A two-year international partnership will join experts from the U.S. and Europe to debate and research “the balance between security and freedom,” said a Wednesday news release (http://bit.ly/1m82kil) from New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute. OTI, whose major funders include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the State Department, is joining with the Global Public Policy Institute, a Germany-based think tank, for the initiative. “At a time of significant transatlantic tension on this topic, it is especially important that we build pathways for reasoned, research-driven international dialogue on controversial issues such as Internet governance, fragmentation, and cybersecurity,” said Tim Maurer, OTI research fellow. The project will produce two policy papers, a conference in Washington and “regular policy breakfasts,” OTI said.

The FCC should determine “the necessary substantive contours” of new net neutrality rules before deciding what Communications Act section to justify them under, longtime net neutrality proponent Marvin Ammori told Philip Verveer, senior counselor to Chairman Tom Wheeler, in a meeting Friday (http://bit.ly/1rAcEDM). A New America Foundation fellow, Ammori said his views expressed were “purely personal.” Beginning with Section 706’s “limitations” and then “crafting a rule that fits those limitations is putting the cart before the horse,” Ammori said. “At best, 706-first thinking could result in the appropriate network neutrality rule only by accident. At worst, this thinking could lead to the adoption of a rule devoid of the substance required to ensure an open Internet based on market evidence and theory.” The entire Internet ecosystem will be upset by the Comcast-Netflix paid peering agreement, Ammori said. If the biggest technology companies transfer money to ISPs to ensure a solid connection to end-users, “it will likely lead to less venture investment across the board in technology companies,” and will “weaken the acquisition market that fuels technology investment,” he said. ISPs would extract rents from smaller companies too -- not interconnection fees, but “access fees,” he said. Section 706 alone can go part of the way toward keeping the Internet open, but Title II reclassification is necessary for the strongest impact, public interest groups commented earlier this week on potential net neutrality rules, which CEA, CTIA and others said shouldn’t be restrictive (CD March 25 p9).

A Nov. 7 public symposium will celebrate the FTC’s 100th anniversary, with keynotes and panels on the agency’s history and future, the commission said in a Wednesday news release (http://1.usa.gov/1l41zXr). The FTC has created a website -- www.ftc.gov/100 -- where more information will be posted. People can also submit to the site comments about their FTC experiences.

Medley Global Advisors has decided to end telecom, media and technology policy coverage, said analyst Jeffrey Silva. The move is “part of streamlining efforts to better rationalize resources for its core macro policy intelligence service,” Silva said in an email. Friday is Silva’s last day with the company, he said. The Medley Global telecom shutdown comes one month after Stifel Nicolaus also ended its telecom coverage, former analyst David Kaut said. He and former Stifel analyst Christopher King were let go last month, “along with several other telecom analysts,” King told us.

The Communications Workers of America criticized Sprint Monday for its recent decision to lay off about 1,550 call center employees and reduce operations at six call centers, saying in an emailed statement that the move shows that a Sprint bid for T-Mobile US could “prove costly for American workers and consumers.” CWA has called a potential Sprint/T-Mobile a “non-starter” that “raises deep concerns about what is in the best interests of U.S. consumers and workers at T-Mobile’ (http://bit.ly/OWWlS0). Sprint disclosed the layoffs last week, citing a reduction in the number of calls coming into the centers. The carrier also said in March that it would be laying off 330 technical consultants, closing 150 service and phone repair centers and would close 55 of its worst-performing stores. A Sprint spokeswoman said the carrier is “committed to growing its business and will also continue to look for ways to operate more efficiently and to offer customers options for managing their accounts without assistance from a customer service agent. Over the last five years, calls to our customer service call centers have dropped by 60 percent.” Sprint said in January that it planned to make additional cuts following a Q4 net loss of $1.04 billion. Sprint has laid off or announced plans to lay off more than 2,700 call center workers since Japanese telco SoftBank bought the carrier in July, said CWA. The employees laid off last week were to continue working through Tuesday, which CWA said violated federal law, which requires at least 60 days’ notice before mass layoffs. One of the affected call centers was in Elmsford, N.Y., where state law requires at least 90 days’ notice before mass layoffs, said the union. Sprint is “constantly assessing its workforce to meet the needs of our ever-changing, competitive landscape,” the Sprint spokeswoman said.

It’s time to “provide clarity” on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said in a blog post Tuesday (http://fcc.us/1ixwgDA). The TCPA, which restricts automated telemarketing calls, has been a “general success,” O'Rielly said, but over time the rules have become “complex and unclear” after new agency and judicial interpretations and changing business models. “The rules are creating situations where consumers might not receive notifications and offers that they want and expect, and where new and innovative services and applications that help friends and family members communicate with each other could be restricted,” O'Rielly said, pointing to lawsuits and a growing backlog of FCC petitions as evidence of the problem. “There are several dozen petitions asking the FCC to declare or clarify that a particular service or method of communicating would comply with the TCPA. It is very troubling that legitimate companies feel they have to ask the government for its blessing every time they need to make a business decision in order to avoid litigation,” he said. “The FCC needs to address this inventory of petitions as soon as possible.”

The Verizon board would issue a report by October detailing how the company “is responding to regulatory, competitive, legislative and public pressure to ensure that its network management policies and practices” promote net neutrality and an open Internet, under a shareholder proposal that’s up for a vote at the telco’s annual meeting May 1 in Phoenix. The board is urging that it be voted down. The Nathan Cummings Foundation, a think tank that owns just under 6,000 Verizon shares, is sponsoring the proposal, said the telco’s SEC proxy statement filed March 17 (http://bit.ly/1h2dEvG). “We are not seeking a report on legal compliance or the details of network management,” the proposal said. “Rather, we seek to ensure that shareholders have sufficient information to evaluate how Verizon manages this significant policy challenge,” including how the company “takes into account that network management decisions could potentially affect future regulatory developments,” it said. Verizon as a company has not been as transparent with the public as it should about its open Internet policies, the proposal said. Urging shareholders to vote the proposal down, the Verizon board “strongly disagrees” with the contention the company “has not provided its customers with evidence” of a commitment to open Internet policies, the proxy said. “As a leader in developing an open architecture for accessing and using the Internet, Verizon’s position on all aspects of the ‘network neutrality’ debate has been consistently and publicly conveyed in mainstream and industry-related media, through legislative and agency fact-finding processes and in applicable agency and court filings.” Verizon recently published on its website a statement of the company’s “commitment to broadband customers to support the Open Internet and to provide them with Internet access and use of the lawful online content, applications and services of their choice, regardless of their source.” Verizon in December sought but failed to gain SEC approval to strike the investor proposal from the annual meeting’s agenda on the grounds that the company, under Security Exchange Act rule 14a-8(i)(10), already has “substantially implemented” what the shareholder proposal is asking for in a net neutrality report by the board. The Nathan Cummings Foundation objected. In February, the SEC denied Verizon’s request to strike the proposal from the agenda. “It does not appear that Verizon’s public disclosures compare favorably with the guidelines of the proposal,” Norman von Holtzendorff, attorney-adviser in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, told Verizon in a Feb. 7 letter.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Eric Schmidt were two of several technology company CEOs that discussed surveillance and privacy with President Barack Obama Friday afternoon, according to company representatives and the White House daily schedule. The meeting came a week after Zuckerberg publicly criticized Obama in a Facebook post over the government’s surveillance methods (http://on.fb.me/1nVf2Cc). “The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat,” Zuckerberg said, saying he had called Obama to “express my frustration.” Obama previously discussed surveillance with top tech and telecom CEOs -- including AT&T, Comcast, Dropbox and Netflix -- in December (CD Dec 18 p13). Facebook and Google declined to provide details about Friday’s meeting.

Correction: The name of FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s wireless adviser is Louis Peraertz (CD March 21 p9).

The FCC Media Bureau asked for additional comment on issues of broadcaster reimbursement as part of the TV incentive auction, slated to start next year. The Thursday public notice builds on workshops held by the commission and a report by Widelity on “Response to the Federal Communications Commission for the Broadcaster Transition Study Solicitation” along with a “Catalog of Potential Expenses and Estimated Costs.” Widelity, a spectrum consulting firm, based its projections on “confidential interviews of a broad range of industry players, including TV broadcast group engineers, radiofrequency and structural engineers, suppliers, support companies, manufacturers, attorneys, and network engineers,” the bureau said (http://bit.ly/1gLG2SG). “The Widelity Report recognizes that the post-auction repacking process will be complex and that the complexity will vary from station to station.” The notice asks for comment on the report and the catalog of suggested prices. “We now seek additional comment from industry participants on these suggested prices, as well as any comments on the report and any further comments on the categories of costs included,” the bureau said. “A final Catalog of Eligible Expenses and Estimated Costs will be released prior to the auction, and we believe the Catalog will provide useful guidance to broadcasters and MVPDs as they navigate the post-auction transition.” Bureau Chief Bill Lake said in a blog post the issues raised are complicated but the FCC needs to “craft policies and procedures to transition the broadcasters with as little disruption to the industry and consumers as possible.” The FCC has already held two workshops on broadcaster reimbursement issues, he said (http://fcc.us/1nHl5NU). “The transition will be challenging, and there will likely be bumps in the road. But we pledge to work closely with all affected parties as we refine our thinking on these issues to make the transition as smooth as possible. Though the auction is not until 2015, we want to continue to engage stakeholders now. We hope all interested parties will carefully review the Widelity Report and accompanying catalog of potential expenses and give us their suggestions as we move forward.”