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 [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 2-13-18 The FCC will review its long-standing rules on children's television that requires that TV stations air at least three hours per week of core educational/informational children's TV programming in at least 30-minute blocks. That is according to Commissioner Michael O'Rielly, whom FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 2-7-18 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has denied a petition from Prometheus Radio Project that it effectively stay the FCC's November vote to deregulate local broadcast ownership.  The court suggested the jury was still out on the FCC's response to the court's direction [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 2-5-18 The House Energy & Commerce Committee's Communications Subcommittee will get a chance to grill the FCC commissioners this month. The Committee has scheduled a Feb. 16 budget hearing in the subcommittee where it says all five of the commissioners will testify. While the hearing will be [...]