Jonathan Make

The FCC stopped taking COVID-19 telehealth applications, it announced Thursday. "Based on the applications received to date, demand for funding exceeds available" money. Some $200 million was allotted. The FCC doesn't "want to impose burdens on health care providers who may prepare new applications that cannot be funded under the current appropriation."

APCO 2020 is canceled, the group emailed early Tuesday afternoon. Experts had said holding the annual summer convention planned for Aug. 2-5 in Orlando could pose public health problems, amid COVID-19. See our report here.

Don't disconnect consumers and small businesses for not paying bills in the month of July, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai asked service providers, the agency announced Friday. He wants customers to stay connected amid the pandemic even after his Keep Americans Connected pledge ends June 30. He also wrote Congress seeking legislation to this end, covering "the coming months," the commission said.

Team Telecom recommended the FCC deny OK for the portion of a Pacific Light Cable Network undersea cable system that would directly link the U.S. and Hong Kong, DOJ announced. The commission declined to comment.

The FCC should seek public comment on any NTIA petition about Communications Decency Act Section 230 (see 2006040056), said Commissioner Mike O'Rielly. "From there, we can see if there’s something that we should do or should not do" about President Donald Trump’s executive order on 230 and how it applies to social media platforms, said O'Rielly. Also last week, Commissioner Geoffrey Starks asked where's the petition.

The FCC used Microsoft Teams for its first video meeting of commissioners, Chairman Ajit Pai told reporters after the gathering, answering our query. "The meeting was a success." The Office of Media Relations coordinated before Tuesday's meeting with all the offices of commissioners, bureaus and other offices participating in the event, Pai said. "Our goal is to make sure that we can be as transparent as possible even though we are in this new environment." We asked what it would take technically to bring back FCC staff news conferences after monthly meetings. Pai deferred to OMR for details. "I had the idea and I pushed it," Commissioner Mike O'Rielly told reporters in his own virtual news briefing, about the FCC video gathering. "It felt like a real meeting" he said of the virtual commissioners' meeting. Democratic commissioners and agency staff haven't held virtual news briefings after meetings while the agency's headquarters have been mostly closed during COVID-19. For a recent report on that, see here. (The article is in front of our pay wall, as is some other coronavirus coverage.) There's been one request, from Communications Daily, for staffers such as those at bureaus to participate in news conferences during this period of remote work, an FCC spokesperson emailed. "We have not yet determined the best approach, or if there will be buffering and bandwidth issues, to having such a large number of people conduct a press conference remotely." During teleworking amid the pandemic, the representative said OMR has had no media requests "specific to bureaus and meeting items" approved at the monthly commissioners' meetings. He said OMR remains "happy to take emailed questions from reporters for the bureaus after the meeting and relay back answers." FCC IT staff "sped up implementation of our video conference vendor, which was initially planned to coincide with the move to the new building, to accommodate the agency teleworking," completing that work in the past month, the rep said. "In the last couple of weeks, the video platform added functionality to show more than four participants at one time, enabling the full Commission to be viewed together." COVID-19 delayed the headquarters move.

COVID-19 and data security/privacy have something in common when it comes to federalism and states' rights, said Colorado's attorney general. AG Phil Weiser (D) equated the federal response to the pandemic and to privacy issues as a second-best scenario, where states are taking the lead. "In an ideal world, we’d have a first-rate national response to the pandemic where testing capability was developed by the federal government and the states were working collaboratively following the lead of the feds. That’s not the world we’re in right now," he said on a Technology Policy Institute podcast emailed to stakeholders Thursday and taped a week earlier. "We’re in the theory of the second best where the states have effectively been on their own and have been able to, in many cases, including Colorado, reasonably rise to this challenge. That’s actually the case with, right now, data privacy and data security." With no federal privacy law, Weiser described a "vacuum. And so states are now doing their own data privacy." On antitrust generally, the official said enforcement has been too lax. "We have seen concentration in almost every industry such that our economy is more concentrated now than it’s probably ever been," Weiser said. The attorney general hasn't "taken a position on a federal bill" in terms of what specifics he seeks, his spokesperson emailed us. "He does think federal action is needed." As of Sept. 1, 2018, Colorado law required "covered persons and entities to take reasonable steps to protect" personal identifying information. And data security breaches require "detailed notice to consumers and, in certain circumstances, notice to the Attorney General," says the AG's office.

A long-awaited Copyright Office report on a key statute governing internet platforms said Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512 may need a revamp. The section's safe harbor operation "is unbalanced," CO said in a news release Thursday afternoon. "While the Office is not recommending any wholesale changes to section 512, the Report points out these and other areas where Congress may wish to consider legislation to rebuild the original balance between rightsholders and online service providers."

The FCC confirmed Monday that members' next meeting tentatively will include a vote on wireless infrastructure, as we reported last week. Other items potentially on tap for a June 9 vote are auction procedures for the $16.4 billion, 10-year high-cost USF; high-band spectrum action; and on ATSC 3.0.

The four items for Wednesday's monthly commissioners' meeting were OK'd 5-0, FCC officials told us this morning. During the meeting, which began at 10:30 a.m. EDT, an official said the items were approved on circulation, as expected. "We're doing this in record time," Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said of the gathering.