A bipartisan group of eight attorneys general including from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida met with Attorney General William Barr Thursday about tech industry competition, aides confirmed. The coalition discussed “real concerns consumers across the country have with big tech companies stifling competition on the internet,” it said in a joint statement: “It was a productive meeting, and we’re considering a range of possible anti-trust actions against such companies.” Aides didn’t say which other states participated. California AG Xavier Becerra didn’t attend, an aide said. DOJ and offices for other state AGs didn’t comment.

The FCC got a handful of comments on an NPRM commissioners approved in June, with a declaratory ruling, on allowing carriers to block unwanted robocalls by default (see 1906060056). Initial comments were due Tuesday in docket 17-59. The Electronic Transactions Association said the FCC should protect legitimate callers, while clamping down on illegal calls. ETA said safe harbor should allow “a good faith caller the opportunity to show compliance at the pleading stage in private litigation in order to achieve early dismissal of claims that lack merit.” Encore Capital Group, a debt management and recovery firm, urged protection for legitimate callers. “As the FCC has recognized, our industry and many other industries still have extremely significant concerns that legitimate, time-sensitive calls to consumers will be improperly blocked by voice service providers,” Encore said. “Mandate specific processes and procedures that voice service providers must take to prevent improper call blocking and, should improper call blocking occur, to expeditiously unblock the calls.” The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable supported the overall approach, seeking tweaks. “Provide some parameters around the ‘reasonable analytics’ the Declaratory Ruling authorizes as the basis for provider opt-out call-blocking programs,” the department said: Providers should be prohibited from customers for call blocking and the FCC should “make the unwanted call information that it acquires available to state commissions.” TransNexus, which sells anti-robocall software, said the FCC should establish a safe harbor for blocking calls that fail authentication. “We expect that most providers will not want to block calls by default. Instead, we find that providers would rather give their customers the choice,” TransNexus commented: “A hospital or health clinic will generally answer all calls no matter what. They do not want to miss calls that might be very important.” NTCA reported on a meeting aides to Chairman Ajit Pai on challenges rural wireline carriers could encounter in implementing secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) and secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) technologies, another NPRM focus.

The FCC launched dockets Tuesday on proposals to modernize two systems at the agency, announced by Chairman Ajit Pai Monday (see 1907220028). The Wireless Bureau created docket 19-212 on fully transitioning the universal licensing system to electronic filing. The Enforcement Bureau established docket 19-214, on the procedural streamlining of administrative hearings.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai furthered his move to modernize systems at the agency with two changes unveiled Monday. Pai proposed that the FCC “fully” transition its universal licensing system, the agency’s largest licensing system, from paper to electronic. Pai also proposed the FCC expand its use of written hearings -- hearings conducted without live testimony. “As the communications marketplace is being transformed by the digital revolution, we must continue to modernize our own operations,” Pai said. “By transitioning more records and communications from paper to electronic format, we can save money and increase our efficiency. And by streamlining our hearing rules, we can resolve disputes more quickly, which will benefit the private sector as well as the Commission.” Both changes require a commissioner vote.

A consortium of telecom experts asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to hear oral argument in Irregulators v. FCC, which petitions for review of an FCC order that extended the freeze on rules allocating most regulated telecom costs to intrastate rather than interstate services (see 1812200069), posted Monday as case 19-1085 (in Pacer). Bruce Kushnick, executive director of New Networks Institute, represents the petitioners including the Irregulators, an independent consortium of telecom attorneys, analysts and auditors, including former FCC senior staffers. The petitioners said the FCC's current methodology over-allocates costs to intrastate communications, leading to higher intrastate retail consumer prices for basic local phone service, and leads also to an under-allocation of costs to interstate service. The agency looked only at "perceived burdens" on industry, the petitioners argue in the filing; "consumers' interests and benefits were barely mentioned or included in the 'costs and benefits' analysis performed by the FCC."

FCC “staff is actively wrapping up” its investigation into whether top wireless carriers submitted incorrect broadband-service coverage data in violation of Mobility Fund Phase II rules (see 1812070048), Chairman Ajit Pai said in his written response to a question from Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss. Wicker asked for further information on the investigation as a follow-up to the committee's June FCC oversight hearing (see 1906120076). Wicker in December abandoned plans for an amendment to FY 2019 federal spending legislation that would force the FCC to revisit its MF-II maps because of the investigation (see 1812100056). Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., temporarily placed a hold on Senate reconfirmation of Commissioner Brendan Carr over his concerns about the commission's decision to suspend the window for responding to MF-II challenges amid the investigation (see 1812200060). “I hope that we will be able to report the results of [the MF-II] investigation soon,” Pai said. “The Commission’s next steps will depend on those results.”

Decision time is near for DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim on T-Mobile/Sprint (see 1907180041), but questions remain, New Street’s Blair Levin said Monday in a report to investors. Since FCC Chairman Ajit Pai endorsed the deal two months ago “the consensus view -- with which we agreed -- was that Delrahim was more likely than not to approve the deal, assuming a deal was struck to create a fourth competitor,” Levin wrote: “The more difficult question was how much pressure he would put on the T-Mobile to strike a deal in which the odds of that fourth competitor providing a sustainable competitive dynamic were significant. To do that, of course, Delrahim had to signal to T-Mobile that he would be willing to block the deal. There were no signs that he had done so until last week. But now he has done so, meaning that despite the companies’ assertions in court, the DOJ effectively joining the states’ effort to block the merger is a material risk.” The most likely outcome is a deal between Dish and T-Mobile/Sprint, Levin said. T-Mobile may want conditions keeping Dish from doing deals with major tech and cable companies, but the court reviewing the state challenge (see 1906210033) may be reluctant, Levin said: “Adding a constraint on DISH's ability to raise capital (and any constraint on a sale is a constraint on raising capital) is a red flag for the court that the deal is structured to create something less than the competitive dynamic Sprint offers.” Investors are asking if cable operators are “behind the black curtain?” Wells Fargo’s Jennifer Fritzsche said in a note to investors: “And if so, is it all of them or just one?” She expressed skepticism on news DOJ will make a decision this week. Meanwhile, motions continue in the state challenge before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Comcast, Charter and Altice asked for a new, single deadline for motions made under the stipulated interim protective order. They suggested "any such motions should be due three days after the resolution of the non-party motions to amend the protective order.” The rules are “unnecessarily burdensome for non-parties that seek to mitigate the risk to their commercial interests caused by discovery in this action,” the cable groups said (in Pacer): “Defendants have been identifying their designated in-house counsel piecemeal, creating a stream of rolling deadlines.” AT&T asked the court to restrict access to information filed. The court should “follow the usual practice of requiring a particularized need before allowing Defendants’ employees access to competitively sensitive information from their competitors,” the carrier said (in Pacer): “Under this practice, which AT&T and Time Warner lived with in their recent merger litigation, Defendants can show why specific in-house counsel should have limited access to specific non-party confidential information.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should deny Qualcomm’s request for a stay in its appeal of an FTC lawsuit over the company's alleged mobile chip monopoly (see 1907160069), the agency said (in Pacer) Thursday. A stay could mean some customers continue paying “unreasonably high royalty rates,” the agency said. In addition to failing to show the public interest favors a stay, Qualcomm failed to show it will suffer “irreparable injury” absent a stay, the agency said: It failed to meet its burden of establishing a likelihood of success on the merits. The lower court correctly said Qualcomm’s “no license, no chips” policy is anticompetitive, the commission said. DOJ backs the company.

A Senate Judiciary Committee task force led by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., discussed privacy with Salesforce, Snap, Mozilla and Match representatives, a Blackburn aide confirmed Thursday. Blackburn will co-chair the task force with ranking member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the aide said. There’s no end date for the group’s efforts, given ongoing issues for the tech industry, and members hope to meet again before the August recess, the aide said. Blackburn, Feinstein, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., attended Thursday’s gathering with about 50 people, said the aide. Discussing the need for a new federal privacy law is “a good spot to start,” Blackburn told us, noting the task force is open to all committee members. Blackburn said on the Senate floor that the group will also explore antitrust, competition and any other issues that arise. She urged backing for her Browser Act (see 1904110052). Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told us his office is interested in participating. “I’m glad there is increasing interest,” he said. “I hope we will be moving toward some actual legislation.” Speaking on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., reaffirmed his commitment to reaching bipartisan, federal privacy legislation that sets one standard across the U.S. Hawley noted there have been public calls to re-examine the tech industry’s content liability shield from Blumenthal and Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii; and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, since he introduced legislation aimed at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

USTelecom renewed the contract for President-CEO Jonathan Spalter for three more years, through 2022, it said Thursday. Spalter started in January 2017 (see 1610040059). His reportable compensation that year was $1.43 million, according to the association's most recently available IRS Form 990.