ICANN groups reaffirmed the need to solidify the non-profit’s accountability process before moving forward with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition, in public comments last week (http://bit.ly/1ncHROw). The Internet Committee of the International Trademark Association (INTA) criticized the ICANN community’s lack of input in choosing experts and advisors for the non-profit’s accountability review (http://bit.ly/1rypVxQ). The Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) Council doubted that ICANN’s proposed “community working group” would serve the accountability process any better than the “cross community working group” (http://bit.ly/1rklirP). Stakeholders have asked whether ICANN is intent on developing an accountability process that holds the non-profit accountable to itself or to the community it serves (CD Aug 27 p9).

The FCC’s first-of-its-kind auction may present complexities beyond the technical details for longtime telecom attorneys with clients that may sell broadcast-TV frequencies to the agency or wireless carriers that may be wanting to buy that relinquished spectrum for wireless broadband. Such firms representing multiple clients in the incentive auction, which government and industry officials have called extremely complex, may face challenges avoiding conflicts of interest, said wireless and broadcast attorneys in recent interviews. Firms that represent both wireless and broadcast clients -- such as Wilkinson Barker and Wiley Rein -- may not be able to do so in the auction, under local bar association ethics rules or possibly FCC anti-collusion rules, the attorneys said. Since the parties are buyer and seller on opposite sides, firms may not be able to act for both kinds of participants in the auction expected to raise many billions of dollars.

Comcast’s attacks on programmers, Dish Network, Netflix and others in the reply comments filed in docket 14-57 and released Wednesday (CD Sept 25 p6) aren’t likely to have much effect on the eventual outcome of FCC review of Comcast/Time Warner Cable, said cable industry observers in interviews Thursday. Comcast and its opponents are both “posturing,” said Mediacom Group Vice President-Legal and Public Affairs Tom Larsen. Mediacom has not filed comments in the Comcast/TWC proceeding. FCC merger review teams are “more insulated” from comments and news reports and not likely to respond to “rhetoric,” said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood. Free Press filed a petition to deny Comcast/TWC. Other entities appeared to take Comcast’s accusations more seriously -- public interest group Common Cause demanded an apology. “Comcast’s suggestion that we've offered to withdraw our opposition in return for favors from the company is absolutely unfounded and untrue,” said former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps in a news release (http://bit.ly/1BcVL3Q). Copps is special adviser to Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Reform Initiative.

The departure of Attorney General Eric Holder likely will not have major implications for the big communications mergers and acquisitions before regulators -- AT&T/DirecTV or Comcast/Time Warner Cable -- nor on M&A that could be in the works, industry lawyers told us. Holder said Thursday he will leave after a successor is in place. He is one the last top administration officials left from the beginning of the Obama administration in 2009.

The Federal Aviation Administration “is open to receiving petitions from anyone” seeking an exemption like those granted Thursday to filmmakers to operate commercial unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), FAA Administrator Michael Huerta told a media briefing.

AT&T, Mobile Future and Verizon each called on the FCC to reject T-Mobile and Sprint petitions a>sking the agency to make major changes to spectrum aggregation rules prior to the TV incentive auction. Sprint and T-Mobile sought changes last month (CD Aug 13 p1).

An FCC Further NPRM on inmate calling circulated Thursday, as expected (CD Sept 25 p1). An inmate advocacy group that’s been pushing for reforms praised the action it called a “step forward” and “great opportunity” to further bring down the costs of inmate phone calls. But a jail association said the fees have a useful purpose. The FNPRM circulated by Chairman Tom Wheeler proposes to make permanent the FCC interim cap on interstate inmate calling rates, impose caps on intrastate rates, get rid of commissions paid to correctional facilities and cap such ancillary charges as transactions fees.

Administration officials outlined the threat to international trade stemming from data localization laws in foreign countries (http://bit.ly/1wXboij). Some countries have sought to restrict the flow of data across borders in reaction to NSA surveillance activities revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, said Richard Salgado, Google law enforcement and information security legal director. Those policies can harm the U.S. economy and hamper the open Internet standards the administration seeks to secure, said administration officials at Thursday’s Brookings Institution event.

FCC Media Bureau denial of an AM station’s request to move its transmitter to a site in Tell City, Indiana, raised concerns within the AM radio industry about the efforts to help stations on that band obtain FM translators. The bureau’s denial missed an opportunity to give such stations immediate relief, and goes against the AM band revitalization effort, an executive and industry attorneys said in interviews. They also bemoaned the bureau’s timing of the decision, issued two years after the request.

An FCC order on circulation would ease some of the record collection, retention and reporting rules approved in a 2013 rural call completion order (CD Oct 29 p2), said commission and industry officials in interviews Wednesday. The draft order likely will be approved, said an agency official. It would grant The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance (ITTA) and USTelecom’s petition to reconsider the requirements for some intraLATA calls but reject Comptel’s petition to reconsider another aspect of the order, which tightens the definition of small carriers exempted from the requirements, said the officials.