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Stakeholders to meet at FCC for Saturday meeting

After a week of meetings at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), major industry stakeholders will head into the agency on Saturday for an additional meeting, sources confirmed. Meanwhile, telecom talks on Capitol Hill take a breather this week.

NCTA, Verizon and AT&T, as well as Google, the Open Internet Coalition and Skype, met with top FCC officials this week for discussions on possible legislative language for net-neutrality rules.

Leahy to hold EPCA hearings in light of administration proposal 

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said his committee will hold hearings this year on updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (EPCA), which Google, Microsoft and AT&T have all pushed for. The law has not seen an update since 1986.

His announcement came in light of a proposal from the Obama administration that would give the FBI permission to take, without warrants, more information about citizens from their Internet service providers. The information could include browser history and possibly the dates and times that users sent e-mails, but not the content of e-mails.

Leahy raised concerns about that proposal.

“While the government should have the tools that it needs to keep us safe, American citizens should also have protections against improper intrusions into their private electronic communications and online transactions. We must also address past government abuses of these authorities,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

Can't-miss news.

Hill notes

Boucher-Stearns bill gives FCC power to hold incentive spectrum auctions. Reps. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) and Cliff Stearns, who lead the House Communications Subcommittee, introduced a bill to allow the FCC to offer incentives to broadcasters to relinquish their airwaves so that spectrum can be auctioned to commercial wireless providers. 

Holes offers resolution oppose online tax bill. “Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., introduced a resolution Thursday opposing legislation that would close a loophole that would allow states to mandate that online and catalogue retailers collect sales taxes from customers who live in states where the firms do not have a physical presence,” Tech Daily Dose reports.

Executive notes

Justice filing against Oracle. The Justice Department has “filed a lawsuit against Silicon Valley database software giant Oracle, alleging that the company defrauded the federal government on a contract involving hundreds of millions of dollars,” the Washington Post reports. The GSA said the company was hiking up its prices compared to what it offered the private sector between 1998 and 2006.

Google back up in China. After a minor overnight disruption, Google’s services are up again in China, the company said on Thursday. The company had indicated that its services were being blocked. “But a Google spokesperson said the Web site, which summarizes the accessibility to Google services from within mainland China, may have overestimated the level of service disruption,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Industry notes

Facebook will not go public for two years. Bloomberg reports that “Facebook Inc. will probably put off its initial public offering until 2012, giving Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg more time to gain users and boost sales, three people familiar with the matter said.” 

Said

“For the most part the mainstream media has just ignored it.”

—Craigslist founder Craig Newmark discussing recovery.gov and other Obama administration transparency efforts in an interview with NextGov. The initiatives are “far from perfect,” he said, but “there’s lots of good stuff.” (NextGov)

Watercooler

AVOIDANCE — A new app called slydial allows users to go straight to voicemail to “avoid awkward chats,” Mashable reports. “How perfectly passive-aggressive!” the report says. It recommends using this app for breakups, firings, morning-after apologies, stalling and making excuses.