The FCC is on a “slippery slope” as it moves closer to a privacy rulemaking (see 1601110065), said Richard Bennett, network architect and conservative blogger, Tuesday in a blog post. Advisers are pushing the FCC to act, Bennett said. With last year’s net neutrality order, which reclassified broadband as a common carrier service, the FCC controls privacy for ISPs and the FTC for advertisers and websites, he said. “Consequently, the advertisers are now pressing the FCC to impose severe restrictions on ISP use of personal information while arguing before the FTC that industry self-regulation is the way to go.” While ISPs are the “first and last to carry bits between consumers and Internet services” their actual gatekeeper role is limited, Bennett said. “There are many gates and many gatekeepers on the Internet,” he wrote. “Many transactions begin with a Google search, many gaming sessions take place over Facebook, and many purchases are mediated by Amazon, eBay, or PayPal. Payment services have the most luscious information of all, what we purchase, where we purchased it, and how much we paid for it. That’s not exactly small potatoes, and it makes more sense to use PayPal with its top-notch security than some tiny web site of uncertain reputation to handle your credit card information.” With many websites using HTTPS, ISPs have little real information when subscribers do domain name searches, he said. “If I search for ‘cats’ on Google, the URL looks like something like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=cats&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS563US566&oq=cats&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l5.2170j0j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8,” he wrote. “This causes the browser to do a DNS query for www.google.com and to send the rest of the query in encrypted format to the IP address returned by DNS.” The only information the ISP gets is the destination IP address and its equivalent domain name, Bennett said.

The FCC is expected to proceed with its monthly meeting Thursday, assuming the government reopens in time after its closure due to Winter Storm Jonas, a knowledgeable source told us Tuesday. The Office of Personnel Management as of late Tuesday hadn't announced the status of government offices for Wednesday. The FCC is to vote on a broadband deployment report pursuant to Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, an order to require cable and satellite TV operators and broadcast and satellite radio companies to post public inspection files on the agency's online database, and a rulemaking notice on strengthening the emergency alert system. The broadband report is expected to say advanced telecom capabilities aren't being deployed in a timely and reasonable fashion under Section 706 (see 1601070059). The agency's two Republican commissioners appear likely to dissent from the report, the knowledgeable source said. Meanwhile, the FCC appears unlikely to address rural rate-of-return USF reforms at its Feb. 18 meeting (the tentative agenda for that is due out Thursday) but seems more likely to act on that issue at its March 31 meeting, an industry source told us. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn also recently said the agency planned to address Lifeline USF reform this quarter (see 1601210031). Spokespeople for the commission and Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Ajit Pai had no immediate comment.

The Communication Workers of America plans to testify against Altice's buying Cablevision at a series of New York State Public Service Commission hearings in the New York City area in coming days, the CWA said in a news release Monday. The hearings are to be Tuesday in the Hudson Valley community of Peekskill, Wednesday in the Bronx, and a pair of hearings Feb. 2 on Long Island. "Given its track record in other business dealings in France and Portugal, the future of Cablevision under Altice's proposed deal would mean customers will get worse service and employees will lose their jobs," said CWA District 1 Vice President Dennis Trainor in a statement. "The PSC should reject the deal as currently proposed to protect customer service and jobs." In a statement, Altice said it "look[s] forward to a fair and open regulatory process with the relevant authorities in connection with our proposed Cablevision transaction, and as in all of our other territories we expect to deliver significant benefits to consumers and their communities." CWA raised similar concerns as it lobbied the FCC for conditions on the proposed transaction (see 1601220015). In a note to investors Monday, Macquarie Capital analyst Amy Yong said Altice and Charter Communications were having different degrees of success in locking down the financing for pending acquisitions as they face different hurdles. The FCC's 180-day Charter shot clock was paused earlier this month to deal with "hot topics including interconnection, Regional Sports Networks, and of course broadband competition [though] concerns around broadband share from the Comcast-Time Warner deal don't seem to apply to Charter," Yong said. New York state regulators earlier this month signed off on Charter buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable (see 1601080048) and the California Public Utilities Commission plan a public hearing Tuesday (see 1601200060), but Altice is facing more pushback from New York City on its proposed Cablevision takeover because of how the $900 million in synergies Altice has cited could affect its 14,000 employees there and 3.1 million customers in the metropolitan region, Yong said.

AT&T urged the FCC to update Lifeline USF to give eligible users more autonomy and to remove service providers from program administration obligations, including verifying the low-income status of users and delivering benefits to consumers. In a filing on a meeting with aides to two FCC commissioners posted Friday in docket 11-42, AT&T said, "We discussed ideas for reform that would benefit Lifeline recipients and strengthen the program such as establishing a third party verifier and replacing the current ETC designation process with a voluntary registered Lifeline service provider certification process." AT&T also addressed the commission’s legal authority to provide USF support to providers that aren't eligible telecom carriers (ETCs). In a separate meeting with FCC officials, Public Knowledge and other consumer groups asked the agency to modernize Lifeline to cover broadband service and allow providers to participate in the program without being ETCs. They said the commission has legal authority to authorize non-ETCs to offer Lifeline service and suggested a centralized, streamlined process to certify broadband providers in the program, including cable companies and community anchor institutions, a filing said. Without non-ETCs, there's a "very real concern that millions of Americans" needing Lifeline service, particularly in urban areas, will be left out, they said. Fixed and mobile voice providers should also continue to receive support, they said. Also at the Public Knowledge meeting were officials for the Benton Foundation, National Consumer Law Center, the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition and United Church of Christ. Comcast and NCTA also met with FCC officials to support expanding Lifeline to broadband and simplifying the process for certifying providers, said filings last week (here and here). As the FCC considers covering broadband, CTIA said in a filing on an FCC meeting, "mobile wireless must continue to be an integral part of the Lifeline program and eligible low-income consumers should have choice and control over the mobile wireless service that meets their needs." The FCC plans to act on Lifeline modernization this quarter, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said last week (see 1601210031).

The FTC will announce what it's calling a "major step forward" in helping victims recover from identity theft. Chairwoman Edith Ramirez will make the announcement Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. at agency headquarters and will also provide new ID theft complaint statistics for 2015, FTC said in a news release. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Falls Church, Virginia, Police Chief Mary Gavin are also scheduled to speak at the news conference.

Video programming distributors are in the best position to resolve closed captioning complaints, said representatives of Disney, Scripps, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox and Viacom in meetings with aides to FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn Tuesday, according to an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 05-231. “The Commission should leave liability with the 'last link' in the distribution chain, as has been the case since the advent of captioning rules.” Multichannel video programming distributors have “an ongoing billing relationship with the subscriber” and “the vast majority of errors typically occur once programming reaches MVPDs’ facilities,” the content companies said. Programmers will work with MVPDs to resolve such complaints, but liability should lie with the VPD, they said. They responded to a proposal from Comcast/NBCUniversal.

The FCC denied inmate calling service provider requests that it stay an order restricting domestic ICS charges (see 1510220059). Global Tel*Link, Securus Technologies and Telmate had asked for an FCC stay pending judicial review of the order on its merits at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “The Petitioners have failed to meet the test for extraordinary equitable relief,” said Wireline Bureau Chief Matt DelNero in a 40-page order defending the commission’s actions. DelNero said the FCC is likely to prevail in court on the merits because its rate caps, ancillary fee restrictions and other measures are lawful. He also said the petitioners wouldn't suffer irreparable injury without a stay while others and the public interest would be harmed by a stay. "I don't think I have ever seen an FCC stay order which is as comprehensive and thoroughly considered as this one," said Andrew Schwartzman, senior counselor at the Georgetown Institute for Public Representation, in an email Friday. "The decision is a strong defense of the Commission's action. In addition, it does a very good job of explaining why the necessary analysis of irreparable harm weighs in favor of leaving the status quo intact." The FCC denial had been expected by some ICS provider critics (see 1512300041), including Schwartzman who recently said, “They are just getting their ticket punched so they can seek a judicial stay” (see 1512230034). “Securus will move for a stay at the D.C. Circuit,” confirmed Stephanie Joyce, an Arent Fox attorney who's counsel for Securus. GTL and Telmate didn't comment Friday. Both had said that if the FCC didn't grant them a stay, they would seek relief in the D.C. Circuit, where two of the underlying legal challenges have already been consolidated (see 1601140068). Schwartzman said in his email Friday that "the usual caveats apply" to making a prediction on court action: "One never knows, especially since one doesn't know who will be on the panel. Etc."

The Digital Living Network Alliance is “greening” its guidelines through mandates for the use of low-power modes across networked devices, DLNA said. A low-power requirement is now part of DLNA guidelines for subscription-TV streaming devices and other devices used for sharing personal content in the home, it said Tuesday. Other parts of the pay-TV and CE industries have likewise been working to cut energy use of devices (see 1506250038), as advocates want energy-efficiency rules for some devices (see 1508070059). It's "the first time that the power of the network has been harnessed to tackle the consumer electronics industry’s energy management challenge,” DLNA board member Stephen Palm emailed us. “As devices are added to a home network, instead of multiplying household energy usage, they will interact with other devices on the network to reduce overall power consumption beyond what is possible by focusing exclusively on the energy efficiency of individual devices." Most energy initiatives focused on improving the efficiency of individual TVs, set-top boxes, PCs, gaming consoles, routers and other devices. DLNA guidelines now mandate low-power modes for VidiPath-Certified Mobile Digital Media Server and Digital Media Renderer devices used to stream personal and subscription TV content, the alliance of CE companies said. DLNA ties together connected devices’ power-saving features and activities at the network’s application layer, improving the efficiency of these devices both individually and collectively, Palm said. More than 4 billion DLNA-certified devices are on the market, it said.

Jonathan Levy, an FCC staffer since 1980, is its new acting chief economist with the departure of David Waterman, Chairman Tom Wheeler announced Wednesday. Levy has been deputy chief economist since 2001. Waterman, formerly at Indiana University, held the job for a year. “The chief economist occupies a very important role at the Commission,” Wheeler said in a news release. “We have been very fortunate in recent years to have had very talented economists in-house as crucial advisors.” Levy has been the liaison between the chief economist and the economists in the bureaus and offices at the FCC, the agency said.

Altice should adopt an interconnection policy that mirrors Charter Communications' as a condition for approval of its buy of Cablevision, Cogent said in an FCC ex parte filing Wednesday in docket 15-257 about a meeting between Cogent Chief Legal Officer Robert Beury and various FCC Office of General Counsel and Wireline Bureau staff. The very fact Altice and Cablevision didn't talk about post-merger interconnection policies in their application "was notable," as was that they "continued to avoid the issue" in subsequent reply comments, Cogent said. Altice instead seems to be uncommitted to the emerging consensus among major U.S. interconnecting broadband ISPs, and buying Cablevision would "give it a level of bargaining leverage that its recently consummated Suddenlink acquisition did not," Cogent said. The details of Altice's interconnection policy can be worked out, but "what matters most is that it reflect an unambiguous commitment to an interconnection protocol that will ensure robust connectivity for consumers and avoid the sort of congestion and packet loss that leads directly to degraded service," Cogent said. Absent some interconnection policy, the FCC should require at least that Altice disclose its interconnection arrangements to the agency for four years while regularly reporting different interconnection performance metrics, it said. "This serves a dual benefit of giving the Commission insight ... and, like any meaningful disclosure requirement, serves as a deterrent to problematic conduct." In a statement, Altice said it "look[s] to a fair and open regulatory process with the relevant authorities in connection with our proposed Cablevision transaction, and as in all of our other territories we expect to deliver significant benefits to consumers and their communities."