By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-3-20 The Justice Department could file an antitrust suit against Google (and YouTube) parent Alphabet as soon as this month, according to The New York Times. Google's market power and position as the dominant search engine have drawn record fines in Europe, but it has pretty much avoided similar [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-3-20 Using terms like "disastrous," "dangerous" and "unworkable," the Consumer Technology Association told the FCC Sept. 2 to reject the Trump Administration petition to regulate social media via reformation of Sec. 230. That is the law that provides internet platforms with immunity from civil liability for most of the [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-3-20 Facebook, which has taken flak in D.C. over the use of its platform for 2016 Russian election disinformation, said it won't accept any new political ads for a week before the upcoming election, though ads running before that time can continue to run. That is one of what [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 9-1-20 Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) has introduced a bill, the Broadcast Diversity in Leadership Act, to promote broadcast diversity by creating the incubator program the FCC tried to create as part of its broadcast dereg order that was remanded by a federal appeals court. The difference is that [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 9-1-20 Broadcasters are arguing that the FCC does not need to have statistics on how repealing or modifying its broadcast ownership rules impact media diversity to make those changes. The National Association of Broadcasters is arguing that point in a brief to the Supreme Court filed Thursday (Aug. [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 9-1-20 Broadcasters are hitting back hard on critics of the FCC's proposal to facilitate TV station's flexible use of their new ATSC 3.0 broadcast transmission standard to become a broadband as well as broadcast player, saying efforts to impose new regs, or exhume old ones, are cynical and unnecessary. [...]
Participated in an amicus brief (with the Reporters Committee and other amici) filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Kelly. ALDF and other animal rights groups brought suit against state officials to challenge the Kansas Ag-Gag Statute. The district court had held that three [...]
Participated in an amicus brief (with the Reporters Committee and other amici) filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in McGlothlin v. Hennelly. In this defamation action, James McGlothlin claimed that Kevin Hennelly defamed him in a Facebook post and a comment in an online article about the rezoning and [...]
By Gary Arlen, Multichannel News, 8-25-20 In what could be a preview of Biden administration technology policy, three former Democratic policymakers are recommending the creation of a new independent federal regulatory agency - the Digital Platform Agency (DPA) - to oversee Big Tech’s expanding presence in American business and life. The agency would focus [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 8-25-20 Cable operators are telling the FCC that retrans regulations should apply to carriage negotiations that include ancillary "broadcast internet" services. That came in comments by NCTA-The Internet & Television Association on the FCC's inquiry into what, if any, rules need to be changed to accommodate broadcaster's potential new [...]