The FTC could face congressional action to limit the agency’s power if it brings an antitrust suit against Google, Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., said in a letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz dated Oct. 9 and released Monday. Polis, who wrote about his experience with Google “as a high-tech entrepreneur” who “founded several technology startups” including ProFlowers.com, praised the company for having “democraticized access to information” and “helped businesses tap new markets and new customers.” Given the lack of consumer complaints about Google and the massive backlash Congress saw during the debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act, Polis wrote, “the FTC should tread carefully when reviewing Google, Facebook, Twitter or any other tech company, given the dynamism of our tech industry and the potential for making things worse through regulation.” The FTC had no comment on the letter. TechFreedom President Berin Szoka told us by email that Congress could attempt to limit the agency’s power in pursuing antitrust cases. “It’s not hard to imagine Congress writing narrowly targeted legislation to require that the FTC meet the requirements of the core antitrust laws, rather than trying to invent its own authority through Section 5,” of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits unfair and deceptive practices, he said. “Such a bill should attract bipartisan support from Members who understand that this case is much less about Google in particular than it is about how antitrust will be used to micromanage the Internet in the future,” Szoka said. Congress could create an “FTC Process Reform Act,” Szoka said, similar to the FCC Process Reform Act that passes the House in March. An FTC version could include reforms such as the reinstatement of the agency’s Policy Statement on Monetary Equitable Remedies in Competition Cases, he said -- a 2003 policy that limited the monetary penalties the FTC can impose, which was withdrawn in July.
Absolute has asked to cancel domestic telecom service in Arkansas, the state’s public service commission said Monday in its filing system. Florida-based Absolute Home Phones plans to “discontinue its provision of selected domestic telecommunications within the Company’s service territory -- specifically, prepaid local exchange and long distance services that the Company currently provides to customers on a resale basis in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina and Tennessee, using AT&T as its underlying carrier,” the company had told the FCC earlier this month,said a filing the Arkansas Public Service attached with its Monday notice (http://xrl.us/bnucjs). It is “no longer feasible” due to “changing market conditions,” Absolute said. Service will end Dec. 6, according to the company.
NASA partner United Launch Alliance completed the fifth and final milestone for its commercial crew development round 2 agreement with the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Technical experts from NASA and ULA assessed the alliance’s design implementation plans, detailed system and sub-system analysis, qualification, certification and flight data, NASA said (http://xrl.us/bnuckx).
The start of an FCC administrative law judge’s hearings on a program carriage complaint by the Game Show Network against Cablevision was delayed almost two months to March 19, as the independent programmer and cable operator sought from Chief ALJ Richard Sippel (CD Oct 12 p16). Document production ends Friday, discovery ends Feb. 1, and trial briefs are to be exchanged March 1, Sippel said in an order Monday in docket 12-122 (http://xrl.us/bnucix). The hearings are set to begin each day at 9:30 a.m., except March 19 when it begins at 10 a.m.
The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) created the Data-Driven Marketing Institute. The institute will do research about data-driven marketing practices in the hopes of educating the public and avoiding needless regulation, said the institute’s website (http://xrl.us/bnucn3). “There seems to be a lot of fearmongering out there that is just inaccurate,” DMA CEO Linda Woolley said during a news conference Monday. “It’s time to correct these mischaracterizations.” The DMA hopes to contribute at least $1 million to the institute, Woolley said. The initiative was inspired by events over the last six months, including two congressional investigations and “wild statements out of the FTC,” including Chairman Jon Leibowitz saying that buying a deep fryer online could affect a person’s ability to get health insurance, she said. Such examples “don’t make any sense, and they're absolutely not happening,” Woolley said. The institute hopes to combat such statements through, “first and foremost,” research on the economic impact of and consumer attitudes toward data-driven marketing, and then through consumer education on what data-driven marketing is and how consumers can choose to share their information, she said. “An educated consumer really is our best customer.” Woolley predicted the research will indicate that consumers generally understand the tradeoffs of data-driven marketing and are happy to make those tradeoffs to gain the benefits of targeted advertising. “Everybody’s concerned about privacy” as a general issue, she said when asked about the prevalence of privacy concerns. If people were really concerned about their privacy, “you would see them voting with their feet” by discontinuing use of devices and services that collect their information, and lobbying their representatives for increased consumer protections, she said. That’s not happening, she said: “People aren’t marching on Congress,” and consumers continue to use the technologies that collect their data. “There is a line” between data practices that are not intrusive and those that are, she said, and, as an advertiser, “you don’t want to be in that creepy zone.” In the U.S. market, advertisers learn from each others’ mistakes and avoid data-driven marketing practices deemed “creepy” by consumers, she said, so the marketplace “corrects for those things instantly.”
The FCC Wireless Bureau Monday approved a settlement resolving mutually exclusive applications for 2.3 GHz Wireless Communications Service authorizations currently held or to be acquired by AT&T, and also dismissed all competing applications filed against AT&T’s current WCS authorizations. The dispute over the licenses started in 2007 when the competing applications were filed, and “continued in earnest until May 2010, when the Commission commenced a rulemaking to adopt consistent requirements for the renewal of Wireless Radio Services licenses,” the order said (http://xrl.us/bnucga). “We have reviewed the Settlement Agreement and find that our approval will serve the public interest by reducing the uncertainty cast over the WCS band by the long-pending Competing Applications,” the bureau said. “Reducing that uncertainty will further the public interest by removing an obstacle to the significant capital investment needed to deploy valuable, next-generation broadband services to the American public in the WCS band."
The FCC can improve digital literacy without investing significant funds by adopting a two-pronged approach, Tom Sloan (R), a Kansas state representative, told the commission in a filing on “Digital Literacy Thoughts” (http://xrl.us/bnucfd). First, the FCC could require telecom companies receiving Connect America Fund money to detail their prospective marketing to address the “digital illiteracy” of “hard to convince” prospective customers, he said. Second, in addition to supporting the cable industry’s “Connect to Compete” project, the FCC could facilitate development of a technology-neutral “Connect to Succeed” program that could be supported by wire, fiber, wireless and satellite providers, Sloan said. That would increase the number of potential “salespersons” reaching out to currently unconnected people, he said. Sloan is a member of the FCC’s Intergovernmental Advisory Committee, which provides guidance to the commission on issues of importance to state, local and tribal governments.
The FCC asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a lower court’s ruling against a homeowners association (HOA) and communications service contractor M.C. Dean being allowed to exclusively sell broadband, phone and video service to the association, for the Lansdowne on the Potomac development in Loudoun County, Va. U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., had ruled against exclusive seller OpenBand’s arrangement with the association, saying it violated an FCC order against such exclusive deals. “As the district court found, that is precisely the type of anti-competitive arrangement forbidden by the Exclusivity Order” barring such deals in 2007 (CD Nov 1/07 p2), the agency said last week (http://xrl.us/bnuchb). “This is true even though the exclusivity is effected in part by an easement, because the Commission clearly intended to reach easements with its Order.” The association’s appeal of the district court’s 2012 decision on OpenBand v. Lansdowne on the Potomac HOA is 4th Circuit docket 12-1925.
Correction: The FCC International Bureau’s operational authorization to Intelsat 27 didn’t include the 243.52-268.16 MHz band (CD Oct 15 p15).
Margaret Virginia Yeomans Warren, 90, wife of the late longtime Warren Communications News owner and publisher Albert Warren and herself a former board member of the company, died Thursday after a brief illness. She was also the mother of current WCN owners Paul and Daniel Warren, and grandmother of Timothy Warren, managing editor of WCN’s International Trade Today. Ms. Warren had been a nursing educator and registered nurse for some 60 years, and was a professor of nursing at Prince George’s Community College and was on the faculty of the Washington Technical Institute. She also worked as an RN at various Washington-area hospitals. She had also been a part-time antique dealer, specializing in 19th-century American items, and was active with Zacchaeus Community Kitchen, The Washington Middle School for Girls, the Montgomery County Thrift Shop, Meals on Wheels, and the Chevy Chase Library. She is survived by six children, 14 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Calling hours will be 5-7 p.m. Oct. 26 at Gawler’s Funeral Home, 5130 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, and a Memorial Mass will be offered at 11 a.m. Oct. 27 at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, 3630 Quesada St. NW, Washington. Burial at Arlington Cemetery will be on a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in the name of Margaret Warren to Washington Middle School for Girls, 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE, Washington, DC 20020, or Planned Parenthood, 1108 16th St. NW, Washington, DC 20036.