China Unicom Americas (CUA) asked the FCC to stay an order, approved 4-0 in January (see 2201270030), revoking the company’s Section 214 authority to operate in the U.S. “The Revocation Order provides no valid grounds for revoking CUA’s long-standing section 214 authorizations to provide domestic and international services in the United States,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 20-110: “Since the Commission found CUA to be qualified to hold these authorizations nearly two decades ago, CUA has continued to comply with Commission regulations and provide high-quality services to its U.S. customers.”

The Commerce Department should expand an exemption to allow U.S. companies to participate in standards-setting bodies that have members designated on the Entity List, the Information Technology Industry Council said in a set of recommendations to the Biden administration. If the exemption isn’t expanded, the U.S. will risk ceding further “ground, influence, and leadership to foreign competitors” in international technology standards development, ITI said Thursday. ITI also urged the administration to shift its China trade policy to better pressure the government on important trade issues. “Recent overreliance and expanded use of export controls, tariffs, and policies misdirected at routine technical standards development have hurt U.S. workers, consumers, and companies,” ITI said. “The Administration should amend policies that have not achieved their goals and even impeded U.S. innovation and leadership.”

Huawei is making strong inroads throughout Latin America despite U.S. national security concerns, blogged Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood of Strand Consult, Monday. U.S. demands “to restrict Huawei because of security concerns have fallen on deaf ears for most policymakers in Latin America,” she said. Elaluf-Calderwood warned that Huawei is growing its cloud and data business beyond telecom networks. “By over focusing on its most popular and current innovation 5G, the US failed to consider the role of unexpected competitors in different but important fields, like Huawei in clouds and data centres,” she said: “U.S. efforts to safeguard 5G mean little if Huawei stores and processes the data.”

Noting Chinese complaints about close calls between its space station and SpaceX satellites (see 2112270053), the U.S. told the U.N. secretary-general that Space Command doesn't think there was a significant probability of collision. In a letter dated Jan. 28 and publicly posted this week, the U.S. said if there had been a significant collision probability, it would have given China a close-approach notification, but in this case such emergency notifications "weren't warranted." The U.S. said as far as it knows, China never tried to contact SpaceCommand, SpaceX or any other U.S. entity to share information or concerns before lodging the complaint with the U.N. The U.S. urged "efficient and timely sharing of information and coordination" to reduce the risk of collision between U.S. space objects and human spaceflight activities of other nations.

The FCC posted an order, approved 4-0 last week (see 2201270030), revoking China Unicom Americas' Section 214 authority to operate in the U.S. “Given the changed national security environment with respect to China since the Commission authorized CUA to provide telecommunications services in the United States, we find that CUA’s ties to the Chinese government -- together with Chinese laws obligating CUA and its direct and indirect parent entities to cooperate with requests by the Chinese government -- pose a clear and imminent threat to the security of the United States due to CUA’s access to U.S. telecommunications infrastructure,” said the docket 20-110 order, listed in Thursday’s Daily Digest.

Europe must boost its world-leading role in telecom and technical standard-setting by addressing the growing challenge from China, the U.S. and other non-European players, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said at a Wednesday briefing. The European Commission unveiled a standardization strategy and proposed changes to the regulation. The approach "aims to strengthen the EU's global competitiveness, to enable a resilient, green and digital economy and to enshrine democratic values in technology applications." EU wants to ensure its leadership in several areas, including semiconductors, and to create a Europe more open to new opportunities, Breton said. Some standards bodies, such as the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and European Electrotechnical Committee for Standardization (CENELEC), have "European" in their names, but large numbers of non-European groups with voting rights unduly influenced their work, he said. The new strategy will ensure that standards meet EU needs and political strategies, and will focus on how standards bodies are governed. It will examine Europe's global leadership in international standards organizations such as ITU, and it calls for more attention to research and innovation and on encouraging skills to attract people to the field. Asked for an example of where standards were defined under pressure from non-European players, Breton cited a 2020 ETSI proposal, nixed by U.S. and Chinese companies, to set standards to ensure the compatibility of smartphones in Europe with the Galileo global navigation satellite system. Breton stressed the EU standards and rules in place for different sectors won't change but will become more visible. The problem isn't that European enterprises haven't been innovative enough, it's that "we've been too naive": Europe has always had an open standards-setting process under the belief that openness would entice companies to set up in Europe. However, he said, "we can't be open at any price." Europe needs faster approval for new standards, more inclusiveness and a clearer definition of the EC's role in the industry-led standardization process, said European Parliament Internal Market Committee Chair Anna Cavazzini, of the Greens/European Free Alliance and Germany. CEN and CENELEC cheered the strategy.

The FCC was required to hold a hearing before revoking authorizations (see 2111080056), China Telecom Americas told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a Tuesday brief (docket 21-1233). The company asked the court to vacate the order. The FCC “arbitrarily and capriciously violated the [Administrative Procedure Act], Communications Act, and its own rules and precedents by refusing to hold a live or written-record hearing before revoking China Telecom Americas’ domestic and international common-carrier authorizations,” the company said: The FCC violated its due-process rights and never proved “revocation is warranted due to a carrier’s ‘egregious’ adjudicated misconduct.”

Retail competition is benefiting consumers with more choices, competitive pricing and innovation, a Deloitte survey commissioned by the Computer & Communications Industry Association found. Nearly three-fourths of consumers said they shopped more than one retailer on a recent shopping trip, 42% shopped two and 30% shopped three or more, said the survey. Two-thirds of shoppers used a digital device in a store to compare prices and products online; 55% started a shopping journey online before buying in store, it said. More than four in 10 shoppers said they prefer multiple fulfillment options when buying online rather than defaulting to home delivery; 46% will pay more to pick up an item in store five minutes from home rather than wait for two-day delivery, said the study. About 27% of online sales were fulfilled at a physical store last year, up from 21.7% the prior year, said the report. Small-to-medium businesses (SMB) are using omnichannel fulfillment: 61% offer buy online, pick up in store, and 50% offer same-day curbside pickup for e-commerce customers, it said. Some 99% of SMB retailers use at least one digital tool or marketplace, including retailers selling only via physical stores. “Consumers should not be viewed as purely online or offline shoppers but rather a mix of both, as they are often using both channels throughout their shopping journey,” said CCIA Director-Research and Economics Trevor Wagener.

The FTC extended by a month the deadline for comments in its November inquiry into how supply-chain disruptions are affecting competition in consumer goods markets, said the agency Friday. Comments are now due Feb. 28 in docket FTC-2021-0068.

WhatsApp must clarify 2021 changes to its privacy policy and terms of service to ensure they comply with EU consumer protection law, the European Commission said Thursday. After an alert by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), the EC and EU Consumer Protection Cooperation Network of regulatory authorities notified the company it must explain how it complies with the law. Officials questioned whether consumers are given sufficiently clear information on their decision to accept or reject the new terms of service; whether WhatApp's in-app notifications prompting consumers to accept the terms and policy are fair; and whether consumers have an adequate chance to learn about the new terms before accepting them. They're concerned about exchange of users' personal data between WhatsApp and third parties or other Facebook/Meta companies. The platform has until Feb. 28 to explain how it will address the issues. WhatsApp "bombarded users for months with persistent pop-up messages" and was "deliberately vague" about what they were being pushed to accept, said BEUC Deputy Director General Ursula Pachl. WhatsApp looks forward to explaining to the EC how it protects users' privacy in compliance with EU law, said a spokesperson. He noted that, at the direction of the Irish Data Protection Commission, the company reorganized and added more detail to its European region privacy policy in November, several months after BEUC's July action.