Reporting

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) chastised Democratic Reps for not rallying around her internet privacy bill, after they criticized the GOP’s efforts to kill privacy restrictions earlier in 2017. At a House Commerce technology subcommittee hearing on broadband coverage, Democratic Reps criticized the committee’s leadership for not holding hearings on net neutrality, internet privacy or oversight for the FCC. "I will say to my colleagues that I would be happy to discuss my Browser Act on the privacy issue, and we have reached out to all of the Democratic offices in the House on this issue,” Chairman Blackburn responded, adding that she was “disappointed” by the lack of response to her outreach.

A group of Democratic Sens is calling on the Justice Department to block the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger, arguing the megadeal would hurt consumers. “Before initiating the next big wave of media consolidation, you must consider how the $85 billion deal will impact Americans' wallets, as well as their access to a wide-range of news and entertainment programming,” the Sens wrote in a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “Should you determine that the substantial harms to competition and consumers arising from the transaction outweigh the purported benefits, you should reject the proposed acquisition.”

The group is led by Sen Al Franken (D-MN) and includes Sens Ed Markey (D-MA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). In their letter, the Democrats argued the merger could lead to less competition among mobile broadband and television providers. And they raised concerns AT&T could violate net neutrality principles by restricting competitors' online and television content in favor of its own.

Millennials in America are more likely to have visited a public library in the past year than any other adult generation. A new analysis of Pew Research Center survey data from fall 2016 finds that 53% of Millennials (those ages 18 to 35 at the time) say they used a library or bookmobile in the previous 12 months. That compares with 45% of Gen Xers, 43% of Baby Boomers and 36% of those in the Silent Generation. (It is worth noting that the question wording specifically focused on use of public libraries, not on-campus academic libraries.) All told, 46% of adults ages 18 and older say they used a public library or bookmobile in the previous 12 months – a share that is broadly consistent with Pew Research Center findings in recent years.

Sixty-percent of respondents in a Morning Consult/POLITICO poll said they support rules that say internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon “cannot block, throttle or prioritize certain content on the internet.” The difference between supporters by party was 2 percentage points, with 59 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of Democrats backing the rules. The same percentage of tea party supporters and Democrats expressed strong support for net neutrality, at 37 percent.

In 2014, Tumblr was on the front lines of the battle for network neutrality. The company stood alongside Amazon, Kickstarter, Etsy, Vimeo, Reddit, and Netflix during Battle for the Net’s day of action. Tumblr CEO David Karp was also part of a group of New York tech CEOs that met with then-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler in Brooklyn that summer, while the Federal Communications Commission was fielding public comment on new Title II rules. But three years later, as the battle for net neutrality heats up once again, Tumblr has been uncharacteristically silent.

One reason for Karp and Tumblr’s silence? Last week Verizon completed its acquisition of Tumblr parent company Yahoo, kicking off the subsequent merger of Yahoo and AOL to create a new company called Oath. As one of the world’s largest ISPs, Verizon is notorious for challenging the principles of net neutrality — it sued the FCC in an effort to overturn net neutrality rules in 2011, and its general counsel Kathy Grillo published a note this April complimenting new FCC chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to weaken telecommunication regulations.

Seventy percent of the general public agrees that news organizations "are subject to partisan agendas," with 85 percent of Republicans believing the news media is influenced by funding, according to a YouGov poll. "The rise of fake news, a growing multitude of media sources, and an increasingly polarized nation have Americans learning to take their headlines with a grain of salt," says the YouGov study. The research also shows that seven in 10 Americans agree that news organizations report stories in a way that's favorable to their owners. Not surprisingly, the poll differs along party lines, with 52 percent of Democrats believing the news media is influenced by funding. That number jumps to 85 percent when asking the same question to Republicans.

CenturyLink is facing more legal troubles as the telco has become the subject of a class-action suit from a group of customers seeking up to $12 billion in damages over claims of being overcharged for services and repairs. This is the second lawsuit the telecommunication company has faced in less than a week.
On June 16, a former employee sued the service provider over claims that she was fired for alerting the company about charging customers millions of dollars for services they never ordered. Heidi Heiser, who worked CenturyLink as a customer service and sales agent from August 2015 until October 2016, said in a lawsuit she was fired shortly after pointing the issue out to the service provider’s CEO Glen Post during a company Q&A session. Filed in the central district of California late Sunday night, the new larger lawsuit cites Heiser's suit and similar accusations posted on social media and consumer review websites by people who identify themselves as CenturyLink customers. These customers accuse CenturyLink of fraud, unfair competition and unjust enrichment.

Charter Communications responded to charges by New York regulators that it’s behind on obligations to expand its network tied to its merger last year with Time Warner Cable.

"Charter has met and even exceeded the vast majority of our key year-one commitments in New York associated with the merger," the company said in a statement. While it conceded that some delays have been caused by pole-attachment issues, the No. 2 U.S. cable operator added: "Thousands of upstate consumers now have access to Spectrum services where approvals and make-ready have occurred, and we have a solid deployment plan to reach the thousands of additional homes in our commitment.” The statement came after the New York Department of Public Service announced that Comcast is behind in its pledge, and that the cable company had agreed to pay $12 million on network expansion, as well as another $1 million to provide telecom equipment to low-income New York residents.

A Tennessee utility company has threatened to remove Comcast’s cables from its poles if the company doesn’t pay $176,000 the utility claims it's owed by June 28. "We've been going back and forth with them for going on three years now trying to get payment out of them," said Scott Sims, CFO for Southwest Tennessee Electric Membership Corp., to WREG-TV Memphis. The utility, which serves around 50,000 customers in Tipton County (TN) said it delivered a 30-day “final” notice to Comcast in late May, seeking a payment on a charges dating back to June 2014. It is unclear as to how many of the utility’s 50,000 customers also subscribe to Comcast services. For its part, Comcast is disputing the amount of the bill, claiming the utility double-charged it in 2015 after it allegedly found pole attachments Comcast hadn’t been paying for. Comcast said it requested evidence supporting the charges, but that it hasn’t been provided.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said the commission can do more with less—102 fewer full-time employees, for example—and his budget reflected that philosophy while still being able to serve the FCC's core mission of protecting the public interest and closing the digital divide. Chairman Pai, joined by Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael O'Rielly, testified on the FCC's budget before the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.

The FCC has asked for about $322 million, 5.2% less than the previous year, even though the FCC's budget has been flat since 2009. Chairman Pai conceded it was a challenge to do more with less but that the FCC had rolled up its sleeves. And while he said past chairmen had pointed out that the FCC is fully funded by fees charged to licensees, he also remembered—and more than one legislator reminded him—that someone was paying that fee, including businesses big and small and the consumers to whom those fees were passed along. Chairman Pai said that even with fewer people, the FCC had more than doubled the number of items it was dealing with at its public meetings—saying the average was not 5.83 items vs. 2.58 under his predecessor. He cited a number of cost savings as well, from closing an off-site warehouse to cutting down on the number of printers and copying machines.