FCC Looking at Non-Concussion-Related NFL Blackouts

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The FCC yesterday released a proposed rule-making that would eliminate sports-blackout rules created in 1975 that prohibit broadcasting NFL games in markets in which the home team doesn't sell-out the stadium, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

Final action on the proposal wouldn't occur before Spring 2014, at the earliest, the Times reported, but proponents, including Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D.-Conn.) and opponents, the National Football League and the National Association of Broadcasters, are already girding for battle.

Advocates for eliminating the blackout point out that when the broadcast restriction was first imposed, ticket sales were the NFL's bread-and-butter, whereas now, merchandise and television are the league's principal revenue sources.  Opponents fear no-blackout means pay-tv channels will swoop in to air the gridiron contests at the expense of  revenues to local free broadcasters.

AGs Have Backpage.com Adult Services Ads in Their Sites

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Buoyed by Craigslist's decision earlier this month to discontinue accepting adult services ads, attorneys general from 21 states are pressuring Village Voice Media-owned Backpage.com to follow suit.


According to Dallas Morning News and Associated Press stories, Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal and Texas AG Greg Abbott both signed on to a letter urging the company to oversee their personal and paid classified ads for suspicious listings and to discontinue free adult online listings. Blumenthal alleges Backpage.com has pocketed $17.5 million from "prostitution ads."


Thus far, Village Voice Media is defiant, claiming only 6 million of its 58 million ads over the past two years involved adult services and that Backpage.com has only testified in five cases involving the alleged abuse of underaged individuals.


"TUOL" believes the AG pressure tactics mask a First Amendment battle the authorities suspect they cannot win. More to the point, the exercise of chasing adult ads from Craigslist to Backpage and beyond is akin to picking up watermelon seeds from a freshly waxed floor--a difficult task that accomplishes little in the end.

AGs Pow-Wow Over Google's Wi-Fi Network Data-Trolling

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Attorneys General from 30 states conferred this week on whether to consolidate their investigations into Calif.-based Internet search engine colossus Google's assembly of private data culled from unsecured wireless networks, according to a story in The New York Times.

Google admitted last month that it collected emails and other personal information from unsecured Wi-Fi networks while its vehicles were providing photographic content for Google's Street View service. Google concedes the data-gathering was improper, but denies it was illegal.

Attorneys general  are probing whether Google may have violated any state laws. The Times credits Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal as being the prime mover behind the conference call regarding whether to join forces to investigate Google. That's the same Blumenthal running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Christopher Dodd who the Times took to task for allegedly inflating his military record. In a series of stump speeches, Blumenthal "mis-remembered," as pitching great Roger Clemens used to say, that his stint as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve  included a tour of duty in Vietnam during the war.