By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-19-21 House Republicans have fired a shot across the net neutrality regulation bow before that ship has sailed. According to a copy of a letter to FCC acting chair Jessica Rosenworcel provided to Multichannel News, Energy & Commerce Committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Communications Subcommittee ranking [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-15-21 A coalition of dozens of groups and academics from around the world are calling on Facebook to scrap plans to launch a version of Instagram for children. Facebook is countering that it continues to explore the option, which it said will be age appropriate and managed by parents. [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-14-21 A bipartisan bill has been introduced to speed broadband deployments by cutting right-of-way "red tape" in rural communities. Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) have teamed up to introduce the Accelerating Rural Broadband Deployment Act, which they said will lead to easier and faster broadband installations. [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-12-21 Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) has joined with almost two dozen other Democratic House members to urge Facebook to crack down on "dangerous misinformation," including misleading ads, and providing ex post facto corrections for all disinformation. The drumbeat of criticism of that social platform has been one of the [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-12-21 Rep. Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.) has introduced one bill that would require both better broadband speed measurement and tie funding to higher speeds, and re-introduced another to fund challenges to FCC broadband deployment data. The Broadband Speed Act would require ISPs to report accurate speed data to the FCC [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-12-21 With traditional linear TV viewing down, 42% of advertisers plan to increase spending on streaming, according to a study by Advertiser Perceptions. Top executives will discuss over-the-top video, addressability, and advanced targeting at the Advanced Advertising Summit, starting April 27 as part of the Future Spring TV 2021 week of [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-12-21 Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has slammed the Biden Administration's planned $100 billion in new broadband deployment investment, calling it a big potential blunder that demonstrates the new policy of "measure never, cut checks." That came in an April 8 op ed in The Hill. Carr, who headed up [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-8-21 As expected, the Biden FCC has asked a federal appeals court to hold off on hearing a challenge to the Trump FCC's response to a court remand of its Restoring Internet Freedom net neutrality dereg order, suggesting that challenge could ultimately be moot depending on how the new [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-6-21 Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has made it pretty clear he would consider applying common carrier regulations to dominant edge providers like Google and Facebook. "There is a fair argument that some digital platforms are sufficiently akin to common carriers or places of accommodation to be regulated [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-5-21 In a big victory for Google and fair use fans, the Supreme Court has ruled that Google's copying of Oracle's Java computer code (11,500 lines to be exact) for its API, part of its creation of a new Android software platform for mobile devices, was fair use. It [...]