Ownership

A group of journalists protesting outside the offices of a New York City hedge fund recently shined a light on a little-known fact about the state of the local American newspaper: Behind the scenes, financial firms often hold all the cards. Investors like Alden Global Capital LLC and Fortress Investment Group LLC have acquired ownership stakes in newspapers that have struggled to adapt in an online world, from the Denver Post to the Providence Journal. Funds have brought their cost-cutting know-how to help restructure several newspaper chains in heavy debt after the 2008 financial crisis.

Since the early years of the internet boom, American and European rules and regulations have deemed social media companies to be neutral “platforms” or “hosts,” and thus immune from the liabilities faced by traditional publishers. But a series of scandals over their content has put the companies under a new assault — and the broad question of whether they should be seen as publishers rather than agnostic platforms has sweeping legal ramifications. 

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will go into effect on May 25th, and no one is ready — not the companies and not even the regulators. After four years of deliberation, the GDPR was officially adopted by the European Union in 2016. The regulation gave companies a two-year runway to get compliant, which is theoretically plenty of time to get shipshape. The reality is messier. Like term papers and tax returns, there are people who get it done early, and then there’s the rest of us.

European lawmakers pilloried Mark Zuckerberg at a hearing for Facebook’s recent privacy and misinformation mishaps and raised the possibility of new regulation, a more realistic threat than what the social media giant faces in the United States. Opening a hearing with key leaders of the European Parliament, the body's president, Antonio Tajani, described it as an "alarming scandal" that Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy, could access the names, "likes" and other personal information of 87 million Facebook users. "The price paid by the users is in many cases data in exchange for f

Using its deployment of FirstNet to provide a dedicated, nationwide network to first responders, AT&T can reach deeper into rural consumer markets that typically fall to chief competitor Verizon, according to AT&T Communications CEO John Donovan. “T-Mobile much more urban, Verizon much more rural,” Donovan said. “FirstNet gives us a great opportunity to go into the rural markets because not only will we be building the network for first responders, it dawned us that we should also be putting up stores and going after the consumers.

While mesh Wi-Fi systems can saturate every corner of your home in speedy wireless coverage, they’re also expensive and mostly proprietary. Prices for these systems start at around $250–more than three times what the average consumer spends on a wireless routerp–and if you want to switch to another router maker’s software and services, you have to replace the entire system. Recently, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced a wireless standard called EasyMesh that’s supposed to solve these problems.

The Senate Banking Committee rebuked President Donald Trump's efforts to ease sanctions on the Chinese telecom firm ZTE, which the intelligence community and trade regulators have warned poses a national security risk for the U.S.  The committee approved an amendment in an overwhelming and bipartisan 23-2 vote that would block President Trump from easing sanctions on ZTE without first certifying to Congress that the company is complying with US law.

T-Mobile USA should stop claiming that it has "America's Best Unlimited Network," the advertising industry's self-regulator said. AT&T challenged T-Mobile's ads to the National Advertising Division (NAD), which ruled that T-Mobile hasn't substantiated its claim that it has the best wireless network. T-Mobile defended itself by arguing that speed outweighs all other factors—apparently including overall coverage and reliability.

The Federal Communications Commission will be restarting the informal 180-day shot clock on its review of the proposed Sinclair-Tribune merger after it reviews the latest and information from the most recent filing. It signaled it had been waiting to consolidate Sinclair's various re-filings and tweaks to the deal, and is doing that, but is also going to seek even more info on top-four market station ownership requests. That public notice signals the commission has what is expected to be essentially the final version of the deal, though still with questions about this latest iteration. 

A collection of progressive groups will launch a six figure digital ad offensive May 21 telling the Federal Trade Commission to break up Facebook’s social networking empire. The groups are asking for the FTC to do three things: