On Tuesday, November 16 at 2:00 PM, the FCBA Privacy and Data Security Committee and the American Bar Association’s Forum on Communications Law will hold the 16th Annual Privacy & Data Security Symposium: “The Evolving Privacy Landscape in the Absence of Federal Legislation”. This event will take a deep dive into the evolving privacy
FTC
FTC Staff Report Puts Spotlight Back on ISP Data Collection and Use Practices; FCC Re-Regulation Suggested
Over the past few years, the data collection and use practices of Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) have largely flown under the radar while large internet platforms and the broader adtech industry have been under greater scrutiny. That respite may be coming to end following a staff report released last week by the FTC detailing the scope of ISPs’ data collection and use practices. The staff report was based on orders issued in 2019 under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act and puts ISPs and large platforms on similar footing, observing that “many ISPs in our study can be at least as privacy-intrusive as large advertising platforms.” In addition, the staff report finds that several ISP data practices could cause harm to consumers but does not go as far as calling any practices unfair or deceptive.
What the FTC will do with the staff report is less clear. The Commission voted unanimously to release the report, which does not make any specific policy recommendations. Members of the Commission, however, drew their own conclusions and articulated starkly different outlooks on the report’s implications. Chair Lina Khan and Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter declared that the FCC should play a leading role in overseeing ISPs’ data practices, citing the FCC’s industry expertise and legal authority. Commissioner Christine Wilson, however, stated that “oversight of ISPs for privacy and data security issues should remain at the FTC.” ISPs’ data practices – and the broader question of whether the FCC should reclassify broadband service back to a Title II telecommunications service and re-impose strict broadband privacy rules – are likely to be prominent issues as the Biden FCC takes shape in the months ahead.…
Competition Policy Gets a Top Spot in the White House
By Aaron J. Burstein on
Posted in Federal & State Regulatory
Following weeks of speculation about a potential role for Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu in the Biden Administration, the White House announced on March 5 that Wu has been named Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy. As an official housed in the National Economic Council (“NEC”), Wu will not directly command staff within federal agencies or set the agencies’ enforcement or regulatory agendas. Instead, Wu will most likely focus on coordinating federal agencies’ efforts to identify and address competition issues. Given his history, Wu could seek to have particular influence on the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) and Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) as they shape their Biden Administration agendas.
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Section 230 Executive Order Strikes Back at Twitter, But Legal Impact Likely to be Limited
By Kelley Drye on
Posted in Emerging Technology, Federal & State Regulatory
In a move spurred by Twitter’s decision to fact-check a pair of President Trump’s tweets, the president recently signed a multi-pronged “Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship” with the claimed intention of stopping online platforms from making content moderation decisions that discriminate against particular viewpoints. The President, along with other conservative political figures and commentators, have frequently claimed that social media platforms have used content moderation practices to stifle conservative speech. The Executive Order (“EO”) evokes the First Amendment, calling online platforms the 21st century “public square,” where people go to express and debate different views, and saying the allegedly biased content moderation practices undermine that free expression.
The most controversial aspects of the order are its interpretation of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”)—the statutory provision that shields online service providers from liability for user-generated content and the decisions they make about how to moderate that content—and its attempt to prompt the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) to adopt regulations further interpreting the law. Reform of Section 230 has been under consideration in Congress for years, with Republicans and Democrats both offering different—and mostly contrary—critiques about how online platforms have failed to act in accordance with the statute while also benefitting from the liability protections.
Other directives in the EO attempt to elicit other parts of the federal government to discipline online platforms for their content moderation practices. Absent Congressional action, the EO’s directives appear to stand on shaky legal ground and are likely to have limited legal impact. However, the issuance of the EO alone may be unlawful, at least according to a complaint challenging the constitutionality of the EO filed with the U.S. District Court in D.C. by the Center for Democracy & Technology (“CDT”). According to the complaint, the EO violates the First Amendment, which strictly limits the government’s ability to abridge speech, by retaliating against Twitter for exercising its right to comment on the President’s statements and because it “seeks to curtail and chill the constitutionally protected speech of all online platforms and individuals” by demonstrating the government’s willingness to retaliate against those who criticize the government.…
COVID-19: What Communications Service Providers Need to Know – May 26, 2020
As the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly unfolds, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has been active to keep communications services available through various waivers, extensions, and other regulatory relief. Kelley Drye’s Communications Practice Group is tracking these actions and what they mean for communications service providers and their customers. CommLaw Monitor will provide regular updates to its analysis of the latest regulatory and legislative actions impacting your business and the communications industry. Click on the “COVID-19” blog category for previous updates.
If you have any urgent questions, please contact your usual Kelley Drye attorney or any member of the Communications Practice Group. For more information on other aspects of the federal and state response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as labor and employment and other issues, please visit Kelley Drye’s COVID-19 Response Resource Center.…
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FCC/FTC Stake out Aggressive Robocall Position, Tell Gateway VoIP Providers to Block COVID-19 Robocalls – or Be Blocked Themselves
The FTC and FCC have taken a number of actions to stem unlawful robocalls generally and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to stem harmful and deceptive calls that seek to exploit the COVID-19 crisis. Even amid the backdrop of their long-standing commitment, the agencies’ most recent action stands out as an aggressive new approach to unlawful calls. On April 3, 2020, the enforcement arms of each agency jointly sent warning letters to three Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) service providers allegedly facilitating the transmission of international scam telemarketing calls originating overseas. The letters make an unprecedented demand: block the traffic of specific allegedly unlawful actors or have all of your traffic blocked by other carriers. In this post, we’ll take a look at this new approach, and discuss its relationship to the broader provisions of the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement Act (“TRACED Act”), which institutes a number of measures designed to combat illegal robocalls.
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COVID-19: What Communications Service Providers Need to Know – April 13, 2020
As the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly unfolds, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has been active to keep communications services available through various waivers, extensions, and other regulatory relief. Kelley Drye’s Communications Practice Group is tracking these actions and what they mean for communications service providers and their customers. CommLaw Monitor will provide regular updates to its analysis of the latest regulatory and legislative actions impacting your business and the communications industry. Click on the “COVID-19” blog category for previous updates.
If you have any urgent questions, please contact your usual Kelley Drye attorney or any member of the Communications Practice Group. For more information on other aspects of the federal and state response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as labor and employment and other issues, please visit Kelley Drye’s COVID-19 Response Resource Center.…
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AT&T To Pay $60M to Settle 2014 FTC Data Throttling Complaint
By Kelley Drye on
After a long road that included questions over the scope of FTC and FCC jurisdiction, AT&T finally settled one of two cases challenging the unlimited data plans it offered to consumers. On Tuesday, November 5, 2019 the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) moved to settle its October 28, 2014 complaint against AT&T Mobility, LLC (“AT&T” or “Company”) in which the FTC asserted that the Company was reducing the data speeds of customers grandfathered into unlimited plans after they had used a certain amount of data. The stipulated order, approved 4-0 by the FTC and awaiting final approval from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, will require AT&T to dole out $60 million to eligible customers and prohibit the Company from portraying the amount or speed of mobile data in its plans, including unlimited, without disclosing any material restrictions accompanying such plans.
As we covered extensively in several previous blog posts, one of the primary consequences of the case were questions about the limits of the FTC’s jurisdiction. The case mirrored a time when the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) took opposing positions in successive administrations regarding whether mobile data services and other Broadband Internet Access Services (“BIAS”) were subject to FCC regulation. One of the central questions underlying the case was which agency, the FCC or the FTC, could regulate AT&T’s mobile data practices. After the FTC won a Ninth Circuit decision that its jurisdiction reaches to non-common carrier activities of common carriers (and the FCC concluded that mobile BIAS was not a common carrier service), AT&T agreed to settle the FTC case. However, so long as the jurisdiction of particular services remains in doubt, or is subject to changing FCC positions, service providers will face potential overlapping enforcement activities by the two agencies.…
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Net Neutrality Showdown Scheduled for February 1st
By Kelley Drye on
Posted in Broadband, Federal & State Regulatory
In an event sure to garner significant attention from tech, consumer protection, and government stakeholders, oral argument on the consolidated appeals of the FCC’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order (“Order”) will take place on February 1, 2019, at the D.C. Circuit. As we previously discussed, the Order largely reversed the FCC’s own 2015 rulemaking to reclassify broadband internet access services (“BIAS”) as telecommunications services subject to a host of Title II common carrier obligations. The Order re-reclassified BIAS as information services subject to “light-touch” Title I regulations, while retaining pared-down transparency requirements on BIAS providers. The challengers allege that the FCC failed to adequately explain its changed regulatory approach, relied on faulty data, and ignored consumer complaints when issuing the Order. The oral argument will provide our first indication of which way the D.C. Circuit, which handled the last three appeals of FCC net neutrality rules with varied results, may go in this latest challenge.
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Support for FTC Jurisdiction Over Broadband: Ninth Circuit En Banc Rules Common Carrier Exemption is “Activity,” and not “Status-based,” Reversing Earlier AT&T Victory
By Kelley Drye on
The Republican-led FCC’s effort to get out of the business of regulating broadband providers’ consumer practices took a step forward on Monday. In an appeal that has been proceeding in parallel with the FCC’s “Restoring Internet Freedom” reclassification proceeding, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion giving the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) broad authority over practices not classified by the FCC as telecommunications services. Specifically, the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, issued its long-awaited opinion in Federal Trade Commission v. AT&T Mobility, holding that the “common carrier exemption” in Section 5 of the FTC Act is “activity based,” exempting only common carrier activities of common carriers (i.e., the offering of telecommunications services), and not all activities of companies that provide common carrier services (i.e., rejecting a “status-based” exemption). The case will now be remanded to the district court that originally heard the case. Coupled with the FCC’s reclassification of Broadband Internet Access Services (BIAS) in the net neutrality/restoring internet freedom proceeding, the opinion repositions the FTC as top cop on the Open Internet and broadband privacy beats.
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