The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Monday sought comment on a petition by Mammoth Mountain Ski Area asking for additional clarity on Telephone Consumer Protection Act prohibitions requiring prior express written consent for all autodialed or prerecorded telemarketing calls to wireless numbers and residential lines. The bureau asked for comments by April 6, replies by April 24. Mammoth Mountain Ski Area sought a ruling from the FCC on a 2012 order under the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act, said a petition for expedited declaratory ruling or forbearance. A class-action lawsuit filed in October against Mammoth alleged that the California ski resort area violated the TCPA when it made autodialed calls advertising season passes to its past customers, the filing said. Prior to the 2012 ruling, it was legal for a business to use prerecorded messages to call phone numbers for commercial purposes as long as it had prior express consent. The ski area said that because it had phone numbers legally prior to the 2012 order, it should be able to legally make prerecorded calls to those numbers. Mammoth said it's "improper for the FCC's rules to retroactively impair these vested rights." If Mammoth is found liable for violating the TCPA, it said it could face penalties of tens of millions of dollars.

President Barack Obama launched his TechHire initiative Monday, focusing on increasing technology industry jobs throughout the U.S. More than 20 communities have joined the effort, and the administration has committed $100 million in investment for training and job connection work through H-1B grants from the Department of Labor, the White House said in a fact sheet. “What TechHire is going to do is to help local leaders connect the job openings to the training programs to the jobs,” Obama told the National League of Cities Monday. “And if you’re not already involved in this, you’ve got to get involved, because your community needs this just like everybody else does.”

APCO, the National Emergency Number Association, USTelecom and others jointly asked the FCC to extend the deadline for filing comments on its Nov. 21 911 governance NPRM. “The Notice raises a large number of jurisdictional, governance, and legal authority questions with implications to every aspect of 9-1-1 service,” the group said. “Given the scope and complexity of the issues raised in the notice, the Joint Petitioners believe that an extension of the comment filing deadlines would be in the public interest.” Comments should be due no earlier than March 23, replies no earlier than April 21, the filing said. Comments are currently due Monday, replies April 7. The filing was posted Friday in docket 13-75.

NTIA opened a public comment period on the commercial and private use of unmanned aircraft (see 1503040035) said a Federal Register notice Thursday. President Barack Obama directed NTIA to develop best practices for unmanned aircraft privacy issues in a Feb. 15 memorandum on the same subject, it said. Comments are due April 20, the notice said.

NTIA released plans Wednesday for a multistakeholder meeting to address privacy, transparency, and accountability issues for the commercial and private use of unmanned aircraft systems, commonly referred to as drones. In a presidential memorandum dated Feb. 15, the White House asked NTIA to hold a multistakeholder meeting with industry, civil society, technical experts, academics and other stakeholders, on privacy concerns "while ensuring the United States maintains its leadership and promotes innovation in this growing industry,” said NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling. Consumer groups have expressed concern with the multistakeholder approach (see 1502170038), and argue the process doesn’t work because consumer advocates are largely outnumbered by industry lobbyists. This announcement “shows how out of touch the White House and Commerce Department are on data issues,” said Center for Digital Democracy Executive Director Jeff Chester: “Allowing industry lobbyist dominated meetings, where consumer groups are vastly out numbered and there is no representation from civil rights organizations and many others, to determine the privacy rules of the air is irresponsible.” In a column for The Christian Science Monitor Wednesday, former White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Nicole Wong cast doubt on whether a multistakeholder policy development process works. “We have learned from previous multistakeholder privacy convenings (for example, the Do-Not-Track working group trying to standardize cookie settings for more than three years), that it is difficult to develop practical, enforceable and adopted codes unless all parties come to the table committed to reach agreement,” Wong said. “There is no future in which less data is collected and used.” People can't “continue to argue for leaving the safekeeping of our data to the discretion of private actors. Individuals, companies and governments want clarity and consistency,” she said. The FCC and FTC should be responsible for developing a plan to ensure diverse and independent perspectives to protect privacy are developed, Chester said. The first public meeting on drones will be held within 90 days from Wednesday’s publication of the request for comment. Comments on the RFC are due to NTIA 45 days from when it's in the Federal Register.

TNT will use Verizon for its new global communications infrastructure, providing a network, conferencing service and security assistance for TNT employees to help customers, a Verizon news release said Monday. Verizon said it will create a high-capacity, secure, reliable network infrastructure to link TNT’s 3,000-plus hubs and depots worldwide.

The FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council meets March 18 for the last time under its current charter, the FCC said Monday. Three working groups are to offer reports: Working Group 3 on Emergency Alerting Systems, Working Group 4 on Cybersecurity Risk Management and Best Practices and Working Group 7 on Legacy System Best Practices, the agency said. The meeting starts at 1 p.m. EDT in the commission meeting room.

Identify theft was the top consumer complaint for the 15th consecutive year in the FTC’s national ranking of complaints. The agency released its 2014 consumer complaint data book Friday. “While identity theft remains a huge issue, consumers should also keep a close eye out for imposter scams,” Jessica Rich, Bureau of Consumer Protection director, said in a separate news release. “Whether it’s pretending to be the IRS during tax season, or making false promises of a lottery win, scammers are increasingly sophisticated in their efforts to deceive consumers, but the FTC will continue working to shut these scammers down.” “Debt collection” ranked No. 2 on the list; “imposter scams,” No. 3, it said.

The IT Alliance for Public Sector saw a 25 percent increase in membership over the past few months with the addition of companies such as Adobe, Boeing, Honeywell and Lenovo, said a blog post Thursday from parent group Information Technology Industry Council. ITAPS, which began in late 2013, represents more than 30 tech entities.

The FCC Media Bureau requested comments on a rulemaking on expanding to broadcast radio licensees, cable operators, satellite radio licensees and satellite TV providers the requirement for public inspection files to be posted on the commission's online database, the bureau said in a public notice Monday. Comments are due March 16, replies April 14.