The FTC doesn’t intend to weaken Obama-era changes to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, Commissioner Christine Wilson said Monday at the agency’s COPPA workshop. Republican colleague Noah Phillips defended the innovation and economic growth spurred by the rule. The agency’s COPPA review (see 1910040026) isn’t an attempt to roll back 2013 changes to the children’s online privacy rule, and the FTC knows protecting innovation can’t be done at the expense of children, Wilson said. The agency wants to make sure COPPA keeps pace with online technology, she said, citing modern data collection methods and ways children interact with media.
LAUREL, Md. -- Researchers told IEEE Monday the move to 5G has big implications for first responders, and challenges. “The conversation now is not what is 5G but what can we do with 5G,” said Sanyogita Shamsunder, Verizon vice president-5G labs and innovation. A top DOD speaker said the military wants to speed its adoption of 5G.
Industry and consumer group officials continued hoping Monday that lawmakers will reach a bipartisan compromise on net neutrality legislation, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Mozilla v. FCC last week upheld parts of the FCC 2018 order rolling back 2015 reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II (see 1910010018). They didn't stray during a Congressional Internet Caucus Academy event from their longstanding belief that a final statute either should or shouldn't have a basis in Title II and mirror the rescinded 2015 net neutrality rules (see 1910010044).
Crafting its to-do list for beefing up cybersecurity in commercial space, one Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center priority may be creating a space cybersecurity maturity model akin to a readiness rating for securing information, Space ISAC Vice President-Operations Erin Miller told us. The ISAC was unveiled this spring and hosted a GPS threats webinar in May. It aims to be fully operational next month at its first board meeting, Miller said.
A bipartisan group of senators warned the FTC not to weaken children’s online privacy protections as it reviews the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The agency’s “failure now and in recent years to fully enforce COPPA compliance has us concerned that an update at this time could diminish children and parents’ control of their data or otherwise weaken existing privacy protections,” wrote Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; Josh Hawley, R-Mo.; and Marsha Blackburn, R-S.C., Thursday: “Now is not the time to pull back.”
The FCC has to challenge California and other state net neutrality rules, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s ruling last week, to keep the internet from being shaped by “the lowest common denominator,” said Commissioner Mike O’Rielly on the C-Span’s The Communicators taped hours after the ruling Tuesday. The episode was scheduled to have been shown Saturday. O’Rielly also discussed 5G, media ownership and FCC pre-emption of state and local rules to promote nationwide deployment of broadband infrastructure. “Saying that a particular boundary of a state which may have been decided decades or hundreds of years ago based on geography or some military conflict ... it’s just artificial,” O’Rielly said.
A declaratory ruling prohibiting charging higher 911 fees for VoIP subscribers than for legacy phone services circulated on the 8th floor Wednesday. It would resolve jurisdiction issues over such fees, says the FCC draft Friday on docket 19-44. Also released for the Oct. 25 meeting were a draft cable TV effective competition order for parts of Massachusetts and Hawaii, the 800 MHz rebanding draft order, a draft NPRM for removing broadcast antenna siting rules that don’t appear to have ever been successfully used, a draft order on measuring broadband performance of Connect America Fund recipients and a draft order regarding telecom tariffs (see 1910030061).
Competitors and consumer advocates in interviews hoped Northwest Fiber’s buy of Frontier Communications wireline, video and long-distance operations in four states will lead to better rural broadband. Oregon and Montana intervenors listed grievances with Frontier. They haven’t formally supported or opposed the acquisitions, with regulatory reviews early on. State and federal review timelines stretch into early next year.
In a change experts told us could benefit the C-Band Alliance plan, growing conventional wisdom is the FCC is getting comfortable with a private auction, rather than running one itself. Commissioners approved 5-0 with little discussion at their August meeting (see 1908010011) “experimental” auction of more than 17,000 numbers in the recently opened 833 toll-free code. That could provide additional insights on how well such a sale would work. That auction will be in December, run by toll-free numbering administrator Somos.
MVPDs tacked on fees adding $450 to the average customer’s annual subscription, said a Thursday Consumer Reports analysis of nearly 800 bills from 13 U.S. providers last year.