State legislators rejected a proposed South Dakota ISP privacy law at a House Commerce Committee hearing Monday. Pulled in from the audience to testify, South Dakota Public Utilities Commission Chairman Chris Nelson (R) questioned putting privacy regulations into the chapter of state law that regulates telephones. In addition, ISPs including AT&T and Lumen’s CenturyLink sharply opposed the bill (SB-110), which passed 28-6 in the GOP-dominated state Senate last month (see 2602200047).
The Republican-controlled South Dakota Senate overwhelmingly passed a broadband ISP privacy measure Friday, resurrecting the bill after it had appeared dead a week ago. State senators voted 28-6 to pass SB-110 by Sen. Michael Rohl (R). In a narrower vote, the Senate agreed 20-14 to an amendment by Sen. Steve Kolbeck (R) to remove a proposed exemption for small businesses. SB-110 next needs approval from the House and Gov. Larry Rhoden (R).
A South Dakota bill to require social media interoperability will go to the Senate floor after clearing the State Affairs Committee 8-0 on Wednesday. However, the panel effectively killed a broadband ISP privacy bill with a 5-3 vote to send the measure to the nonexistent 41st day of the legislature’s 40-day session.
States have good ideas about AI regulation that the federal government shouldn’t try to block, said two state officials and a U.S. Senate Democratic staffer during a Federal Communications Bar Association panel Tuesday. In a separate session, however, telecom industry officials suggested that a “patchwork” of state AI requirements could be more difficult for businesses than dealing with today’s array of state privacy laws.
A proposed private right of action will be removed from a New Hampshire age-verification bill that seeks to restrict children’s access to porn, said its sponsor, Sen. Tara Reardon (D), at a livestreamed state Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday. Reardon said her planned amendment to SB-648 would also allow companies to assert rights under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Maine legislators debated whether to repeal the state’s ISP privacy law as they compared a trio of comprehensive privacy bills during a Monday hearing of the joint Judiciary Committee (see 2505050025).
A Fourth Amendment exemption for searches at the border should be overturned because it doesn't fit today's digital age, Stanford law professor Orin Kerr argued in a Tuesday keynote at IAPP Global Privacy Summit for privacy professionals.
The Alabama Senate Children and Youth Health Committee voted 8-1 Thursday for a bill requiring phone and tablet manufacturers to turn on internet filters for children by default.
California's top assemblymember on communications is concerned about the state's process for distributing broadband cash and what President-elect Donald Trump might do to its $1.86 billion federal BEAD allocation. In an exclusive Communications Daily Q&A ahead of Monday's opening of the new legislative session, Assembly Communications and Conveyance Committee Chair Tasha Boerner (D) said she expects she will resurrect her proposal that creates a single state broadband office. And the committee will try again on a digital discrimination bill that failed to pass in the last session. Our conversation below with Boerner was lightly edited for length and clarity.
A possible shakeup of the federal Universal Service Fund (USF) will be top of mind for state telecom regulators in the year ahead, NARUC Telecom Committee Chair Tim Schram said in an interview earlier this month at the association’s Anaheim meeting. USF is one of several areas of uncertainty in 2025, said three state consumer advocates in a separate interview at the collocated National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) conference.