FCC Providing Time Enough To Comment on Proposed Privacy Rules, Groups Say
The FCC should ignore industry objections and keep current comment deadlines on the ISP privacy rulemaking, said nine consumer and public interest groups in a filing Monday. Industry groups asked for a 45-day delay (see 1604210048). Wireline Bureau Chief Matt DelNero said Friday that the FCC will likely respond soon to groups seeking extended deadlines (see 1604220055).
There were no surprises in the NPRM, the public interest groups said. “Contrary to the Associations’ assertion that the current deadlines for comments and reply comments in this docket leave insufficient time to consider the FCC’s questions, there have in fact been many months of public debate over the questions raised in the NPRM,” the groups said. “In addition to several public letters staking out particular policy positions on relevant questions, several associations and organizations released, in the months leading to the NPRM, proposed frameworks going into much more detail about the issues in this proceeding.”
Past statements by the various industry associations said swift resolution of the rulemaking would be beneficial to industry “by establishing greater certainty” as to how Section 222 of the Communications Act will apply moving forward, the public interest groups said. “Less than one year ago, broadband providers and their associations argued to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that it should have stayed the Open Internet Order because providers simply could not comply with Section 222 without more certainty and clarity from the FCC.”
The Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Federation of California, Consumer Watchdog, Demand Progress, Free Press, New America’s Open Technology Institute, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and Public Knowledge signed the filing. Initial comments on the NPRM are due May 27.
“The record clearly demonstrates broad support among a range of industry associations and impacted broadband providers to extend the comment and reply windows” for the NPRM, said Steve Berry, president of the Competitive Carriers Association. “Competitive carriers, especially smaller carriers with limited resources, will substantially benefit from additional time to determine how their businesses will be impacted by the FCC’s privacy objectives, a critically important issue for both carriers and consumers. I hope the FCC will consider the considerable support for an extension, which will benefit carriers and consumers alike.”
"The public interest groups clearly have no appreciation for the enormousness of the effort to respond to the FCC's broadband privacy NPRM, which proposes far-reaching new obligations on ISPs, particularly for smaller entities with limited resources and time to file comments,” said a spokesman for the American Cable Association, one of the groups that sought the extension.
Meanwhile, University of Nebraska Law professor Gus Hurwitz questioned in a blog post why the FCC released an NPRM on ISP privacy when a notice of inquiry would have been more appropriate. “The purpose of a NOI is to gather information to assist the commission in understanding an issue prior to developing proposed rules,” Hurwitz wrote on an American Enterprise Institute blog. “The NPRM’s hundred-plus pages of questions make clear that the commission knows there are a lot of hard issues at stake with privacy, even if they evince surprisingly little understanding of just how complicated these issues are.”
Parks Associates meanwhile said that 47 percent of U.S. broadband households are concerned private information stored on connected devices could be made public and another 47 percent are worried companies will sell their personal information. “Both findings present challenges for companies as they look to leverage connected product data to enhance the consumer experience and deepen engagement,” the researcher said in a Monday news release.