The Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control fined Amazon more than $130,000 for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions. The company processed online orders sent to a range of sanctioned countries in the Middle East and Asia, and didn't follow reporting requirements for more than 300 transactions done under a Crimea general license, OFAC said Wednesday. The company also processed orders for people “located in or employed by the foreign missions” of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. Amazon’s sanctions screening program “failed to fully analyze all transaction and customer data,” which led to gaps in compliance, the U.S. said. The maximum penalty was more than $1 billion, but OFAC said Amazon self-disclosed the violations. Additional mitigating factors included that Amazon hadn't committed a violation in the previous five years, cooperated with the investigation and conducted an internal probe. The company didn't comment Thursday.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and six other Republican senators urged President Donald Trump to impose sanctions against Iranian government officials responsible for blocking the country’s internet access for several days this month after anti-regime protests, and work to fully restore that access. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Iran Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi last week for the blackout. Iranian “officials have also shut down access to the Internet across Iran to hide the extent and scope of their brutal crackdown from the Iranian people and the world,” Cruz et al. wrote Monday. “The White House has clearly and strongly condemned ‘the lethal force and severe communications restrictions used against demonstrators,’ and we call on you to use the full array of tools available to the administration to build on that condemnation.” Others signing were Senate GOP Conference Chairman John Barrasso of Wyoming, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, John Cornyn of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Marco Rubio of Florida and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
The FCC said LECs in danger of falling into a new access stimulator definition under rules approved Thursday should have enough time to come into compliance or update their business models to adjust before the regulation takes effect, in an order in docket 18-155 and Monday's Daily Digest. Commissioners voted to change the definition of access stimulators that could put more LECs at risk of the designation (see 1909260055). They changed the rules so such LECs would have to pay for certain long-distance transport traffic and tandem fees. The agency cited evidence that LECs should be able to "relocate their traffic in days, if not hours, rather than weeks and months." It rejected a request from FailSafe for a three-year phase-out of access charges due to independent phone companies' provision of emergency communications services. It suggested LECs that can satisfy standards of showing heavy financial burdens from the new rule should feel free to seek a waiver. The agency noted "there is a distinction between how much time it will take for an entity to come into compliance with the rules and how much time it will take to change their business model in light of the change in the rules." Responding to Joint CLECs, the agency clarified that "an access-stimulating LEC is responsible for all of the charges for tandem switching and tandem switched transport of traffic from any intermediate access provider(s) in the call path" between an interexchange carrier and the access-stimulating LEC. "It is neither unjust nor unreasonable to treat access-stimulating LECs differently from non-access-stimulating LECs," it said. The FCC modified Section 214 authorizations for Aureon and SDN: "The mandatory use requirement does not apply to interexchange carriers delivering terminating traffic to a local exchange carrier engaged in access stimulation." Only LECs engaged in access stimulation and IXCs delivering traffic to them will be affected by those changes for Aureon and SDN. The rules take effect within 75 days of Federal Register publication.
Cybersecurity company Cloudflare submitted “incorrect information” on hardware exports to the Commerce Department and received payments from people and entities on a sanctions list of foreigners, it told the SEC this month. It voluntarily disclosed possible violations to the Bureau of Industry and Security and Office of Foreign Assets Control this year. It took “remedial measures” to prevent future violations, and agencies are reviewing the potential violations, the company said. The firm said it sells products to “certain OFAC-sanctioned regions” through the use of general licenses. The company didn't comment further Friday. The SEC filing involved an initial public offering, which the agency acted on Thursday, the firm said then. In the first day of trading in U.S. markets under the NET ticker Friday, shares closed up 20 percent at $18.
Rural broadband stakeholders urged the federal government to continue encouraging connectivity improvements via legislation and agency action, in written testimony for a Thursday Senate Commerce Committee field hearing. The hearing, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, wasn't webcast and footage wasn't immediately available. There's increased attention on broadband among 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls (see 1909040061). The House Communications Subcommittee plans a hearing next week on legislation to improve the federal government's collection of broadband coverage data (see 1909040080).
Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., plans a Sept. 5 field hearing in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on rural broadband, the Senate Commerce Committee said Thursday. The panel will “examine the innovations high-speed broadband services bring to rural America in a variety of sectors such as agriculture, education, health care, and small business,” Senate Commerce said. It “will also explore the need to bring additional reliable broadband connectivity to rural America.” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and Dakota State University President Jose-Marie Griffiths will testify. Others are: South Dakota State University Vice President-Technology and Safety Michael Adelaine, Avera eCare President Deanna Larson, SDN Communications CEO Mark Shlanta and Vikor Teleconstruction CEO Craig Snyder. The hearing begins at 1:30 p.m. at Southeast Technical Institute.
AT&T wants the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to side against Iowa Network Services (Aureon) and South Dakota Network in ongoing FCC tariff rate disputes. AT&T asked (in Pacer) the court Tuesday to uphold the agency ruling Aureon is a dominant carrier subject to rate-of-return regulations plus additional obligations under transitional pricing rules, and schedule a proceeding. It asks the D.C. Circuit to continue to hold in abeyance and treat as a separate proceeding a review of an FCC rate from docket 18-60 (see 1905200010). Aureon and SDN want to move forward with court review of the rate disputes (see 1905280057).
The Trump administration released two reports Thursday on the future of spectrum and 5G. By the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, they are part of the administration’s broader pursuit of a national spectrum strategy, as directed by President Donald Trump last year (see 1810250058). Among the recommendations are receiver standards and more sophisticated sharing.
South Dakota Network (SDN) asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a filing (in Pacer) Tuesday to move forward with its review of an FCC investigation into several tariff rate disputes despite an agency request for consolidation of several of the cases and to put some of those on hold (see 1905200010). Earlier this year, the FCC asked Iowa Network Services (Aureon) to change its rate tariff for interstate switched transport in its centralized equal access (CEA) service delivering long-distance traffic to small telcos, and separately found SDN's revised rate tariff for the CEA service unlawful (see 1903010004). SDN wants the abeyance lifted on both the Aureon referral cases and the tariff review orders. SDN said it expects its own review proceeding to follow the Aureon cases, and it plans to file a motion with the appeals court for case 19-1094 "shortly."
The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment by May 8 on a refund plan filed by South Dakota Network, said a public notice Tuesday on docket 18-100. The FCC found an SDN revised rate tariff for its centralized equal access service unlawful (see 1903010004) and directed it “to work with the Bureau to file revised tariffed rates and refunds if appropriate,” said the PN.