On March 1, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a Stay Petition in part, and ordered a “stay on an interim basis” of certain aspects of the 2016 order “Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services” (the “Privacy Order”). The Privacy Order containing broadband privacy rules was published on November 2016. See here. However, at the beginning of 2017, several Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and cable associations had already filed Petitions for Reconsideration requesting the FCC to significantly modify the Privacy Order.
The FCC stayed the relevant data security requirements (new Section 64.2005) in the Privacy Order. Petitioners requesting a stay are “uniquely likely to succeed on the merits of their claim on reconsideration with respect to these requirements.”
In addition, the FCC found in the public interest “to address and resolve, prior to the to rule taking effect, the parties’ claims that the data security requirements need to be clarified or reconsidered, so that consumers are not subject to two different privacy regimes.”
On its own motion, the FCC also stayed the application of the “new Section 64.2005 to non-BIAS carriers because the same reasoning that justifies a stay to BIAS applies equally to other telecommunications carriers.”
FCC order granting stay petition in part is available at http://transition.fcc.gov… Open PDF
Originally published on Technethics on March 2017