Daily Digest 3/27/2018 (FTC Confirms Facebook Investigation)

A coalition of 37 state attorneys general are urging Facebook to provide more answers on how Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained the data of 50 million Facebook users. “These revelations raise many serious questions concerning Facebook’s policies and practices, and the processes in place to ensure they are followed,” the bipartisan group of attorneys general wrote.  “We need to know that users can trust Facebook. With the information we have now, our trust has been broken.” The state officials pressed Facebook to answer specific questions on how clear terms of service are, what types of information third parties were able to collect and what data safeguards the company has in place.

Cambridge Analytica assigned dozens of non-US citizens to provide campaign strategy and messaging advice to ­Republican candidates in 2014, according to three former workers for the data firm, even as an attorney warned executives to abide by US laws limiting foreign involvement in elections. The assignments came amid efforts to present the newly created company as “an American brand” that would appeal to U.S. political clients even though its parent, SCL Group, was based in London, according to former Cambridge Analytica research director Christopher Wylie. US election regulations say foreign nationals must not “directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process” of a political campaign, although they can play lesser roles. Those restrictions were explained in a 10-page memo prepared in July 2014 by a New York attorney, Laurence Levy, for Cambridge Analytica’s leadership at the time, including President Rebekah Mercer, Vice President Stephen K. Bannon and chief executive Alexander Nix. The memo said that foreign nationals could serve in minor roles — for example as “functionaries” handling data — but could not involve themselves in significant campaign decisions or provide high-level analysis or strategy.

In a letter to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rob Portman (R-OH), Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that there is little the FCC can do to prevent public comments filed under false names, or under stolen identities or to prevent mass bogus filings in what is meant to be an open, public, process. The network neutrality comment docket was flooded with comments from Russia and bot-driven input, and the FCC also said it was the subject of distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks that impeded the filing of comments. In his letter, Chairman Pai explained that in order to allow for the filing of bulk comments, the FCC in 2016 was reconfigured to allow automated submissions, and that while it uses commercially available tools to protect the system from cyber attacks, "[The Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS)] is fundamentally an open, public-facing system, which limits our ability to shut down inappropriate bots accessing [it]." Following disruptions to the systems May 7-8, 2017, the FCC did "implement solutions" limiting the "amount" of disruptive bot-related activity, Chairman Pai told Sen Portman.  As to the suggestions that many of the comments were from outside the United States, Chairman Pai said that the FCC does not have policies or procedures for determining the nationalities of commenters or whether the address of the comment is outside the US, save for a box to check that is optional.

[Commentary] In Feb 2018, the Federal Communications Commission released its most recent Broadband Deployment Report, which bases its analysis on 2016 data delivered by all Internet providers. At first glance, improvements in broadband coverage are noticeable; a national summary of the accompanying map indicates that over 95 percent of all Americans now have access to the official broadband threshold (25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream). The intuitive “fixed” technologies (DSL, Cable, Fiber) made up over 95% of all 25/3 entries in the 2014 and 2015 records. In 2016, however, both fixed wireless and satellite entries skyrocket. When all is said and done, we estimate that about 10.5 million were covered by 25/3 speeds thanks to satellite as of 2016. In other words, the number of Americans WITHOUT access to 25/3 speeds would nearly double if satellite technology was removed (from the 14 million claimed in the FCC’s report, to over 25 million). 75% of this population is classified as rural by the FCC.  While any technology with potential to deliver broadband is welcome, there are numerous concerns about classifying satellite as broadband. Satellite technology is highly susceptible to weather disruption; data latency is an issue; and data caps/cost are also concerning. The little known fact that the FCC includes satellite as part of its “fixed” broadband analysis raises questions about the adequacy of the FCC’s definitions and standards. Accurate data of existing broadband infrastructure is essential to local, state and national planning and public policy decisions. Issues of latency, pricing, data caps, and even length of contract are important elements of broadband that should be identified and defined in any publicly available broadband datasets.  

[Brian Whitacre is a professor at Oklahoma State University. Roberto Gallardo is a professor at the Purdue Center for Regional Development. Bill Callahan is the research and policy coordinator and Angela Siefer is the executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA).]

[FCC Chairman Ajit Pai press release] Building on our progress last week modernizing our wireless infrastructure rules so that they are 5G ready, the Federal Communications Commission in April will continue to move full steam ahead in making spectrum available for next-generation 5G networks. At our April meeting, the Commission will vote on a public notice seeking input on auction procedures for the 28 GHz and 24 GHz bands. And under the draft that I have presented my colleagues, the 28 GHz auction would commence on November 14. By kicking off the pre-auction processes, we take another important step to promote American innovation in 5G wireless services, the Internet of Things, and other advanced spectrum-based services at previously underused high-band frequencies. But our focus on the future isn’t limited to wireless; we also want to advance next-generation satellite technologies. That’s why I’m proposing to streamline the process for authorizing commercial small satellite operations. This April, we’ll also take the next step toward ensuring that phone calls to all Americans go through, including those in rural America. I’m seeking to enact new rules to improve the monitoring by long-distance carriers of “intermediate providers” to which calls are handed off. The goal is to ensure that carriers that are handed a call — those who take the baton, so to speak — don’t drop it, but instead take care to ensure it gets to its destination. The next item on our April agenda is — well, admittedly a little arcane, but hear me out. It would provide a path for rate-of-return carriers that receive high-cost universal service support under the Alternative Connect America Cost Model to voluntarily elect to migrate their business data services offerings to incentive regulation.