Public Knowledge

Concerns with Broadband Deployment Report

Public Knowledge, Common Cause, New America’s Open Technology Institute, et al. met with Federal Communications Commission Wireline Competition Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff on January 16, 2020, to express concern regarding the methodology, analysis, and conclusions in the Fifteenth Broadband Deployment Report Notice of Inquiry. They disagreed with the FCC’s conclusions in its two prior broadband deployment reports that broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a timely fashion.

Two Years Later, Broadband Providers Are Still Taking Advantage of An Internet Without Net Neutrality Protections

This December 2019 marks the two-year anniversary of the Federal Communications Commission’s vote to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order and the agency’s net neutrality consumer protections.

Public Interest Groups Urge Congress to Hold the FCC Accountable for America’s Degrading Telephone Network

Public Knowledge joined 23 other public interest, civil rights, tribal, and rural advocacy groups (including the Benton Institute) in a letter urging the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology to require Federal Communications Commission Chairman Pai to address public safety concerns about America’s increasingly fragile and unreliable communications network. 

Speech and Commerce: What Section 230 Should and Should Not Protect

The broad language of Section 230 should not be interpreted in a way that gives platforms that host third-party content a special exemption from laws that apply to businesses generally, or creates an exemption from the kinds of health, safety, public interest, and economic regulation that governments at every level—from federal agencies to municipalities–engage in. To be clear at the outset, this does not mean that any and all regulations a government may want to enforce are good ideas. Some of them might be. Others might be terrible.

Libraries Ensure That Our Future Is Connected and Informed. Let’s Help Them Keep It That Way.

As is often the case in other areas of public concern, regulatory volatility coupled with the glacial pace of legal development has created obstacles for libraries seeking to fulfill their missions. Two key challenges for libraries are (1) their ability to access (and provide access to) quality, affordable broadband, and (2) their ability to expand the traditional library practice of owning and lending out physical works into the digital world. Policymakers must pursue sensible broadband and copyright policies to help libraries further their service to the public interest.

Public Knowledge Bolsters Advocacy and Policy Teams to Protect Consumers

Public Knowledge welcomes Jenna Leventoff, Senior Policy Counsel, and Bertram Lee, Policy Counsel, as new additions to our government affairs and policy teams. Prior to joining Public Knowledge, Leventoff served as a Senior Policy Analyst for the Workforce Data Quality Campaign (WDQC) at the National Skills Coalition, where she led WDQC’s state policy advocacy and technical assistance efforts on state data system development and use.

Keeping Thumbs Off the Scale: Nondiscrimination on Digital Platforms

Digital platforms, be they search engines like Google or marketplaces like Amazon and the Apple app store, rely on similar algorithms, which have since conditioned us to trust the top search results by virtue of the Wisdom of Crowds. But this logic assumes that the algorithms doing traffic control only discriminate based on the user’s preferences. And in recent years, reports have emerged that some of the large platforms may nudge their algorithms to favor their own results over competitors.

Making the Digital Transition an “Upgrade for All” Again

Copper networks still form the backbone of America’s communication system despite the rise of fiber -- and providers are either pulling the plug or letting them fall into disrepair.

Could the FCC Regulate Social Media Under Section 230? No.

Apparently, the White House is considering a potential Executive Order to address the ongoing-yet-unproven allegations of pro-liberal, anti-conservative bias by companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

Protecting Privacy Requires Private Rights of Action, Not Forced Arbitration

Over the past few years, the major US mobile carriers have been in the spotlight over allegations that they have been selling their subscribers’ real-time geolocation data, including highly precise assisted GPS (A-GPS) information designed for use with “Enhanced 911” (E911).  Today, broadband providers that also provide telecommunications services are not subject to any comprehensive federal privacy law.

Public Knowledge Files Comments Urging FCC to Drop USF Cap Proposal

Universal service is the core principle of US telecommunications policy, and Congress has directed the Federal Communications Commission to ensure affordable advanced telecommunications capabilities are available to everyone. Members of Congress from across the political spectrum, the Administration, the FCC, and state and local lawmakers vigorously agree that bringing the benefits of high-speed broadband to all areas of the US is a moral and economic imperative.