Ownership

[Commentary] AT&T-Time Warner: The merger is vertical in nature, whereas the Disney-Fox merger is horizontal. But AT&T-Time Warner is a key merger from which to gather clues about the Department of Justice’s antitrust enforcement priorities under the new leadership of Makan Delrahim. Again, vertical mergers historically have been treated as either beneficial to consumers or having an ambiguous or benign impact on consumer welfare. Yet the proposed vertical merger is subject to a DOJ court action to block the merger.

Politics have been at the center of the public debate about the Justice Department’s lawsuit to block AT&T’s $85 billion purchase of Time Warner. But the trial itself, starting later in March, is shaping up to be a fight focused on classic issues in antitrust law.  In court filings on March 9, the Justice Department and AT&T laid out the arguments that they plan to make in the trial. Regulators will argue that the deal will hurt competition and lead to higher prices.

Microsoft is targeting public school buses as a part of its initiative to provide rural broadband in 12 states between now and 2022. But as of right now, it’s unclear how the data of these children would be protected. Microsoft declined to comment on the record. The big question is what Microsoft will get in return for providing this broadband access, especially considering the precedent for private companies grabbing, tracking, and storing user data in exchange for public Wi-Fi. 

[Commentary] Sinclair’s behavior in trying to merge with Tribune is doing it — and the entire broadcasting industry — no favors. By dragging out this process, and by pressing for every advantage, Sinclair is making life difficult for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, who has been broadcasters’ best friend in that job in decades.

The Federal Communications Commission has dismissed a complaint against Comcast filed by a rival that said it was forced "to pay a punitive ransom" of $3.5 million in order to keep airing Comcast-owned TV programming. Wave Broadband filed what it called a petition for declaratory ruling, claiming that Comcast engaged in unfair acts and practices that prevented Wave from providing programming to subscribers. But the FCC's Media Bureau decided that Wave's petition was actually a program access complaint—and there is a strict deadline for filing such complaints.

A group of former Justice Department officials is raising concerns about whether President Donald Trump had any improper influence over the agency’s decision to sue to block the $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner merger. In a federal court filing submitted late March 9, the group urged the judge to explore whether the White House had pressured the Justice Department to file the lawsuit as retaliation for critical coverage from CNN, an outlet that President Trump often criticizes and a subsidiary of Time Warner.

Free Press has joined Common Cause, Communications Workers of America and the Office of Communication, Inc. of the United Church of Christ to file suit against Federal Communications Commission efforts to repeal local media-ownership limits.

[Commentary] Are Facebook and Google's practices of privileging certain information really analogous to what newspaper editors do, and therefore similarly protected by the First Amendment? The answer is no. Making decisions about what and how information is conveyed does not automatically make one an editor entitled to First Amendment protection. 

Proposed Federal Election Commission rules aimed at preventing foreign influence on US elections through better disclosure of online political ad sponsors may not take effect before the 2018 midterms, Chairwoman Caroline Hunter said.  “The commission has been reluctant to change the rules of the game in the middle of the election season, so that would be something we would want to seriously consider,” she said. 

Republican lawmakers and conservative media critics pressed President Donald Trump to explore new restrictions on the video-game industry, arguing that violent games might have contributed to mass shootings like the recent attack at a high school in Parkland (FL). In a private meeting at the White House, also attended by several video-game executives, some participants urged President Trump to consider new regulations that would make it harder for children to purchase those games. Others asked the president to expand his inquiry to focus on violent movies and TV shows too.