Broadcaster interest in buying construction permits for two DTV stations that the FCC allocated to the Northeast (CD March 18 p5) may be limited by the markets’ small size and the channels’ location in the VHF band, which has had problems with digital signal propagation, engineers said. Auction No. 90 for channel 4 in Atlantic City, N.J., and channel 5 for Seaford, Del., will begin Feb. 15, the commission said. The Wireless and Media bureaus proposed minimum bids of $200,000 each for the construction permits, said a public notice issued Wednesday afternoon. Comments on bidding procedures are due Sept. 30, replies Oct. 15.

A council of 47 European countries is expected this year to approve the first international agreement on the use of personal data for online and offline profiling, the head of its law reform department said in an interview. The “recommendation on the protection of individuals with regard to automatic processing of personal data in the framework of profiling” covers online behavioral advertising and other forms of profiling, as well as activities by public authorities such as the police, said Jörg Polakiewicz. The Council of Europe’s effort was prompted by growing threats to privacy from computers’ ability to process data on the Internet, he said. The recommendation is a blueprint for national legislation, he said.

Federal agencies’ slow path in transitioning to Networx, the largest government telecom program, could leave the government few options but to negotiate temporary contracts and to raise fees to agencies to accelerate progress, Networx vendors said in interviews. The current FTS2001 (Federal Technology Service) contracts expired this summer with a continuity of service clause providing an additional year of service to June 2011. Quite a few agencies might not be able to meet the 2011 deadline and the General Service Administration is still evaluating the best solution for those that will miss the deadline, said Karl Krumbholz, director of the network services program at GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service.

Wireline and wireless carriers said the FCC should back away from the controversial finding in its most recent Section 706 report that the commission couldn’t conclude broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a “reasonable and timely” way (CD July 21 p1). But Free Press said the commission was on the right track when it approved its sixth broadband deployment report during the summer and the seventh report should have the same finding. CTIA said the sixth report put too much emphasis on the speed of connections, to the detriment of wireless.

E-mail, text messages and dedicated websites are gaining legitimacy as ways to provide notice to plaintiffs in class actions, but preferences in the law and even statutory bans are keeping electronic communications from taking over from conventional media like first-class mail and newspapers, speakers said on a Web and phone seminar Wednesday.

The FCC is unlikely to act on Tribune’s request to transfer radio and TV licenses and waivers of cross-ownership rules banning common ownership of broadcasters and daily newspapers in the same market until pending bankruptcy issues are resolved, agency and industry officials predicted. Work by career commission staffers reviewing the deal for the company to emerge from Chapter 11 appears to have been slowed down because senior creditors of the company that were set to take control of it have abandoned that deal, they said. The officials said the regulator may be reviewing some elements of Tribune’s long-form application -- put out for public comment in May -- that aren’t directly affected by disagreement over bankruptcy emergence by creditors.

The European Parliament flexed its political muscle on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Wednesday, approving a statement opposing the lack of openness in its negotiations. The successful declaration, a “rare event” which signals the strength of parliament’s bargaining power, will be sent to the EU Presidency before the next ACTA round at the end of this month in Tokyo, said Françoise Castex, of France and the Socialists and Democrats.

The public-safety sector remains resilient despite state budget problems, Motorola Co-CEO Greg Brown said at Citigroup’s technology conference Tuesday. Meanwhile, the manufacturer is teaming up with Ericsson to create a unified public safety platform that will enable real-time information-sharing between command centers and remote devices, the company said.

Electric utilities and telecom carriers clashed over whether utilities can rely on commercial networks to meet most of their communications needs during a disaster. More than a dozen parties filed reply comments on a Public Safety Bureau inquiry notice from April about the survivability of broadband networks. The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and the Utilities Telecom Council (UTC) said utilities need their own secure networks and dedicated spectrum.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Pay-TV operators and vendors are working on new on-screen guides to keep up with the pace of innovation of over-the-top services such as Netflix Watch Instantly and Apple TV, executives at the Set Top Box Conference said last week. But they diverged on how consumers will want to navigate all the programming choices after operators integrate DVR, VOD and online video options into a single user-interface.