December 2011

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski defended the FCC staff report that concluded AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile was not in the public interest.

In a press conference following the FCC's December public meeting about AT&T's characterization of the report as an "unsupported piece of advocacy work," Chairman Genachowski laughed, and said it was "strong, fact-based work" based on a record of "thousands and thousands" of pages of submissions from various parties and many meetings. "The staff did excellent work," he said. The chairman said the FCC is always addressing issues on which parties disagree, but its job was to focus on the facts and "make its best judgment about what meets our statutory objectives..." He did not comment on why the FCC lowered the so-called spectrum screen -- the amount of a merger's resulting spectrum consolidation in a geographic market that triggers further review -- for the AT&T deal. But he did say all the staffs work was based on the facts and FCC procedures. "We did our work consistent with the statute to focus on facts and run a fair process."

Verizon's reported decision to block Google Wallet is a “textbook example of anti-competitive behavior,” advocacy group Free Press said in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission.

Free Press also says that Verizon's blocking of Google's new mobile payment system would violate terms the telecom agreed to when it licensed the portion of the spectrum it uses for 4G service. When Verizon acquired the license for that spectrum, the company promised to refrain from limiting or restricting applications. “According to the facts available at this time, it seems that Verizon Wireless likely is abusing its gatekeeper control over a substantial percentage of the national market for mobile Internet users in order to block a third-party competitor,” Free Press argues in its letter to FCC Chair Julius Genachowski. “Verizon Wireless must not be allowed to continue to engage in rampantly anti-competitive, anti-consumer, anti-innovation blocking of applications, including third-party tethering and mobile payment applications, in violation of its license obligations -- and in violation of the spirit if not the letter of its legal obligations under the Commissions Open Internet rules.” Free Press says Verizon's move is reminiscent of the company's step earlier this year to limit tethering. Verizon reportedly asked Google to limit people's ability to acquire tethering apps -- which allow people to use their smartphones to connect tablets or other devices to the Web. Google makes apps unavailable to people when carriers say the apps violate their terms of service. The move to limit tethering also spurred Free Press to complain to the FCC that Verizon was violating its license agreement for the 4G spectrum. The FCC is investigating that matter.

It’s been more than six years since the Authors Guild first sued Google for scanning books. Today, with a proposed settlement in tatters, the writers group took a fresh step to revive the case and move it towards a trial.

In a motion filed in New York federal court, the Authors Guild asked Judge Denny Chin to certify the class of authors suing Google. This is a common procedural step in any class action suit and amounts to plaintiffs asking the court’s permission to bring a lawsuit on behalf of everyone else in the same position (in this case, every US author whose copyrighted work has been scanned by Google). The difference with the lawsuit this time around is the absence of the publishers who, in 2006, had joined with the authors to stop Google. That is likely because the publishers, after the failure of the settlement, have begun to craft a series of bilateral deals with the search giant.

The maker of a fake driver's license app that was yanked from Apple's App Store this week has fired back, saying the free app was "specifically and deliberately designed ... to prevent the creation of counterfeit identification."

"By design, it would take more effort and expertise to modify the product of the DriversEd.com Driver License app than to construct a counterfeit from scratch," But DriversEd.com founder and chief operating officer Gary Tsifrin said. Rather than high-quality license replicas, he added, the app produces images at just 72 dpi, not suitable for printing. DriversEd.com said it used design elements in the app that "deliberately do not correspond to government-issued IDs." The licenses created "incorporate obvious layout differences, font and color discrepancies, and the words 'MOCK by DriversEd.com' in proximity to the word 'license,' while containing "none of the security features of a modern government-issued ID," the company said.