November 2014

Walking into Walker and Co. is like visiting any other local start-up. Workers toil away on huge Apple iMac computers at a long desk, as music beams from the other room. The huge difference: a diverse staff.

Walker and Co. is led by African-American Tristan Walker, and his team is full of men and women of color, not the white and Asian men who dominate most start-ups and major companies here. "We have a good way of finding the best talent, and they just happen to be people of color and women," Walker says. Walker and Co. is building a line of personal care products for people of color, tapping a vast potential market around the globe. Its first product is Bevel, shaving gear aimed at men of color on a subscription basis, starting at $59.99. Walker says a diverse workforce helps his company reach a diverse consumer base, giving him the competitive advantage over major Silicon Valley technology companies that employ mostly white and Asian men.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) praised the Federal Communications Commission’s ongoing AWS-3 spectrum auction. Spurred by provisions of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, the auction has already resulted in over $35 billion in revenue which will pay to upgrade and relocate existing government spectrum users, fully fund FirstNet, the nation’s first interoperable public safety broadband network, and provide $20 billion to meet deficit reduction goals.

“The FCC’s airwave auction has been a remarkable success – a boon for American taxpayers. To date, the auction has already raised enough money to cover the expenses to upgrade and relocate government spectrum users, pay for a nationwide first responder broadband network, and provide $20 billion to reduce the deficit,” said Chairman Upton. “Importantly, it has also proved that increased cooperation between the many parts of our government can result in better spectrum use, more resources to fuel the cutting-edge communications tools of the 21st century, and a return on investment for the American people.”

“Our bipartisan work with the Pentagon, FCC, and NTIA helped identify solutions to free this valuable spectrum without harming the Defense Department’s ability to train the men and women that work every day to keep Americans safe,” added Chairman Walden. “With the first-of-their-kind incentive auctions up next, the FCC has an opportunity to continue America’s leadership in wireless. We look forward to seeing the same level of dedication, cooperation, and ingenuity as the Commission works to bring broadcasters to the auction. Chairman Wheeler and the entire commission should be applauded for their work on this auction. Let’s build upon this success as we look toward the next auction in 2016.”

In a letter from the National Association of Attorneys General, thirty-nine Attorneys General writing “on behalf of the millions of Americans regularly receiving unwanted and harassing telemarketing calls,” ask the Federal Communications Commission for an opinion on three issues regarding telephone providers’ legal ability to implement call-blocking technology as a means of addressing unwanted telemarketing calls.

With this Public Notice, the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau seek comment on the issues raised by the Attorneys General. Specifically, the Attorneys General request a formal Commission opinion on three categories of questions:

1. What legal and/or regulatory prohibitions, if any, prevent telephone carriers from implementing call-blocking technology?4 Does the answer change if the telephone companies’ customers affirmatively “opt into” the call-blocking technology (either for a fee or as a free service)?
2. US Telecom claims that telephone carriers “can and do block harassing and annoying telephone traffic at their end-user customer’s request,” but only for a “discrete set of specific phone numbers.” At a customer’s request, can telephone carriers legally block certain types of calls (e.g., telemarketing calls) if technology is able to identify incoming calls as originating or probably originating from a telemarketer?
3. US Telecom describes the FCC’s position as “strict oversight in ensuring the unimpeded delivery of telecommunications traffic.” Is US Telecom’s characterization of the FCC’s position accurate? If so, upon what basis does the FCC claim that telephone carriers may not “block, choke, reduce or restrict telecommunications traffic in any way”?

[Commentary] Facebook, Google and a host of other companies have undoubtedly changed the way we interact with the Internet. This has given us the luxury of enjoying tons of free Web and mobile services. However, we need to remember that if we aren’t buying something from a site or app, we (or our personal data) are likely the product being sold. At the end of the day, almost no one can truly control the use of their own identity information — in exchange for these “free” services, our identities are being traded without us being a part of the value chain. The economies of the Internet have long been made viable by digital advertising enabling most free services to indeed be free. Most news sites, social networks and other online applications are ostensibly free to access, because their revenue comes from marketing partners, not consumers. This is in obvious contrast to e-commerce properties, which realize revenue directly from consumers and hence, rarely rely on advertising.

[Sivaramakrishnan is the founder and CEO of Drawbridge, the leading programmatic cross-device technology company, and the first-and-foremost solution for cutting-edge cross-screen marketing strategies for Fortune 500 brands.]