Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, plan to introduce legislation targeting Section 230 immunity, online housing discrimination and civil rights, they told us Tuesday (see 2101260066). “There are certain provisions, certain areas that we think that [online platforms] should not have immunity,” Hirono said, citing housing discrimination and civil rights. “This particular iteration has the support of a lot of groups because there’s concern, of course, on both sides, left and right.” There’s “a lot of interest” in making changes to Section 230 immunity, she added.
The Senate Commerce Committee voted 21-3 Wednesday to advance commerce secretary nominee Gina Raimondo, likely setting up a floor confirmation vote in the coming days. Committee Republicans continued to raise concerns that Raimondo hasn’t unequivocally ruled out the Commerce Department rolling back restrictions on Huawei and other Chinese telecom and tech firms. The Wednesday vote was likely the last committee activity to occur with Republicans in control. The Senate agreed by unanimous consent Wednesday to approve a resolution to organize the 50-50 chamber, giving Democrats control of committee gavels.
EU plans for tighter regulation of internet companies will affect the domain name system and ICANN, stakeholders agreed in recent interviews. The European Commission-proposed digital services act (DSA), cybersecurity strategy and revised network and information security directive's exact impacts remain unclear, they said.
How bound the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is by a 2017 D.C. Circuit decision that resulted in the FCC scrapping part of its junk fax rule (see 1811140054) was the central issue in oral argument Tuesday as petitioner Bais Yaakov of Spring Valley, New York, challenged that March agency order. Hearing the case were Judges Dennis Jacobs, Richard Sullivan and Steven Menashi.
Congress should provide billions of dollars in new funding for broadband, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said at a virtual FCBA conference Tuesday on the 25th anniversary of the Telecom Act. Some 42 million Americans still don’t have reliable broadband, “and that is a national tragedy,” he said. Too often, those left out are “brown, black and low-income,” he said. Markey is expected to soon be named Communications Subcommittee chairman (see 2101290049).
Commerce secretary nominee Gina Raimondo told Senate Commerce Committee members before a planned Wednesday vote that she doesn't believe there's reason for the Commerce Department to remove Huawei and other Chinese companies from current departmental restrictions, like the Bureau of Industry and Security’s entity list. Raimondo’s comments, posted Tuesday, came amid rising GOP concerns about her failure at last week's confirmation hearing to definitively rule out removing Huawei from the entity list (see 2101260063). Senate Commerce's meeting to vote on Raimondo will begin at 9:30 a.m. in 325 Russell. The Senate also confirmed Pete Buttigieg as transportation secretary and Alejandro Mayorkas as homeland security secretary (see personals section of this publication's issue).
Having rejected a stay of Ligado's L-band plan amid a review of NTIA's petition for reconsideration (see 2101200001), the FCC isn't expected to decide on petitions for recon from the first half of 2020 (see 2005210043) until the back half of 2021, if not 2022, the company's backers and critics told us. Many see it unlikely the agency will reverse itself on its unanimous approval (see 2004200039).
Jessica Rosenworcel’s first meeting as acting FCC chairwoman was a video call with public interest groups Wednesday, according to interviews and a filing posted Monday in docket 20-445. Free Press, Public Knowledge, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Electronic Frontier Foundation and 22 other groups laid out preferred policies.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee is investigating the SolarWinds cyberattack and exploring a potential hearing, Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich., told us: “We’re going to do an investigation, look into that and look at a potential hearing.” Microsoft, Google, FireEye and several federal agencies were potentially exposed in the Russia-linked attack (see 2101190067).
The USF contribution factor continues to shatter records. Universal Service Administrative Co. released its quarterly demand projections Friday, and the contribution factor will increase from 31.8% in Q1 to a historic 32.7% for Q2, said analyst Billy Jack Gregg. It raises several questions about the fund’s sustainability (see 2012310027). Even if demand stays at the current level, the factor will continue to rise because the contribution base continues to decline, Gregg said.