EBay completed the $800 million acquisition of mobile device payment company Braintree, which will be a PayPal service and run by Braintree CEO Bill Ready, said eBay in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1ce23Zx). Braintree handles payment for companies like Airbnb, OpenTable and Uber, and its Venmo app allows for payments by mobile devices, said eBay. It projected Braintree will have $12 billion in payment volume this year, a third “driven” by mobile payments. PayPal will handle $20 billion in transactions on mobile devices this year, eBay CEO John Donahoe has said.

Data-driven marketing continues to drive “increasingly profitable returns,” said a Thursday release from the Direct Marketing Association about the trade association’s third quarter business review (http://bit.ly/1jmRKGB). “Confidence in data-driven marketing is growing steadily as profits increase -- and it’s no wonder,” said DMA President Linda Woolley. “Thanks to the unprecedented amount and quality of data now available, marketers are able to garner intelligence from consumer data more quickly and seamlessly than ever before. As a result, consumers also receive tremendous benefit, including vastly improved customization and relevance.” Survey responders said the availability and affordability of technology tools are creating more data-driven marketing opportunities, the release said. And mobile marketing investments “increased sharply ... outpacing social media investment rates for the first time,” said DMA. The Winterberry Group did research and analysis for the report, including an October online survey of DMA members. Of the 220 usable replies, 124 were from marketers and 96 were from providers of marketing services and technology solutions, DMA said.

The TV White Space Database Administrators Group filed a revised version of its “Database-to-Database Synchronization Interoperability Specification” at the FCC. The document (http://bit.ly/1i4nQoW) lays out a standard for database operators to exchange information on protected entities, as required by FCC rules.

The FCC is “broken” and takes too long to respond to technological change and solve problems, said the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council in a response to the commission’s call for suggestions on how to revamp procedures (CD Dec 6 p3). MMTC’s comments propose a litany of procedural tweaks to improve the commission’s speed and responsiveness to diversity issues and tech advancements. The list includes the creation of a National Broadband Plan Advisory Committee to update the commission’s broadband plan every two years to “keep pace” with “disruptive technologies,” allowing commissioners other than the chairman to bring an item up for vote and a U.S. Supreme Court-style cert process for applications for review. MMTC also suggested commission procedure could be sped up if major decisions were each assigned a specific commissioner to shepherd them so they move “through the agency to the 8th floor expeditiously.” On diversity, MMTC suggested the Enforcement Bureau create a Civil Rights Division, that the commission hire a chief diversity officer, and that a commissioner could take responsibility “for inclusion and competitive opportunities for minority- and women-owned business enterprises.” Most of the suggested reforms could be adopted without congressional action, said MMTC. “Most of them would cost nothing and could produce savings for the Commission, as well as growth, job creation and diversity for the regulated industries."

American Public Transportation Association staff told the FCC the group’s members continue to have trouble “acquiring the radio frequency spectrum that is required to implement Positive Train Control (PTC) on publicly funded commuter railroads,” APTA said Wednesday in a filing about a conference call Dec. 12 with FCC staff. APTA members New Jersey Transit, Metro-North Railroad and Trinity Railway Express discussed their specific spectrum challenges, APTA said (http://bit.ly/1i4TXVj).

The market outcome for the license fee under the retransmission consent paradigm may not be socially efficient, the Phoenix Center said in a white paper. The paper, released Thursday, said broadcast regulation “creates a type of positive information externality,” and private transactions don’t typically account for externalities, Phoenix said in a news release (http://bit.ly/JMx7nv). That means “the market price for the retransmission fee is theoretically ’too high,’ both relative to the socially-optimal price and the market price of an otherwise-equivalent cable network,” it said. This “spread” is a consequence of a disharmony “between the historical and continuing policy of the broadcast social contract and the ‘market’ approach embodied in the retransmission consent regime.” For there to be a true market solution to retrans consent, “Congress must eliminate, or meaningfully reduce the scope of, the social contract, including the various protectionist and support mechanisms given to the broadcast industry,” the paper said (http://bit.ly/190kpKN). Revising rules for network non-duplication and syndicated programming exclusivity would allow customers of multichannel video programming distributors access to highly desired network and sports programming, it said. However, given the retransmission of distant signals is also governed by contracts between networks and affiliates, “it is unclear how much help repeal of the exclusivity rules will actually provide.” Congress could amend the retransmission consent provisions of the Communications Act to allow the FCC to authorize interim carriage of a station by an MVPD pending the conclusion of a new agreement, it said. “This solution would continue to satisfy Congress’ substantial interest in having local commercial broadcast stations appear in MVPD channel packages."

T-Mobile filed at the FCC a list of counties, or parts of counties, it serves in which it can’t use triangulation to locate callers to 911. All made the list “because of insufficient quantity, density, and/or geometry of cell sites in those areas to support network-based triangulation,” T-Mobile said. The nine-page list (http://bit.ly/1beRGhZ) adds 62 counties to the previous list from 2011. The FCC’s 911 location-accuracy rules require carriers to identify callers with a defined level of accuracy on a county-by-county basis, but provide exceptions where dense forestation or the lack of triangulation mean those levels can’t be reached.

T-Mobile representatives met with FCC Wireless acting Bureau Chief Roger Sherman and others from the bureau to press for spectrum aggregation limits in the TV incentive auction. “The participants observed that low-band spectrum has superior in-building penetration and propagation characteristics than other spectrum,” said a filing on the meeting (http://bit.ly/19fjBEg). “Low-band spectrum is necessary to compete in the wireless marketplace and AT&T and Verizon currently control the vast majority of low-band spectrum.” T-Mobile said Verizon Wireless and AT&T hold 86 percent of commercial spectrum below 1 GHz in the top 10 U.S. markets and more than 80 percent in the top 50 markets.

National Religious Broadcasters continued to urge the FCC to take action on the rulemaking to allow noncommercial stations to raise funds on the air for other nonprofit organizations. It will serve a vital public interest “not only by facilitation of the charitable impulses of listeners and viewers, but also by aiding non-profit groups in meeting critical community needs,” NRB said in an ex parte filing in Media Bureau dockets 12-106 and 13-249 (http://bit.ly/18ZSlat). NRB also repeated its support for the effort to revitalize the AM band, it said. The filing recounted a meeting this week with Commissioner Ajit Pai.

The FCC International Bureau dismissed Gogo’s request for special temporary authority to communicate with the Eutelsat 172A satellite at 172 degrees east in the 14.0-14.5 GHz and 11.7-12.2 GHz bands. That satellite isn’t authorized to operate in the 11.7-12.2 GHz frequency, the bureau’s Satellite Division said in a letter to Gogo (http://bit.ly/1bSYLor).