Online platforms can be ordered to monitor for future sightings of content previously determined to be illegal, the European Court of Justice ruled Thursday in a case that could upend Europe's intermediary liability e-commerce directive. The high court said in Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek v. Facebook that EU members could order hosting companies to remove or block access to information "identical" or "equivalent" to content already declared illegal, including worldwide. Along with platform liability, ECJ raises issues of conflicts of law, free speech and mandatory content monitoring, representatives from the tech industry, digital rights activists, telecom sector and academia told us.
House Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chair Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., hopes for a bipartisan agreement with ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., on privacy legislation (see 1909060046). If one isn't reached, Schakowsky's prepared to move forward alone. “I’m more and more hopeful that we’re going to have a bipartisan bill, and once we confirm that, we can put out a draft for people to see,” Schakowsky told us last week. “If not, we’re still going to move forward, but I’m hopeful.”
The FCC should take up the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' directive to gather evidence on how broadcast ownership rules affect diversity as part of the agency's pending 2018 quadrennial review order (see 1909250064), said Commissioner Geoffrey Starks Thursday at the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters Fall Broadcast Management Conference. The ruling was the dominant regulatory topic, along with the QR and the state of the radio industry.
FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly renewed calls to prohibit E-rate funds to schools and libraries that receive broadband service from one provider when another has already received USF dollars at the same location. "It's awful enough when the government subsidizes network builds in areas where the private sector can or does provide service, but it's a separate layer of hell when E-rate money goes to an area already being subsidized by the FCC," O'Rielly told an FCBA USF seminar. O'Rielly has corresponded with school superintendents and consortium leaders in Texas and Arizona about their plans to build self-provisioned wide-area networks that would overbuild a local incumbent's fiber facilities. "I have never been presented with credible evidence that E-Rate funded overbuilding has been anything other than wasteful for the USF," he said, citing "copious evidence of bidding matrices designed to favor a particular outcome and schools buying far more bandwidth than they use or need."
Locality pre-emption beefs with the FCC aren't ending soon, with limits on local regulators' 911 VoIP fees and an end to some cable TV rate regulation on October's agenda. Chairman Ajit Pai, previewing the items for the Oct. 25 meeting in his blog Thursday, also said there will be items wrapping up part of the lengthy 800 MHz rebanding process, as expected (see 1910020030). There's also a media modernization NPRM that appears to concern eliminating broadcast antenna site rules that industry lawyers say have been used barely a handful of times in the past 30 years. Pai said there will be an order on testing procedures and performance measures for carriers receiving support from the USF Connect America Fund program for broadband deployment to high-cost areas and an order addressing two tariff regulations.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is unlikely to rush to address a remand on public safety, an issue remanded for further work by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Tuesday that largely upheld the FCC 2017 order overturning 2015 net neutrality rules (see 1910010018). Others said Wednesday because the issues involve public safety, the agency may feel compelled to respond (see 1910020028).
The FCC won’t release the votes tally for commissioners' decision to hire Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin, or the December order hiring her, the Office of General Counsel replied Monday to our Freedom of Information Act request made nearly a year ago. We plan to appeal the denial, and we responded Wednesday to a separate and almost complete FOIA denial received on the same day. Experts who reviewed the ALJ FOIA expressed concerns about the FCC's justifications for withholding the information, and the judge herself gave us some of what the document request sought.
Commissioners are expected at their Oct. 25 meeting to take up an order that would wrap up part of the lengthy 800 MHz rebanding process, which requires Sprint to pay transition costs, FCC and industry officials said Wednesday. Chairman Ajit Pai is expected to release a blog Thursday on the meeting agenda.
FCC allies in Tuesday's federal court decision on the Communications Act Title II rollback order (see 1910010018) consider appeal unlikely. Petitioner allies are less sure. California and Vermont’s litigated net neutrality laws remain on hold, those states’ attorneys generals confirmed Wednesday.
Wi-Fi will still rule in the smart home in the 5G era, said speakers on a Tuesday IHS Markit webinar. They sought robustness and reliability for good customer experiences.