC, with Republican commissioners objecting in subtle but strong language as the commission Thursday approved three notices of inquiry, all touching on consumer protections and competition. The NOIs on wireless innovation and investment, consumer protections and the annual wireless competition report were approved 5-0. But Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker signaled their concerns, especially on the wireless innovation item.
Broadcasters and satellite industry officials plan to meet Thursday to iron out differences over TV signal overlap problems addressed in a draft House Judiciary Committee bill. The problem focuses on markets where there’s a “Grade B bleed” situation, where a station’s over-the-air signal extends beyond the boundaries of its assigned market. In some cases, the signal bleed problem may prevent satellite companies from importing distant signals to households in the affected areas. The problem centers on defining “unserved” households for purposes of allowing distant signal importation.
Industry needs to show legislators and regulators the progress it’s making in creating technical tools for Internet users to protect their privacy, said Jules Polonetsky of the Future of Privacy Forum, in a Family Online Safety Institute discussion of online safety and privacy. Simply saying regulation will “break” behavioral advertising and expecting legislators not to legislate isn’t going to work anymore, he said: “We need to give them some meat or we'll just be reacting.” Frank Torres of Microsoft agreed the burden is on industry to show its efforts. But with states jumping in with their own privacy legislation, sooner or later one will pass a law that will break the Internet, he said.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said on Thursday he will seek a vote by the commissioners on the national broadband plan before it’s sent to Congress. His comment came in an interview in his corner office, still little decorated. It had been unclear whether the other commissioners would be asked to sign off on the plan or whether it would in effect be released as a chairman’s report.
The Commissioners of the Consumer Product Safety Commission approved (2-11) an interim final rule containing CPSC's interpretation of the statutory factors it considers in determining civil penalty amounts for "knowing" violations2 of the prohibited acts in the CPSA, FFA, and FHSA3, as amended by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). The Commissioners also issued statements on their votes.