May 2012

A controversial bill that would ban state agencies from regulating telephones that use Internet connections passed a California state Senate committee after the measure's author accepted amendments that would strengthen some consumer protections.

The proposal by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) is backed by AT&T, Verizon Communications, and cable and high-tech companies. They contend they need "certainty" that the California Public Utilities Commission will not try to oversee the Internet and phone companies that transmit voice signals over fiber optic lines. AT&T was the fifth-largest contributor to Padilla's campaign coffers with $23,900 from 2007 through 2010, according to nonpartisan political data firm MapLight. In all, Padilla received $69,644 from telecommunications services and equipment interests during that period. The suggested amendments, presented by Padilla at a hearing May 24 of the Senate Appropriations Committee, are designed to assuage the fears of PUC members that they'll be stripped of the few powers they still have to protect voice-over-Internet telephone customers. The new wording, which has not been legally drafted, ensures that Padilla's bill "will not be misinterpreted as going back on any existing consumer protection," he said. No changes will occur to laws that require telephone companies to guarantee service anywhere in California, provide subsidized basic services to low-income customers and maintain a 911 emergency network. The latest proposal also would empower PUC staff to take informal actions to resolve consumer complaints about voice-over-Internet billing or quality problems, Padilla said.

[Commentary] As part of its campaign to persuade broadcast television stations not to run third-party political attacks ads filled with distortion and flat-out falsehoods, the Annenberg Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania hosted a conference in Washington that thoroughly covered the trouble many political advertisers have with telling the truth and what obligations TV stations have to keep things honest.

Annenberg is targeting stations because they run most of TV's political ads and because they do have ample discretion to reject third-party ads from interest groups, super PACs and the like. (Federal law requires stations to run ads from candidates just as they receive them.) To "help" stations, Annenberg is alerting them to ads that it has found to be far more fiction than fact. It is also trying to enlist viewers to pressure stations to bounce the ads. When I first wrote about the effort in March, I cautioned stations against relying on the work of Annenberg or any of the news organizations that have gotten into the political fact-checking business — Tampa Bay Times (PolitiFact), The Washington Post and the Associated Press. But I also said that stations do have the responsibility to make sure that third-party ads have some relation to reality. Using the other fact checkers as tip sheets, TV reporters ought to analyze ads themselves and air the results, and general managers ought to toss the worst of them. That's asking a lot, I know. No station wants to turn down business, and no station wants to become enmeshed in partisan politics around election time. Rejected advertisers are apt to charge that stations are favoring the opposition. But having attended the Annenberg conference and moderated one of the panels, I feel more strongly about my advice.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that Austin Schlick will step down as General Counsel, effective mid-June. Sean Lev, currently Deputy General Counsel and Special Advisor to the Chairman, will become General Counsel.

Lev came to the FCC from the Department of Energy (DOE), where he served as the Acting General Counsel and Deputy General Counsel for Environment and Nuclear Programs. Before joining DOE in June 2009, Mr. Lev was a partner at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, where his practice focused on telecommunications, administrative law, and appellate and general litigation. He was also an attorney on the Appellate Staff in the Civil Division at the United States Department of Justice. Prior to his service at DOJ, Mr. Lev clerked for the Honorable Patricia M. Wald of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was a Supervising Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He is also a magna cum laude graduate of Williams College.

In this Public Notice, the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, and Office of General Counsel jointly solicit comments regarding the privacy and datasecurity practices of mobile wireless service providers with respect to customer information stored on their users’ mobile communications devices, and the application of existing privacy and security requirements to that information.

Since the Commission last solicited public input on this question five years ago, technologies and business practices have evolved dramatically. The devices consumers use to access mobile wireless networks have become more sophisticated and powerful, and their expanded capabilities have at times been used by wireless providers to collect information about particular customers’ use of the network -- sometimes, it appears, without informing the customer. Service providers’ collection and use of this information may be a legitimate and effective way to improve the quality of wireless services. At the same time, the collection, transmission, and storage of this customer-specific network information raise new privacy and security concerns.