The FCC privacy proposal is bad for consumer welfare, said Free State Foundation President Randolph May on the FSF blog Thursday. May is scheduled to speak on privacy and Chevron deference panels at the NARUC meeting next week in Nashville. Consumers do value privacy, but they “also value receiving targeted information that they want enabled by the collection and use of their personal data,” May wrote. “And they value receiving such information without any payment of money or subscription fee.” But the FCC opt-in proposal presumes consumers prefer to broadly restrict collection and use of their personal data, he said. The FCC is widely expected to adopt the ISP privacy rules (see 1607070052).

The U.S. General Services Administration extended Verizon's Networx contracts​ until 2020, the company said in a Wednesday news release. GSA extended the Networx Universal contract to March 2020 and the Networx Enterprise contract to May 2020. Verizon won the initial contracts in 2007. The extensions allow federal agencies to continue procuring network and communications services from Verizon while the government transitions to enterprise infrastructure solutions, the company said.

Microsoft now exceeds 350 million “active devices” using Windows 10, giving the operating system “the fastest adoption rate of any prior Windows release,” CEO Satya Nadella said on a Tuesday earnings call. “We continue to pursue our goal of moving people from needing Windows to choosing Windows to loving Windows.” Microsoft in two weeks will launch a Windows 10 “anniversary update” that will include “a significant step forward in security,” he said. Shares of the company, which also reported earnings, rose 5.3 percent to $55.91in trading Wednesday.

The FTC approved Gannett, OnShore and Tencent acquisitions in early termination notices issued this week. The commission Tuesday said it won't challenge Gannett's $156 million acquisition of digital advertising services company ReachLocal (see 1606270081). Monday, the FTC gave the nod to OnShore's buy of NXP Semiconductors' standard products business, Nexperia, and China-based Tencent Holdings' majority stake in Finnish mobile game maker Supercell from SoftBank.

CTA President Gary Shapiro favors some elements of the 2016 Republican Party platform released this week (see 1607190053). “We are encouraged by the party's goal of creating a business climate that promotes innovation -- allowing the sharing economy to compete in an open and competitive market, ensuring access to spectrum to meet our demand for anytime/anywhere connectivity and encouraging the innovation needed for the Internet of Things to thrive,” Shapiro said in a statement. “We also applaud the platform's recognition that American innovation deserves the freedom to succeed or fail on its own merits and international trade is crucial to our economy.” GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump hopefully will be releasing “a detailed policy agenda” soon, Shapiro said.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is creating a Digital Trade Working Group to target digital trade barriers and promote policies to advance digital trade efforts worldwide, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said. Deputy USTR Robert Holleyman will head the group, which includes USTR experts in e-commerce, telecom, services, intellectual property, innovation and industrial competitiveness, USTR said. “The Digital Trade Working Group is an important resource to help the United States maintain its 'digital trade surplus,' and allow companies and workers in every sector of the U.S. economy to use the Internet to deliver innovative, American-made products and services abroad,” Froman said. The group will focus on barriers to cloud computing, platform services and digital products trade, and will coordinate the negotiation and implementation of digital trade provisions in various bilateral and multilateral agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the Trade in Services Agreement, USTR said. Internet Association CEO Michael Beckerman called for lawmakers to work with industry and USTR to create a chief digital trade negotiator position within USTR last week during a House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee hearing (see 1607130066).

More than half of U.S. broadband households will have a smart home controller by 2020, as more companies embed controllers into entertainment products, said a Monday Parks Associates report. Some 24 percent of broadband households will have an IP camera during the forecast period and more than 26 percent will have a home security system, said Parks. About a fifth of U.S. broadband households own a smart home device, and more than 40 percent plan to buy one before year-end, said the firm.

The FCC's undersea cable outage reporting order specified situations in which licensees must report outages. The order, released Tuesday (see 1607120084), said undersea cable licensees are required to report when there is: (1) "An outage, including those caused by planned maintenance, of a portion of a submarine cable system between submarine line terminal equipment (SLTE) at one end of the system and SLTE at another end of the system for more than 30 minutes," or (2) "the failure or significant degradation of any fiber pair, including losses due to terminal equipment issues, on a cable segment for four hours or more, regardless of the number of fiber pairs that comprise the total capacity of the cable segment." The order said the reporting duties include: "a Notification within eight hours (to become four hours after three years) of the time of determining that a reportable outage has occurred; an Interim Report within 24 hours of receiving a Plan of Work (relating to repairs); and a Final Report within seven days of completing repair." The order clarified report content requirements to allow for situations where "not all requested information may be known when the reports are due."

A federal judge threw out evidence collected through StingRay surveillance by the Drug Enforcement Administration. A StingRay, or cell site simulator, is a type of surveillance equipment that mimics wireless towers, forcing nearby mobile devices to connect. The DEA used a StingRay to locate the apartment of defendant Raymond Lambis and search it for narcotics and drug paraphernalia. Lambis asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to suppress the evidence, claiming the use of StingRay violated his Fourth Amendment right to privacy. In a ruling Tuesday, Judge William Pauley agreed with Lambis. “The DEA’s use of the cell-site simulator to locate Lambis’s apartment was an unreasonable search because the ‘pings’ from Lambis’s cell phone to the nearest cell site were not readily available 'to anyone who wanted to look' without the use of a cell-site simulator,” Pauley wrote. The use of a cell-site simulator constitutes a Fourth Amendment search, but was outside the scope of DEA’s warrant, he said. “If the Government had wished to use a cell-site simulator, it could have obtained a warrant. … Absent a search warrant, the Government may not turn a citizen’s cell phone into a tracking device.” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Nathan Wessler applauded the decision. “After decades of secret and warrantless use of Stingray technology by federal law enforcement to track phones, a federal court has finally held the authorities to account,” he said in an emailed statement. “The feds are now firmly on notice that when they hide their intent to use invasive surveillance technology from courts and fail to get a warrant, their evidence will be suppressed. This opinion strongly reinforces the strength of our constitutional privacy rights in the digital age.” The DEA didn't comment.

The Alaska Telephone Association said the FCC could begin a process in 2021 to address concerns that the group's 10-year "Alaska Plan" would provide broadband support for competing wireless networks. ATA, which represents General Communication and others, said it believes the plan remains the best way to bring LTE wireless service to remote Alaska, but acknowledged the potential for high-cost funds supporting overlapping networks could cause concern. "In the interest of seeking a resolution, ATA suggests that the Commission consider initiating a process at the end of year five of the Alaska Plan to identify overlapping supported LTE networks based on the FCC Form 477 submissions due March 1, 2021," said an ATA filing posted Wednesday in docket 10-90 summarizing discussions with FCC officials, including Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and aides to some other members. "The Commission also could adopt a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to seek comment on what steps, if any, the Commission should take to address any overlap. This approach provides time up front for Alaska Plan CETCs [competitive eligible telecom carriers] to invest in their networks in reliance on a known amount of high-cost support, and allows the Commission to address any overlap concerns informed by public comment as well as the deployment situation in Alaska, technology trends, and its own national policies regarding competitive overlap in other mobile contexts." ATA urged the FCC to adopt the Alaska Plan's 10 years of "frozen support," with CETCs receiving such support at 2014 levels unless and until the agency makes changes based on the proposed overlapping analysis and FNPRM, but with the total amount provided constant and no funds leaving Alaska. The commission is considering two draft Connect America Fund orders targeting Alaska's rate-of-return carriers and CETCs, and its price-cap carrier Alaska Communications.