FCC's Broadband Privacy Docket Filling With Comments

The FCC has made major progress in filling the broadband privacy docket with a backlog of comments.

At press time, the number of posted comments had reached 2,016, up dramatically from last week's 300 or so.

FCC spokesperson Kim Hart had told B&C that the commission was making progress as it worked through a backlog of comments across all dockets, partly due to a flood of input on the set-top and broadband privacy proposals and partly because of an ECFS system that translates all comments into PDFs first, a system currently being updated.

Protect Internet Freedom (PIF) had complained about some 2,200 broadband privacy comments that had not made it into the public record, though Hart has said that was due to a communications problem with the PIF online template.

The comments are trending toward opposition to the proposal, with particular focus on Google as the beneficiary, a common theme sounded about the set-top proposal as well.

The FCC is proposing requiring an opt-out regime for MVPD sharing of customer online info with third parties. Edge providers are not under a similar regime for tracking and sharing surfer info for targeted marketing purposes.

PIF said last week that the backlog was reason for extending the comment period for the proposal.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.