Matthew Starr Posts

In the wake of high-profile data breaches at Target and Neiman Marcus, among others, Congress held three hearings on data security and data breaches last week. The first, held by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, dealt with specific financial sector issues related to data breaches, but the Senate Judiciary Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings looked at data security and data breaches from a number of different angles. Following the hearings, there is ...

On Jan. 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned two of the three net-neutrality rules initially passed by the Federal Communications Commission as part of its 2010 Open Internet Order. Despite what some have said, this ruling does not give carte blanche for ISPs to run roughshod over their customers. That’s because the overturn overshadowed perhaps the more important aspect of this decision: The court found that the FCC now has clear authority, under S ...

Last Thursday, CTIA, a trade association that represents the wireless industry, announced that five of the nation’s largest wireless providers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and Verizon) have agreed to a voluntary set of principles that promote the rights of consumers to unlock their cellphones and tablets. While this is certainly a step in the right direction, it should only be viewed as a first, and certainly not a final, step towards allowing consumers to use their devices a ...

After last week’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on “Challenges and Opportunities in the 5 GHz Spectrum Band,” we have a much better sense of what the future holds for this proceeding. The FCC has heard from dozens of stakeholders on this issue through public comments and meetings and is expected to issue the first set of new rules for the 5 GHz spectrum band sometime early next year. There seemed to be a consensus on some of the less controversial aspects of this ...

On Wednesday, November 13, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing entitled “Challenges and Opportunities in the 5 GHz Spectrum Band.” The hearing will look at making an additional 195 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz band available for unlicensed use. If the government makes this spectrum available, it could result in incredible advances in Wi-Fi such as faster speeds, less congestion and availability in more places, all of which could have a significant impact on SM ...

The European Union’s movement towards stricter privacy rules has the potential to affect any American company involved in data collection and storage, even those that have no connection to Europe at all. Last Monday, the EU took the next step towards strengthening its data protection laws when the Civil Liberties Committee voted to approve new, stricter privacy regulations on how companies collect, store and share data on European citizens. The full European Parliament is expected to vote ...