By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-10-21 Political opposites Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) have teamed up to try and boost the fortunes of news operations. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act would give "news content creators" – print, broadcast, or digital – an antitrust safe harbor to negotiate collectively with digital [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-9-21 A bill has been introduced in Congress by a trio of Democrats that would remove "roadblocks" to municipal broadband buildouts by preempting state laws limiting or preventing those buildouts. The Community Broadband Act would "ensure their residents have broadband access by removing roadblocks for public-private partnerships and locally [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-9-21 Facing the sunsetting of third-party cookies across all browsers in less than a year, cookies have helped power the online advertising ecosystem that supports free web content, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Tech Lab has released for comment proposed standards for "responsible addressability" and "predictable privacy." IAB is [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-8-21 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues to be a popular pen pal for legislators concerned about its treatment of ad and web content. In a letter Monday (March 8), more than two dozen House Energy & Commerce Committee Democrats called on him for some answers about the social media [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-8-21 The Biden and Trump Justice Departments have at least one thing in common: Both support opening up the entire 6-GHz band for WiFi, a move pushed by cable operators and computer companies. The Federal Communications Commission, under then-chairman Ajit Pai, voted unanimously last April to allow all 1,200 [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-5-21The first Senate Antitrust Subcommittee hearing has been scheduled in the new Congress, and look for revamping antitrust laws to rein in Big Tech to be a big part of the discussion.The bipartisan hearing, March 11 at 10 a.m., was announced jointly by Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and ranking member [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-5-21 Minnesota Democrat Rep. Angie Craig has revived an effort to create broadband nutrition labels. That comes as House and Senate Democrats plan to introduce legislation restoring the FCC's Open Internet Order net neutrality rules eliminated by the Republican FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai. Craig, who is a member of [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-4-21 Wi-Fi fans including NCTA-The Internet & Television Association are applauding the re-introduction of the Government Spectrum Valuation Act. The bill, introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), would finally mandate that the government put a value on unlicensed spectrum to the economy, rather than give it no value when relevant [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-3-21 Republican Senators John Kennedy (La.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) have introduced a bill that would deny some Chinese companies access to U.S. capital markets, including some familiar names in the suspect tech category. The American Financial Markets Integrity and Security Act would ban what it calls "malign" Chinese [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-3-21 In an unusual alliance, cable operators, Google, Public Knowledge, and others have told Congress the FCC is taking the wrong approach to the upcoming 3.45 -3.55 GHz (3.45 GHz band) auction, in particular the size of the licenses it plans to auction. Congress mandated in the Consolidated Appropriations [...]