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July 2017

The White House Endorses the FCC’s effort to roll back its net neutrality rules

The Trump Administration has signaled that it stands behind efforts by the Federal Communications Commission and its Chairman, Ajit Pai, to roll back the agency's network neutrality regulations for Internet providers. Speaking to reporters (audio only) on July 18, administration officials said that while rules can be helpful, the Obama administration “went about this the wrong way.” “We support the FCC chair's efforts to review and consider rolling back these rules,” said deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, “and believe that the best way to get fair rules for everyone is for Congress to take action and create regulatory and economic certainty.”

The administration's move recalls similar efforts by the White House, during the Obama Administration, to make its opinion known on the issue of net neutrality. “The process raises serious questions about the president's inappropriate influence over what is supposed to be an independent agency that derives its authority from Congress and not the White House,” Sen Ron Johnson (R-WI) said at the time in a letter to the FCC criticizing the matter. Still, some analysts say, any attempt by a White House to address pending FCC matters should be out of bounds. It was wrong when President Obama asserted himself, and it would be wrong for Trump to do so now, said Scott Wallsten, an economist and president of the Technology Policy Institute. “If the agency is independent, then the executive branch should stay out, plain and simple,” he said.

FCC refuses to release text of more than 40,000 net neutrality complaints

The Federal Communications Commission has denied a request to extend the deadline for filing public comments on its plan to overturn net neutrality rules, and the FCC is refusing to release the text of more than 40,000 net neutrality complaints that it has received since June 2015.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request in May for tens of thousands of net neutrality complaints that Internet users filed against their ISPs. The NHMC argues that the details of these complaints are crucial for analyzing FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's proposal to overturn net neutrality rules. The coalition also asked the FCC to extend the initial comment deadline until 60 days after the commission fully complies with the FoIA request. A deadline extension would have given people more time to file public comments on the plan to eliminate net neutrality rules. Instead, the FCC denied the motion for an extension and said that it will only provide the text for a fraction of the complaints, because providing them all would be too burdensome. Chairman Pai has previously claimed that his proposed repeal of net neutrality rules is using a "far more transparent" process than the one used to implement net neutrality rules in 2015. Chairman Pai has also claimed that net neutrality rules were a response to "hypothetical harms and hysterical prophecies of doom" and that there was no real problem to solve.

Congress Should Decide Net Neutrality. Too Bad It Doesn't Have The Bandwidth

[Commentary] As Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai moves his agency toward rolling back Obama-era network neutrality rules, more voices are calling for a lasting solution to the debate: a new law. FCC rulings are subject to court challenges and changing political regimes, after all. But Congress is so mired in the Trump agenda, and so distracted by the administration’s daily melodrama, that passing new telecom law any time soon seems practically impossible.

Internet Association blasts Fight for the Future for including Rep Scalise ad campaign

The Internet Association, a trade group representing internet companies, lashed out at a pro-net neutrality group July 18 for initially saying that they planned to go after Rep Steve Scalise (R-LA) with billboard attack ads. Fight for the Future announced that it planned to launch a billboard campaign targeting lawmakers who have spoken in favor of the Federal Communications Commission’s effort to repeal its net neutrality rules. Evan Greer, the group’s spokeswoman, sent a list of lawmakers to The Hill that would be targeted by the billboard. Rep Scalise, who is currently recovering from a gunshot wound inflicted during an attack on lawmakers in June, was included on that list. Greer has since clarified that the Louisiana Republican’s name was mistakenly added and that the group has no plans to launch ads against him.

But the Internet Association, which has largely been on the same side of the net neutrality fight, took issue with Fight for the Future’s announcement. “Fight for the Future’s latest efforts on net neutrality are unacceptable,” said Michael Beckerman, the trade group’s president. “Accusing a Member of Congress of ‘betrayal’ while he’s recovering in the hospital is despicable. This type of advocacy is not what Internet Association and our member companies stand for.” “The IA statement is based on an incorrect report,” Greer countered. “Rep Scalise’s name was included in private emails to two reporters, due to a copy paste error, and corrected once brought to our attention. We would obviously not run billboards against somebody who is in the hospital.”

OTI Urges FCC to Abandon “Radical” and “Extreme” Net Neutrality Plan

The Open Technology Institute asked the Federal Communications Commission to rescind a dangerous proposal to repeal the agency’s 2015 network neutrality rules. By filing comments in the agency’s public docket, we joined millions of Americans who have asked Chairman Ajit Pai to support internet freedom and keep the current rules intact. In our comments, OTI explains how Chairman Pai’s proposal would damage the open internet and harm the American people. We detail the long history of ISP interference with their customers’ access to a free and open internet. We explain that Title II is the only legal pathway for effective FCC rules, and that the Commission’s authority over mobile broadband and interconnection is legally sound. We argue that Title II has helped the FCC protect consumer privacy and close the digital divide. And we urge Chairman Pai to abandon his poorly conceived and dangerous plan.

The Effect of Regulation on Broadband: Evaluating the Empirical Evidence in the FCC’s 2015 “Open Internet Order.” Net Neutrality Special Issue Blog #5

When the Federal Communications Commission classified broadband Internet service providers as Title II common carriers in the 2015 Open Internet Order (2015 OIO), it argued that emerging industries had thrived under “light touch” variations of Title II regulations and that broadband would be no different. This argument does not hold up to scrutiny, write Thomas Hazlett, H.H. Macaulay Endowed Chair in Economics at Clemson University and former Chief Economist of the FCC, and Joshua Wright, Executive Director, Global Antitrust Institute at George Mason University and former FTC Commissioner, in their article “The Effect of Regulation on Broadband Markets: Evaluating the Empirical Evidence in the FCC’s 2015 ‘Open Internet’ Order.”

This blog post is the fifth in a series featuring the contents of a recent special issue of the Review of Industrial Organization, organized by the Technology Policy Institute and the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition.

Apple patents way to secretly call 911 using your fingerprint

Apple has patented a process that would allow users to secretly call 911 using only their fingerprint. In a patent published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the tech giant outlined a feature that would allow users to call emergency services "when a conventional method may not be practical." Although it's already possible to call 911 through the lockscreen on iOS devices, this would allow users to reach out for help when an attacker or assailant is watching, the patent said. The company suggests the technology would look for a sequence of fingerprints or applied pressure to trigger a 911 call.

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