The peer-to-peer industry’s trade group isn’t unreservedly in favor of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s net-neutrality rulemaking. Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) CEO Marty Lafferty said over the weekend he had been flooded with questions about the group’s stance. The association “strongly supports” the two new principles of nondiscrimination and disclosure, he said, and the four current principles “should be applied immediately on a case-by-case basis in relatively mature and developed broadband environments, such as DSL and cable modem.” But the group is worried that the “inherent stringency of detailed rule-making based on these principles could freeze innovation in areas of rapid technological advancement and change.” Nearly echoing the content industry, Lafferty said that “premature government regulation could actually be detrimental to the preservation and maintenance of a free and open Internet.” The rulemaking should focus on allowing for “continued experimentation” in areas where new business models haven’t taken hold, rather than “enforcement aimed at protecting old models,” he said. He proposed reconsideration of copyright laws after “new revenue streams have been defined,” not settling “for mere coexistence with [regulatory] rules that are no longer adequate or applicable.” Lafferty called for context-specific application of the FCC principles depending on network capacity constraints, usage patterns and market competition on different platforms, such as wireless and wireline. In assailing ISPs’ blocking VoIP and P2P applications, Genachowski seemingly ignored business efforts to relieve the concerns of ISPs about bandwidth consumption, Lafferty said - - such as the DCIA’s P4P Working Group, involving about 100 ISPs and P2P companies. The new protocol, which improves the efficiency of file-sharing by connecting users near each other (WID Oct 28 p3), is in commercial deployment by ISPs around the world, he said. The FCC principles, case-by-case enforcement and voluntary efforts “will yield more progress than the rigidity of a static regime bound in conventional rule-making and enforcement procedures.”
According to CBP's August/September 2009 ACE Trade Account Owner update, it has been discovered that if a carrier or their agent requests an in-bond move via their ACE Portal e-Manifest declaration and they use certain Units of Measure (UOM) descriptions in the shipment/commodity/quantity and weight section, the in-bond request will be rejected internally by the system with no error message being returned to the carrier.
CBP has posted an updated schedule for its outreach events in various locations around the country to provide the trade community with an opportunity to learn more about the new Importer Security Filing and Additional Carrier Requirements (a.k.a. ISF/"10+2") interim final rule. (Schedule, dated 09/24/09, available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/trade_outreach/09_outreach_schl.xml)
The International Trade Administration frequently issues notices on antidumping and countervailing duty orders, investigations, etc. which Broker Power considers to be "minor" in importance as they concern actions that occur after an order is issued, neither announce nor cause any changes to an order's duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective period, etc.
CBP Acting Commissioner Ahern will host CBP's 10th annual trade symposium on December 8 - 10. Registration will open on October 1, 2009. The registration fee is $290. Symposium topics will include Importer Security Filing (10+2), Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), the Automated Commercial Environment and other CBP programs and initiatives. (See ITT's Online Archives or 09/21/09 news, 09092110, for previous BP summary on the trade symposium.) (Notice, dated 09/21/09, available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/09212009.xml)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the June/July and August 2009 Trade Support Network monthly activity reports summarizing the activity of all of the TSN Committees and Subcommittees for the given months.
The International Trade Administration has initiated administrative reviews of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders below, for certain specified companies listed in the initiation notice.
It’s too early for federal agencies to evaluate some of the content industry’s proposals for reducing copyright infringement on the Internet, if the tone of questions from FCC, Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department officials at a Thursday broadband workshop is any indication. Officials said they wanted more data on the extent of infringement and consumer expectations for the media they purchase, and the viability of existing remedies under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other laws.
Level 3 and HyperCube traded more salvos, as Level 3 slammed HyperCube for what Level 3 calls “a repetitive tirade” answering an administrative law judge’s request for financial data. In a Monday filing to the California Public Utilities Commission, Level 3 said HyperCube used the request “as an excuse to issue yet another press release, and to confuse the record with irrelevant and unsupported allegations.”
Privacy clauses in contracts hinder pay-TV companies from showing the FCC and Congress that cable programmers, including ESPN, require the purchase of their online offerings along with their cable channels, pay-TV executives said. Non-disclosure provisions in subscription TV carriage contracts mean groups including the American Cable Association, National Telecommunications Cooperative Association and Organization for Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies (OPASTCO) have a harder time making their case, they told us.