Ownership

The Senate Banking Committee rebuked President Donald Trump's efforts to ease sanctions on the Chinese telecom firm ZTE, which the intelligence community and trade regulators have warned poses a national security risk for the U.S.  The committee approved an amendment in an overwhelming and bipartisan 23-2 vote that would block President Trump from easing sanctions on ZTE without first certifying to Congress that the company is complying with US law.

T-Mobile USA should stop claiming that it has "America's Best Unlimited Network," the advertising industry's self-regulator said. AT&T challenged T-Mobile's ads to the National Advertising Division (NAD), which ruled that T-Mobile hasn't substantiated its claim that it has the best wireless network. T-Mobile defended itself by arguing that speed outweighs all other factors—apparently including overall coverage and reliability.

The Federal Communications Commission will be restarting the informal 180-day shot clock on its review of the proposed Sinclair-Tribune merger after it reviews the latest and information from the most recent filing. It signaled it had been waiting to consolidate Sinclair's various re-filings and tweaks to the deal, and is doing that, but is also going to seek even more info on top-four market station ownership requests. That public notice signals the commission has what is expected to be essentially the final version of the deal, though still with questions about this latest iteration. 

A collection of progressive groups will launch a six figure digital ad offensive May 21 telling the Federal Trade Commission to break up Facebook’s social networking empire. The groups are asking for the FTC to do three things:

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin encouraged the Department of Justice to review major technology companies like Google over concerns related to the potential harm they pose to market competition. “These issues deserve to be reviewed carefully,” Sec Mnuchin said.  “These are issues the Justice Department needs to look at seriously, not for any one company, but as these technology companies have a greater and greater impact on the economy,” he continued.

Britain’s culture secretary, Matt Hancock, said that he was unlikely to block the American cable giant Comcast’s proposed takeover of the British satellite broadcaster Sky, the latest twist in a merger battle between Comcast and Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox. Hancock, said he was not inclined to intervene in Comcast’s $30.7 billion bid for Sky because the “the proposed merger does not raise concerns in relation to public interest considerations which would meet the threshold for intervention.”

The founder and former CEO of Boost Mobile USA says the proposed T-Mobile-Sprint merger should not happen.

Major news organizations raised objections to Facebook's plans to treat ads promoting political news coverage the same as political advocacy ads. Under changes Facebook will roll out May 22 aimed at combating the spread of political misinformation, all Facebook ads featuring political content will get a “Paid for by” label and would carry a disclaimer. Publishers say these new rules are too broad. These political messaging labels would also appear on "sponsored" posts that news organizations buy to amplify the reach of an article or video on the political news of the day.

Apparently, President Donald Trump has personally pushed US Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rate the Postal Service charges Amazon.com and other firms to ship packages, a dramatic move that probably would cost these companies billions of dollars. Brennan has so far resisted Trump’s demand, explaining in multiple conversations occurring in 2018 and last that these arrangements are bound by contracts and must be reviewed by a regulatory commission, apparently.

One of the federal agencies that must sign off on the proposed merger between Sprint and T-Mobile is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), and that agency has become a more important factor in recent international merger-and-acquisition action.  Indeed, under the Trump administration and led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the CFIUS played a critical role in ultimately blocking Broadcom’s attempted hostile takeover of Qualcomm over national security concerns.