David McCabe

Tech industry critics spent a daylong event on Capitol Hill Feb 7 airing concerns that Facebook, Google, Apple and other major companies are peddling addictive products that damage young minds. Critics are seeking some sort of policy to address the problem. “Should there be some common sense regulation of the tech industry? Obviously,” said Jim Steyer, the head of Common Sense, the group that organized the conference. Franklin Foer, the author of a recent book critical of tech powerhouses, said that a “sense of shame” would shift norms in the industry.

US lawmakers examining the role of social media in elections plan to meet with counterparts from the UK the week of Feb 5. Apparently, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) would meet with British Members of Parliament Damian Collins and Paul Farrelly, who are on the committee looking into social media platforms across the Atlantic.

Telecommunications companies like AT&T and Verizon are racing into the digital advertising space — currently dominated by Google and Facebook — now that Washington has given them the ability to sell data to third-party advertisers. The growth rate in the digital ad market is expected to decrease over the next four years, according to eMarketer, meaning that any market share internet service providers are able to gain will eventually come at the expense of other advertising-based businesses, mainly Google and Facebook. AT&T's proposed merger with Time Warner will be a linchpin in the

Commissioner Michael O'Rielly of the Federal Communications Commission said that regulators should not crack down on big tech companies like Facebook and Google. "I’m not interested in imposing like regulation on the edge community or the high technology community to create some kind of parity level" with internet providers, Commissioner O'Rielly said.

Sinclair Broadcast Group's proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media would give the conservative-leaning company control of an additional TV station in Des Moines (IA) — one of the most important presidential primary media markets in the country. Sinclair's possible acquisition of an NBC affiliate in Des Moines underscores Democrats' worries about the deal giving a right-leaning company significantly more control over local news. The Sinclair-Tribune deal is expected to be approved by regulators this quarter.

With the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of network neutrality rules set to go into effect in 2018, attention is turning to the pledges internet service providers have made to consumers about how they'll handle web traffic. Many are taking a fairly hard line against blocking or slowing down the delivery of content. It gets more complicated when it comes to whether internet companies will allow a website, such as Netflix, to pay for a "fast lane" to prioritize its content over sites' content. Comcast says it won't block access to content or slow down its delivery.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has rewritten the rules of the information age so thoroughly that there's no mode of communication under his control where the rules aren't looser than they were a year ago. Here's a look at what he's done.

Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA) -- who represents parts of Silicon Valley -- defended a controversial statement he made in a conversation with his local paper last week that pointed to Portugal as an example of what happens when regulations don't protect network neutrality.

A big year of wins for the broadcasting industry is about to get even bigger with a pair of votes at the Federal Communications Commission on Nov 16. One proposal would lift rules that say one company can't own a television station and a newspaper in the same market and a similar rule for owning both radio and television stations in a market. It would also allow the FCC to waive a prohibition against owning two of the top television stations in a market on a case-by-case basis.

Facebook hired the former top aide to a lawmaker investigating how Russians may have used its platform to subvert the 2016 election to lobby on its behalf in Oct. Facebook is bolstering its forces in Washington amid unprecedented investigations into the power of its platform and a new bill that would create new disclosure requirements for online political ads. Facebook hired Luke Albee to lobby on, among other issues, "election integrity," per the form.