On November 3, 2005, the Senate passed the conference version of H.R. 2744, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006 (Act). The House passed the same conference version of H.R. 2744 on October 28, 2005.
Online shopping portals selling movies and computer games in Germany must adhere to a set of strict regulatory provisions aimed at protecting minors from harmful content, under new rules to be published soon. In a document agreed upon by German authorities for the protection of minors in the 16 German states, online mail order sellers must verify the age of online customers ordering movies or computer games rated “over eighteen” by a face-to-face-check before accepting the order and a 2nd time for delivery.
A possible push by Commerce Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) for cable indecency rules raises a host of First Amendment concerns because it could curtail cultural expression, said First Amendment lawyers, industry attorneys and other experts. After many calls by lawmakers for family friendly measures, cable is being targeted by the influential senator, sources have said (CD Nov 7 p12). Children’s and family programming tiers, and more drastic measures like applying indecency standards to cable, would probably overstep constitutional bounds, experts said.
ANNAPOLIS -- The ITU and its World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC), scheduled to convene next in 2007, should be refocused to better address the needs of industry for direction in some areas, while avoiding other areas where an extended WRC debate would do little good, said Mike Goddard, dir.-spectrum policy & international for the U.K.’s Ofcom and a leading candidate to chair the 2007 meeting. Veena Rawat, chmn. of the 2003 WRC, agreed, telling a Defense Spectrum Summit dinner Thurs. night that WRC must change to take into account industry convergence.
The Assn. of National Advertisers (ANA) filed a notice of intent to intervene in Viacom’s petition to the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C. to throw out the FCC’s new rules on restricting on- and offline ads on children’s programs. The rules take effect Jan. 1. ANA participated in the Commission’s rulemaking on the issue. ANA said the case will “significantly” after ANA members’ ability to advertise during children’s programs. The new rules substantially depart from long-standing FCC practice by expanding the definition of commercial matter for program promotions, unless the promotion is for educational and informational programming, the notice said. This would further limit the inventory of ad time available during children’s programming and affect the economic interests of advertisers, ANA said. ANA has also taken issue with the rules’ restrictions on website ads that could force expensive redesigns of websites aimed at youths. That could raise ad prices, said Dan Jaffe, ANA exec. vp-govt. relations. Some broadcasters display URLs during children’s programs, such as with crawls at the bottom of the screen. The rules would allow the display if the website offers substantial program-related material and other noncommercial content. The site can’t contain any commercial material, including links to other pages with commercial content. The rules violate the Administrative Procedure Act and raise constitutional problems, Jaffe said: The rules don’t regulate children’s programming so much as it regulates website content, and there are serious questions whether the Commission has authority under the Children’s TV Act to take such action. These rules would require advertisers to modify their commercial speech and business practices, ANA said.
LAS VEGAS -- With new technologies increasingly clashing with traditional regulatory policy, there could be a “train wreck” soon for programs like universal service, panelists from Wall Street, Congress and academia warned Mon. at the Telecom ‘05 show here Mon. New technology offered by companies such as Microsoft and Google will change the landscape, they said.
Legislation requiring every govt. credit card bill to be posted online within 15 days of its use was introduced Thurs. by Rep. Poe (R-Tex.). Under the Govt. Credit Card Sunshine Act, records would be posted on agency Inspector Gen. (IG) websites and employees whose credit card abuse is more than $500 would face immediate dismissal, be forced to repay the bill, and in some cases, return the items purchased.
FCC acted on at least 8 licenses up for renewal, finding children’s TV programming obligation violations. But all the licenses were renewed. P.D. Communications, licensee of WVAG (Ch. 44, UPN) Valdosta, Ga., drew a $10,000 fine for violating FCC rules requiring reports and records concerning children’s programming commercial limits and TV program lists. The FCC said kid files were missing from the public file back to June 2003 and that the station didn’t learn this until it prepared a renewal application. The FCC granted license renewals for 7 stations owned by Libco Inc. even though they either failed to publicize the existence of children’s programming reports or in “isolated instances” exceeded kid’s TV commercial curbs. The FCC said granting the renewals was in the public interest. .HEADLINE
Real harm has followed attacks on critical infrastructure in the U.S. and the problem worsening, SANS Institute Research Dir. Alan Paller told lawmakers Tues. He cited examples of govt. breaches, warning that Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system defenses “can no longer be counted on to stop the attacks.” Terrorists, ever more skilled at hacking for profit, can be expected to add cyber extortion to their crimes, he told the House Homeland Security Committee infrastructure protection panel.
News Corp. raised its cash bid for RealEstate.com.au, an Australian property-listings site, to about $113.3 million from $90.8 million, Reuters reported. The site’s directors told shareholders not to act until they weigh in. News Corp. already owns 43.7% of the site; the $1.88 per share bid would apply to the remaining 56.3% of the site, among the top 20 Australian sites for traffic.