New Media Rights helps shape FCC Consumer Advisory Committee recommendation on openness and transparency of consumer complaint data

Update 3/28/2014 - Senators Udall and Nelson sent a letter to the FCC requesting improved transparency of the over 400,000 consumer complaints the FCC handles every year.  The letter directly and heavily cited this CAC recommendation which New Media Rights helped shape.  You can read the letter here.

Today the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee approved an important recommendation to improve the FCC’s consumer complaint data reporting.  New Media Rights Executive Director Art Neill, and Legal Intern Marko Radisavljevic were directly involved in the research, drafting, and proposal of this recommendation.

New Media Rights’ Executive Director Art Neill is a member of the CAC, and co-chair of the Broadband Working Group. New Media Rights conducted extensive background work on the FCC’s current data reporting practices, the regulations that govern the FCC’s data reporting, and reporting practices at other agencies.

Based on this research and conversations with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on their widely recognized approach to complaint reporting, New Media Rights’ staff and interns helped draft a recommendation encouraging the FCC to improve the accessibility and transparency of consumer complaint data.  Currently the FCC reports consumer complaint data on the top 5 types of complaints quarterly, in PDF form.  This recommendation specifically encourages both more depth in complaint reporting data, as well as releasing data in an interactive, machine readable format that 3rd parties can use.  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is cited as a useful reference for modern complaint reporting.

New Media Rights is looking forward to continuing to be a vital part of the discussion surrounding policies that directly affect consumers and internet users at the FCC and its Consumer Advisory Committee.

Special thanks also goes to California Western School of Law 2L Marko Radisavljevic, one of New Media Rights interns from California Western School of Law who worked extensively on this recommendation.

Since New Media Rights is an independently funded program at California Western, it continues to rely on grants and individual donations to fund its work. New Media Rights is running a special holiday fundraising campaign.  To learn more about how you can support New Media Rights’ mission and to help them reach their year end goal, click here.