By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-5-20 Federal Communications Chairman Chairman Ajit Pai said Monday (Oct. 5) that the Commission plans to vote at its October meeting on its response to a federal appeals court remand on its Restoring Internet Freedom (RIF) ISP deregulation order. Pai said the item addressed the court's issues and “affirms that [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-5-20 The FCC will vote at its October meeting to expand the use of the "white spaces" between TV channels for rural broadband, something Microsoft has been pushing and broadcasters have some issues with. According to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the "targeted changes" will protect TV broadcasters while allowing for [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-2-20 Legislators from both parties are rooting for the Trump Administration, specifically the Commerce Department and Federal Trade Commission, to come up with a successor to the invalidated Privacy Shield that allows cross-border data flows with the EU. The Trump Administration has been huddling with the European Commission to talk [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-2-20 The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal by broadcasters and the FCC of an appeals court's rejection of the FCC's latest attempt to deregulate broadcast ownership. Back in April, broadcasters and newspaper publishers petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-1-20 The Senate floor saw a reprise of some online political theater Thursday (Oct. 1), both in the sense that it was streamed and in the subject matter at issue. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) took to the floor to seek unanimous consent (UC) to pass legislation that would reform [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-1-20 The House Antitrust Subcommittee took on Big Tech Thursday (Oct. 1) in a hearing on potentially toughening antitrust laws to make sure they protect online competition. The subcommittee has been investigating the state of competition in digital markets since June 2019. Thursday's was the seventh and final hearing [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-1-20 The Senate Commerce Committee has voted on a bipartisan basis to subpoena the biggest of Big Tech CEOs for a hearing on how they moderate online content. That came at an executive meeting Thursday (Oct. 1). The subpoenas will go out to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Alphabet (Google) [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-1-20 Privacy and civil rights groups want some answers from Amazon over election security, or the lack of it. That came in a letter from 17 public-interest groups condemning the company for election security failures and seeking more transparency about how they have responded to breaches of election data. That [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-30-20 Thursday will be a busy day on Capitol Hill on the issue of the power of Big Tech and what, if anything, to do about it. The House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee is holding an afternoon hearing on "Proposals to Strengthen the Antitrust Laws and Restore Competition Online." Witnesses [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-27-20 Exiting Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly isn't going without a final push for more broadcast deregulation. O'Rielly's re-nomination was withdrawn by the president after he criticized a social media regulatory effort the president is backing,  In a blog post, O'Rielly praised FCC chairman Ajit Pai's media modernization program efforts to date, [...]