Chairman Tom Wheeler said the FCC can't set deadlines for executive branch agencies conducting reviews of international deals that need commission approval, as sought by various industry parties (see 1605240048). Asked at a post-meeting news conference Wednesday about the possibility of such deadlines, Wheeler acknowledged complaints that "Team Telecom" reviews take too long, but, according to an FCC transcript, he said "they are something that happens outside of our hands with the national security apparatus." Noting a recent NTIA letter wanting more information upfront from certain FCC applicants, Wheeler said the FCC would work to get information quickly to Team Telecom. "After Team Telecom, we normally act -- bam -- like that. But we'll try, and what can we do here to give Team Telecom the tools so that they can move faster but that's something that happens elsewhere." Pressed on the deadline issue, Wheeler responded, "We're the ones that went to Team Telecom to say, 'Hey guys, can we do more about this?' We can't set deadlines for other agencies." Commissioner Mike O'Rielly disagreed "a little bit" with Wheeler's deference to other agencies: "We're not obligated by statute to give them such latitude. We do have the right to impose deadlines as we see fit. So I'm hopeful we'll have some kind of process to address some of those concerns ... and not just the timelines but the opaqueness" of the reviews. Parties sometimes don't know what's happening on reviews or who they should call to find out, he said.

Facebook didn't find any evidence of alleged bias against conservative political viewpoints in the website's trending news stories feature, but it said it "could not fully exclude the possibility of isolated improper actions or unintentional bias in the implementation of our guidelines and polices," Colin Stretch, the company's general counsel, said in a Monday blog post. A recent Gizmodo story kicked off the controversy against Facebook that also prompted Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., to send a letter to the company inquiring about its practices (see 1605100032). But Thune faced some backlash from media and First Amendment experts, who said that government had no business getting involved (see 1605110048 and 1605190029). Thune, who met with Stretch a week ago, released the 12-page response from Facebook Monday and told reporters on Tuesday that he saw a "good outcome" from his inquiry. “I thought Facebook was very straightforward with their response,” Thune told reporters. “They took it seriously. They’ve adopted some changes in their procedures. Our whole issue was to make sure the way that their description of what they were doing actually matched what they were doing. And I think what this revealed was, there were some issues that they needed to address, and I think they’ve made some modifications. We’re happy with the way it came out. I think it gave greater clarity to consumers and created more transparency for Facebook and I think they made some corrective changes.” Thune didn't foreclose possible further assessment: "We’re open to more information if somebody came forward with it." But he has said that he saw no reason for regulatory action against Facebook (see 1605170068). In his post, Stretch said his company is making several changes to the "Trending Topics" feature, including refresher training for reviewers, more controls and oversight of the review team and clearer terms in its guidelines (see 1605120058).

Telcordia disputed criticism of its proposed master services agreement (MSA) -- to be local number portability administrator -- from the LNP Alliance and New America's Open Technology Institute (OTI) in a letter (see 1605180046). "The letter does not raise any justification for disapproving the MSA," Telcordia said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 09-109. "In its March 2015 Selection Order, the Commission made clear that the purpose of reviewing the MSA was to determine whether it complies with the neutrality and security requirements of the Selection Order. The LNP Alliance fails to raise any substantial concerns with either. Nor could it: on both neutrality and security, the MSA fully complies with the terms of the Selection Order -- and its provisions on neutrality and security are significantly more stringent than the existing MSA between [North American Portability Management] and the incumbent. In short, the MSA negotiated between Telcordia and NAPM is stronger and more protective in all respects -- on neutrality, security, price, and performance -- than the current agreement with Neustar."

The government has an interest in fostering freedom of expression that, separate from market power questions, can and does help guide its regulatory and legal decisions, FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet said at a Media Institute lunch Tuesday. Saying he was giving his personal views and wasn't addressing pending FCC issues, Sallet cited numerous court decisions he said bolstered his point, with one noneconomic argument in the Supreme Court's 1997 Turner vs. FCC (II) decision. The FCC net neutrality NPRM asked questions about the effect a non-open Internet would have on free expression, Sallet said. He also noted how in the last broadcast ownership quadrennial review, the FCC kept some ownership restrictions to help foster media ownership diversity, and that in transaction reviews, the agency tries to promote competition more broadly than -- though informed by -- the antitrust analysis. He said the free flow and exchange of ideas that come with free expression is akin to the free flow of ideas in the scientific method, and it's no coincidence the Age of Enlightenment, the American Revolution and Adam Smith all followed the creation of the scientific method. Sallet took no questions. He more than once referred to the pending U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision on the net neutrality order. In the event of a D.C. Circuit decision Tuesday, he said to laughs, "I had another speech prepared."

Buyers, sellers and intermediaries in the digital advertising supply chain that meet stringent anti-fraud requirements can receive certification seals through a program launched Monday by the Trustworthy Accountability Group. More than 30 digital ad companies -- including comScore, Interpublic, News Corp., Omnicom Group, Publicis, WPP and Yahoo -- agreed to participate, TAG said in a news release. “Participants in the digital ad supply chain can now ask a simple question to tell if their partners have taken the necessary steps to fight ad fraud: ‘Are you TAG Certified Against Fraud?’ As more TAG anti-fraud seals are awarded, the cracks in our industry exploited by bad actors will also be sealed against their criminal endeavors," said TAG CEO Mike Zaneis. Direct buyers (advertisers and authorized ad agents), direct sellers (publishers and authorized publisher agents) and intermediaries (ad networks and indirect buyers and sellers) must go through a registration process, designate a TAG compliance officer and comply with the Media Rating Council’s invalid traffic detection and filtration guidelines to become certified, IAB said. Sellers also must adhere to domain list filtering, data center IP list filtering and publisher sourcing disclosure requirements, while intermediaries must follow the list filtering requirements and TAG's payment ID protocol. TAG was created in late 2014 by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Association of National Advertisers and Interactive Advertising Bureau to fight ad fraud, malware and Internet piracy, and to promote transparency.

The FCC’s proposed privacy rules put too much emphasis on “opt-in approval,” which is “anachronous and ineffective,” said the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL), a think tank supported by industry, in comments filed at the FCC. “In the age of big data analytics, the IoT, cloud computing and other modern information practices and uses, overreliance on consent and individual control may result in significant impediments to putting personal data to beneficial and productive uses, thereby frustrating or slowing down economic and social advancements without countervailing benefits to privacy or to individuals, as other, more effective mechanisms and tools to protect individuals are available,” CIPL said. The think tank is based at law firm Hunton & Williams and is supported by about 40 companies, according to the filing. Meanwhile, the FCC posted more than 1,000 privacy comments Monday in docket 16-106. “Your so-called Internet privacy rules, which give a free pass to the Obama Administration’s biggest corporate supporter -- Google -- are a sham and an insult to my intelligence,” said one typical comment. “Google does more to stalk me than any company in the history of civilization. Google's Chairman even admits how little he cares about my online privacy.” Roger Reyes wrote that Google’s exemption from the rules is a “blatant example of cronyism.” Google didn't comment.

The FCC is overlooking and even undermining broadband network investment that spurs "real" competition and improvements in business data services (BDS), USTelecom said Monday. "More regulation to promote fake competition may be coming," wrote Diane Holland, vice president-law and policy, in a blog post headlined "What About Investment, Investment, Investment?" Holland said questions in a Further NPRM in docket 05-25 (see 1605030001) focus on the quantity and type of regulations needed to achieve the commission's stated objectives regarding competition, a technology-neutral framework, technology transitions and flexible regulation. "But there’s a glaring omission from that list: ensuring that providers keep investing in broadband infrastructure. Only facilities-based competition is real, sustainable competition," she wrote. Noting the FCC decision over a decade ago to focus on facilities-based competition in limiting wholesale "unbundling" discounts, Holland said the current commission had "seemingly all but abandoned increasing investment as a primary goal." She acknowledged the FNPRM mentions investment and technology transitions that implicate investment. "But the FCC’s tepid nod to increasing investment as if it would be a nicety rather than a central and essential component is alarming, and disheartening to the scores of providers that have prioritized investment over short-term profits," she wrote. Holland said "fake" competition is "built on a subsidized leasing house of cards" that is unsustainable. She said the FNPRM made "stunning prejudgments" suggestive of that course, "doubling down on accommodating competitive providers" relying on others' facilities rather than their own, which "removes incentives to invest." And she wrote the FCC finding that "best efforts" cable doesn't seems to be a competitive BDS substitute "sets the stage for finding a widespread lack of BDS competition, a necessary precursor to more regulation." She said "real competition and increased investment" are interdependent, not mutually exclusive. An FCC spokesman emailed: “The proposed framework envisions minimal regulation in markets where competition for broadband data services exists, which will preserve incentives for facilities-based investment. In markets where competition does not exist, the goal would be to ensure that businesses and institutions that rely on business data services -- including wireless providers -- can still compete and innovate, which will in fact encourage investment.”

One of Ligado's next aims is setting up a trial network to demonstrate terrestrial and satellite shared use of mid-band spectrum, CEO Doug Smith said in a blog post Monday. "This would be one of the earliest American demonstrations of an advanced next-generation network and could kick-start our mission to serve the information explosion that comes in 5G," Smith said on the day of the deadline for comments in the public notice on Ligado's proposed license modifications that would have it abandon any planned 1545-1555 MHz terrestrial downlink use (see 1604250019). With FCC approval of Ligado's plans for mid-band spectrum, "We can create a model of at least a partial 5G network -- a next-generation, hybrid satellite-terrestrial network -- that will enable 5G use cases and mobile applications that require ultra-reliable, highly-secure and pervasive connectivity," Smith said. Those modifications and power limits are among the steps Ligado has taken "to ensure satellites using other mid-band spectrum can still successfully send signals to smartphones, GPS devices and specialized industrial equipment that rely on that data," Smith said on the blog. The company said the parameters and power limit agreement struck with Deere, Garmin and Trimble point to GPS users and manufacturers not facing any Ligado interference. "Significantly, cellular devices and consumer devices representing the vast majority of the GPS market are not adversely impacted by our planned deployment," Smith said. Ligado's license modification proposal is seeing some opposition. "We have a major concern that the receivers out in the field will be affected by the Ligado signals close to L1 band as they are from our receiver point-of-view in-band interference," especially minus surface acoustic wave (SAW) filtering, U-blox America said in a filing Friday in the docket. The global navigation satellite system component maker also volunteered to provide GPS receivers for more testing involving passive antennas, no external SAW and OEM receivers without integrated SAW. It also is receiving some outside backing. James Kirkland, Trimble Navigation general counsel, called Wireless Bureau Associate Chief Charles Mathias to talk about Trimble's support of Ligado's LTE plans, said an ex parte filing Friday in docket 12-340. According to Trimble, Kirkland said Ligado has agreed to technical parameters and other conditions that are "a reasonable compromise relative to the important competing policy considerations raised by Ligado's previous proposals."

NTIA will host a June 15 meeting for participants trying to hammer out a best practices document for the commercial use of facial recognition technology, said a notice in Friday's Federal Register. The process, which began more than two years ago, has been controversial, with several privacy and consumer protection advocates walking out last summer. They have said that any resulting voluntary code of conduct wouldn't provide adequate protections for the public. The remaining, mostly industry participants have inched closer to producing a document. Stakeholders met in late March in an NTIA-hosted meeting and then a subset group was developing a document that is expected to be discussed at the June meeting (see 1603290023). The 1-5 p.m. meeting, which is open to the public, will be held in the American Institute of Architects boardroom, 1735 New York Ave. NW.

The FCC Disability Advisory Committee will meet June 16, starting at 9 a.m. in the Commission Meeting Room. The committee was established in December 2014 to make recommendations to the FCC “on a wide array of disability matters within the jurisdiction of the Commission, and to facilitate the participation of people with disabilities in proceedings before the Commission,” a public notice said. In February, the group approved a resolution (see 1602230066) calling on the FCC to issue a rulemaking on phasing out text technology in favor of real-time text, a step taken by the agency in April (see 1604280055).