The FTC and marketers each are working to get a handle on data practices in mobile, seen as a huge new privacy frontier, officials said Tuesday. “We have nonpublic investigations in this area,” said Jessica Rich, deputy director of the commission’s Consumer Protection Bureau, on a teleconference held by the American Bar Association’s science and technology law section. There’s “not enough effort being made to address privacy in this space,” and it’s “just going to get bigger and bigger” as a data privacy issue, she said.

Some who seek to change retransmission consent rules want an FCC inquiry into what TV stations charge multichannel video programming providers, to show what they contend are rising prices in a broken system. Officials at the American Cable Association and Public Knowledge, among the 14 entities that in 2010 petitioned the agency to change how it handles retrans disputes, and MVPD SureWest said in interviews that such an inquiry will help make their case. A lawyer for TV stations which oppose changes to the rules told us the onus is on MVPDs to show costs to carry TV stations’ signals are too high. An NAB official said more government involvement isn’t needed.

Spectrum legislation could become part of the budget deal for fiscal-year 2012, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told us Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has mentioned that as a possibility, so Rockefeller hasn’t talked to Reid about separate floor time for his legislation S-911, Rockefeller said. Congress has been trying to make a deal on debt ceiling legislation that must pass before Aug. 2 or the U.S. will default on its obligations. Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said he’s hoping the FCC will work on 700 MHz interoperability.

The Supreme Court likely will spend much time on a landmark broadcast indecency decision, reviewing whether the FCC has constitutional authority to find that an isolated occurrence of nudity or instance of cursing is indecent, industry lawyers and professors predicted. They said the 1978 Pacifica case, where the high court found the commission can find certain swear words indecent, is likely to get more attention than the 1969 Red Lion ruling upholding broadcast regulation because of the scarcity of spectrum. That’s because in certifying for oral argument cases involving the ABC and Fox networks, the court on Monday said it will limit consideration to issues involving the First and Fifth Amendments.

A handful of rural rate-of-return telco executives took aim at the USTelecom-led efforts to create cost models for Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms, an ex parte notice released Monday showed. USTelecom had brought in analyst CostQuest to create cost models as it continues to lead industry-wide talks on wholesale reform. CostQuest executives have been sitting in on ex parte meetings since at least May to discuss some of their findings (CD May 24 p14).

FTC Commissioner Julie Brill advocated Do Not Track mechanisms for mobile devices, apps, and services, during a Center for American Progress event in Washington Monday. “With so much information about consumers being exchanged in that space,” said Brill, “this branch of the information superhighway is in desperate need of reform.” Brill also said there was a “widespread consensus” that the provisions of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) apply to most mobile technologies.

Whether the start of more low-power FM stations will affect commercial radio stations operating at full power was debated in FCC filings on a coming Media Bureau study on LPFM. NAB said licensing of many more LPFMs could hurt full-power stations in the major markets that haven’t before had low-power rivals, if the upstarts have similar programming as incumbents. The study the commission was ordered by Congress to do under last year’s Local Community Radio Act ought to take future stations into account, the association said. Low-power stations and their advocates predicted the economic impact of those broadcasters will to be nonexistent or small. Filings were posted Monday and Friday in docket 11-83, on the study due to Congress Jan. 4. The agency is taking other steps to implement the legislation (CD May 3 p3), with commissioners tentatively set to vote on a rulemaking notice on the subject at the July 12 meeting.

Mobile phones and the Internet have played a big part in the overthrow of repressive regimes internationally, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said Monday at a conference for international regulators in Stockholm. McDowell expressed strong concerns about attacks on Internet freedom, particularly in China.

AT&T got some political cover from House Democrats last week, in the form of a letter signed by 76 of them who said the transaction will create “good paying union jobs” and expand broadband to unserved areas (CD June 23 p13) . The letter doesn’t specifically endorse the deal. Foes of the transaction were quick to question the significance of the letter and whether it will resonate at the FCC or elsewhere in the administration.

Top congressional staffers are lending a hand in the ongoing talks on an industry-endorsed Universal Service Fund reform proposal, telco and Capitol Hill officials said in interviews. Ray Baum, senior policy adviser on the House Communications Subcommittee and longtime friend of Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.; Nick Degani, legal counsel to the subcommittee; and Brad Schweer, legislative director to Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb.; have all taken an active part in the industry talks in recent weeks, telco officials and Baum said. Since the November elections, Congress had steered clear of USF, focusing on net neutrality, spectrum, FCC reform and AT&T’s plan to buy T-Mobile. Walden earlier this month said he was “encouraged” by the FCC’s USF efforts, and urged industry to come up with a reform package soon (CD June 8 p5).