Mark Bergen

Apparently, to satisfy regulators, YouTube officials are finalizing plans to end “targeted” advertisements on videos kids are likely to watch. The move could immediately dent ad sales for the video giant -- though not nearly as much as other proposals on the table. The Federal Trade Commission is looking into whether YouTube breached the Children’s Online Privacy Act (COPPA). The agency reached a settlement with YouTube, but has not released the terms. It is not clear if YouTube’s changes to ad targeting are a result of the settlement. The plans could still change, apparently.

Google has been quietly urging the US government to narrow legal protection for workers organizing online. During the Obama administration, the National Labor Relations Board broadened employees’ rights to use their workplace email system to organize around issues on the job. In a 2014 case, Purple Communications, the agency restricted companies from punishing employees for using their workplace email systems for activities like circulating petitions or fomenting walkouts, as well as trying to form a union.

A backlash against the app stores of Apple and Google is gaining steam, with a growing number of companies saying the tech giants are collecting too high a tax for connecting consumers to developers’ wares. Netflix and video game makers Epic Games and Valve are among companies that have recently tried to bypass the app stores or complained about the cost of the tolls Apple and Google charge. Grumbling about app store economics isn’t new.

A Google-led plan to overhaul how valuable airwaves are used for calls and texts is gaining momentum across the wireless industry, giving the company the chance to play a central role in networks of the future. Citizens Broadband Radio Service, or CBRS, is a fat slice of the US airwaves being freed from the military’s exclusive control. Instead of just zipping messages between aircraft carriers and fighter jets, the spectrum will be shared by the Navy, wireless carriers like Verizon, cable companies including Comcast, and even hospitals, refineries, and sports stadiums.

Alphabet Inc’s Access division, which houses its broadband service Google Fiber, has removed two prominent executives from its ranks, the latest sign of the business pulling back from ambitious, expensive goals. Milo Medin, a vice president at Access, and Dennis Kish, a wireless infrastructure veteran who was president of Google Fiber, are leaving the division but staying at the Alphabet holding company. The Access division has continued to shrink. About 600 employees are currently being reassigned to the Google internet business and other Alphabet divisions, apparently.

Critics, including more than a dozen former top Google executives who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they signed nondisclosure agreements, describe a company having trouble balancing innovation and its core business, search advertising. Over the 12 months ended in September, Google’s ad business accounted for 89 percent of Alphabet’s revenue, or $76.1 billion. As one ex-executive puts it, “No one wants to face the reality that this is an advertising company with a bunch of hobbies.”

At first, Google Fiber delivered super-fast Internet through fiber pipes. Now it’s moving to do that without any pipes at all — and may soon be offering that option in more places.

A new Federal Communications Commission filing reveals that Google Fiber is seeking permission to test wireless broadband tech in 24 US locations, including at least 12 cities. If approved, it would mark the most ambitious step in Fiber’s strategy to build out a nationwide broadband network with reduced costs and much faster rollout. The locations Fiber is scouting, according to the FCC listing, include some cities where it is currently operating, like San Francisco, as well as places where it is not, like Boulder (CO) and Reston (VA). In order to effectively deploy the kind of wireless internet to the home that Fiber is thinking of, the company needs to rely on some sort of backhaul — as in, existing fiber optic pipes or Google infrastructure.

Apple's mobile-operating system is losing its advantage over Google's Android when it comes to attracting advertisers' dollars, according to a new study.

In a report, mobile-ad platform Opera Mediaworks found that devices running Android sent a greater percentage of ad requests in the first quarter of 2014 than those running Apple's iOS.

"The quality of the advertising that we can deliver on a Samsung and Android device is pretty much on par with an iOS," Mahi de Silva, CEO of Opera Mediaworks said. The report found that, in the first quarter, Android devices' share of mobile-ad requests reached 42.8%, up from 31.3%. Over that time iOS's share fell to 38.2% from 44.5%.

Mobile advertising is swiftly becoming a two-horse race. According to the latest eMarketer forecast, mobile ad spending worldwide grew by 105% in 2013 and is on pace to expand to $31.5 billion in 2014.

And the two Internet giants, Google and Facebook, are increasingly taking the lion's share -- the pair netted 67% of mobile ad revenues in 2013, up from 58% in 2012.

The current report marks yet another adjustment from the research firm, as mobile ad dollars balloon far faster than expected. The final spending figure of $18 billion is nearly double the firm's estimates from just four months ago. Much of the tweaking is due to Facebook, whose share of net revenues more than tripled, to 18%, in 2013, only its second year in the mobile ad business.

Say hello to the new first screen: your phone. Daily time spent on mobile devices is now outpacing TV in the US for the first time, according a newly-released 2014 AdReaction study from Millward Brown.

Americans now spend 151 minutes per day on smartphones, next to 147 in front of TVs. But the numbers are even greater elsewhere.

In China, consumers spend a whopping 170 minutes a day buried in smartphones, nearly double their TV watching time. Users in Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil and Vietnam also spend more total screen minutes on average than the US, predominately on mobile. The firm surveyed more than 12,000 mobile users, between the ages of 16 and 44, in 30 different countries, polling consumption of ads over TVs, laptops, smartphones and tablets.