FTC-FCC Agreement May Pave Way for Broadband Issues

The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding to affirm the agencies’ ongoing cooperation on consumer protection matters. Although the collaboration is focused on "joint enforcement" actions in such areas as abusive telemarketing tactics (like robocalls) and privacy issues related to Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) for telephone carriers, the two agencies envision expanded activities on additional communications fronts, possibly including broadband.

For example, the FCC will become a member and data contributor to the Consumer Sentinel Network, sharing relevant consumer complaints. The CSN is a secure FTC online database that provides law enforcement agencies access to millions of consumer complaints that are submitted to the FTC and other agencies. The alliance may also become a factor in the FCC's new broadband privacy rulemaking procedure, expected to be unveiled in early 2016. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler had originally planned to start the rulemaking by the end of 2015.