The California Attorney General second draft of recommendations for complying with the state’s Do Not Track (DNT) law makes improvements over the first draft, but doesn’t address some central concerns, said lawyers and industry representatives in interviews Thursday. In effect since Jan. 1 (CD Jan 2 p4), the law requires websites and mobile applications to state in their privacy policies whether they respond to a DNT mechanism and include notice of “the possible presence of other parties conducting online tracking,” according to the draft. But with no agreed-upon DNT definition (CD Dec 27 p4), companies have struggled to understand exactly what they are responding to and how to explain that in their privacy policies, said lawyers and an e-commerce representative. The second draft -- emailed to stakeholders Wednesday night -- helps elucidate some of these concerns, but didn’t include legal protections some would like to see.

A rulemaking notice approved by the FCC in September (CD Sept 27 p10) designed to cut red tape on the deployment of distributed antenna systems and small cells is raising concerns for cities, said Mayor John Marks of Tallahassee, Fla. He is acting chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Transportation and Communication Committee, which met Thursday to get an update on that and other issues.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board suggested the White House limit the phone surveillance program, part of a multitude of recommendations Thursday. But the five members of PCLOB were not unanimous in endorsing the 12 recommendations of the 238-page report (http://bit.ly/1bkU5c7). A minority of the board suggested that the NSA surveillance program has value and questioned whether the metadata should really be moved away from the government’s control or its collection ended. PCLOB’s recommendations push for greater transparency, a public advocate for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and modifications to how phone surveillance occurs.

The FCC’s broadband measuring group plans to turn its attention to measuring deployment of Internet technologies, commission officials said during meetings Thursday. The FCC did a “proof of concept” study looking at deployment of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) about a year ago, and saw value in continuing the program, said Walter Johnston, chief of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Division of the Office of Engineering and Technology. The agency also plans to study the effect of legacy in-home equipment on the broadband speeds delivered to the home, officials said.

After Verizon’s successful challenge of U.S. net neutrality rules (CD Jan 23 p1), “there are some draconian scenarios” that could loom in which some ISPs could “block Netflix,” said Ted Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer, on a Q4 earnings interview with analysts on YouTube. “But we think it’s very unlikely” they would do so, Sarandos said. Experts said in interviews Thursday they too see limited short-term effects on Netflix from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturning FCC net neutrality rules last week.

Video interests reign, as industry has spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying Capitol Hill on key communications issues, Q4 lobbying disclosure reports showed this week. Spending was often significantly up from the same period last year, particularly for stakeholders with video interests, but not always. Many disclosure reports highlighted pending priorities before Congress, such as the reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA), which expires at the end of 2014 and is the source of much debate -- such as whether the reauthorization should address updates to retransmission consent law. Lobbying is widely expected to spike in 2014 as the House takes on an overhaul of the Communications Act.

The FCC’s H-block auction opened Wednesday and got off to a slow start. While more rounds will play out in coming days, some observers said it already appears most likely that the ultimate outcome will be Dish Network’s buying most of the spectrum, under its commitment to the FCC last month to bid nearly $1.6 billion for H-block licenses (CD Dec 23 p1). Dish was the only company that qualified with the FCC to make a nationwide bid for the band.

Verizon made good on a commitment it made last year to release an online report on the number of law enforcement requests for customer information the company received in 2013 in the U.S. and internationally (CD Dec 20 p1). But in an accompanying statement Wednesday, Verizon General Counsel Randal Milch acknowledged the information is limited by government controls. Verizon is the first telco to issue such a detailed report.

Commenters in the FCC AM revitalization proceeding backed the overall effort, and made other suggestions on foreign ownership, AM antenna efficiency standards and other things. The FCC received support from AM licensees for opening an FM translator filing window for AM licensees. Comments were due Tuesday in docket 13-249.

BTIG Research took issue with research that said the number of streaming video-on-demand (SVOD) subscribers was growing, while premium TV subscribership declined. The SVOD survey results were released Tuesday by NPD, citing figures for the past two years. Noting the trend of “cord cutting,” NPD said there was a 6 percentage point overall decline in the number of U.S. households subscribing to premium TV channels over the past two years, while the number of households subscribing to SVOD grew 4 percentage points.