Hill, The

[Commentary]The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com, alleging that the company had failed to set sufficiently tight controls for purchases made by children while using mobile apps.

The Amazon suit reflects an unfortunate trend. By forcing companies into consent decrees, instead of using its own rulemaking authority or waiting for Congress to act, the FTC circumvents the democratic process, reduces transparency and limits public participation. These agreements can end up serving as de facto policy, which is a problem since they only reflect the agreement of two parties, rather than all stakeholders. At times, consent decrees may even be anti-competitive, by creating greater barriers for new entrants and entrenching established interests.

Rather than fostering disruptive innovation, these types of 20-year agreements lock companies into stagnant business practices and discourage companies from taking risks lest they be subject to the wrath of the FTC. A better approach is for the FTC to take ambiguity out of the equation by establishing clear rules and taking action against companies that knowingly violate them, or by going after companies that knowingly and willfully harm consumers, such as any app developers who try to exploit the in-app payment system in apps directed at children.

[Castro is a senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation]

The House Judiciary Committee easily passed a critical satellite television law on a unanimous voice vote. The panel avoided making any controversial changes to the existing marketplace for retransmitting broadcast programs on cable and satellite with the “clean” extension of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA), which came as a victory for broadcasters.

“I realize that current licenses are not perfect for everyone, but on balance I would say that they do a good job,” intellectual property subcommittee Chairman Howard Coble (R-NC) said. “Not unlike many other bills, this legislation will not satisfy all stakeholders, but it should satisfy enough and most importantly, it serves the interests of our satellite-viewing constituents.”

The bill ensures that more than 1 million people living in rural areas who would not otherwise be able to pick up broadcast signals with a roof antenna can have channels beamed to them through satellite TV service. The existing law is set to run out at the end of 2014 but would be renewed until 2019 under the committee’s bill. “This helps ensure that consumers in rural areas like my congressional district have the same access to news and entertainment that consumers in urban areas enjoy,” Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) said.

Music groups are pressuring Congress to back down from a pledge to keep AM/FM radio stations from paying musicians. “It’s hard enough to make a living as a musician -- and even harder when your own representatives in Congress won’t support your basic right to fair pay for your work,” new ads from music industry groups said.

The campaign from musicFirst, which includes music industry trade groups like the Recording Industry Association of America, the American Association of Independent Music and SoundExchange, asks lawmakers to remove their names from the Local Radio Freedom Act. The resolution, which would prohibit "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge” on local AM/FM radio stations, is supported by a majority of the House.

MusicFirst is targeting signatories of that resolution, starting with Reps David Price (D-NC) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), through social media campaigns and newspaper ads in their districts. The ads call the resolution “an anti-musician resolution pushed by big corporate radio companies.”

As Congress -- especially the House Judiciary Committee -- looks to overhaul the music licensing rules under current copyright law, many have homed in on traditional AM/FM radio stations. While cable, satellite and Internet radio services pay royalty fees to musicians for the songs they play, AM/FM broadcasters do not pay musicians; they defend the practice by arguing they provide free promotion for musicians.

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 12-3 to advance a cybersecurity bill that privacy advocates fear will give more information to the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies.

The bill's authors -- Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) -- hailed the vote as a step towards protecting the country from growing online threats.

Cybersecurity "is a serious problem and we need to begin" addressing it, Chairman Feinstein said after the vote. "No bill is going to be perfect that's going to be able to encompass a bipartisan approach.”

Making sure all surfers on the Web enjoy the same speed no matter which website they visit is a fundamental free speech issue, Sen Al Franken (D-MN) said. “It is absolutely the First Amendment issue of our time,” Sen Franken said.

“Do we want deep-pocketed corporations controlling what information you get at what speed?” he added.

Sen Franken, who has been a critical supporter of the concept of net neutrality, said that other members of Congress simply don’t understand the way the Internet works.

“This has been the architecture of the Internet from the beginning, and everyone should understand that,” he said. “Some of my colleagues in the Congress don’t understand that. ... You just want to go ‘Oh, come on,’ ” Sen Franken said. “ 'Really, don’t get up and talk unless you know something.' ”

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Dropbox’s Drew Houston, Netflix’s Reed Hastings and HP’s Meg Whitman are among the tech CEOs urging the Federal Communications Commission to provide billions for Wi-Fi in schools and libraries.

The FCC is voting at its upcoming monthly meeting on a plan from Chairman Tom Wheeler to boost Wi-Fi in schools and libraries.

“The message from America is clear, if our schools do not have the broadband they need, our students will not be able to compete in the global economy,” the CEOs told FCC commissioners.

Signatories also included current and former CEOs of YouTube, eBay, Adobe, Airbnb, Dell, Intuit, OpenTable, Salesforce.com, Xerox and prominent venture capital firms.

Chairman Wheeler’s plan would put $5 billion toward providing and upgrading Wi-Fi services and equipment over the next five years on top of the agency’s $2.4 billion annual budget for the E-Rate program, which works to connect schools and libraries to the Internet. The agency has already set aside the first $2 billion and plans to provide the following $3 billion through eliminating inefficiencies in the program and phasing out non-Internet access services, including pagers.

A coalition of education groups is backing a proposal at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that would funnel billions of dollars into wireless Internet for schools and libraries.

The proposal “is a necessary first step toward providing students with the educational infrastructure they need to excel,” ten education groups said in a letter to FCC commissioners sent.

Signatories include the Consortium for School Networking, the National Association of State Boards of Education and the State Educational Technology Directors Association.

The letter comes as the agency prepares to vote on the new proposal from Chairman Tom Wheeler to expand the FCC’s E-Rate funding. Opposition to Chairman Wheeler’s plan could put the vote in jeopardy.

It’s crunch time for reining in the National Security Agency. If lawmakers are going to finalize the USA Freedom Act to reform government surveillance in 2014, privacy advocates warn they need to pick up the pace.

“I think there’s a lot of pressure on the Judiciary Committee to act on USA Freedom before the August recess,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “Everyone knows that bills that aren’t yet out of committee by the end of July are really hard to get done because appropriations occupy so much time and attention,” he added. “I wouldn’t want to be a Judiciary Committee staffer responsible for this issue and have Fourth of July vacation plans.”

The Senate will return after the July Fourth holiday weekend for four straight weeks of work in Washington before the month-long August recess. After that, government funding and the November elections are likely to take center stage, clouding the outlook for any controversial measures on Capitol Hill.

Educators are threatening to derail the Obama Administration’s proposals to boost wireless Internet in schools over fears districts could be left with inadequate funds or cuts to other services.

A new plan from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler would funnel $5 billion for Wi-Fi over the next five years through the agency’s E-Rate program.

The FCC is set to vote on the plan at its monthly meeting on July 11, but sources now say it’s unclear if it has the votes to pass. Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai have advocated for reforms to the E-Rate program, but it's unclear if either will support Wheeler's proposal as currently written.

Sources said the plan’s specifics are in flux as Chairman Wheeler works to rally support from other commissioners and advocacy groups ahead of the vote. “There are still some Commissioners who are listening to educators in the field, and we hope their voices ring loudly in next week’s meeting,” said an education advocate opposed to the proposal.

Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) doesn't think websites should be paired with .wine. In a letter to the head of the international group deciding new website endings, such as .com or .net, the top Democrat on the House’s Technology subcommittee said she was "deeply concerned" about certain generic top-level domain names (gLTDs).

“Specifically, it’s my understanding that the .wine and .vin gLTDs have been met with fierce opposition from the wine industry, both here in the US and around the world,” Rep Eshoo added. “Given those concerns ... I urge you to advocate for the .wine and .vin gTLDs to be permanently withdrawn from consideration.”

The nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages online domain names, is in the process of creating hundreds of new extensions to expand the confines of the Web. As well as adding new letters after the "dot," extensions are also being rolled out in other characters like Chinese and Arabic, and industries are trying to capitalize on the move. Nike and McDonald’s have looked to get on board, as has the Republican Party.