The U.S. government will be able to protect privacy even as it moves forward with cybersecurity protections, said Jane Holl Lute, deputy secretary of Homeland Security. “Only Facebook really knows everybody’s birthday,” she said at an event Friday sponsored by Google and Bloomberg. “So when we talk about this, we are really entering into a new era of our information, ownership, we're thinking every day about how to operate, how to keep this country safe, secure, and resilient, while protecting and preserving your rights.” Lute cited the Transportation Security Administration’s wide-reaching security efforts to show that the administration has demonstrated it can protect people’s personal and private information. “In the past 10 years, more people have moved through the systems of TSA than there are on the planet,” Lute said. “More than 7 billion people have moved through security systems of TSA, and we have not had one privacy incident. Not one. We can protect your information.” Cybersecurity is an area the administration spends a lot of time on, Lute said. Although governments don’t have the same latitude in cybersecurity they do in traditional security, Lute said, the U.S. government will continue to act to ensure the safety of its citizens. “Governments own security space. But that’s not necessarily true in cyber,” she said. “That has not been how the Internet has evolved, spontaneously and organically over the past couple of years. That assignment has not been given to government. But this government is not standing still. There are threats posed to this society in cyberspace, and we are taking action to play a role in ensuring that … we can build the nation’s finest cybereconomy and that we have cybersecurity for all. That’s what you're seeing play out in the executive order.” President Barack Obama signed an executive order on cybersecurity earlier this year (CD Feb 14 p1).
Allband pressed its case for a 15-year waiver of USF support caps, in meetings Wednesday with FCC officials. Allband already has a 3-year waiver, granted in July by the Wireline Bureau (CD July 27 p6). The bureau had asked Allband to take “all reasonable steps” to meet the $250 per-line per-month cap on USF support, but that’s simply not possible, Allband told aides to commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai. “Even unrealistic steps to reduce costs and increase revenues will not allow Allband to meet the $250 cap” by the time its waiver expires on July 1, 2015, the rural Michigan telco said (http://bit.ly/15Y97pw). That’s why Allband asked for a 12-year extension in August (CD Aug 27 p1), which would let it repay its Rural Utilities Service loan, the telco said. If the application isn’t granted, Allband will require a new waiver in 2014, which will cost at least $50,000 to put together, it said. That kind of expenditure is “inefficient and unnecessary when it is clear that no action Allband can take will allow it to meet the $250 cap,” it said. Allband also took issue with the Wireline Bureau’s dismissal of its request for a waiver of the regression caps on high-cost loop support. The bureau had said the request was moot because Allband would not be affected by the caps, but “the current regression caps do impact Allband,” the telco said. The company “may be able to absorb the 2013 impacts,” but not the 2014 impacts, it said. “As a consequence, Allband will, by 2014 be unable to pay the full amount of its RUS loan obligation, and voice service along with all services provided by Allband will be in jeopardy.”
Passing California Senate Bill 740 would help close the state’s digital divide, argued Mike Dozier, executive director of the Office of Community and Economic Development at Fresno State, in a Fresno Bee op-ed (http://bit.ly/ZN0iLb). The legislation “essentially would provide the final piece of a 10-year deployment strategy by giving the state Public Utilities Commission more flexibility to fund private and nonprofit providers that have viable plans to bring broadband to hard-to-reach populations and households,” he wrote in the Thursday piece. The bill is up for a hearing before the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee Tuesday.
Dish Network Chairman Charles Ergen called FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Wednesday to ask him to hold off on a decision on SoftBank’s buy of Sprint Nextel while Dish’s offer is still on the table, said a Dish filing. “DISH discussed its request for the Commission to hold the above captioned proceeding in abeyance in light of DISH’s April 15, 2013 merger proposal to the Board of Directors of Sprint for a total cash and stock consideration of $25.5 billion,” said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/13Ad5AH). “The DISH merger proposal is a real and substantial offer to which the Sprint Board of Directors must give all due consideration, as it is better for American consumers, better for Sprint shareholders, and better for U.S. national security than the SoftBank proposal.” Friday was the 147th day of the FCC’s review of SoftBank/Sprint. The agency tries to act on such transactions within 180 days.
Verizon supports an amendment to the Marketplace Fairness Act, S-743, offered by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., that would “prevent consumers from facing duplicative and discriminatory taxes” on online purchases, said Senior Vice President-Federal Government Relations Peter Davidson in a statement last week. The amendment, introduced last week, would prevent discriminatory taxes on the sale of online goods and services and would identify the single tax jurisdiction that can tax an online transaction. “We believe Senator Thune’s amendment clearly benefits consumers by banning discriminatory taxes from being levied on digital goods and services and by precluding multiple states or jurisdictions from imposing taxes on the same digital transaction,” Davidson said. “Consumers using the Internet for these purchases are currently vulnerable to multiple and discriminatory taxation, and it is critical that Congress step in now to modernize Internet tax policy to address this urgent problem."
Cox Communications asked members of FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai’s staff to reject an American Cable Association proposal that would limit participation in cable channel buying groups to pay-TV companies with less than 3 million subscribers, said an ex-parte letter filed Friday. “Buying group reform could help, but the proposed ’safe harbor’ [the ACA proposal] threatens to worsen pricing imbalances,” said Cox. The company has made similar arguments to the Media Bureau (CD April 8 p17). “The Commission should not adopt the three million subscriber ’safe harbor’ for presumptive buying group membership,” said the new filing (http://bit.ly/182fGH9).
For coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, local Boston viewers chose their local station news coverage over that of cable, TVB said in a press release (http://bit.ly/14WEQIs). On the day of the attack, from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., the ratings of local broadcasts viewed by adults age 25 to 54 were 535 percent higher than the cable news networks in Boston, it said. Throughout the week, local TV stations’ early news delivered an average 23.7 household, live-plus-same-day rating, “a striking 84 percent higher than the previous week,” it said. The April 19 coverage of the manhunt and apprehension of the remaining suspect resulted in home TV usage that was up as much as 115 percent compared to the same period from last year, TVB said. At least one station generated more than 72 million multiplatform page views on its website, it added.
The FCC denied an application for review and found Ely Radio liable for an $11,000 fine for violations concerning an antenna structure in Winnemucca, Nev. As former owner of antenna structure number 1005854, Ely Radio in Minnesota failed to ensure the structure “exhibited the required obstruction lighting” and failed to make sure its registration with the commission was appropriately updated “to reflect a change in ownership,” the commission said in an order (http://bit.ly/15XWxGN). The Enforcement Bureau reasonably determined that Ely was the antenna structure owner and, therefore, “was responsible for the violations at issue here,” it said. The commission also affirmed the Enforcement Bureau’s decision to deny Mt. Rushmore Broadcasting’s petition for reconsideration of a $17,500 forfeiture. Mt. Rushmore, of Casper, Wyo., failed to ensure the operational readiness of the emergency alert system equipment for two of its radio stations, didn’t maintain a complete public inspection file for those stations and failed to operate an aural studio-transmitter-link from its licensed location, the FCC said in an order (http://bit.ly/14lQiww).
The NAB asked the FCC to lift the freeze on full power and Class A station modification applications, in a meeting with aides to Commissioner Ajit Pai Wednesday, according to an ex parte filing with the commission Friday (http://bit.ly/182UCgM). In the meeting, NAB officials said the FCC had shown no compelling reason for the freeze, which was enacted April 5 (CD April 13 p5), and said the measure was having “dramatic consequences even beyond negative impacts on individual stations and viewers.” Citing an article in TV Technology, NAB said in the ex parte the freeze had caused companies like antenna maker Dielectric to cut jobs or leave the broadcast industry. “Not only does this affect the employment of a number of Americans, but it also puts out of business one of the companies most necessary to effectuating incentive auction repacking,” said the ex parte letter. “We therefore urge the Media Bureau to lift its freeze until it is able to examine, evaluate and explain the impact of the freeze on all pending and impending modification applications.” The NAB also spoke with Pai’s staff about recent FCC changes to the OET-69 methodology used to calculate interference for the incentive auction. As in a previous filing with the OET (CD April 23 p6), NAB said there was no proof that changes to the OET-69 TVStudy software made it more efficient, and asked the FCC to use the prior methodology for the spectrum auction. OET announced a minor update to the software Friday (http://bit.ly/17nepJh), fixing a technical glitch.
The FTC provided “a lot of guidance” for companies “to digest … before the rapidly-approaching deadline” on the updated Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act rule, scheduled to be implemented on July 1, said Covington and Burling privacy lawyers. The agency released an online FAQ about the new rule last week, amid calls to delay COPPA rule implementation from industry members (CD April 26 p17). “There has been some confusion in the industry that COPPA only applies to companies that target children,” said Covington’s Matt DelNero and Lindsey Tonsager in a written statement. “The FAQs make clear that because the new COPPA Rule covers device identifiers and a much wider range of information, a number of different backend service providers, including ad networks, analytics companies, and plugins, will be covered by the COPPA Rule for the first time."