In Emergency Broadband Benefit case, Q Link claimed excessive market value of devices, the FCC said.
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January 19, 2023 — The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday proposed a $62 million fine against Q Link Wireless for allegedly making excessive claims through the Emergency Broadband Benefit program.
“Because of these apparent violations, which involved overclaiming support for hundreds of thousands of computer tablets, Q Link apparently obtained at least $20,792,800 in improper disbursements,” the agency wrote in a notice of apparent liability.
The EBB program and its successor, the Affordable Connectivity Program, have previously faced claims of fraudulent or predatory behavior, but both programs are still relatively new. Without established precedent for dealing with such cases, the FCC proposed that the penalty be set at triple the amount of what it said were improper reimbursements.
“Every dollar misdirected from the EBB Program to providers that violate our rules is a dollar that could instead have been used to make broadband service more affordable for low-income Americans,” the agency wrote.
Correction: The previous headline to this story incorrectly referenced a “$62 Million Fine for EBB Fraud.” In fact, the FCC has only proposed a $62 million fine for the company, Q Link. The previous subheadline to this story said that the FCC “has found [the] company liable.” In fact, the FCC has only proposed liability. The headline and subheadline have been corrected. The story has also been modified to attribute allegations about Q Link Wireless to the agency.
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear a case related to platform liability, several industry experts and trade associations are urging the Court to keep Section 230 intact.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association, NetChoice and other associations on Thursday filed a brief in support of Google’s argument that it cannot be held liable for terrorist content published on YouTube by third party users.
“No one wants to see extremist content on digital platforms — especially the services themselves,” said CCIA President Matt Schruers. “The question is how we achieve that. Section 230 is what allows companies to develop systems and processes to remove dangerous content, and any precedent that ties companies’ hands when it comes to protecting users will result in a more dangerous and less trustworthy internet.”
A separate brief filed Wednesday by nonpartisan think tank TechFreedom highlighted widespread misconceptions about the scope of Section 230.
While critics of the law often claim that it hinges on a distinction between platforms and publishers, “nothing in Section 230’s text supports such a distinction,” said Corbin Barthold, director of appellate litigation at TechFreedom. “Further, inventing such a distinction would be disastrous… Narrowing Section 230 would result in more, not less, content moderation — or, if one insists, ‘Big Tech censorship.’”
A growing number of universities are banning the use of TikTok on campus networks, with many citing directives from state governments, USA Today reported Thursday. So far, dozens of universities in at least ten states have implemented such bans.
In addition, certain businesses are being pressured by members of Congress to drop their partnerships with the app. Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., wrote a letter to ESPN about a TikTok-sponsored halftime show, saying that it raised “serious questions about ESPN corporate decision-making.”
The lawmakers concluded the letter by asking ESPN to “commit to ending its commercial relationship with TikTok, ByteDance and other Chinese companies determined by the U.S. government to pose national security threats.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sent a similar letter to the CEO of JPMorgan Chase in response to reports that the bank was working with TikTok to develop in-app payment technology. “It is outrageous that JPMorgan Chase would elect to join ByteDance in a partnership geared toward broadening and deepening the company’s, and as a result, the CCP’s, access to countless volumes of user data,” Rubio wrote.
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Reporter Em McPhie studied communication design and writing at Washington University in St. Louis, where she was a managing editor for the student newspaper. In addition to agency and freelance marketing experience, she has reported extensively on Section 230, big tech, and rural broadband access. She is a founding board member of Code Open Sesame, an organization that teaches computer programming skills to underprivileged children.
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The lawsuit accuses the company of abusing a monopoly over the technology that controls the digital advertising market.
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January 24, 2023 — The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of abusing a monopoly over the technology that controls the digital advertising market.
Google operates much of the technology used to sell, purchase and serve online advertisements, and the lawsuit claims the company attempted to control all sides of the market in order to “set the rules of the game to exclude rivals,” CNBC reported.
However, Google’s share of digital ad revenues has dropped over the last few years, and the company has pointed to major industry players like Amazon and Meta to demonstrate its claims that the market is crowded and competitive.
A separate lawsuit based on Google’s alleged monopoly in the internet search market, brought by the government in 2020, is set to go to trial in September. Several state attorneys general have brought additional lawsuits against the tech giant, focusing on Google’s app marketplace challenges as well as advertising and search.
President Joe Biden is expected to name former Facebook board member Jeff Zients as his next chief of staff, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
The decision has been criticized by progressive groups, who have raised concerns over Zients’ potential impact on ongoing efforts to curb the power of major tech companies and pass antitrust legislation.
David Segal, founder of internet advocacy organization Demand Progress, told the Post that he had “serious concerns” about Zients’s positions on tech issues, citing “a history of worrisome financial interests, membership on Facebook’s board and policy decisions.”
Advocacy groups have previously expressed concerns about a discrepancy between the administration’s stated agenda against Big Tech and the backgrounds of its staff — including Louisa Terrell, Biden’s director of legislative affairs, who served for two years as Facebook’s public policy director.
Adding to these concerns is the fact that Zients’ expected promotion comes just weeks after former White House advisor Tim Wu, known as an aggressive critic of Big Tech, stepped down from his role in the administration.
The Federal Communications Commission on Monday announced a compliance deadline of July 20 for amendments to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act related to prerecorded calls.
The new rules, which were initially announced in December 2020, add opt-out requirements and call limits for calls that previously relied on TCPA exemptions. These include non-commercial calls, commercial calls that do not constitute telemarketing, calls from nonprofit entities and calls related to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
The updates come alongside a variety of efforts from the FCC aimed at stopping robocall traffic, as well as spam text messages and automatic voicemails.
FCC received over 1 million challenges to mapping data and added 1 million locations.
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January 23, 2023 – The National Telecommunications and Information Administration said in a bulletin earlier this month that it continues to target June 30 for the allocation of broadband program funds, after some states requested that it not delay the date in the face of others who urged it to do so.
The Federal Communications Commission had set a deadline of January 13 for challenges to data that underpins its broadband map, which will determine where money from the NTIA’s $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program will go. But in the days before the deadline, a letter signed by local governments and organizations in at least 19 states and Washington D.C. asked that the challenge deadline and the NTIA allocation dates be pushed back due to a lack of resources to adequately challenge the map.
“We have heard concerns from some states and other stakeholders, and we have received requests to delay the timeline to give states more time to participate in the FCC’s processes for challenging and improving the National Broadband Map,” the NTIA said in the bulletin on January 13. “Several other states have expressed to us that they want us to maintain this target so that they can begin developing quality plans and begin their subgrant programs as soon as possible.”
The NTIA noted that it has been holding weekly office hours, has held one-on-one sessions with “dozens of states and territories” throughout the process, and engaged with more than a dozen grassroots advocacy organizations to inform them about submitting challenges.
It said the FCC has received over one million challenges to provider reported availability data and has updated the map’s data to add more than one million locations. “Through this work, the map is becoming more accurate and will continue to get incrementally better,” the bulletin said.
“Unfortunately, a delay in the timeline would mean a delay in providing funding to communities who desperately need it, and it will not address many of the process concerns we have heard,” the Commerce Department agency said. “Every day we delay is another day that communities are not connected. We feel the urgency to getting this funding out the door so it can be put to work for everyone in America.
Wireless carrier T-Mobile announced Thursday that information associated with 37 million customer accounts was obtained by “bad actor” using a software program.
The company said in a regulatory filing that it began an investigation after the company identified the breach on January 5, managing to shut it down within 24 hours of identifying the issue.
On Thursday, the company said it concluded the investigation and found that a single software program was used to access the basic information of customer accounts, including name, billing address, email, phone number, date of birth, account number and information like the number of lines on the account and service plan features.
“Our systems and policies prevented the most sensitive types of customer information from being accessed, and as a result, customer accounts and finances should not be put at risk directly by this event,” the company said in a press release, adding no passwords, financial and payment information, social security numbers and government ID numbers were compromised.
“There is also no evidence that the bad actor breached or compromised T-Mobile’s network or systems,” the release added.
“While we, like any other company, are unfortunately not immune to this type of criminal activity, we plan to continue to make substantial, multi-year investments in strengthening our cybersecurity program,” the release said.
The company had already come off a breach that impacted millions of customers in 2021, from which it settled a class action lawsuit for $350 million.
The news also comes after the Federal Communications Commission earlier this month proposed to change breach reporting requirements for telecommunications companies, including expanding definitions for what to disclose and shrinking timelines on when notifications need to be made.
The Federal Communications Commission announced Thursday that another $40 million has been committed from the Emergency Connectivity Fund, a program intended to keep students connected outside of school.
The latest round will support approximately 100,000 students from 275 schools, 15 libraries and five consortia in states including Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Washington and Wisconsin.
The latest funding commitment brings the commission one step closer to completely allocating money available to the fund. It said it has allocated $6.5 billion out of the $7.1 billion available.
Rosenworcel hopes NTIA and the regulator can work together on $1.5B Innovation Fund.
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January 18, 2023 – Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Tuesday that she hopes the commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration can “align their efforts” on the Commerce agency’s $1.5 billion Innovation Fund to find alternatives to wireless equipment deemed a national security threat.
The chairwoman was speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies where she reiterated how the commission and the federal government are addressing cybersecurity challenges cooperatively.
The Chips and Science Act, which was signed into law last summer and is intended to incent the domestic development of products including semiconductors, carved out $1.5 billion for the NTIA to seek alternative wireless equipment.
“While these funds are with our colleagues at NTIA, my hope is we can align their efforts with what we have learned in our existing reimbursement program about real-world deployment and the importance of systems integration,” Rosenworcel said in her keynote Tuesday, alluding to the agency’s rip and replace program.
The NTIA is currently fielding comments about the Innovation Fund.
The chairwoman further laid out a 10-point brief that highlighted the agency’s coordination with other federal agencies, including the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and cyber officials; the reestablishment of public-private partnerships; enhanced information sharing to weed out and prevent authorizations of national security threats to the country’s networks; and establishing that rip and replace program to replace suspicious equipment.
She also lauded the election of an American, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, to lead the United Nations’ telecom regulator, the International Telecommunication Union.
“At stake was control of the agency responsible for setting standards for emerging technologies like 5G,” Rosenworcel said, alluding to the ITU. “This is no small thing. Because those standards can support democratic values—or suppress them.”
Empire Access, a regional broadband provider servicing parts of New Year and Pennsylvania, has been acquired by infrastructure private equity firm Antin Infrastructure Partners.
The deal’s completion, announced Tuesday and whose financial details are undisclosed, sees Antin control Empire and North Penn Telephone after the private equity firm invested in the companies – together called Empire – in March.
The fiber-to-the-premises network services over 96,000 addressees and 29,000 customers with 1,280 miles of fiber.
T-Mobile has taken the crown for fastest median mobile download speed in the fourth quarter, Ookla said in its latest report, while Comcast’s Xfinity took fastest media download speed on wireline.
T-Mobile, which is focused on mobile wireless, had a median mobile download speed of 151.37 Megabits per second and had the highest median upload speed at 12.53 Mbps. Verizon followed with 69.01 Mbps download and 9.33 Mbps upload, with AT&T coming in third with 65.57 Mbps and 7.98 Mbps, respectively.
On wireline, Comcast’s Xfinity took the crown in the fourth quarter with a median download speed of 226.18, with Spectrum following at 225.33, Cox at 212.37, Optimum at 190.82, AT&T at 187.08, and Verizon at 183.25.
AT&T had the best median upload speed in that segment at 142.76 Mbps, Verizon following at 104.89, Optimum at 29.77, Xfinity at 20.42, Spectrum at 11.77, and Cox at 10.71.
New Jersey had the highest median download speeds at 216 Mbps, Delaware followed at 213.72, Rhode Island at 212.33, Connecticut at 210.85, and New York rounded out the top 5 with 209.09, according to Ookla, a sponsor of Broadband Breakfast.
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