Ownership

In the latest episode of the podcast Crazy/Genius, we ask why the dream of the digital revolution has proven so disappointing for some of its early advocates. One of those dreamers was Meredith Broussard, a computer scientist and a data journalist, who entered Harvard University in 1991, just months after Tim Berners-Lee launched the first website. “The early Internet was deeply groovy,” Broussard said, a place where idealistic young men and women thought they could redesign the rules of society.

Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) introduced the Truth-In-Billing, Remedies, and User Empowerment over Fees (‘TRUE Fees’) Act, legislation that requires phone, cable and Internet providers to include all charges in the prices they advertise for service, and provides remedies for consumers when they have been wrongfully charged. Specifically, the True Fees Act requires cable and Internet providers to include all charges in the prices they advertise for service; allows customers to end their contract without early termination fees if the provider increases fees during the term of the contract; prevents a

Facebook is widely expected to refashion Instagram into a fully integrated sub-unit of Facebook — which, given Facebook’s record, suggests minimal privacy and maximized advertising. But it’s also clear, in retrospect, that the Instagram acquisition helped reinforce the dominance by Facebook of the social-networking world. A key question has been lost in coverage of the transition: Just why is Facebook in control of Instagram, its greatest natural competitor, in the first place? Isn’t antitrust law supposed to stop companies from buying off their rivals to achieve market dominance?

Journalists are telling a federal court that there were solid reasons to believe that President Donald Trump's animus toward CNN played a role in the Administration's attempt to block the merger of CNN parent Time Warner with AT&T and that a lower court should have allowed that "selective enforcement" defense to be introduced and evidence of that claim presented.

The Justice Department’s top antitrust enforcer, Makan Delrahim, is receptive to complaints that tech companies such as Google and Facebook may be hindering competition with their dominance but believes regulators lack the economic evidence that would be needed to prove such a case in court. Delrahim that there are “very valid concerns at some level” about whether companies in Silicon Valley are getting too big, or “stifling innovation or consumer choice.” In principle, those complaints could ultimately lead to an antitrust suit, Delrahim said.

Department of Justice Antitrust Chief Makan Delrahim, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons and European Union Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager sat down for a meeting in Washington, a moment captured in photo proof posted to Vestager's Twitter feed.

The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) are challenging the Federal Communications Commission's proposed incubator program, petitioning the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review one element of the program—its comparability standards of ownership rule waivers—which they said was arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion, and thus illegal. MMTC and NABOB support the underlying goal of helping diversify media ownership and the incubator program specifically.

As Google marks its 20th anniversary, our relationship with it isn’t quite as uncomplicated as it used to be. In the wake of Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, and fears that the Russians exploited Facebook and YouTube to influence the 2016 presidential election, people are more wary of tech companies these days–especially ones that harvest personal data. This trend won’t reverse itself anytime soon.

Thank you for the opportunity to join your esteemed industry in Orlando (FL) to discuss radio policy issues. As we head into our next Quadrennial Review, more work remains, which I would like to spend my time discussing with you today:

A group of nine state attorneys general backed AT&T as the Justice Department asks a federal appeals court to reverse approval of the company’s $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner. It “is rare for the federal government to pursue an antitrust case involving major, national companies without any state joining the effort,” the nine state officials said in a court filing, noting that no states have filed briefs supporting the Justice Department’s appeal.