Allowing a class-action antitrust lawsuit to proceed against Apple, alleging it monopolized distribution of App Store applications, would harm competition, the Computer & Communications Industry Association argued in a Supreme Court filing Friday. Others, including the government, concurred. The high court agreed (see 1806180053) to hear Apple's appeal of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the suit could proceed. Upholding the ruling would weaken competition for “potential new entrants and for thousands of smaller businesses that rely on so-called multi-sided online business models,” CCIA said. CEO Ed Black said the lower court erred “in understanding how these business models function and ignored well-settled antitrust doctrines to come up with a ruling that would unfortunately expose these matchmakers to duplicative treble damages.” The solicitor general and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also argued in favor of Apple. Because app developers can seek recovery of damages that have been passed on to consumers, allowing the consumers to sue would “create an evident prospect of duplicative recovery,” the solicitor general said. Online platforms lower overhead costs that simplify market entry, ACT|The App Association wrote. Platforms also give app developers instant access to international markets and strengthen intellectual property protections for developers, the association said.

Groups asked the FCC to halt its 180-day review "clock" on T-Mobile's planned buy of Sprint, until applicants "supplement their public interest statement to adequately describe the extensive spectrum aggregation that will result." The agency "should establish a new pleading cycle, with Petitions to Deny due four weeks following the Applicant’s submission of and the agency’s publication of sufficient information for the Commission and the public to sufficiently review the spectrum concentration," said a motion Friday, in docket 18-197, of the Communications Workers of America, Rural Wireless Association, NTCA, Public Knowledge, Consumers Union, The Greenlining Institute, Common Cause, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Writers Guild of America West, Free Press and Benton Foundation. Alternatively, they requested, at least extend the deadline for filing petitions to deny to Sept. 17, which is "warranted in light of the importance and complexity of this proceeding, conflicts with the major Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the glut of overlapping major proceedings" open for public comment. The FCC, Sprint and T-Mobile didn't comment. GCI Communication supports the transaction "because it will create a stronger mobile broadband operator with sufficient scale and financial resources to bring much-needed wholesale and retail wireless competition." The cable operator/telco said a T-Mobile roaming deal helps it provide "competitive wireless broadband service" to customers traveling outside Alaska.

U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam of Oakland, California, rejected some FTC false advertising claims against DirecTV that are the basis of the agency's $3.95 billion lawsuit against the satellite company. The docket 15-cv-01129-HSG order (in Pacer) Thursday responded to an oral motion by DirecTV during an August 2017 bench trial for judgment on partial findings. The judge said the trade commission didn't prove DirecTV violated Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, barring misleading of consumers, in its non-website ads since it didn't show they were likely to mislead a reasonable consumer. Gilliam said while the case regarding web-based advertising "was far from overwhelming," he would defer a determination on those claims until after the close of the evidence. The commission didn't comment. DirecTV owner AT&T emailed it's "pleased with the Court’s decision and look[ed] forward to resolving what remains of the case."

Elefante Group defended its proposal the FCC modify rules to allow operation of stratospheric-based communications services (SBCS) platforms at 65,000 feet. “None of the comments on the Petition identify concerns that should impede the Commission from swiftly commencing a rulemaking to consider technical, operations, and licensing rules for SBCS in the 21.5-23.6, 25.25-27.5, 71-76, and 81-86 GHz bands,” Elefante replied, posted Thursday in RM-11809. SBCS platforms differ from high altitude platform stations (HAPS), operating at a different altitude, Elefante said. “SBCS would also use different spectrum than that being considered for HAPS to achieve the proposed data throughput performance requirements and spectrum efficiency.” Facebook asked the FCC to move forward on rules for both types. “Facebook, working with a range of partners, has launched several initiatives focused on connecting the unconnected and under-connected,” the company said. “It will take a mix of technical solutions to bring connectivity to all. As such, Facebook has supported research and development efforts in a range of technologies, including terrestrial, mobile, satellite, and high altitude platform stations.” The Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory earlier objected to the plan (see 1807110037).

The FCC denied a pair of petitions for reconsideration by NTCH on the agency's allowing Dish Network to convert 2 GHz band satellite spectrum for terrestrial wireless use, as expected (see 1808130040). In an order released Thursday, commissioners said NTCH hadn't shown it met the threshold requirements for justifying reconsideration and it separately denied them on their merits. It said NTCH's arguments on whether modification of the 2 GHz licenses constituted a fundamental change needed to be raised during the course of the rulemaking, and its license changes were "neither fundamental nor radical." It dismissed NTCH arguments the AWS-4 band should be limited to terrestrial operations, saying that goes beyond the scope of the proceeding to establish service rules for the spectrum. The agency denied NTCH's application for review of the H Block auction procedures (here), saying the company criticized the aggregate reserve price setting, but didn't identify any statute, regulation, precedent or policy that goes against setting an aggregate reserve price. It denied NTCH's application for review of the Wireless Bureau allowing Dish to use AWS-4 spectrum for uplinks or downlinks and an extended AWS-4 buildout deadline (here), saying it hadn't shown the bureau decision caused NTCH any harm. NTCH outside counsel Don Evans of Fletcher Heald said the company will challenge the FCC orders in court. He said the orders ignored that the H-block auction "was rigged," with the Dish waiver being granted on the assumption the company would bid what it ultimately did.

U.S. internet platforms, network providers and policymakers should collaborate on rules for "public accountability in the digital marketplace" to ensure privacy, competition and operational openness, or else "business practices" will be "dissected by others," warned ex-FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, now a Shorenstein Center fellow. "Internet capitalism has replaced industrial capitalism," he wrote Thursday. "The challenge ... is to assure the workings of a digital economy while mitigating excess and providing stability and security for both companies and consumers. ... Ignoring the gathering policy storm is not an option." Digital platforms offer many benefits but "have aided Russian interference in the electoral process, impacted child development, and propagated disinformation, bigotry, and hateful speech," he said: They "devastated the economic underpinnings of quality journalism and established a level of marketplace dominance not seen since the early Industrial Revolution." If the U.S. doesn't act, foreign governments will write the rules, he said. While network providers recently won an FCC fight "to discriminate amongst the traffic that arrives" (see 1808160073), he said, the battle continues, and dozens of states are beginning to investigate or take actions affecting both networks and platforms.

The Northern Mariana Islands should make sure no money is diverted from a proposed 911 fund, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said in a Wednesday letter to Gov. Ralph Torres (R). In a July 21 letter to O’Rielly, Torres said the territory doesn’t have a 911 system or active public safety answering points and thus isn’t collecting fees or charges. “The current structure provides emergency response calls to all municipal governments through dedicated telephone land lines with individual telephone handset units handled by radio dispatchers under the Department of Public Safety,” the governor said. Lawmakers are drafting a bill to create emergency 911 and next-generation 911 systems, with a 911 surcharge, he said.

FirstNet is in the first year of its five-year buildout plan (see 1808140036).

The FCC Enforcement Bureau sought additional information from Snapchat, licensee of trunked land mobile radio station WQVZ814 in Santa Monica, California, on whether the company was properly monitoring its transmissions on output frequency 464.1975. The bureau said it investigated after a compliant. Snapchat didn’t comment.

The FTC approved Entertainment Software Rating Board-proposed changes to a self-regulatory program on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (see 1805070041), the agency announced Tuesday. ESRB proposed changing the definition of “personal information and data,” based on new commission guidance on audio recording collection. Commissioners 5-0 incorporated some privacy concerns from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Center for Digital Democracy and Electronic Privacy Information Center, which proposed alterations. For example, the first two groups proposed the FTC “include language that would make it a requirement -- instead of a suggestion -- to limit collection of ‘personal information and data,’” the agency said.