As interest grows in Web 3.0, blockchain domain names are increasingly seen as a key service, experts told us. Blockchain domains have been around for several years (see 1810040002) but the idea of a decentralized system that could fix many of the problems with the current web brought them into sharper focus. Web 3.0 fans say it could, among other benefits, improve domain security and offer additional services the ICANN domain name system (DNS) can't. Skeptics say blockchain domains could hamper law enforcement and intellectual property rights, and they raise interoperability and inefficiency issues.
Big Tech’s entry into payment services could strengthen platform monopoly power, FTC Chair Lina Khan and consumer advocates told the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in comments last week.
A growing number of localities are suing video streaming platforms seeking franchise fees, and more lawsuits are expected in 2022. Tax experts think such suits face legal difficulties. Netflix and Hulu, typically the defendants of such suits, didn't comment.
Government agencies and law firms, like other institutions, appear to be still coming to terms with the new, more infectious COVID-19 omicron variant and what it will mean for work headed into the new year. State commissions so far report few changes.
Industry and advocacy groups are preparing comments by the Jan. 18 deadline for an FCC notice of inquiry on its report to Congress on the future of USF (see 2112160074). The document is due by August on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s impact on existing programs and what they should look like moving forward.
The White House is compiling a shortlist of priority candidates to renominate in 2022 (see our bulletin here), an official in the executive office confirmed Wednesday. This will include “important, noncontroversial” candidates to be sent to the Senate as soon as possible, a former federal official said. The administration “will have more in the coming weeks on who is on the list,” the White House official said.
For CTA, omicron has been the perfect storm. CES is still planning to start in early January in Las Vegas, despite growing questions about the COVID-19 variant, which appears to be infecting even those who are fully vaccinated and boosted. Other events are rolling forward, illustrating the difficulty of adjusting to omicron, which has swept through the U.K. and other parts of Europe and is displacing delta as the dominant variant in the U.S.
Industry and deaf and hard of hearing advocates asked the FCC to let IP relay providers recoup costs for outreach and marketing to users from the Telecom Relay Service Fund, in comments posted Tuesday in docket 03-123 (see 2108050038). The move to establish a new compensation methodology stemmed from a 2018 petition for rulemaking by T-Mobile, the sole remaining IP relay provider.
The FCC is unlikely to finalize pending orders on broader use of the 6 GHz band until after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rules on a challenge to the 2020 order opening the band, experts told us. The FCC wrapped up a comment cycle on a Further NPRM in July 2020 (see 2007280033). This year, the agency sought comment on whether to allow client-to-client operations in the spectrum (see 2103240065). Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has said only that the commission is working on the item.
All pending nominees will need to be renominated in 2022, a White House official said Monday. That includes FTC nominee Alvaro Bedoya, FCC nominee Gigi Sohn and NTIA nominee Alan Davidson.