The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court, issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Regulatory Bulletin.
TELECOM
US Congress
Net Neutrality Legislation
Both the House and Senate Commerce Committees are holding hearings today on draft legislation to protect an open Internet. See the Regulatory Mix dated 1/15/15 and our blog”Draft of House Net Neutrality Legislation Revealed“dated 1/20/15. Hearing background memos, written witness testimony, and a video of the Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, which started at 10:00 am, is available here. Materials, testimony, and video for the Senate Hearing, scheduled to begin at 2:30 pm, is available here.
Data Breach Legislation
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, chaired by Rep. Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX), has scheduled a hearing entitled “What are the Elements of Sound Data Breach Legislation?” for January 27, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. The goal of next week’s hearing is to determine what elements should be included in federal legislation. The Majority Memorandum, a witness list, and witness testimony will be available here as they are posted.
FTC
The Federal Trade Commission announced that the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois issued a partial summary judgment in its favor finding that Dish Network is liable for tens of millions of calls that violated the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), including Do Not Call, entity-specific, and abandoned-call violations. The court found Dish liable for 4,094,099 calls it or its vendors made to numbers on the Registry and for 2,730,842 calls its retailers made to numbers on the Registry. The court found that the government met its burden to hold Dish liable for the retailers’ calls since: 1) Dish retained the retailers, 2) Dish authorized the retailers to market Dish products and services, and 3) the retailers violated the TSR by initiating Dish telemarketing calls to numbers on the Registry. The court also ruled that Dish is liable for 1,043,595 calls to consumers whose telephone numbers were on Dish’s internal do-not-call list or were marked “DNC” by Dish’s telemarketing vendor. The court left the issue of whether Dish is liable for any entity-specific violations relating to its retailers to be determined at trial. Several issues in the case remain and will be resolved at trial, which the court has scheduled to begin in July 2015.
FCC
The FCC announced revisions to it Freedom of Information Act Fee Schedule. The FOIA Fee Schedule is based on the grade level of the employee who processes the request. Periodically, the FCC revises the Schedule to correspond with modifications in the rate of pay approved by Congress.
