Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has declined to testify at a rare joint hearing with lawmakers from seven countries, representing more than 368 million people. Instead, Facebook will dispatch Richard Allan, the company’s vice president of policy solutions, to answer questions at a Nov 27 hearing featuring top policymakers from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Latvia, Singapore and the United Kingdom. It’s uncommon for seven countries to band together and seek to question a chief executive, reflecting the heightened threat of regulation and other punishments now facing Facebook and its peers in Silicon Valley.

On Nov 14, the New York Times detailed Facebook’s multi-pronged campaign to “delay, deny and deflect” efforts to hold the company accountable. This is far from the first time we’ve read disturbing accounts of Facebook’s unethical behavior, but this week the Times peeled back the curtain on the company’s crisis management techniques, public relations tactics, efforts to influence lawmakers, and aggressive lobbying. The peak at these practices helps explain why the social media giant has been so successful at avoiding meaningful regulation.

T-Mobile is offering a revised rationale for buying Sprint, a turn that critics say is a sign the carrier’s earlier arguments weren’t winning over US officials who can bless or kill the deal. T-Mobile told the Federal Communications Commission in a filing earlier in Nov that it needs the Sprint merger to help it compete more vigorously against giants AT&T and Verizon. In Sept, the company focused on how the tie-up would give it an edge in quickly building an advanced wireless network known as 5G, a goal of the Trump administration. "It’s a big shift," said Allen Grunes, a former lawyer with the Justice Department’s antitrust division who is representing the Communications Workers of America, which opposes the deal. T-Mobile, he said, appears to be "running into the situation where the people at the agencies weren’t buying what they were selling, and they had to switch gears."

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, December 12, 2018:

1. Spectrum Frontiers Fourth Report and Order – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would adopt service rule changes for the Upper 37 GHz (37.6-38.6 GHz), 39 GHz (38.6-40 GHz), and 47 GHz (47.2 48.2 GHz) bands, and would provide for an incentive auction mechanism that would offer contiguous blocks of spectrum in the Upper 37 GHz and 39 GHz bands and additional spectrum in the 47 GHz band. (GN Docket No. 14-177)
2. Incentive-Based Universal Service Support – The Commission will consider a Report and Order, Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, and Order on Reconsideration. The Report and Order would offer additional funding to carriers that currently receive model-based universal service support in exchange for deploying broadband at increased speeds, provide an opportunity for legacy carriers to transition to model-based support, and authorize additional support for carriers remaining on the legacy rate-of-return support mechanism in exchange for targeting higher broadband speeds. The FNPRM would seek comment on implementing an auction mechanism for support in legacy areas that are overlapped or almost entirely overlapped by an unsubsidized competitor, and on addressing budgetary impacts as carriers transition to broadband-only lines. The Order on Reconsideration would deny three petitions for reconsideration. (WC Docket Nos. 10-90, 14-58, 07-135, 01-92)
3. Reassigned Numbers Database – The Commission will consider a Second Report and Order that would create a comprehensive database to enable callers to verify whether a telephone number has been permanently disconnected, and is therefore eligible for reassignment, before calling that number, thereby helping to protect consumers with reassigned numbers from receiving unwanted robocalls. (CG Docket No. 17-59)
4. Text Messaging Classification – The Commission will consider a Declaratory Ruling that would classify two forms of wireless messaging, Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), as information services under the Communications Act, and help prevent consumers from receiving spam robotexts. (WT Docket No. 08-7)
5. 2018 Quadrennial Regulatory Review – The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would initiate the 2018 Quadrennial Review of certain broadcast ownership rules. (MB Docket No. 18-349)
6. Elimination of Broadcast Station License Posting Requirement – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would eliminate certain rules which require local posting and maintenance of broadcast licenses and related information in specific locations. (MB Docket Nos. 18-121, 17-105)
7. Communications Marketplace Report – The Commission will consider a Report that would consolidate several previously separate Commission reports into a single report on the state of the broader communications market in the United States. It would assess the state of all forms of competition in the communications marketplace and the state of deployment of communications capabilities, describe the actions taken by the Commission in the previous two years to address challenges and opportunities in the communications marketplace, and discuss the Commission’s agenda for continuing to address those challenges and opportunities over the next two years. (GN Docket No 18-231; WT Docket No. 18-203; MB Docket Nos. 17-214, 18-227; IB Docket No. 18-251)