The Senate Commerce Committee scheduled an FCC spectrum auction oversight hearing for the afternoon of Dec. 10, a spokeswoman for Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., told us. She said it will be a full committee hearing overseen by Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and ranking member John Thune, R-S.D. Witnesses have not been announced, she said, and no information is posted on the Senate Commerce website. Rockefeller’s and Thune’s offices declined to confirm or elaborate by our deadline.

The Department of Homeland Security has made some improvements in its information security program, but still can’t follow all its self-imposed policies and procedures, said the department’s inspector general in a report released Monday. The report said DHS is operating some of its systems “without authority to operate.” DHS is also not creating plans of action and milestones for fixing all known information security weaknesses or mitigating those weaknesses “in a timely manner,” the report said. The report also said DHS isn’t implementing baseline security settings on all of its systems. The IG recommended DHS establish a process to ensure it’s using baseline security settings on all department computers and ensure all systems have updated authorizations to operate. The report also recommended DHS improve its action plan review process to ensure the department is creating all plans in a timely manner. The IG recommended DHS establish new security training requirements for all privileged users and strengthen oversight of its “Top Secret” systems by performing critical control reviews of selected systems (http://1.usa.gov/1k348Xh). Senate Homeland Security Committee ranking member Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said the report “shows major gaps in DHS’s own cybersecurity, including some of the most basic protections that would be obvious to any 13-year-old with a laptop.” President Barack Obama “has called on the private sector to improve its cybersecurity practices to ensure that our nation’s critical infrastructure is not vulnerable to an attack,” said Coburn in a written statement. “DHS and other agencies must be held to at least the same standard."

The TPP will be a useful trade agreement only if it holds all involved nations “to the very highest standards” when it comes to issues such as protecting intellectual property rights and guaranteeing transparency in government procurement, said an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation report released Sunday (http://bit.ly/186stv9). TPP’s final ministerial meetings will be this month, the report said. “It would be a mistake for the United States to enter into a substandard TPP that offers only weak IP protections or that permits countries to maintain mercantilist practices; doing so would in fact be worse than not joining the agreement.” Part of strengthening IP protection should include adopting a common definition for “trade secrets,” the report said.

Several NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program cities were winners at the 2013 Digital Cities awards, said Laura Breeden, Commerce Department BTOP team leader, in a blog post Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1bb6IbE). The Center for Digital Government, a research and advisory firm for technology in state and local government, gave out the awards at the National League of Cities annual conference in Seattle last month, said Breeden. Boston, which took first place in the “large population” category, received two BTOP grants: to install computers in community anchor institutions and for its Technology Goes Home program to provide digital literacy training, subsidized netbooks and low-cost Internet access to low-income middle and high school students, she said. Chicago was also recognized on the Digital Cities list, and BTOP funds were used in the city to install or upgrade more than 3,000 computers and offer digital literacy training, said Breeden. Chicago received a separate BTOP grant for its Smart Communities program to provide Internet training and computer equipment to local residents and small businesses in five low- to moderate-income neighborhoods, she said. Philadelphia was also near the top of the Digital Cities list, where a citywide partnership called KeySpots established 79 computer centers that offer computer classes and digital literacy training to local youth, the unemployed, people with disabilities and low-income residents, said Breeden. Los Angeles, Calif.; Seattle, Wash.; Austin, Texas; Winston-Salem, N.C.; and Lowell, Mass., also benefited from BTOP funding, she said.

The FCC shouldn’t revise its sports blackout rule, said the National Football League in an ex parte filing Friday. Blackouts are “rare, isolated, but necessary” to make sure local fans can enjoy “premier sports,” said the filing (http://bit.ly/1chLUQT). “The FCC’s sports blackout rule, coupled with the network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules, provide a necessary counterbalance to the compulsory copyright rule,” said the NFL, calling it “unfair and unwise to get rid of these safeguards.” The league doesn’t have the option to resolve local blackout issues through negotiation because the NFL doesn’t have contracts with individual local broadcasters and cable systems, the ex parte said. The NFL has recently changed its ticket policy “to provide its member clubs additional options in engaging their fans and communities,” but these changes don’t provide a basis for revision of the FCC’s sports blackout rule, said the filing.

Comcast and Nielsen are trialing a new advertising product to insert a full ad load into Comcast’s on-demand TV programming, said Matt Strauss, Comcast Cable senior vice president, in a blog post Monday (http://bit.ly/18bi6nE). On Demand Commercial Ratings (ODCR) will change the current C3 ratings model that measures on-demand commercial viewing within three days of the show’s live airing, said Strauss. The C3 model works only with the most recent episode and it doesn’t apply to any of the TV series’ previous on-demand episodes, he said. With ODCR technology, the catch-up viewer will see the same ads as those who watch the show within three days after airing and the programmer could receive C3 advertising credit for viewers who are watching any episode on demand, said Strauss. The ODCR technology is being tested with NBCUniversal and Strauss said Comcast hope to begin working with other major broadcast networks soon.

The U.S. Trade Representative is supporting the ability of third parties in Trans-Pacific Partnership countries to formally object to a patent at the initial application phase, said the office in a news release Friday. A leaked U.S. chapter on intellectual property rights showed the Obama administration was pushing stringent intellectual property language that promotes big business over consumer access to products and information, said WikiLeaks and other advocate groups that had criticized what they called the secretive nature of TPP talks. Meanwhile, a medicine intellectual property rights (IPR) policy change the USTR seeks (http://1.usa.gov/1k2YPXK) shows that office is amenable to negotiating data exclusivity time frames, said Sean Flynn, associate director of American University’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, in a blog post (http://infojustice.org/archives/31498). “This is consistent with reports of various groups talking to the White House and Members of Congress that they are being told that although the USTR has offered a 12 year data exclusivity provision in the TPP, it does not expect to get that provision in the final agreement.” Vice President Joe Biden started Sunday on a six-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region that includes a Tuesday summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, where the two leaders are expected to discuss TPP negotiations, said the White House. Biden is also scheduled to meet with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Friday. South Korea formally expressed Friday its intent to join TPP negotiations (CD Dec 2 p12).

The Council for Research Excellence retained GfK, a market research firm, for two ethnographic studies to understand the impact of increased video availability across a growing number of devices and how people think about and consume video, said CRE in a news release Monday. The research teams will seek to determine how audience measurement needs to evolve to account for increased complexity in viewing to include variables by device, usage location, viewing circumstances, demographics and lifestyle factors, said CRE. The studies will encompass viewing via TV sets, PCs and laptops, connected TVs, smartphones, tablets, personal gaming devices and DVRs, it said. In about 150 participating homes, researchers will use a small “fisheye” lens camera to record behavior and later tag interesting video footage, said CRE. Participants will also be provided a video-journal “toolkit” including software to enable them to record their viewing habits, it said.

CenturyLink asked the FCC to stay its inmate calling service (ICS) rules “pending a final decision by the courts,” in a petition filed Wednesday (http://bit.ly/18VEX7m). The order “imposes de facto rate-of-return regulation,” said CenturyLink, an ICS provider. CenturyLink said the order is unlikely to survive judicial scrutiny because the commission didn’t provide a “reasoned justification” for applying its new regime to existing ICS contracts. The commission also based its decision to impose rate-of-return regulation on “a misreading of judicial precedent, invoking a presumption in favor of rate-of-return regulation that lacks a legal basis,” CenturyLink said. CenturyLink said it was the fourth ICS provider to request a stay pending judicial review. The FCC last month denied requests for stay by Global Tel Link and Securus.

FCC inaction and broadcast consolidation are exacerbating “skyrocketing” retransmission rates, said Mediacom in an ex parte letter addressed to Chairman Tom Wheeler’s chief of staff, Ruth Milkman. “Neither the consolidation that is occurring in local television markets nor the increasing demands for retransmission consent compensation are benefitting the public,” said Mediacom. “Rather, they are benefitting the bottom line of the stations’ corporate parents,” said the filing. Rising retransmission consent fees are driving the increased consolidation by giving broadcasters an incentive to acquire stations they can then leverage against cable companies in retrans negotiations, said Mediacom. Broadcasters can finance station acquisitions through the increased retransmission consent revenue such transactions generate, said Mediacom: “The result is an ongoing cycle of station acquisitions, increased retransmission consent fees, and reductions in local content -- all to the detriment of consumers.” Broadcast consolidation is also a threat to the incentive auction, because it concentrates the available spectrum in the hands of just a few owners, the filing said. The FCC should require the parties in broadcast transactions to produce hard data showing that “the proposed transaction will provide measurable benefits to the public, not just to the parties’ bottom lines,” said the filing. “If the Commission under Chairman Wheeler does nothing else, it should stop accepting at face value the broadcasters’ claims that increased concentration of station ownership and/or control, both at the local level and nationally, is good for consumers and society as a whole,” said the filing.