Reporting

Without us even realizing it, the Internet’s most-used website has been getting worse. On too many queries, Google is more interested in making search lucrative than a better product for us. There’s one reason it gets away with this, according to a recent congressional investigation: Google is so darn big.

The vast majority of school district leaders and principals say at least some of their students still don't have sufficient internet access at home for remote learning. And most educators believe the U.S. government should be providing more funding to ensure that's no longer the case. Two recent surveys reflect strong convictions among educators that the level of home internet access in the communities they serve continues to be inadequate.

SatelliteInternet.com published a report based on more than 1 million internet speed tests in rural cities: communities with populations of less than 10,000 people that are at least an hour away from the nearest major city. Over the last ten months, the national average for all rural speed tests increased from 39.01Mbps to 45.9Mbps, which is encouraging.

The Trump administration has undercut democracy activists in Belarus and Hong Kong by abruptly ending funding to a US internet freedom organization that provides technological tools to evade censorship and surveillance, according to cyber experts and lawmakers.

Ligado Networks is raising $3.85 billion in expensive new financing to stay out of bankruptcy.

The tantalizing prospect of 10G internet service — which would be 10 times faster than today's 1G networks — is starting to take shape, and soon city officials will need to set policy guidelines for this next generation of cable broadband. For now, ubiquitous 1 gigabit internet is "really going to be needed to ensure that the U.S. is at the forefront of global economic growth and opportunity," says Angie Kronenberg of INCOMPAS, the internet and competitive networks trade association.

Superior Court Judge Shana Frost Matini ruled that Michael Pack overstepped his authority when he fired the board of an agency that helps dissidents and journalists in repressive countries and sought to replace it with his own slate of directors, including himself.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s election promise to connect the entire country to cutting-edge broadband speeds by 2025 has been dubbed “ludicrously unrealistic” after the parliament’s spending watchdog warned that rural internet users risk being left behind by the slow pace of progress. The comments from Meg Hillier, chair of the public accounts committee, followed a National Audit Office report that said the 2025 target was “challenging” and warned that those rural areas risk being further left behind.

On Oct 15, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that he will move forward with clarifying the meaning of Section 230.

Former Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn made a case for the "public/private" partnership of regulator/industry as the blueprint for advancing a more diverse and inclusive media landscape.