MUNICH -- Industry and regulators are grappling with the slow uptake of fiber-to-the-home networks in major Western European countries. Countries like Germany and the U.K. don’t even figure in the recent statistics of the Fibre to the Home (FTTH) Council Europe, the Council warned at its meeting this week.

FCC work on making all TV stations put political-ad files online, so campaign buys of spots around the time of elections can be more closely tracked, likely will be guided by the industry’s first proposal (CD Feb 15 p20) for how to manage the files, said agency and industry officials. Officials at public interest groups that have long wanted everything in station’s public files to go online said the plan from 11 companies is a start to a dialogue with industry. Industry officials said it’s unclear if other stations and the NAB will back the proposal for broadcasters to aggregate information on ad buys without disclosing how much campaigns spent on each commercial. At first glance the proposal’s an interesting one, and may add corporate backers, industry officials said.

An FTC report Thursday targets mobile applications stores and app developers for their inadequate disclosure of information parents need to determine what data is being collected from their children when they download and use apps, how it’s shared or who will have access to it. The report highlights “the lack of information available to parents prior to downloading mobile apps for their children, and calls on the industry to provide greater transparency about their data practices,” the FTC said. FTC staff also found that there isn’t enough information provided from apps available through stores from Apple and Google’s Android concerning apps that are integrated with social media and targeted advertising, the FTC said.

Congress is poised to approve as early as Friday legislation extending the payroll tax cut, which also gives the FCC authority to hold voluntary incentive auctions of broadcast spectrum. The agreement on the spectrum provisions was a win for FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski who had made a push on the bill one of his top priorities, industry and FCC observers said, and a victory for public safety. A wireless industry official said he expects the FCC to move quickly to start developing rules for an auction, but an actual auction could be four to six years away.

GENEVA -- U.S. objectives, including a broadly defined 2015 agenda item to spur mobile broadband, were largely met during the four-week World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC), which ends Friday, officials said. The conference has been “very successful,” said Decker Anstrom, head of the U.S. delegation. The work by more than 150 countries to resolve each of the 33 agenda items was “effective and collaborative,” he said, and U.S. objectives have been “largely realized.” The U.S. is pleased with the agenda provisionally set for the 2015 conference, he said.

SILICON VALLEY -- Strapped state and local governments must move to the cloud for economies, but “with a lot of trepidation and very carefully,” said California Technology Secretary Carlos Ramos Thursday. Constituents “don’t trust government” but it requires them to entrust it “with critical and sensitive information,” and security “really is a big challenge, especially in government,” he said at an event to release a cloud-adoption report by a TechAmerica Foundation work group. The State & Local Government Cloud Commission includes representatives of AT&T, Google, Microsoft and Verizon.

Universal Service Fund contribution reform is on the way, but likely at a slower pace than expected last year, after the commission wrapped up distribution reform. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told the House Communications Subcommittee Thursday he expects work to start within six months.

Online social networks can’t be forced to monitor users to prevent piracy, the European Court of Justice said in a major ruling Thursday. Requiring hosting providers to install a general filtering system would violate the rule that there be a fair balance between protecting copyright and the freedom to conduct business, safeguard personal data and receive information, the high court said. The decision should make EU bodies and national governments think twice about attempting to make private companies responsible for copyright breaches in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and upcoming revisions to the intellectual property rights enforcement directive, digital rights activists said.

The Senate Cybersecurity Act, S-2105, gained momentum Wednesday following endorsements from the White House, Joint Chiefs of Staff and some technology groups. Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said there’s “no reason for further delay” on cybersecurity legislation. His remarks came in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday evening.

The FCC proposed to change how the cellular service is licensed -- from a site-based to a geographically based regime. The spectrum covered, in the 800 MHz band, was the first used for cellphones. The FCC also proposed eliminating data filing requirements in seven areas. The proposed rules approved by commissioners at Wednesday’s meeting would put cellular licensees on the same footing as other bands, including PCS, AWS and the 700 MHz band. CTIA sought the rule changes in an October 2008 petition. The notice and an accompanying order were not controversial and didn’t spark much discussion on the eighth floor prior the vote, agency officials said.