BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 2016
Today's Event: FCC Consumer Advisory Committee https://www.benton.org/node/241361
INTERNET/BROADBAND
IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal Assessment Report
NTIA Praised for Domain Name Sign-Off [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
House Appropriations Committee Renews Attacks on Internet Users with Harmful Riders in Spending Bill
Fiber project viewed as business tool for Charleston (WV) [links to Benton summary]
RUS Confirms New Rural Broadband Access Loan and Loan Guarantee Rules [links to Rural Utilities Service]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
Sen Flake Opposes FCC Broadband Privacy Proceeding - press release
A Rethink is Needed on the FCC’s Proposed Broadband Privacy Rules - press release
FCC Gets Hill Push for Set-Top Plan
Public Knowledge Defends Consumer Privacy in Set-top Box Data Complaint to FCC, FTC - press release [links to Benton summary]
AT&T Statement on Bogus Set-Top Box Privacy Compliant - press release [links to Benton summary]
E-mail privacy update at 'impasse’ in Senate [links to Hill, The]
House Homeland Security Committee Votes to Create New Cybersecurity Division Within DHS [links to nextgov]
Millions of Twitter users' information reportedly stolen but breach denied [links to Associated Press]
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
Hillary Clinton Just Told Trump to Delete His Twitter Account, and Her Tweet Is Blowing Up [links to AdWeek]
Clinton finally goes on a media blitz [links to Politico]
Media owners get in on the fundraising circuit [links to Politico]
Joe Scarborough: Donald Trump calls CNN President Jeff Zucker his 'personal booker' [links to Politico]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Analyst: FCC May Have Already Ponied Up $40 Billion in Auction [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Lenovo and Google unveil a smartphone that knows its way around a room [links to Benton summary]
New router chips could save open source firmware from FCC rules [links to Ars Technica]
CommLawBlog: Having Re-Thought its 5.8 GHz Wi-Fi Technical Rules, FCC Has to Think Again [links to CommLawBlog]
Huawei’s Big Plan: No. 1 in Smartphones Globally [links to Wall Street Journal]
OWNERSHIP
ACA, NTCA Ask FCC to Scrap Charter Overbuild Condition [links to Benton summary]
DIVERSITY
Showrunners for New TV Season Remain Mostly White and Male [links to Benton summary]
TELEVISION
AT&T Exec Casts Doubt on Skinny Bundles [links to Variety]
Comcast, Time Warner Cable to testify on customer service issues [links to Hill, The]
Six Reasons Why IP Is The Future Of Over-the-Air TV [links to TVNewsCheck]
CONTENT
The Internet is warring over a photo of garlic bread. You will not guess why. [links to Benton summary]
'Three black teenagers' Google search sparks outrage [links to Benton summary]
Op-Ed: The evolution of cloud computing [links to Revere Digital]
EDUCATION
Technology Counts 2016 - research [links to Benton summary]
LABOR
Brotman: Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership debate needs a digital perspective [links to Brookings]
FTC REFORM
House Subcommittee Advances 21st Century Innovation-Friendly Reforms to Disrupt FTC [links to House of Representatives Commerce Committee]
AGENDA
FCC Shares Semiannual Regulatory Agenda [links to Federal Communications Commission]
POLICYMAKERS
Tom Perkins, outspoken and sometimes controversial valley icon
Senate Rules Committee recommends Dr. Carla Hayden for Senate confirmation as nation’s Librarian of Congress [links to American Library Association]
COMPANY NEWS
Starz CEO Predicts Lots of Mergers Among John Malone's Media Holdings [links to Street, The]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
IANA REPORT
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration, AUTHOR: ]
The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that the proposal developed by the global Internet multistakeholder community meets the criteria NTIA outlined in March 2014 when it stated its intent to transition the US Government’s stewardship role for the Internet domain name system (DNS) technical functions, known as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions. The announcement marks an important milestone in the US Government’s effort to complete the transition of the Internet’s domain name system and ensure that the Internet remains a platform for innovation, economic growth, and free speech. For the last 18 years, the United States has worked with businesses, technical experts, governments, and civil society groups to establish a multistakeholder, private-sector led system for the global coordination of the DNS. To accomplish this goal, in 1998, NTIA partnered with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based nonprofit, to transition technical DNS coordination and management functions to the private sector. In 2014, NTIA initiated the final step in the privatization process by asking ICANN to convene global stakeholders to develop a plan to complete the transition away from NTIA’s remaining legacy role. NTIA said the transition proposal must have broad community backing and:
Support and enhance the multistakeholder model;
Maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS;
Meet the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the IANA services; and
Maintain the openness of the Internet.
In addition, NTIA also said it would not accept a plan that replaced NTIA’s role with a government-led or intergovernmental organization solution.
benton.org/headlines/iana-stewardship-transition-proposal-assessment-report | National Telecommunications and Information Administration | Sec Pritzker
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HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE RENEWS ATTACK ON INTERNET USERS
[SOURCE: Free Press, AUTHOR: Timothy Karr]
On June 9, the House Appropriations Committee passed the 2017 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill. The legislation includes numerous harmful policy riders, including three measures that significantly restrict the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to enforce the agency’s Open Internet Order. These riders accomplish that by suspending the rules until all legal challenges to them are resolved and by hampering the agency’s ability to investigate and prevent abuses. Similar anti-network neutrality and anti-Internet provisions passed through House and Senate appropriations committees in 2015, but open Internet champions in both chambers negotiated their removal from the final spending bills. 2016’s spending bill also includes provisions attacking the Federal Communications Commission’s media ownership rules and the agency’s efforts to let people buy their own cable set-top boxes. Since the FCC passed net neutrality protections in February 2015, hundreds of thousands of supporters from across the country have urged Congress to reject these kinds of riders, and to let the FCC protect Internet users from blocking, discrimination and other abusive practices by broadband internet access providers. Rep Nita Lowey (D-NY) offered an amendment to strip from the bill approximately 30 dangerous riders, including the anti-net neutrality provisions. Rep Jose Serrano (D-NY) offered an amendment focused on removing just the net neutrality riders. Both amendments failed on party-line votes.
benton.org/headlines/house-appropriations-committee-renews-attacks-internet-users-harmful-riders-spending-bill | Free Press | B&C
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SECURITY/PRIVACY
SEN FLAKE OPPOSES FCC BROADBAND PRIVACY PROCEEDING
[SOURCE: US Senate, AUTHOR: Sen Jeff Flake (R-AZ)]
I write in opposition to your proposed rule, “Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services.” I believe the rule is flawed as a matter of law and policy. It is unnecessary and its existence only made defensible by the [Federal Communications Commission’s] unprecedented reclassification of broadband Internet service providers under Title II of the Communications Act. Worse still, in seeking to solve a problem the FCC created, the rule does so in a burdensome and unconstitutional way…. I am attaching to this letter my comments on the proposed rule. The proposed rule has numerous substantive problems but I would like to focus on the foundational problem with the proposed rul’s opt-in requirement for ISP use of so-called proprietary information. It appears to me to be an unconstitutional restriction on commercial speech.
benton.org/headlines/sen-flake-opposes-fcc-broadband-privacy-proceeding | US Senate
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A RETHINK IS NEEDED ON FCC PRIVACY RULES
[SOURCE: CTIA, AUTHOR: ]
When Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed new rules for broadband privacy, he promised to “listen and learn from the public and [Internet service providers] before we adopt final, enforceable, rules of the road.” Well, the public’s verdict on Chairman Wheeler’s plan to abandon the Federal Trade Commission’s well-tested and effective approach to online privacy and replace it with heightened and inconsistent rules for broadband providers alone is now in – and the result is clear. An overwhelming majority of the expert comments filed to date have urged the FCC to change course. The record makes clear that the best course is for the FCC to abandon its flawed approach and harmonize privacy regulation for broadband providers with the well-established and effective approach implemented and consistently endorsed by the FTC and the Obama Administration for many years and that has both protected consumers’ privacy and fostered unprecedented innovation, investment, and broadband adoption. This is the core of the Consensus Privacy Framework first submitted by a wide range of industry participants to Chairman Wheeler in March, which is a more efficient, pro-consumer and pro-innovation alternative. Chairman Wheeler promised to review the record and listen to the public. If he is to keep that promise, the FCC must change course.
benton.org/headlines/rethink-needed-fccs-proposed-broadband-privacy-rules | CTIA
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FCC GETS HILL PUSH FOR SET-TOP PLAN
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
In the face of some major pushback on the Federal Communications Commission's set-top proposal, Sens Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA), all big backers of the FCC's set-top proposal, gathered for a press conference to call for "unlocking" the set-top market. They were joined by other fans of the proposal, including BET founder Bob Johnson; INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering (set-top proposal fan Google is a member); Joe Weber, CTO, service provider business unit, TiVo; DeShuna Spencer, CEO, kweliTV; and Corri Freedman, political director, Writers Guild of America West. Sens Markey and Blumenthal have long pushed for a competitive set-top market. In fact, Sen Markey was author of the section (629) in the 1996 Telecommunications Act that called on the FCC to insure a competitive set-top marketplace. Rep Eshoo was the lead signatory on a letter from Democratic lawmakers backing the proposal. RepEshoo said they were there to "set the record straight." But they seemed there mostly to reiterate their support and push the FCC to take action ASAP and not be swayed to wait until some Congressionally-mandated studies on the impact of the proposal or any other calls to hit "pause." "I want to make sure this [set-top proposal] gets on the books," said Sen Markey. Sen Blumenthal suggested the FCC needed to muster the courage of their convictions and act sooner rather than later. "Time is passing, consumers are paying, the FCC must act now," he said.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-gets-hill-push-set-top-plan | Broadcasting&Cable
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POLICYMAKERS
TOM PERKINS
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Marisa Kendall]
Tom Perkins, Silicon Valley icon and co-founder of storied venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, died June 7. He was 84. The outspoken investor was heralded as one of the early backers of the Silicon Valley tech boom. Perkins partnered with Eugene Kleiner in 1972 to form what would eventually become one of Silicon Valley's most prestigious venture capital firms. The firm has become known for funding tech industry giants such as Google, Amazon and Airbnb. Some in the industry credit Perkins' early investment in Genentech with starting the biotech industry. Venky Ganesan, managing director of Menlo Ventures and chair of the National Venture Capital Association board of directors, said Perkins was one of the top three or four people who defined the VC industry.
benton.org/headlines/tom-perkins-outspoken-and-sometimes-controversial-valley-icon | San Jose Mercury News | New York Times
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