LifeLock agreed to pay $100 million to settle FTC charges that the company failed to act to protect users' data and continued to make deceptive claims about its identity theft protection services, violating a 2010 federal court order (see 1507210041). “That consumers paid [LifeLock] for help in protecting their sensitive personal information makes the charges in this case particularly troubling,” FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a statement Thursday. The commission approved the order 3-1, with Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen dissenting. Under the settlement, $68 million may be used to reimburse customers in a class-action lawsuit against the company and in settlements state attorneys general have negotiated on behalf of other consumers. It can't be used for any administrative or legal costs of the lawsuit. An FTC spokesman said the agency will use the remaining $32 million to provide redress to other consumers who weren't part of the class-action suit or state AG settlements. In a separate statement, Ohlhausen said the "record lacks a clear and convincing evidence that LifeLock failed to establish and maintain a comprehensive information security program designed to protect the security, confidentiality, and integrity of consumers' personal information." She said LifeLock's compliance with the payment card data security standard and other data security certifications undermined FTC staff's ability to clear the "high threshold" and succeed on the July contempt motion, which alleged LifeLock violated the 2010 order. LifeLock, which neither confirmed nor denied the allegations, said in a statement the allegations "are related to advertisements that we no longer run and policies that are no longer in place. The settlement does not require us to change any of our current products or practices. Furthermore, there is no evidence that LifeLock has ever had any of its customers' data stolen, and the FTC did not allege otherwise." The company said it has made "significant investments in our people, processes and systems" in recent years to address more complex and prevalent ID threats. The FTC said the settlement is the largest obtained by the commission in enforcing an order.
Charter Communications' low-cost broadband service it plans to offer low-income subscribers after consummating its purchases of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable will offer 30/4 Mbps speeds at $14.99/month, with modems at no cost, the company said in a news release Thursday. Eligibility for the service will be limited to families with students taking part in the National School Lunch Program and/or senior citizens who receive Supplemental Security Income program benefits. Current phone and video customers who meet one of the criteria can enroll, Charter said, though enrollees can't have had a Charter/BHN/TWC broadband subscription within 60 days before signing up. The company said it would begin offering the service within six months of the close of the $89.1 billion deals. Charter had promised expansion of broadband offerings for low-income subscribers as part of its acquisition (see 1506250039).
The White House confirmed it hired Ashkan Soltani, a privacy expert who until recently was the FTC's chief technologist (see 1512030034) and before that helped with The Washington Post's coverage of NSA document leaker Edward Snowden (see 1410290060). The Office of Science and Technology Policy hired Soltani as senior adviser to U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith, who used to work for Google and tweeted about Soltani's hiring. "Ashkan will focus on consumer protection, big data, and privacy issues, including algorithmic accountability, data ethics, and data discrimination," an OSTP spokeswoman emailed Thursday. "Ashkan will also help with capacity building for technologists in government, including working with agencies to build career paths for technologists across government."
Despite reluctance in much of the rest of the world, the U.S. plans to plow ahead on making spectrum available for 5G "in a timely manner," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Thursday. That the World Radiocommunication Conference-15 said it would look at bands above 6 GHz for 5G but not the 28 GHz band (see 1510230050) -- which had been an FCC priority -- "will not slow the activity in this country," Wheeler said as the commissioners heard a report on WRC-15, which wrapped up last month. Minus 28 GHz, the bands identified by WRC-19 and the bands part of the FCC spectrum frontiers NPRM have significant overlap, said International Bureau Chief Mindel De La Torre. Spectrum frontiers likely will be complete by WRC-19, she said. Identifying global allocations of spectrum is increasingly difficult, De La Torre said. Regional allocations "might be more realistic," she said: WRC footnotes denoting the policy of one or a small collection of nations are increasingly common.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler suggested the agency isn't holding off on regulatory actions while its net neutrality and broadband reclassification order is being litigated in court. Asked by a reporter Thursday about such possible delays, Wheeler said, "No, we think that we're on strong grounds in the court." Speaking at the agency's press conference, he said FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet and agency attorney Jacob Lewis "did exemplary jobs" at the Dec. 4 oral argument in the case. He said he listened to an audio recording of the argument and is "confident that the open Internet rules have a good future ahead of them." Wheeler also said he hopes the FCC can approve a Lifeline USF modernization order early next year. The agency has proposed to extend Lifeline low-income support to broadband and to revamp program administration. Asked if he was open to making permanent the net neutrality order's temporary small-business exemption from broadband provider enhanced disclosure rules, which the FCC just extended by one year, Wheeler said: "Let's base it on facts, rather than on suppositions; so let's see what we get in terms of the data." At their news conference, Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly criticized the FCC's one-year extension order on both substantive and process grounds. Pai said there wasn't evidence in the record to justify imposing the enhanced rules on small broadband providers.
NTCA clarified Thursday it believes the FCC can adopt a single order relatively soon to set the rules for giving rural rate-of-return carriers the option of receiving USF support based on a broadband cost model, fix a "stand-alone broadband problem," and adopt some other changes to legacy mechanisms. NTCA believes a second, later order would be needed, but not to nail down further model details; instead, it believes the FCC can make technical refinements to the model as it implements the first order -- including by conducting a "challenge process" to RLEC high-cost areas -- and addresses other issues, NTCA Senior Vice President-Policy Mike Romano told us Thursday. Romano was reacting to a Communications Daily story that said NTCA had proposed a "two-step path" for adopting a rate-of return model-based support option (see 1512160060). He acknowledged there was a "semantics" issue in how different phases and actions could be described. NTCA does believe the FCC should take more time to adopt an order on its proposed "bifurcated approach" to updating legacy rate-of-return USF support that would be available for RLECs not opting for model-based support, Romano said. NTCA believes a Further NPRM would be helpful on the bifurcated approach, but isn't necessary on the model, he said.
An FCC draft order to grant USTelecom's forbearance petition in various areas is expected to be adopted Thursday without major changes despite CLEC pushback, agency officials told us Wednesday. XO and others pressed the FCC not to give ILECs relief from duties to share newly deployed feeder conduits with competitors at regulated rates (see 1512110062). They said USTelecom hadn't justified the forbearance and the competitors still need regulated access to such "entrance conduits" to reach the buildings of business customers. But the commission appears unlikely to back off the draft's proposal to give ILECs relief from regulated sharing of entrance conduits for “greenfield" developments, the officials said. A CLEC representative suggested Wednesday the agency could be setting a bad precedent. "If they let it go through as is, you have to ask: are they creating a low bar for future forbearance petitions?" the CLEC representative said. "A lot of this stuff is market specific. Are they going to allow them to skate by without the evidence." The commission is to vote at its Thursday meeting on a draft order on the USTelecom petition (see 1512100063), and agency officials indicated the item would give incumbent telcos relief from several requirements, including to offer wholesale access (see 1511240070 and 1511250047).
Noninteractive webcasters will be required to pay 0.17 cent per performance on nonsubscription services and 0.22 cent per performance for subscription services beginning Jan. 1, the Copyright Royalty Board said at our deadline Wednesday. The CRB released the initial details of its 2016-2020 webcasting rate-setting ruling Wednesday but hadn’t released a full unredacted version of the ruling to parties in the rate-setting proceeding at our deadline. There had been few clear signs before the ruling about how the CRB would rule (see 1512110064). Noncommercial webcasters will be required to pay $500 annually for each station or channel for all transmissions totaling no more than 159,140 aggregate tuning hours (ATH) per month, the CRB said. All transmissions above 159,140 ATH per month will pay a 0.17 cent per-performance rate. Rates for commercial and noncommercial webcasters will be adjusted annually between 2017 and 2020 based on the Consumer Price Index, the CRB said.
While another route to broadband access in schools is laudable, it's outweighed by the public interest of people with hearing loss being able "to fully participate in society" due to their hearing aid connectivity via Bluetooth Low Energy deployed in the 2.4 GHz band, the Hearing Industries Association (HIA) said in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in FCC docket 13-213. It recapped a meeting between HIA Executive Director Andrew Bopp and staff of Chairman Tom Wheeler at which Bopp said Bluetooth LE "is threatened by Globalstar's proposed use of the 2473-2483.5 portion of the 2.4 GHz band" for its broadband terrestrial low-power system. As well as degrading functionality of hearing instruments, TLPS could interfere with Bluetooth LE advertising channels, HIA said. In a statement Tuesday, Globalstar said Bluetooth representatives taking part in TLPS demonstrations early this year at the FCC's Technology Experience Center "proved that our operations on Channel 14 have no perceptible impact on Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids. While everyone who attended those demonstrations heard it for themselves, unfortunately, the Bluetooth representatives have decided not to share their data, including the audio files, to either the Commission or Globalstar." TLPS critics have been especially busy lobbying in recent days with numerous ex parte meetings (see 1512140046). In its own ex parte filing posted Tuesday, Globalstar said its general counsel held meetings with a Wheeler staffer and a representative of Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to argue for TLPS approval. In its filing, Globalstar said it reiterated the benefits of TLPS as shown in demonstrations at the Technology Experience Center and the FCC's Maryland lab, and in pilot tests at a university in Chicago and at the Washington School for Girls in the District of Columbia. It also said it "has made it a priority to meet with interested parties in an effort to find common ground on key issues," saying it "enjoyed a productive dialog with the public interest community." But Globalstar said "discussions with corporate entities and special interest groups have been far less productive [because they're] composed of and controlled by corporations with the incentive to maintain the status quo and stifle innovative uses of the ISM [industrial, scientific and medical] band regardless of the demonstrated benefits to consumers."
The FCC should extend the short-form application deadline for the incentive auction to allow several Class A stations waiting for a verdict on their petitions of reconsideration to participate, said an emergency motion for stay filed by Abacus Television, WMTM and The Videohouse, known collectively as movants. The FCC should “extend the deadline for Movants to file applications to participate in the reverse auction pending the Commission’s disposition of the Reconsideration Petition (and any judicial review thereof),” the motion said. The recon petition was filed against the incentive auction order on reconsideration that barred the broadcasters from participating because they hadn't met a 2012 deadline for Class A stations to be auction eligible, the motion said. Alternatively, the FCC could allow the broadcasters to file to participate pending a decision on the recon petition, the motion said.