Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee were unable to resolve their differences Thursday over a bill aimed at updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Though committee members adopted an amendment to the House-passed HR-2471, a bill that would let companies like Netflix share users’ viewing choices with their permission, Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., delayed a vote on the bill until the committee’s next executive business meeting, which stakeholders said would occur after the election. Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told us the delay was due to Leahy’s failure to address serious concerns with the amendment and said the committee is unlikely to consider the bill until 2013.

Liberty Media won’t increase its ownership of Sirius XM past 50 percent in the “very short term,” pending an FCC decision on its bid to take control of the company, CEO Greg Maffei said Thursday at a Goldman Sachs conference in New York City. Liberty, which increased its ownership in Sirius to 49.5 percent last week from 47.5 percent, has been buying up shares this year, seeking a return on the investment it made in the satellite radio company. Liberty invested $350 million in Sirius in 2009 and loaned it $180 million, likely sparing the company bankruptcy as it faced maturing debt.

Progress in the rollout by two broadcaster technology coalitions of mobile DTV, now commercially available to about half of Americans, was cited by senior House Communications Subcommittee members of both parties. Speaking at a Capitol Hill mobile DTV and mobile emergency alert system (M-EAS) demo Thursday, they said those new technologies’ use of spectrum already allocated to broadcasters helps meet increasing consumer demand for streaming video. Lawmakers recognized consumption of mobile DTV -- TV stations sending live shows to portable devices and as of this summer one model of Samsung cellphone on MetroPCS (CD Aug 10 p10) -- doesn’t use wireless spectrum or incur data consumption charges to cellphone subscribers.

The U.S. urgently needs an Internet that functions well, is accessible to all, and isn’t interfered with by incumbent communications providers, Roosevelt Institute Fellow Susan Crawford said in an interview Thursday. Backed by the institute’s Four Freedoms Center, Crawford, a former ICANN board member and special assistant to President Barack Obama for science, technology and innovation policy, is spearheading a multi-year project to bring high-speed fiber Internet services to the entire country. That means working at the local level to help communities build their own fiber networks, and fighting back on the national level against the major players who control access, she said.

Mobile phone technology can help developing communities improve access to healthcare information and improve education, said Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations during a Time magazine event Wednesday. There’s “enormous” potential for mobile to improve and increase global health, she said.

Data collection for the FCC’s next broadband measurement report is more than halfway complete, and “it’s been going very, very well,” said Walter Johnston, chief of the Office of Technology and Engineering’s Electromagnetic Compatibility Division. “The smoothest experience we've had to date,” he told ISP and M-Lab representatives who met to discuss the progress Wednesday. The September data should be processed into a data set by the end of October, and the group plans to release its report in late November or early December, he said. That will be after first giving ISPs a multiple-day period to review the data for accuracy.

The Library of Congress’s new site, Congress.gov, is “a significant achievement,” said House Administration Committee Chairman Dan Lungren, R-Calif., at the site’s unveiling on Wednesday. The new site, still in beta, is a part of a three-pronged Web update for the Library of Congress, said Jim Karamanis, its chief of Web services. That includes updates made to the Library of Congress site, LOC.gov, and a new site for its U.S. Copyright Office, which will come next year.

A spectrum aggregation notice of proposed rulemaking, slated for a vote at the FCC’s Sept. 28 meeting, is expected to win easy approval, agency officials said. The NPRM is tied to a second rulemaking also tentatively scheduled for a vote at the monthly meeting. That second NPRM establishes rules for an incentive auction of broadcast spectrum, and potentially could be used to keep Verizon Wireless and AT&T from bidding in some markets where they already have substantial spectrum holdings. At this stage, all the FCC is doing is asking questions. The NPRM will likely get “yes” votes from all three FCC Democrats and at least one Republican, agency officials said.

Original programming could be 10 to 20 percent of Netflix’s TV-related content within three to five years as the video service takes a “measured approach” to expanding the category, Chief Financial Officer David Wells told us Wednesday at a Goldman Sachs investor conference.

The FCC is unlikely to even start collecting data on special access rates until next year, Wireline Bureau Chief Julie Veach conceded at an FCBA lunch Wednesday. She said the data collection order is almost ready, but once it’s finalized by the commission it still faces review by the Office of Management and Budget. The OMB must vet it under the Paperwork Reduction Act.