Facebook spent $2.78 million on lobbying spending in Q1, about 14 percent more than what it spent in the same period last year, while Oracle increased outlays for lobbying the federal government for Q1, spending $1.72 million. Both companies lobbied on similar issues, including cybersecurity and intellectual property as well as on House (HR-699) and Senate (S-356) legislation focused on updating the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) (see 1604140010), which the technology industry strongly favors.
The North American Submarine Cable Association criticized the FCC's course in a rulemaking proposing undersea cable outage reporting rules (see 1509170047), days after the agency circulated a draft order to require such reporting (see 1604080062). "NASCA remains concerned that the NPRM is premised on an erroneous assumption that there is a hidden submarine cable outage problem," said a Monday filing in docket 15-206 on discussions the group's representatives, including from AT&T and Verizon, had last week with aides to Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly. "The lack of outage reports under the existing voluntary system is due to a lack of reportable events." NASCA said data show an average of just "two faults" (events needing fixes) per year in U.S. territorial sea (within 12 nautical miles of shore) and exclusive economic zone waters (extending 200 nautical miles out) in the Atlantic Ocean and one such fault per year in U.S. Pacific Ocean areas. A Northern Mariana outage resulted from a lack of redundancy, but most U.S. undersea cable providers have "ring infrastructure systems with multiple segments serving the same route" and some have satellite backup, the group said. "The purposes of the new reporting requirements remain insufficiently defined and lack a clear statutory basis," it said. The NPRM's proposals "would require significant revision to make them workable," said NASCA. An "outage definition's '30-minutes-or-greater' loss-criterion would capture mundane events" and a "loss of 50 percent or more of a cable's capacity" standard couldn't "be meaningfully applied," it said. The FCC underestimated the costs of its reporting proposals, said the group, which proposed a more targeted framework, with an "outage" defined in terms of traffic loss and customer impact, undersea cable operators not required to submit initial notifications until 48 hours after a fault is discovered, and licensees able to determine their own reporting duties. Operators should be given at least one year to implement changes, it said. NASCA strongly backed the FCC's proposed information clearinghouse on submarine cable landings in the U.S.
Bibliologic, a "purported" nonprofit organization, agreed to surrender almost all its assets allegedly transferred to it by defendants involved in a multimillion-dollar landline cramming operation, the FTC said Monday in a news release. The commission approved the final order 4-0 and filed the proposal in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Montana. In 2013, the FTC filed a complaint against American eVoice, eight other companies, relief defendant Bibliologic, Steven Sann and three other individuals for allegedly placing more than $70 million in bogus charges on consumers' phone bills (see 1301230059). The commission said the defendants transferred millions of dollars "in ill-gotten gains to Bibliologic." The Bibliologic settlement "mirrors" one between the nonprofit and the Chapter 7 Trustee of Sann's bankruptcy estate, of which the FTC is the largest creditor, the commission said. Bibliologic will surrender "several assets, including a large tract of land, the contents of multiple bank and investment accounts, gold and silver, and several vehicles" to the trustee, the FTC said. While Bibliologic will be allowed to keep $100,000 to use for charitable purposes, the settlement also imposes a suspended monetary judgment of $100,000, meaning it would become due if the organization uses the money to benefit any defendant in the case. Bibliologic identifies itself as a Christian ministry on its IRS Form 990 tax return for 2012 compiled by the National Center for Charitable Statistics. An attorney for Bibliologic didn't comment.
Bibliologic, a "purported" nonprofit organization, agreed to surrender almost all its assets allegedly transferred to it by defendants involved in a multimillion-dollar landline cramming operation, the FTC said Monday in a news release. The commission approved the final order 4-0 and filed the proposal in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Montana. In 2013, the FTC filed a complaint against American eVoice, eight other companies, relief defendant Bibliologic, Steven Sann and three other individuals for allegedly placing more than $70 million in bogus charges on consumers' phone bills (see 1301230059). The commission said the defendants transferred millions of dollars "in ill-gotten gains to Bibliologic." The Bibliologic settlement "mirrors" one between the nonprofit and the Chapter 7 Trustee of Sann's bankruptcy estate, of which the FTC is the largest creditor, the commission said. Bibliologic will surrender "several assets, including a large tract of land, the contents of multiple bank and investment accounts, gold and silver, and several vehicles" to the trustee, the FTC said. While Bibliologic will be allowed to keep $100,000 to use for charitable purposes, the settlement also imposes a suspended monetary judgment of $100,000, meaning it would become due if the organization uses the money to benefit any defendant in the case. Bibliologic identifies itself as a Christian ministry on its IRS Form 990 tax return for 2012 compiled by the National Center for Charitable Statistics. An attorney for Bibliologic didn't comment.
DOJ promotes Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse of the Antitrust Division to lead the division, succeeding Bill Baer, who recently became acting associate attorney general (see this section in the April 13 issue) ... Covington & Burling hires Ann West Bobeck, ex-NAB, as special counsel, Communications & Media Practice group ... University of Colorado Law names Jim Anaya, University of Arizona, dean, effective Aug. 8 and succeeding Philip Weiser, returning to the faculty in July and remaining executive director, Silicon Flatirons ... Bonten Media Group names Scott Moody chief operating officer; he remains chief financial officer ... Viacom moves Senior Vice President Sarah Iooss to that job for business development, leading Business Development group ... Weather Channel hires Michael Ferrari, ex-aWhere, as head-data science, Ad Products team.
T-Mobile representatives explained the carrier’s proposal for dividing the U.S. into eight regions for broadcaster repacking after the TV incentive auction (see 1603040052), in a meeting with officials from the FCC Incentive Auction Task Force. “T-Mobile’s proposed broadcast relocation schedule would steadily open access to low-band spectrum for both population and land area over a three-year period in an objective and balanced manner,” the carrier said in a filing posted Friday in docket 12-268. T-Mobile’s representatives described the company’s experience in frequency-relocation projects, including the AWS-3 relocation process, the filing said. “In the broadcasting context, T-Mobile explained how it has already assisted multiple full-power television stations since August 2014 in relocating from Channel 51 to lower-frequency spectrum. On average, these stations needed just 93 days to move from the start of the transition process when the FCC granted the station’s construction permit to the end of the process when the station filed a license to cover its new operations.” Repacking TV stations after the auction "will be the most complex transition the commission has ever overseen," an NAB spokesman said in response. "Rather than insisting on keeping the FCC’s current unsupported deadline in place, T-Mobile should support an efficient, rational and achievable repacking plan that protects the interests of both broadcasters and forward auction bidders.”
Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, raised concerns about coordination between the FCC and U.S. Department of Agriculture during a House Oversight Committee hearing last week on GAO’s 2016 duplication report. “The GAO report on tribal Internet access noted a lack of coordination between the FCC and USDA in their efforts to increase Internet access on tribal lands,” Hurd told witnesses, asking about the risk of duplication. “One of the challenges we saw there was they were not doing coordinated training,” replied GAO Managing Director-Physical Infrastructure Phillip Herr. He said the FCC had concurred with the report, which GAO issued last year. “We’ll be following up with them this year,” Herr said. “Hopefully, they’re taking some steps forward.” But he saw potential for problems. “Is this lack of coordination creating a risk” that FCC and USDA are “going to offer conflicting advice to folks seeking to increase the access on their lands?” Hurd asked Herr. Herr didn’t rule it out: “I think it’s possible, yes.”
T-Mobile representatives explained the carrier’s proposal for dividing the U.S. into eight regions for broadcaster repacking after the TV incentive auction (see 1603040052), in a meeting with officials from the FCC Incentive Auction Task Force. “T-Mobile’s proposed broadcast relocation schedule would steadily open access to low-band spectrum for both population and land area over a three-year period in an objective and balanced manner,” the carrier said in a filing posted Friday in docket 12-268. T-Mobile’s representatives described the company’s experience in frequency-relocation projects, including the AWS-3 relocation process, the filing said. “In the broadcasting context, T-Mobile explained how it has already assisted multiple full-power television stations since August 2014 in relocating from Channel 51 to lower-frequency spectrum. On average, these stations needed just 93 days to move from the start of the transition process when the FCC granted the station’s construction permit to the end of the process when the station filed a license to cover its new operations.” Repacking TV stations after the auction "will be the most complex transition the commission has ever overseen," an NAB spokesman said in response. "Rather than insisting on keeping the FCC’s current unsupported deadline in place, T-Mobile should support an efficient, rational and achievable repacking plan that protects the interests of both broadcasters and forward auction bidders.”
Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, raised concerns about coordination between the FCC and U.S. Department of Agriculture during a House Oversight Committee hearing last week on GAO’s 2016 duplication report. “The GAO report on tribal Internet access noted a lack of coordination between the FCC and USDA in their efforts to increase Internet access on tribal lands,” Hurd told witnesses, asking about the risk of duplication. “One of the challenges we saw there was they were not doing coordinated training,” replied GAO Managing Director-Physical Infrastructure Phillip Herr. He said the FCC had concurred with the report, which GAO issued last year. “We’ll be following up with them this year,” Herr said. “Hopefully, they’re taking some steps forward.” But he saw potential for problems. “Is this lack of coordination creating a risk” that FCC and USDA are “going to offer conflicting advice to folks seeking to increase the access on their lands?” Hurd asked Herr. Herr didn’t rule it out: “I think it’s possible, yes.”
Telecom industry officials and FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai cheered the 241-173 House approval of the No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act (HR-2666) Friday. But the bill’s fate is uncertain and likely limited, based on past statements from senators and last week’s veto threat from the White House. The bill was unaltered from the Commerce Committee markup version that left Democrats frustrated and unanimously opposed.