Lauren Frayer

A recent tweet from the Associated Press indicates it learned of a meeting between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian President Vladimir Putin not from Tillerson's team but from Putin's. What's more, after allowing US journalists to accompany him to the Osobnyak Guest House in Moscow for a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Tillerson ditched reporters before meeting Putin at the Kremlin. Throughout the day, Russia drove US media coverage by pushing out a steady stream of information (or disinformation) that the State Department was slow to match.

President Donald Trump has been treated better by Fox News since Rupert Murdoch took over for Roger Ailes -- and he knows it. The president has been heard on multiple occasions talking about how Fox's coverage of him has become more positive since Murdoch took the reins at the network, sources at both the White House and Fox News told CNNMoney.

The president "talks about how the coverage under Murdoch is better than under Ailes," a White House source said. According to New York magazine's Gabriel Sherman, President Trump was also heard on a hot mic this week telling Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, "Rupert's been a lot better to me than Roger ever was." The president's sentiments about Murdoch may explain why he repeatedly gives interviews to Fox outlets while ignoring other networks.

[Commentary] By all means, let’s use the President Donald Trump fuss about spying to foster a discussion about so-called “incidental” spying that collects the American side of a conversation with a targeted foreigner without a warrant. Let’s be honest that “incidental” spying—to identify potential spies or terrorists collaborating with foreigners—is a big part of the point of the spying. But let’s not let political expediency completely muddle that discussion and, in the process, misrepresent where the greatest risks in America’s spying programs lie.

[Marcy Wheeler is a journalist specializing in national security and civil liberties]

USTelecom, which represents major phone Internet service providers, was rooting on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's business data service (BDS) proposal, which deregulates rates for incumbent providers like USTelecom members AT&T and Verizon where there is competition—and Pai signals he thinks that is a lot of places. But the association was pushing even further, saying the item could have been even more deregulatory. Chairman Pai has scheduled a vote on his proposal for April 20.

According to an ex parte notice of an April 10 meeting between USTelecom execs, including its president Jonathan Spalter, and Pai. They told Pai that the proposal to "reduce" the FCC's "price setting role" was "relatively constrained" and pointed to the benefits of more broad price relief, including a finding that incumbent telecoms are no longer de facto dominant.

Rhode Island and Delaware have the fastest internet speeds in the country, according to a new analysis from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). The two states boasted mean internet speeds of 16.9 megabits per second (Mbps) and 16.5 Mbps, respectively. Both are over 2 Mbps over the 2015 national average of 14.6 Mbps, which saw an increase from the 2015 national average of 11.8 Mbps. At the opposite end, Kentucky and Idaho had the slowest internet speeds at 10.7 Mbps and 10.4 Mbps, respectively. The trade group's full analysis, dubbed the Innovation Scorecard, includes a comprehensive set of measures to assess how states are progressing with technology and how friendly they are to innovation.

One of the biggest selling points for YouTube TV is live local channels. Want to watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs on NBC directly on your phone? Or the upcoming NBA Playoff matchups broadcast on ABC? No need to mess with a pesky antenna—stream locals right to your device. The problem comes when you try to spread to the smaller markets where the networks don't have full ownership of the affiliates. The deals can be both difficult and expensive, as previously discussed here. And it's what could potentially keep YouTube TV from spreading across the United States.

[Commentary] Shortly after being designated as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai announced his moon shot: closing the digital divide. In a refreshing and pragmatic break from central planning of the broadband economy, the FCC launched the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), a diverse group of experts tasked with making recommendations on how to accelerate the deployment of high-speed internet access by reducing and removing regulatory barriers to infrastructure investment.

To be sure, the US is the global leader in broadband infrastructure investment, accounting for one-quarter of the world’s total, but the process to deploy infrastructure could be improved. The BDAC demonstrates the open innovation model to broadband deployment policy, recognizing that the solutions to closing the digital divide reside not necessarily in the FCC, but in the knowledge of a multitude of actors on the ground.

[Layton is a PhD Fellow at the Center for Communication, Media, and Information Technologies (CMI) at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, Denmark. She also served on President Trump's FCC Landing Team.]

[Commentary] A way we can protect the internet, at least in America, from both political whiplash in DC and the constant commercial overreach that threatens it. I say we treat the internet as both a unique resource and a great common engineering project, something that merits government protection.

I suggest that Congress pass a broad law setting out the national interest in protecting the internet and the general principles by which that protection would be defined. This wouldn’t be one of those famous 1,200-page bills nobody can read. It would be meant as a sort of statutory manifesto.

Then, in that same bill, Congress creates a special, permanent, nonpartisan independent commission, or even a special, narrowly focused court, to adjudicate disputes about internet issues as they arise, by interpreting the law. This would build up a body of precedent. Notice I am not suggesting the writing of any regulations, because this idea aims for the lightest touch possible. This entity would also remove the politically charged, slow-moving, compromised Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission from internet regulation.

If you don’t like this plan, come up with a better one, or a modified one. But we do need a plan. Every few years, the feds and the courts change direction or fail to answer important questions. And every day, the internet becomes more of a platform for lousy ads, for increasing the power of a few rich companies and for intrusive tracking. It’s too important to leave unprotected.

[Commentary] There are economic issues that may arise as the “internet of things” IoT matures; Here are six that bear watching:

1. Economic Productivity: some believe now that IoT can boost productivity growth by increasing the efficiency of traditional business operations such as manufacturing, transportation, and retail.
2. The Nature of Competition: In antitrust terms, many more kinds of products and services could occupy adjacent levels of a value chain in a “vertical” relationship. This occurs where consumer demand for two products is closely related.
3. How open will IoT be? History suggests that policymakers may scrutinize any IoT players that wield excessive power over consumers, perhaps in the antitrust context or as a separate question of regulation.
4. Who Owns Big Data, Your Data? Big banks and Silicon Valley are waging an escalating war over your personal financial data.
5. Standards Set Terms of Competition: An established standard can boost competition by allowing different devices to communicate with each other. It can also grant the winner a big marketplace advantage.
6. Economic Regulation and the Impact on Competition: Regulation can either intentionally or inadvertently shape competition.

[Sallet is a visiting fellow at Brookings in Governance Studies. Previously, he served as deputy assistant attorney general for Litigation at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division from 2016-17. Prior to joining the Division in 2016, Mr. Sallet was general counsel at the Federal Communications Commission.]

Using Skype, the video-call app, the White House has extended the daily question-and-answer sessions for the first time to people in far-flung locales. The innovation, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, “has been very successful bringing in additional reporters beyond the Beltway.” Except that many of the people who have occupied the “Skype seat” aren’t reporters at all.

Many have been conservative talk-show hosts who are receptive to, or openly cheering for, Trump’s agenda. Since Spicer initiated the calls, he has taken questions from the likes of nationally syndicated radio personalities and regional hosts. The newbies have made little attempt to conceal their points of view, their enthusiasm for President Donald Trump or simply their contempt for the news media.