State commissions shouldn’t step in to regulate the internet as the FCC pulls away, American Enterprise Institute adjunct scholar Bronwyn Howell blogged Thursday. State-by-state policy on issues like net neutrality would remove an advantage the U.S. has over the EU in setting telecom policy, she said. “Fragmenting regulatory oversight will inevitably mean a fragmenting of the single market that has served the US so well in the mobile age,” Howell said. “Differential regulations across state lines could invoke real costs.”
Intelsat and Coca-Cola are partnering on delivery of satellite-enabled Wi-Fi services to remote parts of Africa, Intelsat said Tuesday. It said the two will work jointly to establish Wi-Fi access at retail faculties in rural areas, allowing for personal and commercial connectivity.
Broadcom CEO Hock Tan announced Thursday he's moving co-headquarters to Delaware from Singapore. Broadcom already operates co-headquarters in San Jose but also operated in Singapore after its 2016 purchase of Avago Technologies. President Donald Trump joined Tan in making the White House announcement, which Tan said came because “business conditions have steadily improved.” Broadcom “will invest more than $3 billion in R&D and $6 billion in manufacturing, creating many high-paying jobs,” Tan said. “More than $20 billion in annual revenue will come back to our cities, towns, and the American workers,” Trump said.
The FCC is ending Form 740 filing requirements for imported RF devices, effective Thursday, the agency is to say in that day's Federal Register. The FCC will continue to require compliance with rules for importing RF devices, it said: The regulator "retained the requirement that there must be an entity that assumes responsibility for the compliance of the device and modified the rules to ensure the existence and identity (and a domestic presence under the new [Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity (SDoC)] rules), of such a responsible party." Commissioners approved in July (see 1707130032).
The FCC sought comment by Nov. 10 on recommendations by its World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee, prepared for the WRC meeting in 2019. “Based upon an initial review of the draft recommendations forwarded to the Commission, the International Bureau, in coordination with other Commission Bureaus and Offices, tentatively concludes that we can generally support most of the … recommendations,” said a public notice. It noted differing views on some recommendations.
Views of antitrust enforcement differ internationally, and even within the U.S., but there needs to be worldwide understanding there can be no exemption from universal procedural norms, DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim told a New York University School of Law audience Friday, according to a transcript. Principles include nondiscrimination, he said, and when foreign competition agencies occasionally favor domestic companies or discriminate against foreign firms, they violate that norm and "engage in shortsighted and counterproductive public policy." Procedural fairness and transparency are also among those principles, Delrahim said. He said the division's International Section "will continue to be a point of emphasis," with Roger Alford -- most recently University of Notre Dame associate dean-international and graduate programs -- named division deputy assistant attorney general. Delrahim said his renaming the Foreign Commerce Section as the International Section "emphasize[s] the breadth of its work." He said an Antitrust Division priority is making its technical assistance and support available to competition authorities in other nations and in modernizing its facilities with investments in new equipment and technology.
Twitter will bans ads from Russian RT and Sputnik news agencies effective immediately, based on internal research and a January report from intelligence agencies confirming the Russian firms attempted to interfere with the U.S. 2016 election, the company blogged Thursday. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, demanded Twitter provide information on how she was targeted. “While I have never publicly discussed it before today, I have been aware for some time that I was targeted by Russian operatives whose interests were aligned with Donald Trump," Waters said. Twitter said the advertising ban wasn't a decision it came to "lightly" but is part of the company's ongoing commitment to protect users. The company said it will donate the $1.9 million it earned from RT ads purchased beginning in 2011 to do additional research on use of its service in civic engagement. House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff of California said the decision "should prevent" Russian agencies from spreading disinformation and undermining democracies.
Amazon’s application for the generic top-level domain name .amazon will be a major discussion topic at next week’s ICANN meeting, blogged American Enterprise Institute visiting fellow Shane Tews. Although Peru and Brazil opposed the application (see 1710040051), a review panel said the ICANN board didn't adequately explain its reasons for blocking the applications, giving Amazon a green light, Tews said. Debate will continue, since the two governments oppose Amazon’s application based on concerns it impinges on countries in their region. “The internet community sees the .amazon application as a case study in what they can and cannot do without government permission,” Tews said Monday.
The Internet Security Alliance will join with Germany's largest cyber networking platform, the Cyber-Security Council of Germany, to create cyber industry-government initiatives focusing on practical solutions, ISA said Friday.
Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., jointly urged CEO Tim Cook Thursday to explain reports Apple removed VPN applications from the version of its App Store available in China, saying the action “may be enabling the Chinese government’s censorship and surveillance of the Internet” in what they dubbed the “Great Firewall.” The Chinese government announced earlier this year software developers offering VPN apps would need a government license. The “threat that the Great Firewall poses to the freedom of the people of China is similar to the threat that the Berlin Wall imposed on the people of East Berlin for twenty-eight years,” Cruz and Leahy said in a letter to Cook. “As long as the Great Firewall operates and is enabled by American technology companies, Internet freedom in China will remain at risk.” The senators asked Cook to detail how many VPN apps it removed from the Chinese version of the App Store, whether the company fought against Chinese laws on VPN and cybersecurity, and whether employees played any role in Chinese government-sponsored World Internet Conference events. Apple was “required to remove some VPN apps in China that do not meet the new regulations,” the company said in a statement. “These apps remain available in all other markets.”