Three states’ privacy bills appeared to fail in one week as legislators struggled to find agreement before their sessions ended. Washington state legislation looked dead Thursday; it hadn’t received votes as legislators neared adjournment. Florida and Wisconsin bills also stalled, and an Indiana bill could also run out of time soon. Recent privacy bill defeats show “it's tough to get a bill passed on a big-ticket item like this,” said Husch Blackwell privacy attorney David Stauss in a Thursday interview.
Industry, state officials and advocacy groups disagreed how the FCC should proceed in adopting new broadband consumer labels, in comments posted Thursday in docket 22-2 (see 2201280038). Industry disagreed whether certain information should be required or optional, while state officials and advocacy groups called for strong enforcement and regular publishing of the labels online and on consumer bills. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) required the FCC to adopt labels and hold public hearings on the issue (see 2201270030).
The FCC appears likely to adopt an ascending-clock auction in the 2.5 GHz band, or some version of a multi-round auction, rather than the sealed-bid approach favored by wireless ISPs, AT&T, Dish Network and others concerned about T-Mobile’s potential to dominate a more traditional auction, industry experts said. The auction is expected to start in July.
The FCC is considering creating a voluntary “designated hitter” plan to provide multilingual emergency information during disasters, said broadcast and emergency alerting officials. Under such plans long touted by the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, English-language stations in a market would use their broadcast to host foreign language emergency information translated by local foreign language stations if those stations have been knocked off the air. Broadcasters argued that such proposals are impractical and unlikely to work, but in an ex parte letter filed Thursday MMTC said the system is the only choice. “After almost two decades of consideration, no one has offered a better alternative,” said MMTC President Robert Branson.
Music labels claiming Cox Communications is liable for copyright infringement by its broadband subscribers faced seeming skepticism by a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel of judges in oral argument Wednesday (docket 21-1168), as Cox appeals a U.S. District Court finding it liable and upholding a jury's $1 billion verdict (see 2101130025). Judge Allison Jones Rushing said the plaintiff-appellees are asking the court "to embrace an extremely broad theory of liability," and it's not clear why the lower court also agreed with it.
News Media Alliance (NMA) President David Chavern is “optimistic” about the future of the proposed Journalism Competition Protection Act and favors changing Communications Decency Act Section 230 to reduce liability protections for tech companies, he told the Media Institute at the group’s virtual luncheon Wednesday. “We’re responsible for the decisions we make; the platforms are responsible for the decision they made,” Chavern said.
As ICANN continues to struggle with combating domain name system (DNS) abuse, it should distinguish between maliciously registered and legitimate but compromised domain names, stakeholders said Wednesday at this week's ICANN virtual meeting from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Representatives from the Registries Stakeholder Group, Registrar Stakeholder Group, Governmental Advisory Committee, Intellectual Property Constituency and Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) also agreed that coming up with a process for dealing with compromised domains is probably harder than doing so for maliciously registered names. ICANN can play a key role, but the issues go far beyond the internet body, they said.
Japan and the U.S. are working together on open radio access networks as an alternative to the limited choice of network gear from non-Chinese providers, especially Huawei, speakers said during a Hudson Institute webinar Wednesday. Experts said many challenges remain to scaling up ORAN to make it more attractive to carriers.
The House Communications Subcommittee plans a March 16 hearing on 5G and spectrum management issues, as expected (see 2203040073), the Commerce Committee said Wednesday. The panel will examine “facilitating the advancement of next-generation wireless technologies, including 5G, to ensure the United States uses wireless technology to serve consumers and remains a global leader in this important economic sector,” the committee said. The hearing is expected in part to focus on reauthorizing the FCC’s spectrum auction authority, which is to expire at the end of FY 2022 Sept. 30.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday outlining a national policy on digital assets and directing agencies to explore a U.S. central bank digital currency. Democrats welcomed the news, highlighting crypto-related financial inclusion issues and risks associated with the technology like money laundering. Republicans took a pro-innovation stance, urging Congress to pass legislation to avoid anti-innovation policies.