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Comment Policy

The Federal Communications Commission strives to utilize innovative and emerging interactive technologies to increase openness and transparency in federal government. By encouraging relevant discussion and engaging the public in an ongoing dialog, the FCC hopes to more effectively and more efficiently realize its commitment to the American people to improve interstate and international communication. 

Your Comments 

The FCC seeks to foster citizen participation in many forms – text, photos, and videos - across many mediums. Regardless of the form, the thoughts, ideas, and feedback you submit to the FCC online (hereafter collectedly referred to as "comments") play a critical role in helping the FCC be more responsive to the needs of the American public. This includes blog, photo, and video comments, as well as personal or direct messages, "wall posts", and "@replies" across the FCC's various social media.

Relation to Proceedings

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, commenting on these platforms is not a substitute for submitting a formal comment in the record of a specific Commission proceeding. The Commission will not rely on anonymous comments, or comments posted elsewhere due to the difficulty of verifying the accuracy of information. Accordingly, any persons interesting in examining the record should review the traditional Electronic Comment Filing System.

Publication Criteria 

For this unique relationship to flourish, we endeavor to publish your comments whenever possible, but expect conversations to respect traditional conventions of polite discourse. The FCC will remove and/or decline to publish any comment that:

  • Contains obscene or vulgar language, personal attacks of any kind, or offensive terms that target a specific race, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, age, religion,  or disability;
  • promote commercial services or products (relevant non-commercial links are not per se prohibited);
  • are off-topic; or
  • make unsupported accusations.

Comments will be accepted or rejected in whole – we do no edit comments to remove objectionable content.

Intellectual Property 

Copyrighted, trademarked, patented, or proprietary information should not be posted or submitted in any form without permission of the rights holder. Visitors agree to grant a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license to the rest of the world for their submissions under the a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Creative Commons License.

Timely Response 

We recognize the internet is an always-on medium, and your comments are welcome at any time. However, given the need to conserve federal resources, moderating and posting of comments will occur as speedily as possible, during normal business hours.

Protecting Your Privacy 

To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, please do not include phone numbers, e-mail addresses, mailing addresses, or other personal information in conjunction with your comment. For more information on your privacy, please see our Privacy Policy.

The FCC reserves the right to modify this policy at any time.

Last Modified: 4/3/2011 10:30:00 AM

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