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In Court, AT&T Chief Attacks Lawsuit to Block Time Warner Merger

AT&T’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, attacked the Justice Department’s lawsuit to block its merger with Time Warner, saying that a combined company would be no different from the Silicon Valley giants that make and distribute video content. As the last witness for the defense in the Justice Department’s legal battle against AT&T’s $85.4 billion deal to buy Time Warner,  Stephenson portrayed the 140-year-old phone giant as being in an existential crisis and in need of the deal with Time Warner to compete against tech companies.

Facebook tries to clarify how it collects data when you're not on Facebook

Facebook outlined its data collection practices. According to Product Management Director David Baser, some third-party websites and apps send data about their users to Facebook, regardless of whether those users have Facebook profiles. In return for that information, Facebook helps those websites serve up relevant ads or receive analytics that help them understand how people use their services. The company gets this data from websites and apps that let people share or like posts using Facebook plugins, or log into the website with their Facebook accounts.

Government's star witness takes the stand in marathon day of AT&T trial

Economist Carl Shapiro said his analysis of AT&T's purchase of Time Warner shows that US consumers could together pay an additional $571 million in the year 2021 if the deal is approved.

"The merger will in fact harm consumers and the harm is significant in terms of the dollar amount," Shapiro testified.

Kremlin ties to pages deleted by Facebook should have been obvious months ago

Facebook trumpeted the deletion of hundreds of pages and accounts run by the Internet Research Agency, the Kremlin-linked troll army that has sought to meddle in U.S. politics. But of the five examples of deleted accounts Facebook provided the public, two had links to the troll army that should have been obvious to the social networking company months ago.

Sinclair responds to criticism of media-bashing promos

Critics are calling Sinclair's promos pro-President Donald Trump propaganda.

Judge rules for AT&T on key part of Time Warner deal defense

US District Judge Richard Leon has rejected a Justice Department motion to limit evidence AT&T can present in its defense of its proposed purchase of Time Warner. As a result of the ruling, AT&T gets to keep one key element of its argument for the deal, after previously losing another significant fight over its planned defense. The government had asked the court to exclude evidence of a November 2017 offer from Turner (a division of Time Warner that includes CNN, TBS, and TNT) to distributors including cable and satellite companies.

Sinclair's new media-bashing promos rankle local anchors

"This is so manipulative." That's an anchor at a local TV station owned by Sinclair, describing the company's latest mandate, a promotional campaign that sounds like pro-Trump propaganda.