The FCC created a new informational website for the incentive auction, to “fully inform” consumers and “other interested parties,” the Incentive Auction Task Force said in a blog post Friday. It said the website includes a range of materials that explain “why the Commission is conducting the auction, how the auction can benefit the public, how the process works, and what consumers will need to do to continue enjoying over-the-air television stations once the auction concludes.” The site will be “a key component of the Commission’s post-auction consumer education efforts to ensure a smooth transition for over-the-air TV viewers,” the blog post said.

Any preshow concerns that the new security rules and bag restrictions at CES (see 1512180053) would create delays and bottlenecks on opening day appeared to be unfounded, we observed in Las Vegas. Many attendees heeded show management’s advice and didn't bring bulkier items, with security guards enforcing the ban on rolling bags. But when two showgoers protested, the guards allowed them to pass when they agreed to carry the bags in by hand. And we were able to enter the automotive exhibits area without a badge check or bag inspection through an open and unguarded door. The Las Vegas Convention Center "has 5,500 doors," Karen Chupka, CTA senior vice president-CES and corporate business strategy, emailed us Wednesday. "While we are doing [our] best to protect every one of them, it is possible that one was left unattended in the last hour before the show opened as we frantically tried to remove the last bit of trash before opening the show. We have multiple layers of security in place to help maximize the safety and security of our guests.”

Import data for goods regulated by the FCC can be filed through Customs and Border Protection's Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) until July 1, when a waiver of FCC Form 740 requirements takes effect, the commission said Wednesday. The FCC issued the notice as a clarification of its plans to waive the requirements when the Automated Commercial System (ACS) is shut down and the use of ACE is required for electronic filing (see 1510190056), it said. "The Commission’s characterization in the Order of CBP’s ACS as the current system used for filing Form 740 information has been misinterpreted by some affected parties." Despite those misconceptions, the FCC "did not establish any prohibitions regarding the use of the ACE," it said. The form will be required until July 1, after which "any obligation to file the Form would be suspended and the requirement waived until December 31, 2016," the FCC said. Intel had said the form's requirements were unclear for this year's second half (see 1512140011).

The majority of a sample group of investors, CEOs and others -- 15 out of 19 -- supported improvements to the SEC's board diversity disclosure requirements, said a GAO report on the representation of women on the boards at U.S. publicly traded companies. The report, released Monday, said women's representation on the boards of U.S. companies has "been increasing, but greater gender balance could take many years." If equal proportions of women and men joined boards each year, beginning last year, "it could take more than four decades for women's representation on boards to be on par with that of men's," GAO said. Women were nearly 23 percent of all new board members in 2014, and 15.5 percent of all board members that year, said the report. The report said a group of large public pension fund investors and "many stakeholders" interviewed by GAO questioned the "usefulness of information companies provide in response to SEC's board diversity disclosure requirements" and petitioned the SEC to require specific disclosure on board members' gender, race and ethnicity. GAO said it didn't make specific recommendations in its report.

Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless are seeking federal appellate court approval to jointly file one 16,500-word brief in their litigation against the FCC. In an unopposed motion filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the two Dish Network designated entities (DEs) said a court order authorized them to separately file two opening briefs of up to 14,000 words each, but they wanted to file a single joint opening "that avoids duplication and significantly reduces the total length of briefing in this matter." But an additional 2,500 words are needed to explain the relevant passages in the agreements in question, the DEs said. The opening briefs are due Jan. 12. The two filed notices of appeal in September challenging an August commission decision denying them the use of bidding credits to buy spectrum in the AWS-3 auction (see 1509180048).

Some broadband Internet access service (BIAS) providers use congestion at interconnection points and selective application of interconnection policy to help them "extort the edge into unnecessarily purchasing 'transit,'" said Commercial Network Services in an FCC filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-28. This is the only way many edge providers can provide BIAS consumers with the content they are seeking, said the company, which complained about Time Warner Cable's peering practices (see 1510070042). This "loophole" in the net neutrality order is causing "great harm" to the "virtuous cycle," Commercial Network Services said. It agreed with Level 3's most recent opinion in the docket (see 1511270035) and called NCTA's response to the FCC "misguided." The FCC Measuring Broadband America report (see 1512300037) confirms that cable operators have been "steadily raising the speeds they offer consumers and consistently delivering the performance they advertise," an NCTA spokesman said Tuesday. "NCTA’s recent ex parte letter reiterated our willingness to participate with other Internet companies in an open, collaborative FCC process to develop such a regime."

The FCC should change procedures so citations aren't publicized until after the target has been interviewed by officials and given a chance to respond to the violations, said Commissioner Mike O’Rielly in a blog post Tuesday. “I am concerned that citations are being used as another tool to expand the FCC’s reach and thus its mission -- a maneuver that amounts to regulation by citation.” Since citations are often issued against companies that aren't usual FCC regulatees and therefore not as familiar with FCC rules, the commission shouldn't “break new legal ground” in them, as was done in recent citations against First National Bank and Lyft (see 1509110060), O’Rielly said. “When a new legal argument is put forth in a citation, it is even less likely that a non-regulatee would be able to foresee that its conduct would violate the Act.” Companies without regular FCC counsel may not realize that such a citation isn't part of settled law, and are therefore less likely to challenge questionable ones, O’Rielly said. If such citations go unchallenged, they end up being precedent for future citations, he said: “Hence, the reality of regulation by citation.” The FCC should instead address conduct it believes should be unlawful though rulemakings, O’Rielly said. “A simple rule change can be effectuated in a reasonable amount of time while providing fair notice and an opportunity to comment.” The agency had no immediate comment.

Correction: DMA stands for Direct Marketing Association (see 1512290010).

The U.S. DTV transition can serve as a “model” for the successful “government-industry effort” that’s needed to make driverless vehicles a mainstream reality, CTA President Gary Shapiro said in a blog post at Nextgov.com. Shapiro buys into estimates that driverless cars have the potential of reducing traffic deaths by 90 percent, he said. The “open process and committee structure” that went into the DTV transition “attracted thousands of technical volunteers who discussed and resolved hundreds of issues,” Shapiro said Dec. 29. “Their recommendations led to several formal actions by the FCC and Congress, and resulted in a unique and robust HDTV system delivering clear, sharp pictures and sound to Americans,” he said. “The transition succeeded thanks to an emphasis on setting clear goals, an open consensus multistakeholder process and a consensus among leadership and participants to develop the best result for all Americans. The initiative remains the most successful government-industry effort in which I have had the honor of participating.” If the public and private sectors were able to band together to “undertake a successful effort like this for better pictures and sound,” then certainly President Barack Obama or his successor “can challenge us to work together to save millions of American lives,” Shapiro said. “The implementation of driverless cars on U.S. roads can and should be a bipartisan effort."

FCC protection of edge providers in its net neutrality order has had the perverse effect of "reduc[ing] the opportunity for consumer-friendly innovation elsewhere, namely by facilities-based broadband providers," the Free State Foundation said in a white paper Monday. Written by Daniel Lyons, Boston College Law School associate professor and an FSF academic advisers board member, the paper argued the order "allows the FCC to deprive consumers of services they want, in order to protect edge provider markets." While usage-based pricing and zero-rated services can lead to more competition and consumer choice, net neutrality advocates have frequently pushed for rules limiting them, and FCC recent inquiries into AT&T's Sponsored Data and Data Perks programs, Comcast's Stream TV and T-Mobile's Binge On (see 1512170030) "are likely to put a damper on Internet providers' efforts to meet evolving consumer demand though zero-rating and sponsored data programs," FSF said. The FCC didn't comment.