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A coalition of 22 consumer and public health advocacy groups led by Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and sanction Google for the deceptive marketing of apps for young children.

In what regulators are calling the largest refund in US history by an Internet provider to consumers, Charter Communications will pay more than $62.5 million -- and free subscriptions to HBO or Showtime -- to New York customers who allegedly didn’t receive the Internet speeds they were promised, according to New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood.

The Department of Justice has reached a settlement with Nexstar Media Group, one of the largest owners of television stations in the country, as part of its ongoing investigation into exchanges of competitively sensitive information in the broadcast television industry. The Department filed an amended complaint in the case United States v. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., et al., adding Nexstar Media Group Inc.

At least 75 companies receive anonymous, precise location data from apps whose users enable location services to get local news and weather or other information. Several of those businesses claim to track up to 200 million mobile devices in the United States. The database reveals people’s travels in startling detail, accurate to within a few yards and in some cases updated more than 14,000 times a day. These companies sell, use or analyze the data to cater to advertisers, retail outlets and even hedge funds seeking insights into consumer behavior.

Democrats and Google executives worked arm in arm for years, particularly during the Obama administration. But when Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, testifies before Congress, some of the toughest questioning is likely to come from Democrats. The hearing will provide an early glimpse of how Democrats plan to approach Silicon Valley giants in the coming year as they assume control of the House of Representatives.

Tumblr recently announced it will ban adult content.  Although partially in response to the discovery of a number of communities posting child pornography and subsequent ban of the Tumblr ap from the extremely important Apple ap store, a former engineer at Tumblr said the change has been in works for months. The change was mandated by Tumblr’s corporate parent Verizon, in order to attract greater advertising revenue.

Emails and other internal Facebook documents released by a British parliamentary committee show how the social media giant gave favored companies like Airbnb, Lyft and Netflix special access to users’ data. The documents shine a light on Facebook’s internal workings from roughly 2012 to 2015, during a period of explosive growth as the company was navigating how to manage the mountains of data it was accumulating on users.

Both companies have long preferred to be vague on the details of their arrangement in which Google pays Apple to be the default search engine on its Safari internet browser. Some $4 billion a year is the most conservative view among analysts who have taken a stab at estimating these payments.

Democratic group Priorities USA is trying to improve the way Democrats compete digitally in elections. In addition to spending about $50 million on digital ads this cycle, the group ran experiments behind the scenes to create a new playbook for liberal groups as they rush to catch up with GOP advantages online. The goal was to bridge the gap with Republican campaigns, which have spent a higher percentage of their election money online in recent cycles.

The Department of Justice announced that it has reached a settlement with six broadcast television companies — Sinclair, Raycom Media, Tribune Media Company, Meredith Corporation, Griffin Communications, and Dreamcatcher Broadcasting — to resolve a DOJ lawsuit alleging that the companies engaged in unlawful agreements to share non-public competitively sensitive information with their broadcast television competitors. “The unlawful exchange of competitively sensitive information allowed these television broadcast companies to disrupt the normal competitive process of spot advertising in mark