By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-11-20 Cable operators are using the rise of both over-the-top video and the novel coronavirus in arguments to the Federal Communications Commission for help in deregulating the market for both video and broadband services. It has been a couple of years since video streaming overtook traditional cable and [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-30-20 High-profile Senate Republicans say they plan to introduce a data privacy bill, the COVID-19 Consumer Data Protection Act, that would hold companies accountable for their use of personal data to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. There are concerns that contact-tracing technology employed by companies including Apple and Google [...]

By Ellen Nakashima, washingtonpost.com, 4-28-20 The public has a right to know a court’s reasons for restraining the government’s power to force a tech company to break its encryption to help law enforcement, the ACLU and The Washington Post told a federal appeals court on Tuesday. But an attorney for the Justice Department argued that [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-27-20 With every pandemic-driven, shelter-in-place day feeling like Groundhog Day, it is appropriate that the deadline for the latest installment of the endless broadcast deregulation saga has come due. The FCC has been trying to come up with a deregulatory regime that passes muster with the Third U.S. [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-18-20 FCC chairman Ajit Pai has asked the chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee to speak out against Free Press's emergency petition to the FCC to stop what that group said was "right-wing personalities" spreading disinformation about the pandemic. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) had asked Pai [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-17-20 As expected, broadcasters and newspaper publishers have petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision vacating most of the FCC's effort under chairman Ajit Pai to deregulate broadcast ownership, including by eliminating the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules. Echoing the FCC's petition for Supreme [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-16-20 The Committee to Protect Journalists said President Trump's attacks on press credibility have been "dangerously effective," even as the pandemic kills tens of thousands of Americans. It has issued a report on Trump (penned by former Washington Post executive editor Len Downie) and the media and has [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-13-20 The FCC is seeking comment on how it should square its approach to preventing Universal Service Fund money from going to carriers that use Huawei and ZTE technology with Congress' mandate to do the same thing. The Wireline Competition Bureau Monday (April 13) sought comment on the [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-13-20 Broadcasters are giving new meaning to the phrase "dynamic spectrum access" in arguing that an FCC proposal to free up WiFi spectrum in the 6 GHz band could take away electronic newsgathering spectrum just when a pandemic-sequestered nation needs it most. That came in phone calls last [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-9-20 Republican FCC commissioner Michael O'Rielly has asked President Trump to lean on the Department of Defense to free up spectrum for 5G. That came in an April 8 letter to Trump from O'Rielly, who is a fan of the President. O'Rielly praised the President's "extraordinary leadership" on [...]