The FCC will hold a public demo of the new expanded online public inspection file, which will replace the current broadcast public inspection file process, a public notice said. The demo will include the interface that broadcasters and pay-TV companies will use to file documents online, and the new interface that will allow the data in the system to be more searchable. The demo will be at 1 p.m. Monday, June 13, in the Commission Meeting Room.

Changes to the Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) should move the FCC into the 21st century, two officials said in a blog post Wednesday. “For most of ECFS's lifetime, a typical proceeding received a small number of comments (ranging from 10 to 500), most filed by communications practitioners,” wrote Alison Cutler, chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, and Chief Information Officer David Bray. But last year’s net neutrality proceeding had nearly 4 million comments from consumers and others, they said. “Today, the public expects to be able to easily submit comments in digital form and to have convenient access to all the other input received by the Commission, and the Commission needs a robust system capable of meeting the public’s expectations.” The FCC will do tutorials on the new ECFS starting Tuesday, they said. “We strongly encourage everyone who uses ECFS to participate in one of these demos to become familiar the new system and its features,” they said. “We will formally announce the final switch-over date two weeks before the transition.” They confirmed the FCC will no longer convert files to a PDF format (see 1605130046): "Filings will be made available to the public in their native formats." Another change is that groups that want to encourage mass filings will now have a process for filing them directly at the agency. Protect Internet Freedom recently accused the FCC of failing to post comments by its members opposing controversial proposed ISP privacy rules (see 1605110058). Agency officials blamed technical issues and the software the group had been using to file comments.

A draft FCC order to promote broadband in remote Alaska served by rate-of-return carriers likely will circulate Friday at the commission, an informed source told us Thursday. It's unclear if the item will be on the tentative agenda for the June 24 meeting due out Friday, the source said. But if the item circulates Friday, Chairman Tom Wheeler could still place it on the meeting's "Sunshine" agenda, which is to be released June 17. Christine O'Connor, executive director of the Alaska Telephone Association, told us she also didn't know if the item would be considered at the meeting, but said she believes the FCC will vote on an "Alaska Plan" by the end of the month. She noted Wheeler and other commissioners told Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, at a hearing in March they would address Alaska rate-of-return remote broadband issues by the end of Q2. "I don't think the second quarter target date will be delayed," she said. The FCC also could consider an undersea cable outage reporting order at its June or July meetings, said another informed source. An FCC spokesman didn't comment.

Commissioner Ajit Pai voted against the Globalstar draft order on circulation. Calling it "giv[ing] a particular company special rights to unlicensed spectrum in the 2.4 GHz band," Pai in a statement Thursday said "this type of preferential access would be a marked departure from our successful and innovative approach to unlicensed spectrum." Globalstar didn't comment. Informed sources told us earlier this week the broadband terrestrial low-power service draft order had only Chairman Tom Wheeler's vote (see 1606010043).

Mattel’s Wi-Fi-connected Hello Barbie doll shows the limits of privacy, said Meg Leta Jones, assistant professor at Georgetown University, at a Microsoft discussion Wednesday. “Barbie doesn’t have a screen, there’s nothing to click on,” Jones said: There is no way to see what the privacy policy is. If you ask the doll, she refers a user to a separate booklet, Jones said. “Who would have that booklet?” The Hello Barbie doll Jones brought with her belongs to a friend, she said. The doll is part of the “internet of other peoples’ things,” Jones said. But Jones said this raises the question of how much information someone could get from the doll if it falls into someone else’s hands. Everything said to Hello Barbie theoretically can be shared with other uses, Jones said. “Hello Barbie cannot keep a secret, no matter what she tells you,” she said. “The bigger question for this room is whether that’s a problem, whether it’s a privacy problem and what do we do about those types of problems.” States are taking a lead role in privacy cases, said Danielle Citron, a University of Maryland Law School professor. State attorneys general brought some of the first privacy cases, she said. State AGs since the 1990s have been “establishing norms that federal agencies have built upon and sharpening norms that are set by the feds,” she said. Early actions were based on the legal theory that “it’s an unfair and deceptive practice not to have a privacy policy,” Citron said. “At the time the FTC was arguing … self-regulation is just fine.”

The standard the Supreme Court laid out in its 1998 Burlington Industries v. Ellerth decision was the wrong one to apply to Sharon Stewart's workplace retaliation claim against the FCC, Stewart argued in a reply brief (in Pacer) Tuesday in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court rejected the Ellerth standard as it applies to retaliation claims in its Burlington Northern & Santa Fe v. White decision in 2006 "and sustaining it here would fly in the face of nearly five decades of precedent," the plaintiff said, arguing the court should revise an April order (in Pacer) on the FCC's motion to dismiss so as to deny the government's motion to dismiss one of the counts of her complaint. While White made clear reassignment of job duties isn't automatically actionable, court precedent has held that whether a reassignment is adverse is for a jury to decide, not for a court ruling on a motion to dismiss, Stewart said. Stewart sued the FCC in 2015, alleging she was penalized after complaining of a hostile work environment in the Office of Communications Business Opportunities, including being moved from her job preparing Section 610 reports. The FCC didn't comment Wednesday.

Along with updated comments on Wi-Fi and dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) systems designed to curb auto crashes sharing within the 5.9 GHz band, the FCC is seeking submittal of prototype unlicensed interference-avoidance devices for testing and comments on its proposed plan for evaluating electromagnetic compatibility of unlicensed devices and DSRC, the agency said in a record refresh public notice Wednesday. The PN was expected (see 1605260059). Comments in docket 13-49 will be due 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register, with reply comments due 15 days after that. In a statement, Commissioner Ajit Pai said that after laying dormant for two years, a variety of lawmakers and his fellow commissioners, Jessica Rosenworcel and Michael O'Rielly, "[got] this proceeding moving again." Pai also said DSRC is intended to promote safety via vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure purposes, but the commercial applications and radar technologies that could employ the spectrum didn't exist at allocation: "My hope is that we make a smart decision quickly -- both in this spectrum band and in the lower, 120 MHz of the 5 GHz band -- to allow this spectrum to directly benefit consumers." And in a joint statement, Rosenworcel and O'Rielly said the notice "puts in place a framework to demonstrate that unlicensed use in the 5.9 GHz band is possible without causing harmful interference to incumbent licensees," particularly DSRC. They also said the July 30 deadline for the submission of testing equipment and the commitment to complete testing by Jan. 15 were aimed at providing "much-needed certainty for the unlicensed community and car manufacturers."

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said he appreciated the "responsiveness" of Universal Service Administrative Co. CEO Chris Henderson, who wrote three times in May to answer an April 18 letter from Pai seeking USAC help in fighting waste, fraud and abuse in the Lifeline USF program (see 1604180074). Pai said Henderson's responses confirmed that Total Call Mobile "was not alone" in "apparently overriding third-party identity verification (TPIV) safeguards"; apparent duplicate and ineligible enrollments drew an FCC-proposed $51 million fine against the company (see 1604080032). "Three of the companies identified by Total Call Mobile's agents indiscriminately overrode the TPIV safeguards between October 2014 and February 2015," Pai said in a Tuesday letter to Henderson that blacked out the companies' names. "The aggregate numbers for just these five months of enrollment are staggering. Roughly one third of the 2.5 million Lifeline subscribers enrolled by wireless resellers, or 821,482 subscribers, were enrolled using TPIV override," Pai said. Even without Total Call Mobile included, 11 other wireless resellers were responsible for 616,937 enrollments, he said: "That's outrageous." Pai commended USAC for changing the TPIV override process in February 2015, but said he remains concerned "that existing safeguards still may let unscrupulous carriers exploit the program." He said USAC staff still doesn't review "any document that verifies a person's identity" before a TPIV override is authorized. "Integrity of the process relies on the integrity of the carriers -- the only ones who know if a subscriber's identify is legitimate," he said. Pai asked Henderson for more information on 13 wireless resellers that USAC said frequently engaged in overriding and that weren't identified in his April 18 letter, and to answer various questions about USAC processes and policies.

Striking Verizon workers planned to return to work Wednesday, since Verizon and union leaders signed a tentative agreement Friday to end a more than six-week East Coast strike (see 1605270050). In a news release Monday, the Communications Workers of America said the proposed four-year contract provides 10.9 percent in raises over four years with compounded interest, including 3 percent upon ratification and 2.5 percent on each anniversary of the contract. In the mid-Atlantic, it includes a $1,250 signing bonus; in the Northeast, a $1,000 signing bonus plus a $250 healthcare reimbursement account, it said. The deal gives workers a minimum $700 in profit sharing in each of the next four years, and rather than reduce pensions as the telco proposed, the agreement provides three 1 percent increases to pensions, it said. About 70 Verizon Wireless retail employees in Brooklyn, New York, and Everett, Massachusetts, will get their first-ever contract, the CWA said. All call centers that had been threatened with closure in the mid-Atlantic region will remain open; three of five threatened call centers in upstate New York will remain open, with the six workers affected in the other centers to be offered new Verizon jobs locally, it said. Verizon will add 1,300 call center jobs, including 850 in the mid-Atlantic and 450 in the Northeast, CWA said. Verizon agreed to reverse several major contracting initiatives, resulting in a 25 percent increase in the number of unionized crews doing pole work in New York state, CWA said. The proposed contract also preserves existing language on job security, transfer and seniority protections for retirement incentives, the union said. Verizon withdrew proposals on forced interstate transfers, CWA said. Verizon agreed to end a performance supervisory program in New York City that workers didn’t like, and the parties will work with an outside consultant to develop a nonpunitive program, the union said. The company agreed to withdraw proposed cuts in accident and disability benefits, CWA said. Verizon said the company will save money and avoid additional costs through healthcare plan design changes, adopting Medicare Advantage plans for retirees, maintaining limits on post-retirement healthcare costs, and freezing the mortality table for lump sum pensions using the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade rate. The agreement lets Verizon provide special buyout incentives to employees, the company said. Verizon is also likely to save money by the act of ending the strike, analysts have said, since the company had to deploy thousands to fill in for the union workers, including contractors and its own managers. The unions will submit the agreement to members for a ratification vote; if approved, the contract will run through Aug. 3, 2019, Verizon said. The strike hurt Verizon financially and its end is welcome, said Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche. “While there likely will be some impact on Q2 financials related to the strike … the savings that should result from this Strike outweigh the near term distractions,” she wrote investors Tuesday.

Circulation items that get converted to meeting items on the FCC's monthly meeting agenda should be announced three weeks before the meeting, and converted items that don't reflect the views of staff and of the chairman's office should be revised and recirculated as official meeting items no later than that three-week-out "white copy date," Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said in a blog post Tuesday suggesting an overhaul of the agency's circulation items process. Circulation items generally are less controversial and less time sensitive, meaning they often circulate among commissioners for months without getting votes, O'Rielly said. He said any item that has circulated for six months should be taken out of circulation automatically because it "is often stale and likely would require more work to reflect the current state of the record." O'Rielly said an item circulating that long with only one or two votes typically doesn't have widespread commissioner support and is unlikely to get enough to trigger must-vote procedures. Either the chairman's office should work with staff and commissioners to retool the pulled items so as to find consensus or the yanked items should be put on the open meeting agenda, he said, likening it to how the Senate handles nominations. Currently at the FCC, he said, long-circulated items get added to meetings even when they clearly lack support and there has been little work to modify them. He said that adding them to the meeting as a placeholder "for some yet-to-be drafted consensus document that will hopefully emerge in the short time before the meeting" means commissioners themselves often are having meetings with outside parties on the proposals without even knowing "what is actually on the table." Current FCC procedures allow for notably small windows of notice to the publication and consideration by commissioners, O'Rielly said, saying items on circulation as of that white copy date can be added to the monthly agenda one week before the meeting, during the Sunshine period when outside parties are blocked from contacting the FCC to weigh in. O'Rielly said any draft "that needs significant rewrites" during the white copy period should be pulled for consideration later, and nothing should be added to the agenda a week before the meeting "absent extraordinary circumstances." The office of Chairman Tom Wheeler is reviewing O'Rielly's blog post, emailed a commission spokesman. "The chairman welcomes constructive ideas on process from all commissioners.” The blog was the latest in a series of agency process changes O'Rielly has advocated in blog posts (see 1602240070 and 1501160041).