Forty members of the Consumer Electronics Association met with lawmakers Tuesday to advocate for patent-abuse prevention legislation and “common sense immigration policies,” said a CEA news release.
The Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board federal implementation workgroup provided some updates Monday of SSTGB subgroups’ work to flesh out elements of the Marketplace Fairness Act (HR-684, S-336). Groups had been assigned to survey states, provide guidelines and perform a legislative analysis related to the bill, among other goals. Richard Dobson, chairman of the implementation workgroup, said during a media briefing that the group will be developing additional research on a requirement in the legislation that would enable states to publish a notice of intent to gain tax collection authority for remote sales, such as through e-commerce. The issue is that different states will address the issue in different ways, whether it be from an administrative standpoint or a legislative standpoint, said Dobson. “We will work on that a little bit more,” he said. “We want to come back with guidelines.” The group also discussed a provision that would permit providers to file aggregated tax reports. The provision, not included in the latest federal bill, could simplify compliance procedures for remote sellers, said Treasurer Charles Collins of Taxware, which calls itself the leading provider of automated-transaction tax products. “We don’t think everyone will use it but it provides us with an option to keep it simple.” The group’s next meeting date hasn’t been disclosed.
Lakeshore Communications, Penfold Communications and other FM translator applicants de-selected their noncommercial educational status to apply for commercial FM translator stations. The entities are applying for commercial translators in FCC Auction 83, they said in separate filings. Evangel Ministries and the Foundation for Creative Broadcasting also elected commercial status for their FM translator facilities.
Time Warner Cable said it let its iOS app users watch some VOD and live programming outside the home when accessed through a Wi-Fi connection. “We were the first provider to bring television to the iPad in the home … the release of this TWC TV update is the next natural step towards our goal of giving customers even more of the content they love on every screen,” said Mike Angus, TWC senior vice president-video. Live networks that can be viewed out of the home include the TV Guide Network, GMC, Pac-12 Network, FearNet, BBC America and Aspire. Live, out-of-home viewing for the Big Ten Network, Fox News Channel and Fox Business is pending, according to TWC’s website.
Dish Network’s proposal to buy Sprint Nextel (CD April 16 p1) faces regulatory hurdles beyond those faced by a SoftBank buy of the nation’s No. 3 carrier, said Jeff Silva, analyst at Medley Global Advisors, in a research note. Silva said most of the needed regulatory approvals for SoftBank/Sprint are nearly complete. “While antitrust implications of a Dish-Sprint deal would be minimal [at] best and no foreign ownership/national security issues overlaid, there nonetheless is a regulatory risk of sorts with respect to having to begin anew a government review process at a time when Verizon and AT&T already have leads over Sprint in 4G LTE deployment in the US,” he said. “In addition to the time component if a Dish-Sprint deal were put before the FCC and [Justice Department], there is a question of the regulatory environment in which such a transaction would play out. Put another way, we're not sure [Dish] Chairman Charlie Ergen made any friends at the FCC during the FCC rulemaking to repurpose 2 GHz (S band) mobile satellite service spectrum for mobile phone operations. Such things are not supposed to matter in a policy context, but sometimes they can."
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who’s leaving the agency, faces a natural inflection point Thursday, the date of the next FCC meeting and also the day orders are to circulate for the planned May 9 meeting, FCC and industry officials said this week. Genachowski has to decide whether to circulate items for a vote or put the meeting date off, officials said. Genachowski announced March 22 he was leaving the agency, but has yet to unveil his departure date (CD March 25 p1). Meanwhile, Commissioner Robert McDowell, who stopped voting on items before the agency as of last Monday, is not expected to attend Thursday’s meeting as he works through the various administrative things a federal commissioner has to do before leaving office, an FCC official said. Genachowski announced he appointed his wireline adviser, Michael Steffen, director of digital learning, “to lead the FCC’s work within the agency and across government, public, and private partners to modernize broadband infrastructure in U.S. schools and libraries and expand access to the opportunities of digital technologies for America’s teachers, students, and parents.” Steffen has been at the FCC since 2009 (http://bit.ly/YQLlZG).
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) said overall Q4 2012 digital ad sales increased 14.9 percent from a year earlier to $10.3 billion. The IAB’s ad revenue report (http://bit.ly/1wBP0H) said Q4 2012 was the first quarter ever with more than $10 billion in digital ad revenue. Ads in “Mobile, in particular, soared due to its ubiquity and intrinsic ability to serve as a powerful digital dashboard that travels with you from the morning commute to nighttime video viewing and beyond,” said IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg. Retail, typically the largest category of Internet ad spending, generated 20 percent of ads in 2012, the report said. Financial services advertisers followed with 13 percent. The combination of personalization and location that smartphones bring will make them even more appealing to marketers in coming years, said David Silverman, a partner at PricewaterhouseCooper, which did the report for IAB.
Groups representing the deaf and hard of hearing community urged the FCC to dismiss petitions from religious and other broadcasters asking to be exempt from closed captioning rules. The petitions “each fail to sufficiently demonstrate that compliance with closed captioning rules would be economically burdensome,” Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, National Association of the Deaf and others said in a joint opposition in docket 06-181 (http://bit.ly/Z0QMnN). Kellogg Street Productions, Clinton, N.Y., doesn’t appear to provide detailed statements of its financial information, the filing said. Anglers for Christ Ministries, Morristown, Tenn., and First Assembly of God-Jonesboro in Arkansas, don’t appear “to offer a tenable explanation of how they are able to shoulder the ongoing costs of creating and distributing their programming but not the cost of closed captions,” it said.
Privacy protection is “mission critical” at the FTC, Commissioner Julie Brill told the Mentor Group Forum for EU-US Legal-Economic Affairs in Brussels, according to a copy of her remarks (http://1.usa.gov/YQKEiN). The address played up the common aspects of European and U.S. privacy policies. She said a draft EU privacy regulation reflects common ground with the U.S. on many key issues such as promoting privacy by design, protecting kids’ privacy, strengthening data security and giving consumers appropriate access correction and deletion rights to their information. “The particular solutions we develop may differ, but the challenges we face and our desire to solve them are the same,” she said. But cross-border data transfers is an area where U.S. and EU policies diverge, she said. “I know there are many who believe the gap between the EU and U.S. privacy regimes is growing,” she said. “Although the U.S. may for historic reasons approach privacy through our different legal tradition -- one that uses a framework approach, backed up by strong enforcement -- I believe this approach achieves many of the same goals as those embraced by EU data protection authorities."
Consumers Union sent letters to the FCC commissioners and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Tuesday urging further action to override a Jan. 26 ruling by the Copyright Office that effectively made it illegal to unlock new phones (http://1.usa.gov/ZaI6qS). “We have been very concerned that, as a result of the Copyright Office’s decision, the practice of unlocking is no longer protected, and now could be deemed a violation of copyright law, potentially subjecting consumers even to criminal prosecution,” the letters said. “In our view, consumers should be able use the mobile devices they have purchased as they see fit. For example, they should be permitted, where feasible, to adapt their mobile device for use abroad with a foreign carrier. They should be permitted to sell or give a mobile device they own to someone else, to be adapted for use with the carrier of the new owner’s choice. And they should be able to obtain an unlocked mobile device themselves, and adapt it for use with the carrier of their choice. All of these uses make sense for consumers, and all should be legal and available.” Legislation was introduced in the House and Senate last month making it possible for consumers to unlock their phones and not face fines or prison. The letters were signed by George Solver, CU’s senior policy counsel.