Cristiano Lima

President Donald Trump has two nominees to join the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board for the remainder of six-year terms expiring January 29, 2020:

Tech companies are assessing their roles in protecting their users as officials in Washington debate whether the government should take a firmer hand in safeguarding Americans’ privacy.

A tech industry source close to Trump administration’s push to come up with some sort of national privacy policy fills us in on the scheduling nitty-gritty. The White House is expected to issue a set of draft rules in late summer or early fall at the latest. The draft will be opened up for comment, possibly via a formal Commerce Department request for information. From there, legislation is a possibility, though not the only one on the table. If it seems like the privacy push is moving at an expedited pace, there’s a reason for that. In a word, Privacy Shield.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai told a group of House members he acknowledges shortfalls with the subsidy arrangements for rural telecom carriers.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has set briefing deadlines in the challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality repeal. Mozilla, state attorneys general and other groups fighting the FCC’s rollback will file their arguments Aug. 20. The Internet Association, Computer & Communications Industry Association and other organizations bolstering their case will file Aug. 27. The FCC has to respond Oct. 11, and the telecom associations backing the agency, including CTIA and USTelecom, will file their briefs Oct. 18. Final briefs in the case are due Nov. 27.

Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-SD) is eying ways to combine his STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act, S.

A favorable presidential tweet and a court win on a crucial Federal Communications Commission regulatory loophole may have buoyed Sinclair Broadcast Group as the conservative broadcaster faces the daunting prospect of a lengthy administrative hearing over its Tribune merger. But the “lack of candor” the FCC flagged when it sent the deal for review could dog the company beyond the transaction (Sinclair didn’t offer complete information about its ties to entities picking up stations it planned to spin off in connection with the deal, the agency contends).

Wave Wireless, a fixed wireless broadband provider from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s hometown of Parsons (KS), is among the 182 companies pushing back on the FCC’s approach to a valuable swath of mid-band airwaves. Wave Wireless — which Chairman Pai said serves his parents in a 2017 tweet — and its fellow companies, mostly small rural providers, want the FCC to preserve smaller geographic license sizes in the 3.5 GHz spectrum band.

Four pieces of telecom-focused legislation passed the House by generous margins. Lawmakers passed by voice votes the PIRATE Act, H.R. 5709 (115), which would boost penalties for unlicensed radio broadcasters, and the ACCESS BROADBAND Act, H.R.

As controversies have piled up for top tech companies, so have their lobbying bills. Tech firms continued to pour record sums of money into federal lobbying during the second quarter, new disclosures show, reflecting their defensive maneuvering on matters like consumer privacy, market competition and the treatment of political speech on social media. Facebook spent its largest single-quarter sum ever, $3.67 million, during a period that included CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s grilling in Congress over the company’s privacy lapses and the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.