Five consumer and privacy groups are urging House and Senate Commerce Committee leaders to back the creation of a U.S. data protection agency, among suggestions on how the FTC can increase data protection and promote competition and innovation. "The United States is one of the few democracies in the world that does not have a federal data protection agency, even though the original proposal for such an institution emerged from the U.S. in the 1970s," wrote the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Watchdog, Electronic Privacy Information Center and U.S. Public Interest Research Group in the Wednesday letter. They said the FTC should support the creation of such an agency. The groups urged the agency to continue to uphold Privacy Shield, the trans-Atlantic data transfer framework, and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The commission, the letter said, has approved too many deals -- including Google's acquisitions of DoubleClick (see 1612190037) and Nest, and Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp (see 1609220031) -- that the groups said failed to protect privacy. The FTC must use its antitrust power to block such deals that concentrate data and endanger privacy, they said. Not only should the FTC seek more legislative authority to protect privacy, it also should bring more actions over unfair trade practices, the groups said. "The unworkable 'notice and choice' approach fails to provide meaningful privacy protections, and simply produces vague privacy policies." Instead, the FTC's unfairness authority can provide "substantive" protections and reduce identity thefts, data breaches and financial fraud, the letter said. Other suggestions include enforcing existing consent orders, incorporating "important" public suggestions into proposed settlements, requiring baseline privacy standards in settlements and increasing transparency over the complaint process. The letter was addressed to House Commerce Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

Cable and telco groups continued to battle over FCC treatment of pole attachments under a proposed ILEC shift from traditional Part 32 regulatory accounting rules to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). The American Cable Association said if the commission ends use of Part 32 data to calculate pole-attachment rates, it should adopt an NCTA proposal to freeze price-cap carrier rates at current levels (see 1702090042). If the FCC adopts an ILEC 12-year transition proposal "in lieu of a rate freeze, at least it should provide that: incumbent carriers cannot increase rates for the first five years of the transition; incumbent carriers must maintain and produce part 32 data during this five year period so it can be compared to rates that would result from the use of [GAAP]; and, incumbent carriers should file with the Commission annually underlying data to show how they derive rates," said an ACA filing posted Thursday in docket 14-130. Telcos acknowledged the shift may cause pole-attachments rates, typically under $10 (per pole attachment per year), to rise "by several dollars, a substantial rate hike," which would be "especially felt" by ACA's members and hinder broadband deployment, the cable association said. The agency is considering streamlining its Part 32 rules at commissioners' Feb. 23 meeting (see 1702020051). A USTelecom filing posted Wednesday called the NCTA arguments "flawed" and Part 32 accounting "a relic of rate of return regulation" that "makes no sense for America's price cap carriers." It said ILECs understood the concerns of cable and others, and proposed "a reasonable transition mechanism" for calculating GAAP pole-attachment rates. The transition proposed by AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon factored in depreciation, cost-of-removal and any other differences between methodologies, USTelecom said. Freezing rates based on one year's costs "cannot be a realistic alternative to a reasonable, long-term transition," the ILEC trade group said. The telco proposal "is not an effort to increase pole attachment rates; any suggestion otherwise is conflating an argument about problems with the formula used to define rates with a procedural accounting issue," it said. USTelecom said the carriers' confidential submissions back their claims that the transition's rate impact would vary -- rates would "in many cases, go down or not be significantly affected."

Comcast executives sat with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to discuss his regulatory reform steps, focus on the digital divide and other issues, said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 13-236. The operator said it also gave him its latest Internet Essentials broadband program subscriber numbers and urged Pai "to act expeditiously" in restoring the UHF discount. Such action is expected to occur soon (see 1701110067). Also at the meeting were Pai Chief of Staff Matthew Berry, Comcast Senior Executive Vice President David Cohen, NBCUniversal Senior Vice President-Government Relations Mitch Rose and Comcast Senior Vice President-Regulatory and State Legislative Affairs Kathryn Zachem. Pai, since assuming the chair, also met with Incompas (see 1702130023). The agency declined to comment now.

The Parents Television Council is asking T-Mobile to reconsider sponsoring Fox’s The Mick, a sitcom that “routinely features minors smoking, drinking, swearing and having sex.” T-Mobile advertised in six of nine episodes, PTC said in a Wednesday news release. “I would hope that with such a competitive mobile market … T-Mobile would realize that sponsoring adult shows isn’t a good business strategy and can alienate the very customers that T-Mobile wants to reach,” said PTC Program Director Melissa Henson. “Fox is clearly being irresponsible by airing this kind of adult content in the first place, but the network relies on sponsors like T-Mobile to keep it on the air.” The carrier didn’t comment. In January, PTC raised similar objections with Verizon over its sponsorship of the Fox show.

FTC Acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen will keynote a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event Wednesday, featuring the release of two reports on cross-border data flows. A Chamber news release said the first report details the economic importance of such information and communications technology services and challenges posed through data localization. The second report will sketch best practices for privacy regulators. The event will also feature: Information Technology and Innovation Foundation President Robert Atkinson; former Department of Commerce Director-Digital Economy Alan Davidson, now a New America Foundation fellow; Hugh Gamble, Salesforce vice president-federal government affairs; Sean Heather, vice president-global regulatory cooperation at the Chamber; Karen Kornbluh, Nielsen executive vice president-external affairs; Thomson Reuters Senior Privacy Officer Heidi Salow; and Hunton and Williams attorney Lisa Sotto. The 9-11:45 a.m. event will be at 1615 H St. NW.

SiriusXM equipment in some locations still sees interference from AT&T wireless communications service facilities, and one solution under consideration involves collocating SiriusXM terrestrial repeaters or boosting the SiriusXM signal at some WCS transmission sites, the satellite radio provider said in an FCC filing posted Tuesday in docket 07-293. The filing was an update on coordination efforts involving AT&T's WCS broadband network and SiriusXM's satellite digital audio radio service. SiriusXM said that coordination work involved "thousands of hours of equipment testing in labs" as well as drive testing near WCS transmitters. It said it and the carrier are evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed solutions and whether they would require FCC OK. AT&T didn't comment Wednesday. A 2013 AT&T/SiriusXM settlement opened the door for the carrier to deploy LTE in the 2.3 GHz band (see 1210180070).

Acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen should be made the agency's permanent head, said Lawrence Spiwak, president of the Phoenix Center, in an opinion piece for The Hill. He said Ohlhausen will "judiciously" wield the commission's power by focusing on "substantial harm" on consumers rather than speculative injury. He also said Ohlhausen has a "close relationship" with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and, like him, could "implement thoughtful policy on day one." Ohlhausen will be fair and wants to get better understanding of the economics of digital privacy, especially the link between access to consumer data and innovation, Spiwak said. "As a genuine respect for economics is in very short supply in Washington policy circles -- although lip service regrettably is always in abundant supply -- it's important for us to give credit where credit is due," he added. Ohlhausen plans to cut unnecessary regulations and provide businesses with more transparency, he said, but "one should not equate her philosophy of 'regulatory humility' with being soft on those who would harm consumers."

Ajit Pai's FCC direction on undoing broadband regulation doesn't surprise Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, since Republicans were clear under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler that they disagreed with some rulings and postures such as its approach to net neutrality, she said in a six-minute interview Tuesday on WNYC AM/FM New York's The Takeaway. But the principles of net neutrality aren't dead, she said, calling them "beyond partisanship." How "we execute them, that might be different," she said. Clyburn said there's a general expectation ISPs shouldn't be allowed to throttle or block web access and there should be some privacy protections. She also said there's infrastructure investment and business certainty "because we have clear rules of the road.”

Telcos pushed for FCC elimination of "outdated" Part 32 accounting rules as part of a gradual move to reliance on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). USTelecom, AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon officials discussed the methodology the price-cap telcos used in crafting a proposed transition for calculating pole-attachment rates under GAAP, said a USTelecom filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-130 on meetings with aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael O'Rielly. The FCC is considering streamlining and eliminating its Part 32 rules at its Feb. 23 meeting (see 1702020051). The telco "proposal seeks to provide a simple and transparent method for addressing any delta between the results derived under the two methodologies and ensuring a long 12-year transition [that] is fair to both attachers and the carriers and meets the requirements of the [Communications] Act," the filing said. But NCTA said a GAAP-based approach wouldn't track specific pole investment and expenses as required under Part 32, leading to "unwarranted, harmful increases in pole attachment rates." The harms can't be addressed solely through a lengthy transition and instead should be combined with a freeze on ILEC pole-attachment rates, said an NCTA filing on a meeting with the O'Rielly aide to discuss the group's opposition to the telco proposal (see 1702090042). The USTelecom filing said the telco proposal, unlike a rate freeze, would incorporate changes annually, which would be "more consistent with the Act," while neutralizing the impact of the transition from Part 32 to GAAP-based inputs. Pole-attachment rates would continue to vary under GAAP and in many cases are expected to be lower than those under Part 32, the filing said. "We also described how impractical it would be to maintain Part 32 accounts just for pole attachment rate calculations," the telcos said.

“The time is right” to consider fundamental changes to the FCC's structure, said Bronwyn Howell, American Enterprise Institute visiting fellow, in a blog post endorsing Trump transition team member Mark Jamison's proposal to change the commission's operations. Jamison is also a scholar affiliated with AEI, and proposed replacing the wireline and wireless bureaus with bureaus of economics, engineering, competition and consumer protection (see 1702020029). The FCC's current structure is an artifact of an earlier time, ”building upon regulations developed for railways and postal services,” Howell said. A reorganization would allow the commission to shift to monitoring the industry as an “ecosystem” where “the performance at specific points of the ecosystem is monitored, and behaviors are adjusted retrospectively based on need,” Howell said. “In the former, systems are designed with large levers to be pulled that can fundamentally alter the structural arrangements of regulated industries, while the latter can be characterized as multiple ‘regulators’ scattered throughout a complex system,” Howell said. “The proposed structure takes account of the profound changes that have taken place as technological convergence has brought all of telecommunications, broadcasting, and data transport onto a common digital platform, and customers’ experiences have come to be mediated primarily through the applications they use rather than the underlying network technologies that support them.”