More ad agencies are expected to adopt a ban on discrimination in choosing which of all print, broadcast and pay-TV and online media to select in buying ads for clients. Some agencies large and small are in the process of implementing guidelines issued Oct. 26 from the industry’s main association. Others are likely to sign onto the guidelines. Many agencies already have policies in place to bar discrimination in ad purchases, according to industry executives we interviewed about the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ guidelines (CD Oct 27 p8). The rules, adopted four years after the FCC banned radio and TV stations from accepting contract terms that bar ads from being shown to urban or to Hispanic audiences, don’t apply to advertisers.
The FCC Media Bureau largely denied a complaint filed by Media Council Hawai'i against Raycom and MCG Capital alleging their shared services agreements violated the FCC’s ownership rules. The bureau said the shared services and asset transfer agreements between Raycom, which owns KHNL-TV and KGMB-TV Honolulu and MCG, which owns KFVE-TV Honolulu don’t violate any ownership rules. But it left the door open to address whether the agreements are in the public interest when it considers license renewals. And the order acknowledged that the bureau will address the issue of shared services agreements in its quadrennial media ownership rule review (CD Nov 22 p8).
AT&T took issue with claims that the FCC can reject AT&T’s request to withdraw its application to take over T-Mobile. The company announced Thanksgiving morning that it had tucked away the $4 billion breakup fee for this quarter and told the FCC it was pulling its application back to focus on next February’s trial in federal court in D.C. (CD Nov 25 Bulletin).
Forcing ISPs to monitor all e-communications on their network to prevent digital piracy would seriously infringe their freedom to conduct their business and may also breach customers’ civil rights, the European Court of Justice said in a closely watched opinion November 24. National authorities and courts must strike a fair balance between protecting intellectual property rights and operators’ businesses, something the Belgian court order against ISP Scarlet failed to do, the court said. The decision will dramatically affect the national and European debate on online copyright infringement, said telecom/Internet independent advisor Innocenzo Genna.
While the government focuses heavily on finding a solution to toughen protections against adversaries in cyberspace, there are key issues in cyber defense that need to be a bigger part of the dialogue, said technology security experts and analysts in interviews. The threat from adversaries backed by some nation states and veering away from a strictly “perimeter defense” model should inform the path to a solution, they said. The gaps in understanding how to truly defend networks are due to the fact that it’s still a comparatively new issue, said Larry Clinton, Internet Security Alliance president. “You have the problem that the cybersecurity issue is rapidly evolving,” he said. Because of the shift in the nature of cyber attacks, the government and private sector “must alter how we think about cyber attacks."
A proposed decision by the FCC to send AT&T’s buy of T-Mobile to an administrative law judge is expected to put more pressure on AT&T to reach a settlement with the government, industry and government officials tell us. AT&T officials have a meeting set up with the Department of Justice Monday to discuss a possible settlement (CD Nov 23 p1). A meeting that had been scheduled for Monday of this week was cancelled at the last minute.
Google and Microsoft continue to take a different view than the MPAA on whose duty it ought to be to ensure subscription-video and broadcast TV programming is captioned when it’s sent online using Internet Protocol. The companies and the association reported in docket 11-154 (http://xrl.us/bmjc36) on meetings with staffers in the FCC bureaus working on an order to require such captions. Internet companies want the responsibility for ensuring traditional video programming is captioned when it goes online to lie with video program owners, while those representing VPOs, including the MPAA, want the responsibility to be with TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors.
The wait for rules on aeronautical mobile satellite services (AMSS) hasn’t particularly hurt the in-flight satellite broadband industry, executives said. But the FCC proceeding, which began in 2005, deserves to be wrapped up to give regulatory certainty for such services, they said. The International Bureau is largely finished writing the rules, said an executive.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski recommended Tuesday that AT&T’s proposed purchase of T-Mobile be set for hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ). Genachowski recommended in a second order that the FCC approve with conditions AT&T’s purchase of 700 MHz spectrum from Qualcomm. He circulated the orders Tuesday morning — three weeks before the Dec. 13 FCC meeting — though they won’t necessarily be subject to a public vote by commissioners at the meeting, an FCC official said.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski did not schedule a vote on broadband outage reporting requirements for the Dec. 13 meeting agenda, according to an announcement by the FCC late Tuesday. Instead of adopting mandatory outage reporting based on quality-of-service metrics (CD Nov 8 p1), the commission is now working on “voluntary” reporting requirements in the case of “hard down” broadband outages, according to telecom officials and an ex parte filing by AT&T. It’s unlikely that any order will be on the January agenda, either, telecom officials told us. FCC spokesman Neil Grace declined comment.