INCOMPAS, the internet and competitive networks association, filed comments at the Federal Communications Commission in response to the Public Notice requesting information for the assessment of competition in the fixed broadband market. INCOMPAS’ comments explain that in order to formulate policies encouraging broadband competition, it is necessary to have an accurate accounting of where there is and isn’t sufficient competition across America. As such, INCOMPAS is calling upon the FCC to reform its collection of broadband data via its Form 477 proceeding. It is necessary for the Commission to gather location-specific information from each fixed broadband provider for both their residential and business customers in order to derive a true representation of service offerings. Only in a local geographic market where there are at least three providers that are offering service over their own last mile facilities is there sufficient competition. A monopoly or duopoly is not true competition.

The Federal Communications Commission has denied a request to stop the clock or extend the pleading cycle associated with the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint combination. The FCC denied the request by Public Knowledge, the Benton Foundation, and others to stop the review clock in order for operators to supplement their public interest statement with more specific information. In denying the request, the FCC said the the movants failed to establish any basis for granting the extension. “While we understand that this may be a busy period for the Movants in light of pending proceedings before the Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, that fact does not support grant of an extension of time,” the agency said, adding that the timing of Jewish holidays in September, after the current scheduled petition to deny due date, doesn’t warrant granting an extension of time. The FCC is sticking with the established pleading cycle where Petitions to Deny are due Aug 27; comments in opposition are due Sept 17, and replies to those are due Oct 9.

On August 10, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai responded to letters from members of Congress who wrote to Chairman Pai regarding drastic cuts to the FCC's Lifeline program. In response, Chairman Pai wrote that the 2017 Lifeline Reform Order seeks to focus Lifeline support where it is most needed. At the same time, Chairman Pai wrote, "It is critical to strengthen the Lifeline program's efficacy and integrity by reducing the waste, fraud, and abuse that has run rampant in this program for the better part of a decade." Chairman Pai also noted that there is a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) accompanying the Order, in which the FCC sought comments on a wide variety of measures to improve the administration of the Lifeline program. Chairman Pai added a note about his proposal that was adopted in May, which creates the Uniendo a Puerto Rico Fund and Connect USVI Fund in order to accelerate the restoration of communications networks damaged and destroyed on Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands during the 2017 hurricane season. “In the accompanying notice, we look toward the long term and propose providing $890 million in funding to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands to enhance connectivity and help future-proof the territories' networks. Moving forward with the efforts outlined in the notice will help ensure that funding is fiscally responsible and enables as many people as possible in the territories to benefit from fixed and mobile communications. And these networks will be rebuilt by facilities-based carriers who are committed to investing in the territories (several of whom I visited shortly after Hurricanes Irma and Maria), not wireless resellers.”

“The work you see now from Facebook, Microsoft and others to be more proactive is a trend that is positive — it’s part of the solution, and I would want to see that trend continue,” said Graham Brookie, director of the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, a think tank that has been working with Facebook on election-security issues. “Is this a solution? No, definitely not.”  

A solution, he said, would involve a society-wide reckoning with the problem of the vulnerabilities that the internet has uncovered in democratic society. A solution would involve the federal government taking the lead in such an effort, which is not really happening at the moment. A solution would also involve citizens becoming far more vigilant about what they see online, how they respond to it, and the effect it has on their political lives. And even with all that, we may not really get an actual solution. Instead, the best we might hope for is something like an ongoing cat-and-mouse game between good and bad actors online: a fight that never ends, but whose damage we can at least hope to reduce.

Apple ruled that Facebook's data-security app violated Apple's data-collection policies designed to limit data collection by app developers. Apple informed Facebook that Onavo also violated a part of its developer agreement that prevents apps from using data in ways that go beyond what is directly relevant to the app or to provide advertising. The app, called Onavo Protect, has been available as a free download through Apple’s app store for years, with updates regularly approved by Apple’s app-review board. Onavo allows users to create a virtual private network that redirects internet traffic to a private server managed by Facebook. The app, which bills itself as a way to “keep you and your data safe,” also alerts users when they visit potentially malicious sites. Facebook is able to collect and analyze Onavo users’ activity to get a picture of how people use their phones beyond Facebook’s apps.

Crimson Hexagon, a Boston (MA) data analytics company, raised some eyebrows recently when it announced that its access to the firehose of user data from Facebook and Instagram had been reinstated—after being suspended and investigated by the social media giant for alleged misuse of data for surveillance purposes. The reinstatement, which began earlier in Aug, followed “several weeks of constructive discussion and information exchange,” said Dan Shore, Crimson’s chief financial officer. But the companies didn’t specify the results of the inquiry or explain why access was restored, raising more questions about how Facebook and other platforms police third parties like Cambridge Analytica and Crimson Hexagon. Crimson boasts of having gathered the largest public repository of social media data, which it has used in work for clients that include Adidas and Anheuser-Busch InBev, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and clients in Turkey and Russia, including a Russian nonprofit with ties to the Kremlin. 

In March 2017, Facebook followed Twitter’s lead and added language to its Platform Policy that specifically prohibited developers from using Facebook data “to provide tools that are used for surveillance,” though it didn’t specify how it defined surveillance. The policy puts Facebook in a tough position. Even if Crimson Hexagon were have found to be in violation of Facebook’s policies, shutting down its access could be a death knell for a billion dollar data industry, made of startups and large defense contractors who relationships with Facebook and other services are crucial to government and commercial clients. “To lock down what is publicly available and ingested through an API would put social listening and analytics into a tailspin,” said Kieley Taylor, managing partner and global head of social at advertising agency GroupM. “T]he precedent of going deeper into the contracts when the data appears to be captured in the right way is troubling. It’s also unclear to me how this would be broadly enforced.”

Amid roiling debates about the impact of screen time on teenagers, roughly half of those ages 13 to 17 are themselves worried they spend too much time on their cellphones. Some 52% of US teens report taking steps to cut back on their mobile phone use, and similar shares have tried to limit their use of social media (57%) or video games (58%), a new Pew Research Center survey finds. Fully 72% of teens say they often or sometimes check for messages or notifications as soon as they wake up, while roughly four-in-ten say they feel anxious when they do not have their cellphone with them. Overall, 56% of teens associate the absence of their cellphone with at least one of these three emotions: loneliness, being upset or feeling anxious. Additionally, girls are more likely than boys to feel anxious or lonely without their cellphone.

Parents, too, are anxious about the effects of screen time on their children, a separate survey shows. Roughly two-thirds of parents say they are concerned about their teen spending too much time in front of screens, and 57% report setting screen time restrictions for their teen in one way or another. At the same time, some parents of teens admit they also struggle with the allure of screens: 36% say they themselves spend too much time on their cellphone. And 51% of teens say they often or sometimes find their parent or caregiver to be distracted by their own cellphone when they are trying to have a conversation with them. Additionally, 15% of parents say they often lose focus at work because they are distracted by their phone. That is nearly double the share of teens (8%) who say they often lose focus in school due to their own cellphones.

White House Counsel Don McGahn’s July 17 call to Federal Communication Commission Chairman Ajit Pai over the decision to send the $3.9 billion merger between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media to an administrative law judge wasn’t improper, Chairman Pai said: “It was pretty unusual, and it was the first time we got a status inquiry of that kind.” Chairman Pai, when asked if McGahn’s call was improper, said, “Oh, not at all. It was just a big old status inquiry.”