New America CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter denied a New York Times​ story alleging the organization was cutting ties with its Open Markets initiative and 10 full-time employees after its director, Barry Lynn, praised a European Commission $2.7 billion fine in June against Google, a major funder (see 1706270001). "This claim is absolutely false," said Slaughter in a statement. She said Lynn was just fired since he repeatedly refused to follow "standards of openness and institutional collegiality." The story said Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt complained to Slaughter after Lynn's June post, which was taken down and then reposted hours later. The story said Slaughter told Lynn a couple of days later their organizations would part. Slaughter now said New America has "always encouraged many different viewpoints and our funders are aware of and support this philosophy." She said the group has been working to spin out Open Markets as an independent program, while keeping ties with New America. The organization didn't comment whether the initiative will still be spun out now. Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project Director John Simpson said think tanks have "grown fat on Google's money" and are "rapidly becoming little more than paid shills for Google and Big Tech." A Google spokeswoman said the company backs hundreds of organizations promoting a free and open internet, more access to information and more opportunity. "We don't agree with every group 100% of the time, and while we sometimes respectfully disagree, we respect each group’s independence, personnel decisions, and policy perspectives,” she said. Google's funding to New America didn't change since the June post, Schmidt didn't threaten to cut off funding and the company had no role in casting off Open Markets, she added.

The FCC shouldn’t approve Sinclair buying Tribune without first relaxing newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rules, said newspaper publisher Steinman Communications in reply comments posted Tuesday in docket 17-179. Sinclair said in opposition comments (see 1708230061) it wants the FCC to rule on the deal after the outcome of expected action to relax ownership rules, Steinman said. The FCC shouldn’t allow Tribune's buyout without also removing barriers to newspapers making deals, Steinman said. “Steinman’s publications would face a strengthened, consolidated media competitor for audience and advertisers, while Steinman would be barred from similar market efficiencies.” The FCC should deny Sinclair/Tribune and Congress should hold hearings "to more thoroughly understand the media landscape and how critical independent local broadcast stations are in a democracy,” said Computer & Communications Industry Association President Ed Black in a news release on CCIA's replies filed in docket 17-179. "Sinclair has failed to show any tangible way" that the deal benefits the public interest, CCIA said. "Anyone who values decentralized government control, states rights and independent voices should oppose this merger that would harm citizens and weaken our democracy," Black said.

Nominum, which develops and offers domain name server-based services, told the FCC there's room for compromise on net neutrality rules. Replies comments are due Wednesday in docket 17-108. Nominum reminded the FCC that the internet functions because of DNS. Nominum found some signs of general agreement in the contentious proceeding. The record “demonstrates support for the Commission to adopt a framework that promotes transparency, prohibits blocking and throttling, and allows carriers flexibility to manage their networks,” the company said. Wednesday "could very well mark the official beginning of the end for the Open Internet," said Gigi Sohn, aide to former Chairman Tom Wheeler when the 2015 rules were approved. "With the closing of the public comment period for the FCC’s proceeding to repeal the 2015 Net Neutrality rules, the record is now full of tens of millions of comments, many of them demonstrably fake. Incredibly, it doesn't even matter if the facts are real or alternative because Chairman [Ajit] Pai intends to ignore them all so that he can eliminate the rules and protections for Internet users and innovators as quickly as possible." Credo Mobile, a wireless carrier that dedicates some of its profits to progressive causes, told the FCC it shouldn’t redo the rules. “Without the bright­line rules that are only available under Title II, the world’s most vibrant public sphere would be subject to the whims and predatory business decisions of a few large corporations that control how the vast majority of Americans get online." The National Federation of Filipino American Associations said Title II reclassification harmed investment. “There is little disagreement over the need for net neutrality,” the group commented. “Nobody -- including the ISPs -- argues in favor of blocking, throttling, slow lanes, or any other methods that would undermine net neutrality. However, NaFFAA is concerned when it comes to the use of Title II as a means to protect these principles.” The FCC logged 4,333 comments Tuesday in 17-108 by our deadline and more than 21.8 million comments overall.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's decision on an appeal by Dish Network designated entities Northstar and SNR on being denied bidding credits in the AWS-3 auction because of their Dish ties (see 1509180048) is expected this week, Citi analyst Jason Bazinet emailed investors Monday. If Dish wins, the court may force the agency to return the spectrum Dish had to forfeit, Citi said.

Correction: It was Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy's Larry Downes, not Public Knowledge's John Bergmayer, who said he "would be cautious about using market cap as a measure of market strength or leverage" (see 1708250054).

The FCC could get rid of Title II regulation and still protect consumers, said American Enterprise Institute Adjunct Scholar Bronwyn Howell in a Monday blog post. “While there may still sometimes be a need to regulate the provision of broadband, it appears that it is better addressed as a matter of constraining market power, rather than relying on common carriage provisions to constrain the activities of broadband providers,” Howell said. “And, after all, it is the explicit no-blocking terms of the 2015 Open Internet Order and not the common carrier obligations under Title II that actually bind a broadband provider to deliver all traffic requested by and sent to an end consumer.”

USTelecom painted a positive picture of U.S. wireline broadband availability. "As of mid-2016, 96 percent of Americans had at least one wired broadband network platform available to them, and 84 percent had at least two wired options," said a report Friday analyzing FCC data. It said 65 percent of households had access to at least two wired 10/1 Mbps service options, and 49 percent had access to at least two 25/3 Mbps service options -- those data speeds are FCC broadband definitions, in effect, for rural areas and urban/suburban areas, respectively. "The increasingly competitive state of broadband availability is the result of substantial capital investments by broadband providers in a dynamic, evolving market," said a release.

The proposed final judgment on DirecTV's coordinating with Charter Communications, Cox Communications and AT&T in those MVPDs' negotiations with SportsNet LA is effective and an appropriate remedy for the antitrust claims, the DOJ said in a comment published Friday in the Federal Register. DOJ also said it will ask U.S. District Court in Los Angeles for entry of the proposed final judgment. It said it received one comment on the proposed final judgment by the June 13 deadline, with the commenter urging a separate lawsuit against Time Warner Cable, owner of the Dodgers Channel and now part of Charter. DOJ said the comment sought relief beyond that included in the proposed final judgment, such as requiring DirecTV carry Dodgers games, but the agency said no additional relief is needed to prevent DirecTV from information-sharing agreements like the one alleged in the 2016 antitrust suit (see 1611040035). Under the proposed settlement, AT&T won't directly or indirectly communicate or seek competitively sensitive information from any MVPD, except for a lawful purpose (see 1703240005). DirecTV's now-owner AT&T didn't comment.

The FCC's net neutrality proceeding gets huge media attention, but consumers are far more interested in unwanted calls and service problems, judging by consumer complaint data, Georgetown University adjunct professor-communication, culture and technology Adonis Hoffman wrote in summer issue of his Inside the FCC journal. Between Jan. 1 and June 12, consumers filed more than twice as many service availability complaints, more than eight times as many billing complaints and more than 23 times as many complaints about unwanted calls as about open internet, he said. In most months, net neutrality accounts for about 1 to 3 percent of all complaints received by the FCC, said Hoffman, who heads a policy consulting firm.

The Public Safety Bureau Thursday encouraged service providers to implement Signaling System 7 security countermeasures recommended by the FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council. “SS7 supports fixed and mobile service providers in processing and routing calls and text messages between networks, enabling fixed and mobile networks to connect, and providing call session information such as Caller ID and billing data for circuit switched infrastructure,” said a public notice. “Over the last several years, numerous research findings and media reports call attention to security vulnerabilities present within SS7 networks.”