By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 9-5-19 FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to "modernize" more media ownership rules at the FCC's September meeting, according to Pai, who has periodically taken out the regulatory weed whacker he promised to clear out some bureaucratic underbrush. The commission is scheduled to issue a tentative agenda Sept. [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 9-4-19 Turns out YouTube and parent Google will pay $170 million to settle allegations it violated children's privacy laws, the largest-ever fine for such a violation, with the government saying that YouTube does indeed contain child-directed content. That is according to the Federal Trade Commission on Sept. 4. [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 9-4-19 The FCC's new KidVid rule revamp takes effect Sept. 16, the FCC said this week, except for the reporting requirements that must still get approval from the Office of Management and Budget. The effective date was 30 days after the rule changes – adopted in July – [...]

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." [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]