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 [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-2-21 The FCC continues to signal that nothing has changed in the change of administrations, at least when it comes to a proceeding to pull the license from China Telecom so it can no longer connect with U.S. networks. That came in its response to China Telecom's petition to [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-1-21 In a victory for Facebook, but what some legislators call a misinterpretation that could open the robocall floodgates, the Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that its automatic texting regime for informing a user when someone is trying to log into their account from a new device does not [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-1-21In a big victory for broadcasters and the Republican FCC under Ajit Pai, the Supreme Court has reversed the Third Circuit's decision throwing out the FCC's broadcast deregulation under former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Current acting chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel had voted against the deregulatory move.In 2017, the FCC had unanimously [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-31-21 The FCC will vote at the April 22 open meeting to adopt new disclosure requirements when foreign entities buy airtime on U.S. broadcast outlets. "If you are consuming programming broadcast over the public airwaves, you have the right to know who is behind that content," said acting FCC [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-31-21 Michael Powell, president of NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, is not happy with the Biden infrastructure plan's focus on subsidizing government-built broadband networks or potentially regulating the prices of private ones. He suggested the Biden plan has misdiagnosed the problem – which is getting broadband to where it [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-31-21 President Joe Biden is signaling that his infrastructure investment plan, which the White House is billing as a jobs plan, will achieve the goal of both "universal and affordable" high-speed broadband in this decade, with the $100-billion price tag Hill Dems have been pushing. The White House will [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-31-21 Advocates for a secure and safe online environment for kids have filed a complaint against Google with the Federal Trade Commission seeking an investigation into what they said are app recommendations for kids that don't comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Google counters that it [...]