By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-24-20 The chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee wants to force Big Tech CEOs to testify for an upcoming hearing. That is according to an announcement of an executive session markup Oct. 1 dealing with that issue. While the agenda for the meeting is subject to change, according [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-23-20 President Donald Trump told Republican state attorneys general Wednesday (Sept. 23) that the First Amendment needs protecting from "censorship, cancel culture, and consumer abuses inflicted by Big Tech companies," companies he suggested were waging war on free enterprise and free expression. The president issued an executive order in [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-23-20 The House this week passed four communications-related bills including ones blocking Congress' own mandate to auction T-Band spectrum and one that would require the FCC to look at market entry barriers to diverse media ownership. H.R. 5567, the Measuring the Economics Driving Investments and Access for Diversity Act [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-23-20 The Justice Department has provided Congress with a draft of its remake of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The draft reflects DOJ's June recommendations and is meant to effect President Donald Trump's desire to hold social media sites to new standards of content moderation, stemming from [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-22-20 New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) and almost a dozen other civil society groups are strongly against the Republicans' latest effort to come up with national privacy legislation. That came in a letter to the Senate Commerce Committee opposing the American Framework to Ensure Data Access, Transparency, and [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-22-20 The National Association of Broadcasters has launched a campaign to celebrate the 231st anniversary (Sept. 25) of the passage of the constitutional amendments that became the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment that guaranteed free speech and a free press. The campaign focuses on the key role [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-22-20 The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice are seeking comment on a couple of proposed changes to the automatic Hart Scott Rodino (HSR) antitrust reviews, which are required of large mergers (ones valued at at least $94 million). The FTC and DOJ divide up antitrust reviews, with [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-21-20 Top House Democrats are pushing back on a Defense Department request for information (RFI) on creating a government-owned 5G network. At last week's FCC oversight hearing, none of the five commissioners supported the prospect of such a nationalized network, something House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Frank [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-21-20 Cable operator ISPs are telling the FCC it needs to prioritize protections for sensitive business information when it collects new broadband data per Congress's Broadband DATA Act, which means not requiring it to be reported "at this time." That came in comments to the FCC Friday (Sept. 18). [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-18-20 Republican Federal Trade Commissioner Noah Phillips said the government should not rush into national privacy legislation. That came in an interview for C-SPAN's Communicators series. Phillips has repeatedly said to Congress that privacy means different things to different people. For some he said it meant control of their [...]