The FTC said Friday that it is extending the comment deadline on its proposed study of the business practices of patent assertion entities (PAEs) to Dec. 16 to give interested parties more time to provide input. The original deadline was Dec. 2. The FTC voted in September to propose launching the PAE study using its authority under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act. Section 6(b) allows the FTC to investigate an industry’s business practices, including issuing subpoenas, and report their findings to Congress and the public. The FTC has proposed asking for information from 25 PAEs on their corporate legal structure, the types of patents they hold and how they assert their patents (CD Sept 30 p15).

AT&T Mobility, Sprint and T-Mobile will no longer charge customers for commercial premium short messaging services (PSMS), said Bill Sorrell, Vermont’s attorney general, in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/19M7Z5a). Forty-five states, led by Vermont, engaged in discussions with carriers to stop mobile cramming, said Sorrell. PSMS accounts for the majority of third-party charges on cellphone bills and for the “overwhelming majority” of cramming complaints, said Sorrell. Sorrell noted that in May he released a survey showing 60 percent of third-party charges placed on mobile phone bills of Vermonters were unauthorized, or “crammed.” AT&T and T-Mobile will continue to allow charitable donations to be billed via PSMS, said Sorrell. While Verizon is not included in the agreement, General Counsel William Petersen said the company had “previously decided to exit the premium messaging business because of these changes as well as recent allegations that third parties have engaged in improper conduct in providing premium messaging services to our customers.” Verizon will continue to support allowing text-to-donate programs for charities and political campaigns, said Petersen in a statement. “I'm glad to see AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint take matters in their own hands to protect their wireless customers from cramming,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., in a statement. “The largest wireless carriers are putting customers first with this decision, and in turn, they're taking a major step forward toward eliminating this problem. I strongly urge all other carriers to follow their lead.” In June, Rockefeller introduced the Fair Telephone Billing Act of 2013, which was aimed at ending cramming on wireline telephone bills (CD June 13 p10).

NTIA should “convene industry stakeholders and privacy advocates to establish consensus-driven best practices” for facial recognition technology, Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken, D-Minn., wrote Administrator Lawrence Strickling. “Our privacy laws provide no express protections for facial recognition data.” Franken said his letter was prompted by Facebook’s expansion of its facial recognition database -- the technology that enables the social networking site to recognize users in posted pictures and make tagging suggestions. The letter said Franken questioned Facebook on its facial recognition practices during a congressional hearing and a letter to the company in September, which asked how many faceprints the company had stored. Franken said he was not satisfied with Facebook’s responses and its claim that the number of faceprints stored is proprietary information. “I will be exploring legislation to protect the privacy of biometric information, particularly facial recognition technology,” Franken said: Technology developers “won’t be waiting for us,” he said, so the NTIA should “take up this subject … as quickly as possible.” NTIA acknowledged it had received the letter and plans to respond.

A new gigabit broadband service is available to business customers in Russellville, Ky., said EPB SmartNet in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1g3a9D7). The city’s municipally owned fiber-to-the-premises network, EPB SmartNet operates a high-speed fiber network to more than 4,000 homes and businesses in the Russellville area.

European Internet users remain “very concerned” about cybersecurity, the European Commission said Friday. Seventy-six percent of those polled said the risk of becoming a cybercrime victim has increased in the past year, up slightly from 2012, it said. Although 70 percent of users are confident of their ability to use the Internet for shopping and other activities, only around 50 percent actually do so, showing the negative impact of cybercrime on the digital single market, it said. The two main concerns about online activities related to misuse of personal data and security on online payments, the EC said. In addition, more EU citizens now feel well-informed about the risks of cybercrime than last year, but they don’t always draw the necessary conclusions from that information, it said. Less than half of those surveyed, for example, changed any of their passwords during the past year, it said. The survey took place in May and June and polled around 27,000 people in all EU countries, the EC said.

Longmont Power & Communications released a request for proposals Thursday to find a firm to design and oversee the construction of its fiber-to-the-premises network following the Colorado passage of city’s ballot initiative (CD Nov 7 p5 ). The consultant selected will be required to complete equipment engineering for five optical line terminals located in city-owned facilities, said the RFP. The consultant’s outside plant design will include construction standards for overhead and underground facilities and equipment and material specifications, said the RFP. It will also include the capacity to serve undeveloped areas within the city planning area as well as LPC’s rural service territory, said the RFP. The contract for design and construction management of the FTTP network is estimated to last from Feb. 1, 2014, to Dec. 31, 2016, said the RFP. Proposals are due to the Longmont by Dec. 19 at 2 p.m.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s chief of staff stepped down and may leave the agency later this year, said commission officials Friday. They said that Dave Grimaldi, her chief of staff for the past several years except the time when she was acting chairwoman when he was chief counsel, left Clyburn’s office last week and has recused himself on all matters affecting it. Replacing him as chief of staff to Clyburn is Adonis Hoffman, said Hoffman. He had worked for the American Association of Advertising Agencies for a number of years, and more recently as an attorney advising on corporate responsibility and a Georgetown University adjunct professor. Grimaldi declined to comment.

President Barack Obama approved the updated National Space Transportation Policy. The new policy allows commercial companies to compete for payload launch opportunities under new-entrant certification criteria, the policy says (http://1.usa.gov/18rMnio). The policy released Thursday said it’s aimed at fostering “more efficient and capable space transportation systems and approaches that can address such challenges and enable new activities and discoveries in and from space.” The policy no longer requires an exemption to be obtained for government use of foreign launch vehicles to support hosted payload arrangements on spacecraft not owned by the U.S., it said. It said it aims to support civil space programs and activities at NASA, including the implementation of partnerships with the private sector “to develop safe, reliable and cost effective commercial spaceflight capabilities for the transport of crew and cargo to and from the International Space Station and low earth orbit.” Boeing supported the “balanced approach to developing affordable commercial crew and cargo transportation in areas of proven technology,” said a news release (http://bit.ly/1c7f0jY). The development of a commercial space sector for low-earth orbit transportation “is freeing NASA to develop a heavy lift launch capability to travel,” said the company.

The FCC incentive auction and subsequent TV station repacking don’t threaten rural TV viewers or the translators that deliver their signals, said the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition in an informal comment (http://bit.ly/1g33rNp) filed Thursday. It responded to a letter signed by 23 senators concerned that the repacking will eliminate TV translator service (CD Nov 14 p21), since translators aren’t protected in the incentive auction process. Concerns that the FCC will reclaim more spectrum than it needs in rural areas or that the repacking won’t leave room for translators are contrary to the auction design and to “commitments made by Commission staff,” said EOBC. The FCC has said that while less spectrum may be cleared in “constrained markets,” it won’t compensate by clearing more in rural areas, said EOBC. “There is no rational basis to conclude that the FCC will recover more spectrum than it needs in rural areas.” An examination of markets with heavy translator use “reveals that there would be ample spectrum post-repack on which TV translators could continue to operate,” said EOBC.

The initial results of the FCC’s speed test app are in, and “they are very promising,” officials from the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis said in a blog post Thursday (http://fcc.us/17zWRvB). In just the first two days after the app’s public release, there were 30,000 installations and 200 reviews averaging 4.5 stars in the Google Play store, they said. More than half of the 40,000 tests conducted were run on LTE networks, with all major carriers represented. Results came in from all 50 states, the post said. “The rapid uptake of this app will benefit the country as a whole by incentivizing better mobile broadband performance,” it said. “The app also provides a new and productive way for consumers, providers, and the FCC to interact.” Actual speed test results were not posted publicly.