Rules to protect deaf consumers from unwanted marketing and lobbying have created a double standard for how the FCC regulates telecom relay service providers and dial-tone carriers, said relay providers and others. But advocates for deaf people said marketing is one issue for which the FCC should treat TRS providers differently. “If we get abused, the fundamental principles of relay service will not meet its full potential,” said Claude Stout, executive director of Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (TDI). If TRS users believe their call is being monitored or their data will be used for other purposes, they will be “less confident” to use relay service, he said. “We need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The Universal Service Fund for schools and libraries is under the lens of a congressional inquiry into programs prone to payment errors, according to GAO reports and congressional correspondence. The inquiry comes as the FCC must choose a contractor to run the “E-rate” program. The Universal Service Administrative Company, which recently solicited bids for a five-year contract to run the program, sent its recommendation to the FCC last week, a company spokesman told us.

AT&T says it plans rate increases in Tennessee that would raise rates for residential vertical services 8 to 17 percent July 26. The proposed boost also would increase rates for residential basic exchange, but by less than 2 percent. Most vertical-service increases would be $1 to $2 monthly. AT&T also would increase 7.5 percent, about $2 monthly, the rates for its most popular residential packages. Rates for business services aren’t affected. AT&T’s basic local services are under indexed price caps but bundles and most vertical services are flexibly priced: They can be set wherever the carrier wants but will be reviewed by the Tennessee Regulatory Authority. The agency has to act before the effective date. Consumer groups said AT&T is milking customers slow to switch from conventional phone service to VoIP or wireless. They said AT&T is trying to maintain its landline revenue stream despite having lost a third of its Tennessee landlines to competition since 2000. But AT&T said its price changes in the state are part of an attempt to achieve rate consistency across all 22 states where it’s the major incumbent

ConsumerAffairs.com can’t be held liable for the gripes posted by users about an auto dealer, the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., ruled. The case could have been a repeat of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ Roommate.com ruling, which said sites can be liable for specifically giving users the option to take unlawful actions (WID May 16/07 p1), except that the plaintiff didn’t raise the “original content” claim in its complaint. New York-area Nemet Chevrolet claimed defamation against the site for six users’ posts making factual allegations about their experiences at the dealer, which Nemet said were false and drove away potential customers. The site is “unlawfully diverting customers and deriving a profit from misdirecting said customers,” and leading users to believe it’s a governmental agency through its name, Nemet said. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act blocks liability because ConsumerAffairs.com is “indisputably” an interactive computer service, Judge Gerald Lee said. Nemet later submitted new materials accusing ConsumerAffairs.com of defamation by creating “titles, headings and categories” for users’ defamatory posts, with Nemet pointing to a 2004 Texas ruling that assigned liability to a gripe site that encouraged users to file class-action suits and sold “rip-off revenge” kits to use against companies. But allegations against ConsumerAffairs.com are “sufficiently distinct” from the Texas case, Lee said. Nemet can’t claim unfair competition and false advertising because “injury to goodwill” isn’t a viable claim under the Lanham Act and because only a “competitor” can claim standing. “It is clear and indisputable that the parties are not competitors,” that Nemet hasn’t alleged any threat to its trademarks by ConsumerAffairs.com, and that whatever appeared on the site was not “commercial advertising,” Lee said.

A closely watched Copyright Office report on compulsory licensing will take a wide-ranging and lengthy look at rules allowing cable- and satellite-TV providers to get rights to distribute programs without negotiating with individual rights holders, said participants in the proceeding. Industry officials who lobbied the office in advance of the report agree it will be comprehensive, with a page count said to be around several hundred. It’s unclear whether the report will recommend any sweeping changes to compulsory licensing, as some content providers sought, they said. All expect an in-depth look at new technologies (CD Oct 12 p5), as they said the office signaled it would do in an April 2007 notice of inquiry kicking off the review.

An eagerly-awaited Copyright Office report on compulsory licensing will take a wide-ranging and lengthy look at rules allowing cable- and satellite-TV providers to get rights to distribute programs without negotiating with individual rights holders, said participants in the proceeding. Industry officials who lobbied the office in advance of the report agree it will be comprehensive, with a page count said to be around several hundred. It’s unclear whether the report will recommend any sweeping changes to compulsory licensing, as some content providers sought, they said. All expect an in-depth look at new technologies (WID Oct 12 p1), as they said the office signaled it would do in an April 2007 notice of inquiry kicking off the review.

The number of Web sites illicitly selling or advertising prescription drugs is growing rapidly, and the dispersed nature of sales interferes with state crackdowns on unlicensed Web storefronts, witnesses told the House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee in a hearing Tuesday. But the most vehement words came from Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., who blasted a Senate-approved bill for what he called its stiffening of penalties for those convicted of selling drugs illicitly. Witnesses disputed whom the bill actually penalized, but Conyers and Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott, D-Va., repeatedly suggested it would disproportionately target certain groups.

The Labor Department's Office of Trade and Labor Affairs has issued a notice announcing that it has decided to accept for review a submission alleging that the Government of Guatemala has violated certain labor provisions of the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA)¹.

The International Trade Commission has issued a report providing a description of the current level of economic development in the Caribbean Basin and an overview of potential Caribbean development. The report was issued at the request of the House Ways and Means Committee to assist it in identifying the ways that U.S. trade and aid policy can most help the Caribbean Basin.

The CEA is pushing back against plan to sell low-cost set-top boxes to smaller cable operators. The group, a stalwart supporter of the CableCARD, opposed a request by vendor Evolution Broadband for a waiver from the CableCARD rule for certain stripped down digital boxes (CD June 18 p13). And it again raised questions about whether a planned box from Beyond Broadband Technology (BBT) would comply with FCC separable security rules. “We're essentially asking the commission to be diligent and apply some scrutiny to these, particularly where someone asks for a whole class of technology to be declared to be free from having to meet the separable security requirement,” said Brian Markwalter, CEA vice president of technology and standards.