By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-23-18 Both sides of the political spectrum have signaled in recent weeks the gloves are off when it comes to issues like privacy, fake news and Russian election meddling, with companies like Facebook – most prominently – Google, Amazon and others facing the strongest regulatory pushback in their relatively [...]

TMI staff report, 4-17-18 On April 17, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion in United States v. Microsoft, dismissing the case as moot, vacating the Second Circuit opinion, and remanding with instructions to vacate the district court opinion. The U.S. Justice Dept. had asked the High Court to dismiss the case as moot owing to passage of [...]

By Carolyn Giardina, hollywoodreporter.com, 4-10-18 FCC chairman Ajit Pai – who was appointed to his role in January 2017 – on Tuesday emphasized his aim to "modernize" the nation's media rules during an address at NAB Show in Las Vegas.  “That’s required a lot of work,” he said of several decisions that have been welcomed [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-10-18 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced an hours-long gauntlet of frequently unhappy legislators Tuesday (April 10), in the first of two Hill hearings on privacy and access to Facebook users data. Among the takeaways of that grilling was that he would support, at least in principle, requiring opt-in [...]

TMI staff report, 4-5-18 The U.S. Justice Dept. has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss as moot U.S. v. Microsoft, dealing with the government's right to information stored on servers in foreign countries, owing to passage of the CLOUD Act by Congress on March 23. The Justice Dept. filed a  Motion to Vacate the Judgment [...]

By Ann E. Marimow, washingtonpost.com, 3-26-18 A federal appeals court on Monday considered whether Metro’s policy barring issue-oriented advertisements on buses, trains and transit stations goes too far in keeping out all religious ­messages. The case reached the court after Metro rejected a 2017 holiday campaign from the Archdiocese of Washington with the message [...]

TMI staff report, 3-7-18 China has now emerged as a global leader in its deployment and use of broadband applications and content, devices, and networks, surpassing South Korea and Japan.  That is one of the striking findings of Net Vitality 2.0: Identifying the Top-Tier Global Broadband Internet Ecosystem Leaders, a study by Prof. Stuart N. Brotman [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 2-26-18 FCC chairman Ajit Pai talked up the "entrepreneurial spirit of markets" over the "all-knowing vortex of government. That came in a panel session Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, where Pai, preaching to a conservative choir, appeared briefly on a panel with his [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 2-26-18The News Media Alliance is calling on Congress to give them the power to negotiate collectively with edge behemoths so they can claim some of the ad dollars bypassing them on their way to Google and Facebook.In an op ed Monday (Feb. 26) in the Wall Street Journal, [...]

By Patrick Shanley, hollywoodreporter.com, 2-22-18 President Donald Trump pointed to violent films and video games as possible causes for real-life violence by American youth in the wake of last week's fatal shooting in Parkland, Florida. During a meeting on school safety at the White House on Thursday, Trump met with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Health [...]