The app industry is misleading consumers, the European Commission said Thursday. It and national consumer protection authorities were scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday with app developers such as Google and Apple to address consumer complaints “from all over Europe,” it said. The EU market for online and mobile games and applications is vibrant but consumers are griping about such things as games advertised as “free” that aren’t, and receiving default credit card charges, it said. The sector has “enormous potential” to generate jobs and growth, but not if consumers lack confidence in the products, said Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding. Despite the concerns, however, the U.K. Office of Fair Trading (OFT) told us that app developers are making progress on the issues. The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) said it should be at the table as well. European software developers agreed to further talks.

Continued DHS work to build its relationships with private sector stakeholders is “crucial” to its continued mission to address cybersecurity in the private sector and on government networks, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told the House Homeland Security Committee Wednesday. Johnson, who took office in December, outlined his vision for DHS and addressed concerns about the department’s programs. DHS’s private sector outreach on cybersecurity has been most public on the department’s role in implementing President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity executive order, Johnson said.

The goals of the FCC critical information needs (CIN) studies can be met without using the questions for journalists that were stripped out by Chairman Tom Wheeler (CD Feb 24 p21), Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said at a Media Institute lunch Wednesday. But she also defended the original form of the study, saying that as a former Charleston, S.C., newspaper publisher, she would never “be a part of any effort to chill speech, shape the news or influence news gatherers.” Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said after Clyburn spoke that it’s time to kill the CIN study, a report every Republican senator joined their GOP House counterparts in opposing.

The idea that carriers may buy spectrum to hoard it and hurt competitors makes no real sense, a Verizon official insisted Wednesday. He was among several executives, including from T-Mobile and C Spire, speaking at a Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing on wireless competition. “I find the prospect, while theoretically interesting and an alarming talking point, to be vanishingly small,” Verizon Executive Vice President Randal Milch told subcommittee ranking member Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, saying it would not make sense to “stockpile something that is so capital intensive.”

The public, educational and government channel community plans to continue its push to protect the interests of PEG channels while monitoring Comcast’s efforts to buy Time Warner Cable for about $45 billion, PEG advocates said in interviews this week. If the companies combine, PEG channels could be negatively impacted, they said.

FCC work on incentive auction rules appears to be quietly pushed to the side, as key staff steam forward full-speed on rules for the AWS-3 auction, which must be wrapped up later this year, said agency and industry officials in interviews this week. While Chairman Tom Wheeler has promised the FCC is still on track to get out an incentive auction order in the spring (CD Dec 10 p6), industry and FCC officials said big parts of the rules simply can’t be ready then. Several industry officials pointed to two highly technical FCC workshops last week (CD Feb 24 p15) on “feasibility checks” for whether channels can move during the repacking part of the auction and on interservice interference prediction as a sign of the kinds of issues that seem far away from decision.

Neustar and Telcordia traded barbs before the FCC in filings Monday, with Telcordia asking the Wireline Bureau to dismiss a Neustar petition to “immediately rectify” the Local Number Portability Administration selection process, which Neustar had said was “flawed in its design and implementation” (CD Feb 13 p13). Neustar asked the full commission to force a public notice seeking comment on its petition, which the Wireline Bureau had not yet responded to. “Given the time sensitivity of this matter, Neustar believed a letter was appropriate,” a Neustar spokeswoman told us.

Comments in the proceeding to eliminate the FCC sports blackout rule reveal a clash between the NFL, NAB and the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball against elimination and groups like NCTA and the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance calling for an end to the rule. Comments were due in docket 12-3 Monday, when the coalition whose request a few years ago led to the proceeding said the NFL coerces broadcasters to buy unsold tickets so there won’t be blackouts as the FCC examines the issue (CD Feb 25 p14). Those against junking the 1970s-era rule commented that private negotiations for distribution of professional sports games can’t replace the current rule.

Congress faces two different approaches to cellphone theft, as a key Senate subcommittee holds a wireless competition hearing Wednesday. Earlier this month, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced S-2032, the Smartphone Theft Prevention Act, which would require the installation of a kill switch on mobile phones and has caused carriers to balk. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has repeatedly touted his S-1070, the Mobile Device Theft Deterrence Act, which has attracted wireless industry support. It would “add criminal penalties of up to five years in jail for tampering with cell phones in order to circumvent the service ban on a stolen phone” and thus “add teeth to the cell phone registry that just got up and running late last year,” a Schumer news release promised last week (http://1.usa.gov/1hPTqYD).

The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council asked the FCC to rework its designated entity (DE) rules to encourage more minority bidders to take part in the upcoming TV incentive auction. MMTC argued in a white paper released Tuesday that while the designated entity rules were effective in encouraging bids by small businesses, including minority-owned business enterprises (MBEs), in the early years of spectrum auctions, that’s no longer the case.