By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 9-3-19 The Federal Trade Commission has revised and refined its list of broadband companies it is collecting info from related to their online privacy practices. Back in March, the FTC announced it was studying how broadband companies "collect, retain, use, and disclose information about consumers and their devices." [...]
Participated with other media organizations in a letter from the Reporters Committee to members of Congress expressing concern about the proposed dramatic expansion of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (“IIPA”), one of the few laws that criminalizes the publication of truthful information about government activities. The letter notes that the bill expanding [...]
By Alex Gangitano, TheHill.com, 8-6-19 The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which represents the $43.4-billion U.S. video game industry, pushed back on attempts to connect games with gun violence. “More than 165 million Americans enjoy video games, and billions of people play video games worldwide. Yet other societies, where video games are played as avidly, do not contend with the [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 8-6-19 While Microsoft and broadcasters have come to some meeting of the minds on use of the so-called "white spaces" between TV channels for unlicensed broadband use, the computer company remains opposed to broadcasters retaining the first channel adjacent to a TV station's channel as a buffer between [...]
Participated in an amicus brief (with the Reporters Committee and other amici) filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Machado Amadis v. Dept. of Justice. The case presents the first opportunity for the D.C. Circuit to address the Freedom of Information Act’s new foreseeable harm standard, which [...]
By Nathan Bomey, USA TODAY, 8-5-19 GateHouse Media's owner and Gannett have agreed to merge in a deal aimed at cutting overlapping costs and enabling the combined company to pursue a digital transformation as the media industry grapples with the disruptive forces of online news, social media and smartphones. New Media Investment Group said Monday that [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 8-2-19 Texas has joined a state effort to block the T-Mobile-Sprint merger, which the Department of Justice and a handful of other AGs' have agreed not to block given conditions the companies have agreed to. Those include spinning off pre-paid wireless operator Boost Mobile to Sprint in hopes [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 8-1-19 National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith said the government should start applying a public interest standard to Google and Facebook and other Big Tech titans. That was in an interview for C-SPAN's Communicators series with C-SPAN's Peter Slen and Paul Kirby, senior editor at TRDaily and [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-26-19 The Justice Department, five state attorneys general, and T-Mobile-Sprint have reached an agreement on the proposed merger of the number three and four wireless carriers, conditioned on, among other things, the spin-off of Boost Mobile and some spectrum assets to DISH. According to the settlement, "T-Mobile and [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-24-19 The Federal Trade Commission has confirmed its $5 billion fine against Facebook stemming from the Cambridge Analytica debacle and, at the same time, filed suit against Cambridge Analytica and settled with a former top executive of the company and an app developer. The commission concluded that Facebook [...]