About 1,100 DirecTV workers represented by the Communications Workers of America ratified two agreements between the CWA and AT&T, which now owns DirecTV, said a news release Monday. The accords cover about 200 Midwest employees and about 900 in the Southwest and put those workers under existing contracts in those regions, CWA said.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had “been a bit ambivalent” about “tweeting her support” for the net neutrality order that the FCC approved Feb. 26, 2015, said her aide Jake Sullivan in an email from Feb. 15 of that year, released by WikiLeaks last week. Consultant Tom Freedman had asked John Podesta, a chief official in Clinton’s election effort, if it would “make sense to say something positive now including about her commitment to an open and accessible web?” pegged to the FCC vote, and Podesta turned to other officials including Sullivan. “But I agree -- it's a good issue to be out front on,” Sullivan told Freedman. “We'll revisit.” Clinton backed the FCC majority's approach, including reclassification of internet services under Title II of the Communications Act, in an interview Feb. 24 of that year (see 1504160034). Among other recent emails released, which U.S. intelligence agencies say are likely sourced to a cyber-hack affiliated with the Russian government, Washington Monthly editor-in-chief Paul Glastris congratulated Podesta “on municipal broadband” in an email dated Feb. 28, 2015, and cited a piece Podesta wrote for the magazine in 2006. “When I read that the FCC had overturned state restrictions on municipal broadband I immediately thought of you,” Glastris wrote. Clinton aide Sara Solow also emailed Podesta about Charter Communications’ acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks when the deal was still pending in January of this year. “I actually thought the business case for their merger was pretty sympathetic,” emailed Solow, mentioning a briefing with Charter and saying the combined company wouldn't serve as large a broadband market as AT&T when combined with DirecTV. “I also found it interesting that there hasnt [sic] been ANY congressional hearing on this,” she added. “Skepticism much lower.” In a follow-up email, she wrote, “See no reason to have a view at this point. Don't think there is any pressure to oppose and make this another example of consolidation; on the other hand no upside in supporting.”

Confusion is hindering growth of home automation and related markets, Futuresource reported, based on a survey of 4,000 people in the U.S., U.K., France and Germany. "That's a serious problem,” said analyst Simon Bryant. Some 21 percent of consumers own a smart appliance, but many classify their smartphone or smart TV as a smart appliance, he said Wednesday. Voice control, led by Amazon’s Alexa-based Echo devices, “could prove to be the catalyst for the entire smart home revolution,” Bryant said, with Apple and Google products adding “significant momentum."

Friday’s distributed denial of service internet attack that knocked out many websites (see 1610210056) spurred calls to action Monday from IoT stakeholders and by members of Congress (see 1610240038). Privacy and security concerns are on the rise among IoT customers, said a Parks Associates news release. Year-end data show 40 percent of U.S. broadband households had a recent privacy or security problem with a connected device, “primarily a virus, spyware, or a company tracking them," said analyst Brad Russell. The IoT creates opportunities and risks, some of which are an obstacle to advancement of technology, said Anthony Grieco, trust strategy officer at National Cyber Security Alliance founding sponsor Cisco, in a news release. Also Monday, the prpl Foundation said it formed the Trust Continuum working group with the goal of establishing “end-to-end trust in embedded devices, critical to the security of IoT.” Trust is a critical element missing from the IoT, said foundation President Art Swift.

IoT gateway shipments are forecast to exceed 64 million units in 2021, ABI Research reported Monday. Home automation and security market components will be well over half of all IoT gateway shipments by then, but mobility, transportation, industrial and infrastructure segments will generate the most revenue, ABI said. Home automation and security rely on gateways for communications between home sensors and cloud services.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling earlier this month in PHH v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau bolsters the FCC position in a lawsuit challenging retroactive waivers granted to some companies in its 2014 junk fax order, the agency said in a letter Thursday (in Pacer). PHH, cited by plaintiff petitioners in Yaakov of Spring Valley et al. v. FCC (see 1610140004), is dramatically different from the waivers challenge, since by giving the waivers, the commission was excusing liability where regulated parties could have been confused about requirements instead of imposing unexpected liability on regulated parties, it said. The PHH decision said the CFPB structure intruded on presidential Article II powers and thus violated separation of powers, but the FCC waivers don't violate that principle since the agency's ability to waive is own rules for good cause is well established. Counsel for the plaintiffs didn't comment.

The FTC will examine the state of identity theft and how it may evolve, the commission said in a Tuesday news release announcing an all-day public conference May 24. Earlier this year, the FTC said it received more than 490,000 ID theft complaints in 2015, which the commission has characterized as an underreported crime. DOJ estimated 17.6 million Americans were victims of ID theft in 2014 (see 1601280051 and 1603010024). Next year's FTC conference will address how thieves get people's data, the type of information they often look for and how they use it or may attempt to use it in the future, the release said. The event also will seek to quantify the financial and economic impact of ID theft and resources available to victims. Next year will mark the 10-year anniversary of the executive order that created the federal Identity Theft Task Force, formed to develop a comprehensive strategy to fight the crime. The task force is chaired by the attorney general and co-chaired by the FTC chair.

The FCC Consumer Bureau and Connect2Health Task Force set a Nov. 10 webinar on broadband health mapping, the agency said in a public notice Monday in docket 16-1190. The one-hour webinar is tailored to state and local governments, the commission said. In August, the task force released a broadband health tool that lets users ask and answer broadband and health questions at the local level (see 1608020017).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recognizes that changing an administrative interpretation and applying it retroactively is "fundamentally unfair," and that's exactly what the FCC did in 2014 with the retroactive waivers granted to some companies in the agency's junk fax order (see 1410300047), petitioners appealing those waivers told the court in a letter Thursday (in Pacer). Counsel for the petitioners in Yaakov of Spring Valley et al. v. FCC said the waivers violated the due process rights of the petitioners, who "have devoted years to pursuing complex federal litigation based on (Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA) violations that occurred before the FCC's Waiver Ruling." The petitioners all received fax ads that allegedly didn't include the required opt-out notices, and filed TCPA complaints against the fax advertisers that sent them. They said those waivers are attempts to extinguish their claims. The petitioners said the basis for the letter was the D.C. Circuit's PHH v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this month in which the court ruled the agency's power should be curbed. Yaakov et al. also said PHH, in its holding that the CFPB single-director structure intrudes on presidential Article II powers and thus violates separation of powers, also bolsters their separation of powers argument since the FCC hasn't cited one case in which it had power to retroactively end a statutory private cause of action with express statutory authority. The FCC didn't comment Friday.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s ISP privacy proposal, circulated last week (see 1610060031), remains ”fatally flawed,” said Michael Horney, research associate at the Free State Foundation, in a Thursday blog post. “The FCC’s privacy proposal would severely restrict the manner in which ISPs can collect and use consumer information,” Horney wrote. “With a vote now scheduled for the October open meeting, it is important that the Commission recognizes how the FCC’s proposal would harm and confuse consumers by creating disparate -- and overly restrictive -- regulations within the Internet ecosystem.”