Knowledgeable sources tell us that the FCC has hired Steven Seagal, along with hundreds of highly-trained stealthy ninjas to carry out the swift and irrevocable execution sentences.

“Let’s face it, when a consumer gets a marketing text that they didn’t sign up for, they want to kill you. We’re just doing the job for them,” a government official who refuses to be named in light of the sensitive subject matter tells MMW.

MMW has learned that ninjas have already been deployed across the U.S. and stand ready to bring justice to countless unscrupulous mobile marketers who have spammed one too many smartphones.

“The TCPA ninjas, led by Mr. Seagal, are extremely well trained,” the government official tells us. “Collateral damage should be minimal.”

There’s no word on how many non-compliant mobile marketers have already been sent on their way to an eternal dirt nap, but for those who continue to violate the TCPA, justice is coming. And there’s no way to opt-out.

Steven Seagal was asked for comment, but he spoke so quietly we couldn’t make out a single word. However, he and his pony tail looked super serious.

The bottom line? Make sure your mobile marketing is compliant, or you’ll find yourself marked for death, and on deadly ground, and… [insert another Steven Seagal movie title here].

And from all of us here at Mobile Marketing Watch, happy April Fool’s Day!

The post Mobile Marketing Compliance Violations Now Punishable By Death Via Steven Seagal appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

That news was first confirmed by CBS, which noted that “supercookies” earned the moniker by being from hard to near-impossible to block.

“Verizon uses them to deliver targeted ads to cellphone customers. The company wants to expand its advertising and media business and bought AOL for its digital ad technology in 2015,” the network news outlet confirmed.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wasn’t happy. Mostly because Verizon began using the supercookies in December, 2012, but didn’t disclose the program until October 2014.

“Consumers care about privacy and should have a say in how their personal information is used, especially when it comes to who knows what they’re doing online,” FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said in a press release.

The FCC settlement says consumers now must opt in to letting Verizon share data with a third party.

Nate Cardozo, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy watchdog that had been critical of the supercookies, said the settlement was an “unqualified win” for consumers. “Today’s order will mean that other companies contemplating similar involuntary tracking will think twice before proceeding without explicit consumer consent,” he wrote in an email.

Why did Verizon use this controversial technology?

“Supercookie tracking allowed it to help advertisers offer more targeted advertising, CNET reports,” according to CBS. “But when privacy and consumer advocates started to call out against this practice, it caught the eye of the FCC. A 2015 study revealed that supercookie tracking information couldn’t be erased and could be accessed by third parties, even if a user removed his or her browser history from a mobile phone browser.”

The post Cookie Monster: Verizon Will Fork Over $1.35 Million to Pay ‘Supercookie’ Tracking Fine appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

“Retailers face considerable challenges in complying with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA),” reads the webinar overview. “Over the last few years, the cost of non-compliance has risen dramatically due to the rapid increase in the amount of litigation around TCPA and the very large settlements associated with class action litigation.”

If you’re not familiar, just last week the FCC issued new requirements for those engaged in text and telemarketing.

What do these new rulings mean to your company? Is your company at risk when making automated outbound calls or sending texts? Is your company taking the right steps to mitigate TCPA risks?

These are the questions posed. The answers will come during the July 14th webinar presented by the MMA and Neustar.

FTC veteran and Neustar’s Chief Privacy Officer, Becky Burr, will address the current regulatory landscape. Also, Neustar’s Vice President Dorean Kass will discuss “how authoritative consumer intelligence is helping to mitigate risk while also driving operational efficiencies.”

To learn more or to register to attend, click here.

The post MMA Webinar to Focus on FCC Proposal of New TCPA Laws appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

That’s the sort of damage AT&T is potentially facing today.

AT&T is looking down the barrel of a $100 million fine courtesy of the FCC. The reason? Allegedly, the company wasn’t honest with consumers and “slowed down the data speeds for customers with unlimited data plans.”

Additionally, the FCC argues, the communications giant did not “adequately notify its customers that they could receive speeds slower than the normal network speeds AT&T advertised.”

In a comprehensive statement to the press, the FCC said the following:

“Consumers deserve to get what they pay for… Broadband providers must be upfront and transparent about the services they provide. The FCC will not stand idly by while consumers are deceived by misleading marketing materials and insufficient disclosure.”

According to published reports, this is the biggest fine ever issued by the FCC.

In a statement to the media, AT&T denies wrongdoing and plans to oppose the fine, saying:

The FCC has specifically identified this practice as a legitimate and reasonable way to manage network resources for the benefit of all customers, and has known for years that all of the major carriers use it. We have been fully transparent with our customers, providing notice in multiple ways and going well beyond the FCC’s disclosure requirements.

To read the full announcement from the FCC, click here.

The post AT&T Confronted with $100 Million FCC Fine appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

After a lot of ups and downs — and massive public outcry — the Federal Communications Commission’s Tom Wheeler recently recapped the agency’s current thinking on internet rules going forward.

While cable companies wouldn’t get what they purportedly crave — a means to create internet “toll booths” where some businesses pay big to expedite their messages — “zero rating” may survive. That’s the environment in which carriers, often in partnership with marketers, “subsidize the data used by consumers for particular mobile apps or websites.”

“In January 2014, AT&T launched Sponsored Data, a service that allows advertisers to sponsor mobile data for its subscribers,” according to Bergen. “All other major national carriers are considering similar products, according to multiple executives familiar with the industry. The two smaller players, T-Mobile and Sprint, have deployed zero-rating in recent phone plan promotions.”

It’s kind of like paying for advertising: zero-rating ensures more customers view their marketing and engage with their content.

More analysis lies ahead, but industry observers believe the practice will be allowed.

“Gigi Sohn, special counsel of external affairs at the FCC, said the agency would review the practice on a “case by case basis,” noted Bergen. “She described a “safety net” approach, assessing whether internet service providers are hindering consumer choice with their behavior.”

In the ongoing battle over a free and neutral internet, one thing is clear: someone will pay for marketing privileges. For the moment, it looks like the FCC is coming down on the side of the consumer.

The post When Net Neutrality Policy Comes Down, FCC Likely to Permit Sponsored Data Programs appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The FCC believes broadband deployment is trailing far behind “today’s advanced, high-quality voice, data, graphics and video offerings.”

The FCC’s statement comes immediately after the completion of the 2015 Broadband Progress Report.

Using this updated service benchmark, the 2015 report finds that 55 million Americans – 17 percent of the population – lack access to advanced broadband. Moreover, a significant digital divide remains between urban and rural America: Over half of all rural Americans lack access to 25 Mbps/3 Mbps service.

“Reflecting advances in technology, market offerings by broadband providers and consumer demand, the FCC updated its broadband benchmark speeds to 25 megabits per second (Mbps) for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads,” the FCC announced yesterday. “The 4 Mbps/1 Mbps standard set in 2010 is dated and inadequate for evaluating whether advanced broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a timely way, the FCC found.”

To review the entire FCC announcement, click here.

The post U.S. Broadband Deployment Deemed Inadequate appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The possibility that net neutrality could be abridged has been lost on some people, who have only heard debates centered on delivery of video content, specifically streaming video from purveyors like Netflix, which indeed do consume a lot of internet bandwidth.

The term “net neutrality,” coined in 2003 by Columbia University professor Tim Wu, refers to the overriding principle that all internet traffic, regardless of source, content or type of data, be treated equally.

According to a post at eMarketer, “Broadband service providers, which typically also offer TV and/or streaming video services of their own, have paid enormous sums to build bigger data pipes. They regard OTT services as a threat in more ways than one: as a potential siphon of their customer base and a burden on networks for which the OTT services have not paid.”

That’s one highlight in a new eMarketer report, “Key Digital Trends for Midyear 2014: The Internet of Things, Net Neutrality, and Why Marketers Need to Care.”

“In a world where not just conveniences but also essential services are channeled over the web, the free flow of data morphs from nicety into necessity,” argues Noah Elkin, eMarketer’s executive editor. “Framing the net neutrality debate solely in terms of maintaining low-cost streaming video overlooks the bigger picture. Today the issue is video streams, but tomorrow it will be about data streams in general.”

In other words, inexpensive on demand video streaming is nice to have — but when every function of one’s life and work depends on data available on demand, it’s no longer a discretionary matter.

“In a not-so-distant, more-connected future, consumers will rely on fast, reliable delivery of data to power their homes and perhaps even direct their self-driving cars,” eMarketer suggests. “Marketers will count on speed to buy and serve ad inventory; as with brokerage firms, the velocity of transactions will make a crucial difference in margins, fulfillment, and success.”

The decisions made by governing agencies, corporations, and other stakeholders could keep the road flowing for one and all — the only right decision in a world gone digital.

The post Net Neutrality: No One Wants to Be Stuck in the Slow Lane appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

This week, Sprint Corp. was ordered to pay a $7.5 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The penalty comes in response to supposed violations of the Do-Not-Call rule.

The fine is the biggest settlement ever reached over this rule, and Sprint will also have to implement a two-year plan to ensure it complies with FCC requirements… Among other stipulations, Sprint will have to ensure its employees are properly trained on how to record consumers’ Do-Not-Call requests so that their names and numbers are removed from marketing lists.

According to MarketWatch, Sprint will also need to designate a senior corporate manager as Compliance Offer to ensure the company adheres to the FCC guidelines.

From wireless carriers to mobile marketers, fines – and hefty ones at that – are on the minds of many these days.

In October 2013, the FCC began enforcing a strict new set of rules governing marketing calls and text messages directed at consumers on their mobile phones.

New provisions in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) introduced these tighter restrictions on mobile marketing and mobile messaging.

Almost overnight, the revamped rules wrought confusion upon marketers uncertain of how these changes and corresponding mandates would impact their mobile marketing efforts.

In response to the new laws of the land, Mobile Marketing Watch, along with our sister sites mHealthWatch and mGamingWatch, hosted an emergency webinar last fall for marketers and related professionals across numerous industries who must urgently educate themselves on a variety of emerging issues related to consumer privacy, location based services, and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

The webinar, which featured expert insight from attorneys Ross Buntrock and Michael Hazzard of Arent Fox, Rip Gerber of Locaid, and Jared Reitzin and Darren Withers of mobileStorm, is now available to view online.

As a follow up to the well-received webinar, mobileStorm recently published a new whitepaper tackling the critically important issue of mobile marketing compliance.

So what exactly should you be doing in order to make sure that your policies and practices are in compliance with these confusing and controversial new rules? A good start would be to download the comprehensive guide to mobile marketing compliance at no charge from mobileStorm here.

The post Sprint Slapped with Massive FCC Fine for Do-Not-Call Violations appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

“The two-sided auction will use market forces to recover spectrum from television broadcasters who voluntarily choose to give up some or all of their spectrum usage rights in exchange for incentive payments, in order to auction new spectrum licenses to wireless providers,” the FCC says.

The Incentive Auction will help meet consumers’ “skyrocketing demand” for mobile broadband services.

By the FCC’s own admission, across the country, in both rural and urban areas, consumers and businesses expect to have access to wireless connectivity anywhere, anytime.

“Today, there are more connected devices than there are people in the U.S.,” the FCC said in a written statement, “and about 60 percent of Americans use data-hungry smartphones. By making more spectrum available for mobile broadband use, the Incentive Auction will benefit consumers by easing congestion on wireless networks, expediting the development of new, more robust wireless services and applications and helping fill in coverage gaps particularly in rural America.”

Broadcasters that choose to participate in the auction will bid to receive some of the proceeds from auctioning that spectrum to wireless providers. The auction, says the FCC, represents a “once in a lifetime opportunity for broadcasters,” but the decision of whether or not to participate is entirely voluntary.

To learn more about the Incentive Auction rules adopted, click here.

The post FCC Adopts Rules for First Ever Incentive Auction appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

While paying for preferential treatment is common in many practices, in the online world it holds the potential for completely shutting out startups because they can’t compete with the major players that currently dominate the market. Consequently, the FCC has been looking at net neutrality in an effort to set rules that will help prevent discrimination.

While the FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules have not yet been issued, the Wall Street Journal reported that they are planning on creating a two-tiered system designed to “better serve the market.” This announcement came as quite a shock to many, as it seems counterintuitive to net neutrality. Apparently “commercially reasonable” terms can be negotiated to provide paid for preferential treatment.

While the current major players are celebrating the official announcement of this two-tiered system, many young companies and startups are less than pleased. However, not all major players are happy either. The concern is that if today’s major players are able to purchase preferential treatment, it will decrease the likelihood of new and innovative players being able to make their way to the forefront.

Representatives for Netflix, for example, recently commented that this impending move will create “very weak” net neutrality. In fact, the two-tiered system will actually make it more challenging for new players to achieve online success because the playing field is far from even.

What are your two cents on this increasingly controversial topic? Please weigh in with your thoughts or comments below.

The post The Ongoing Net Neutrality Debate Intensifies appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.