By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-20-22 Internet advertisers and others have filed a friend-of-the-court brief at the Supreme Court in support of NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which are challenging a Texas social media law they say will irreparably damage online platforms as advertising vehicles. The brief paints a stark picture. [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-19-22 A new bipartisan Senate bill would impose restrictions on the biggest players in the digital advertising market that mirror those on electronic trading in the financial sector. Those restrictions would prevent the largest providers of ad-supported digital platforms from also selling third-party ads, meaning major divestitures for Big [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-18-22 NCTA–The Internet & Television Association has told the FCC that cable operators do not discriminate in the provision of broadband service because they provide equal access, which NCTA said means “comparable deployment.” “FCC and census data demonstrate that cable operators provide equal access to broadband by deploying high-speed [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-11-22 A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court has lifted a preliminary injunction against a Texas law tech companies say unconstitutionally prevents online platforms from exercising editorial discretion based on viewpoint. That is according to the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which said a split panel of the [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-11-22 The Senate appears to be getting serious about making edge providers including streamers and search engines pay into the Universal Service Fund.  The USF subsidizes advanced telecommunications – essentially broadband – to low-income and hard-to-reach areas of the country. Currently, the fund is paid into by telecom providers, [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-4-22 Internet service providers have dropped their challenge to a U.S. District Court’s ruling upholding California’s network neutrality law. The state adopted the California Internet Consumer Protection and Net Neutrality Act of 2018 (SB 822), prohibiting blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization, after the Federal Communications Commission eliminated its similar [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-4-22 The FCC said May 4 that it had committed another almost $39 million in its 14th tranche of the Emergency Connectivity Program Fund, a COVID 19-driven program targeted at closing the homework gap. President Joe Biden has said that one of his administration’s goals is to make sure [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-2-22 The FCC says it has authorized another almost $200 million in rural broadband funding, bringing the total it has handed out since July 2021 in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to over $5.2 billion. The money, which comes from the FCC'’s Universal Service Program high-cost fund, will go to [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-29-22 Big Tech and antitrust enforcement activists are squaring off over a couple of bipartisan bills in Congress meant to address the size and power of tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, and Google. They made their opposing views known in dueling letters to congressional leaders considering the new legislation. [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-26-22 Senate and House Republicans have advised the Biden Administration not to put any network neutrality conditions on the tens of billions of dollars in broadband subsidies being overseen by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), the president’s chief communications policy adviser. They also don’t want NTIA to [...]