NTIA issued request for comment on how the White House consumer privacy bill of rights (http://1.usa.gov/1hwy3KA) should be updated, given the findings of the recent White House big data report (CD May 2 p3). The report concluded the administration should seek more stakeholder input before issuing any broad consumer privacy legislative proposal, and tasked NTIA with leading the process. Commerce Department Secretary Penny Pritzker said Wednesday’s request for comment “is part of our continuing dialogue among government, business, consumers, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders about maximizing the benefits and minimizing the risks of big data.” NTIA seeks comment on what sections of the bill of rights need to be “clarified or modified” to address big data. It seeks input on “whether a responsible use framework should be used to address the challenges posed by big data.” The focus on data use restrictions -- not on data collection restrictions -- was a notable aspect of the White House big data report, observers told us. Instructions for submitting comments are at http://1.usa.gov/1iWsB01.

Verizon Vice President-Federal Regulatory Affairs David Young blasted Netflix Wednesday, saying the company had engaged in a PR stunt to blame ISPs for buffering transmissions to its customers. In a blog post, Young cited reports Netflix is displaying a message to some customers whose connection has been slow, saying “The Verizon network is crowded right now.” “This claim is not only inaccurate, it is deliberately misleading,” Young said (http://vz.to/1kD6TTk). “The source of the problem is almost certainly NOT congestion in Verizon’s network. Instead, the problem is most likely congestion on the connection that Netflix has chosen to use to reach Verizon’s network.” Netflix, not Verizon, is responsible for its connection to an ISP, Young wrote. “It is sad that Netflix is willing to deliberately mislead its customers so they can be used as pawns in business negotiations and regulatory proceedings.” Netflix spokesman Joris Evers told us in an email Netflix is not picking on Verizon. “We are testing ways to let consumers know how their Netflix experience is being affected by congestion on their broadband provider’s network,” he said. Tests in the U.S. started last month, he said. BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said Netflix likely wants to send Verizon a bigger message. Despite signing direct peering and interconnection agreements with Comcast and Verizon in recent weeks “it is clear that Netflix is upset and believes peering should be free,” Greenfield said. “As a result, Netflix is looking to harness the power of its subscriber base to drive its message home to regulators and politicians.”

AT&T’s Project VIP network investment plan continues to make progress in its second year, the company said in a news release (http://bit.ly/SqXGSU) Tuesday. The 4G LTE network now covers nearly 290 million people, and Project VIP is expected to take fiber to more than 400,000 new business locations by the end of the second quarter, the company said. In wireless, AT&T expects to report in the second quarter that postpaid subscriber net adds exceeded 800,000, that about 3.2 million AT&T Next smartphones were sold, which would make up about 50 percent of total sales, and that about half of the company’s postpaid smartphone customers are on no-device-subsidy Mobile Share Value pricing plans. Despite the “self-congratulatory pomp and circumstance,” MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote investors, “AT&T’s business trends are much weaker than they appear.” Despite a much faster-than-expected transition to equipment installment plan (EIP) accounting, “AT&T’s earnings aren’t rising,” Moffett wrote. “AT&T is simply spending the one-time accounting benefit of EIP as a fig leaf to mask an aggressive and dangerous re-pricing of their subscriber base.”

Correction: The TVfreedom.org blog post urging the pay-TV industry to end price increases to its subscribers is from May 22 (CD June 3 p7).

Subscription TV and ISPs are the communications service providers that showed the most improvement in British customer satisfaction in Q1, said the U.K.-based National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI-UK) Tuesday. British satisfaction with subscription TV had a score of 71 in Q1, up 4.4 percent from Q4. British satisfaction with ISPs had a score of 69, up 3 percent from Q4. Satisfaction with both types of service is “much higher in Britain than the United States,” said Claes Fornell, chairman of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), in a news release. ACSI produces the NCSI-UK index. Mobile phone and landline providers also had improvements in customer satisfaction, while mobile network providers saw no improvement, NCSI-UK said (http://bit.ly/1kAPxqe).

Free Press has begun campaigning against industry-backed Republican House legislation that would stop the FCC from reclassifying broadband as a Title II telecom service, as net neutrality advocates have requested. House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, last week introduced HR-4752 (CD May 30 p6), which has no co-sponsors and is referred to the Commerce Committee. “Latta’s bill is for the biggest companies that punch his campaign dance ticket, and not for the millions of people who have urged the FCC to protect the open Internet by making these same companies common carriers,” wrote Free Press Senior Director-Strategy Tim Karr in a blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/1ku9zCo). Karr cited the $60,450 Latta has received in the 2014 election cycle from telecom and media industry players, including many “Net Neutrality haters,” as Karr called them. MapLight research “shows that the members of Congress who have been most active in opposing the idea of establishing net neutrality rules under Title II have received more than twice as much campaign money from the cable industry as the average for all House members,” President Daniel Newman told us in a statement last week when asked about Latta’s bill. Karr dismissed the legislation as “toxic” and urged people to send letters to Congress attacking it (http://bit.ly/1x1GfIY). Latta, in posting a link to industry endorsements for the legislation on his Facebook page (http://on.fb.me/1ueu74P), was widely attacked on these counts across several dozen comments. “Congrats on your new job at Comcast,” one commenter told Latta. “Thanks for nothing.” In response, Latta defended his position. “Those seeking to impose 1930’s telephone regulations on the Internet are desperately seeking a solution in search of a problem,” Latta told us in a statement. “The classification of broadband Internet access as an information service is a long-standing position I have held that has been shared by both the Federal Communications Commission and the Supreme Court. Regulating the Internet as a public utility is bad for the economy, bad for jobs, and most importantly, bad for consumers.”

Comedian John Oliver’s 13-minute attack on the FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules Sunday night was apparently enough to crash agency’s Electronic Comment Filing System Monday (CD June 3 p5). ECFS went down several times Monday. An FCC official said Tuesday the agency encountered technical difficulties Monday “due to heavy traffic,” but the site was up and running Tuesday. Oliver called on Internet “monsters” to let the FCC have it, during his HBO weekly program, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. FCC officially logged 1,506 comments Monday, many of them texts. “It’s sad that in the United States today, ISPs can buy the political influence necessary to usurp the will of the people,” one said. A second called the proposal “obviously just a way for rich cable CEO’s [sic] to blackmail people into paying more money.”

Comedian John Oliver offered an extended riff on the FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules Sunday night on HBO, featuring an excerpt from Commissioner Mike O'Rielly’s comments on the rules. “Oh my God, that is the most boring thing I've ever seen -- that is even boring by C-SPAN standards,” Oliver intoned (http://bit.ly/1n55jcy), saying the FCC is seeking comments. “I would like to address the Internet commenters out there directly: Good evening, monsters,” he said. “This may be the moment you've spent your whole lives training for. ... We need you to channel that anger, that badly spelled bile that you normally reserve for unforgivable attacks on actresses you think have put on weight.” An FCC official told us Monday video of the segment had gone viral, at least inside the agency.

The Supreme Court ruled against Akamai Technologies Monday in its patent lawsuit versus Limelight Networks, saying a company can claim patent infringement against another entity only when that entity was involved in every step of the claimed infringement. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which originally ruled on the case in 2012, “fundamentally misunderstands what it means to infringe a method patent,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion (http://1.usa.gov/1hsV8ja). Oral argument was held in April (CD May 1 p16). The Federal Circuit had ruled Akamai and patent co-owner Massachusetts Institute of Technology could argue Limelight had committed “divided” or “inducing infringement” of its patents on content delivery methods by committing most steps in the infringement process and then inducing a third party -- its customers -- to take the final step in that process. The Federal Circuit’s “contrary view” would deprive U.S. law “of ascertainable standards and require the courts to develop two parallel bodies of infringement law,” the Supreme Court said. Limelight believes the Supreme Court’s ruling is a win for the entire country “by promoting clear rules governing liability for patent infringement,” a spokeswoman said. “We look forward to full resolution” of the case, she added. Akamai had no immediate comment. Supreme Court justices had spent much of oral argument debating whether a ruling on Akamai’s claim of “divided” or “inducing infringement” would have any lasting value since Akamai had the option to argue its case again before the Federal Circuit because that court hadn’t ruled on claims of direct infringement. The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the Federal Circuit, directing it to decide the direct infringement issue. Cisco, Facebook and Google were among the major tech companies backing Limelight’s case, arguing an Akamai win would open them up to more suits from patent assertion entities.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler congratulated Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband and iTV-3 for “making gigabit services over fiber available throughout the community,” said a statement released in Friday’s Daily Digest (http://bit.ly/1kqEvPd). “This public-private partnership provides a valuable model for communities and companies throughout the country and a demonstration of the creativity that is stimulated when localities are free to work with the private sector to improve broadband offerings.” Gig.U Executive Director Blair Levin also lauded the announcement in a statement (http://bit.ly/RMfhUM): “You are ahead of others. And you will benefit from that lead. But others will benefit from the map you have drawn.”