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DOJ Weighs Suit Against AT&T’s Deal for Time Warner
Apparently, the Justice Department is considering a lawsuit challenging AT&T's planned acquisition of Time Warner if the government and companies can’t agree on terms that would satisfy antitrust concerns. The department’s antitrust division is preparing for litigation in case it decides to sue to block the deal. Simultaneously, the department and the companies are discussing possible settlement terms that would lead to the deal winning government approval with conditions attached. The two sides, however, aren’t yet close to an agreement, apparently. The outcome could go either way and the timing of any decision remains uncertain. Most outside observers have believed the deal, valued at $85 billion when it was announced in 2016, was likely headed for government approval. The recent developments aren’t necessarily an indication that the deal is in trouble, but they do suggest more regulatory uncertainty for the companies than many analysts anticipated. “Vertical mergers like this one are routinely approved because they benefit consumers without removing any competitor from the market,” an AT&T spokesman said. “While we won’t comment on our discussions with DOJ, we can say that this transaction should be no exception.”
AT&T wants to close its deal with Time Warner. But first, it has to go through Makan Delrahim
The biggest corporate acquisition of the year is inching closer to resolution. With President Donald Trump's top antitrust official, Makan Delrahim, getting up to speed in his new job, many analysts predict the Justice Department could rule on AT&T's purchase of Time Warner in a matter of weeks. The Justice Department is still talking to the companies involved, as well as outside parties, to try to understand how the deal could affect competition. If the agency concludes the deal is no good in any fashion, it could file a lawsuit to try to block the acquisition. But the transaction could also still be approved, possibly in a modified form. The question of what the final version looks like is where it gets interesting. And a key variable in the outcome will likely be CNN, the cable channel that President Trump frequently criticizes. Some regulators — particularly at the Justice Department — argue that behavioral remedies are a relatively intrusive regulatory tool, and that the government should use more limited forms of intervention when it can. One proponent of this idea? Makan Delrahim, the man who is now leading the Justice Department's antitrust division. In a speech recently at New York University, Delrahim made a passionate argument for limited federal intervention in competitive marketplaces. In plain English, don't try to fix what isn't broken. "Antitrust employs law enforcement principles to maximize economic liberty subject to minimal government imposition," he said.
Democratic Reps Seek Own Sinclair Data Dump
Over four dozen Democratic House members have written Sinclair President Chris Ripley asking for answers to over a dozen questions related to the proposed Tribune merger and its impact on the public interest, as well as suggesting the company commit to not raising retransmission fees for its newly acquired stations. The letter comes as the Federal Communications Commission is about to start its informal 180-day shot clock on the merger after pausing it to give the public more time to comment on Sinclair's response to the FCC's second request for info on the deal. Citing Ripley's confidence the deal would be approved by the FCC by the end of 2017, the legislators suggested that timetable would be troubling given the deal's complexity, its "historic reach," and its "failure to comply with the FCC's media ownership rules." Sinclair has said it would comply with all relevant FCC rules, though if FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's broadcast deregulation proposal is approved at the Nov 16 meeting, as expected, those rules could change in Sinclair's favor. They also suggest Sinclair commit to not increasing the percentage of "must-run" national programming, to not charging more in retransmission fees, and ask whether it has corresponded with FCC officials using non-government e-mail addresses of social media. They asked or answers from the broadcaster by Nov 10.
U.S. Prosecutors Consider Charging Russian Officials in DNC Hacking Case
Apparently, the Justice Department has identified more than six members of the Russian government involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee’s computers and swiping sensitive information that became public during the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors and agents have assembled evidence to charge the Russian officials and could bring a case in 2018. Discussions about the case are in the early stages, apparently. If filed, the case would provide the clearest picture yet of the actors behind the DNC intrusion. US intelligence agencies have attributed the attack to Russian intelligence services, but haven't provided detailed information about how they concluded those services were responsible, or any details about the individuals allegedly involved. The high-profile hack of the DNC’s computers played a central role in the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment in January that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S."
Are Facebook, Twitter, and Google American Companies?
On Oct 31’s technology-executive hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee, a key tension at the heart of the internet emerged: Do American tech companies, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google, operate as American companies? Or are they in some other global realm, maybe in some place called cyberspace? In response to a tough line of questions from Sen Tom Cotton (R-AR), Twitter’s acting general counsel, Sean Edgett, gave two conflicting answers within a couple of minutes. Watching the Senators realize that a transfer of power has already occurred between governments around the world and the tech titans, however, seemed to portend that legislators may eventually seek greater changes.
How Russian trolls got into your Facebook feed
On Nov 1, Congress released some of the 3,000 Facebook ads and Twitter accounts created by Russian operatives to sway American voters. These disturbing messages, seen by up to 126 million Americans, raise thorny questions about Silicon Valley’s responsibility for vetting the information it publishes. Beyond Washington, it leaves all of us who use social media to keep up with friends, share photos and follow news wondering: How’d the Russians get to me? The short answer is Silicon Valley made it very easy. You were in Russia’s crosshairs if you liked the Facebook page of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Same goes for people who said they were fans of Martin Luther King, Jr. Russians even targeted people who shared enough stuff about the South that Facebook tagged them being interested in “Dixie.”
Bipartisan Group of Senators Urge FCC to Ensure Access to Affordable Broadband in Rural Communities
Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) led a bipartisan group of thirty-nine Sens in a letter urging the Federal Communications Commission to ensure its commitment to affordable and reliable broadband for consumers in hardest to reach communities across rural America. “A lack of resources to meet our [shared national broadband] goals is undermining investment and consumer access to affordable broadband across much of rural America. For this reason, we write to encourage the FCC to take the much-needed step of addressing the High-Cost Universal Service Fund budget shortfall,” the senators wrote. “Many of the providers that serve rural consumers and businesses in our states have already begun to feel the pain of an arbitrary budget cap on High-Cost USF support. We urge the FCC to take action as quickly as possible to ensure the High-Cost USF program provides sufficient and predictable support to help deliver affordable, high-quality broadband to rural consumers.”
The Origin And Evolution Of The Digital Divide
[Commentary] Things have improved in the last 20-plus years: We’ve gone from 15 million people on the internet when I joined the Clinton Administration to 3.5 billion on the internet today worldwide and, in the U.S., we’re 80 to 85 percent connected. The numbers are moving in the right direction, but we won’t be done until there is no gap, until every person who wants access has access to the information and opportunities the internet provides. We’re still hammering away at the problem of the connectivity gap, but the face of the problem has changed as well. Once we’ve gotten kids connected to the internet we need to make sure they have the appropriate physical tools, mobile phones, tablets, laptops, to wield that power effectively. Verizon’s new documentary on the subject, Without A Net: The Digital Divide in America, posits that we need a three-pronged approach: connectivity, hardware access and teacher training. [Larry Irving is the CEO of The Irving Group. This post was presented by Verizon]
AG Sessions blasts tech firms for blocking access to encrypted evidence
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is taking aim at technology firms for preventing law enforcement from accessing encrypted evidence for ongoing terror investigations, warning that such actions could have “deadly consequences.” The issue has become a point of tension between tech companies and federal investigators in high-profile cases, such as the 2016 dispute between the FBI and Apple over data stored on an iPhone belonging to a suspect in the 2015 San Bernardino terror attack. Sessions, who delivered remarks on national security in New York City, said that over the past year the FBI was unable to access nearly 7,500 mobile devices in connection with ongoing investigations “even though there was court orders or legal authority to do so.” The figure echoed remarks made by FBI Director Christopher Wray in October, who said the bureau had been unable to obtain data from over 6,900 mobile devices in 11 months. "This failure to get encrypted information in a timely manner causes law enforcement to waste even more valuable time and resources,” Sessions said. “And it could have potentially deadly consequences.”
DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shutting Down
A week ago, reporters and editors in the combined newsroom of DNAinfo and Gothamist, two of New York City’s leading digital purveyors of local news, celebrated victory in their vote to join a union. On Nov 2, they lost their jobs, as Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade who owned the sites, shut them down. At 5 pm, a post went up on the sites from Ricketts announcing the decision. He praised them for reporting “tens of thousands of stories that have informed, impacted and inspired millions of people.” But he added, “DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure.” For DNAinfo and Gothamist, the staff’s vote to join the Writer’s Guild of America East was just part of the decision to close the company. A spokesperson for DNAinfo said in a statement, “The decision by the editorial team to unionize is simply another competitive obstacle making it harder for the business to be financially successful.” The decision puts 115 journalists out of work, both at the New York operations that unionized, and at those in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington that did not.
More Americans are turning to multiple social media sites for news
Americans are more likely than ever to get news from multiple social media sites, according to a recent Pew Research Center report. About a quarter of all US adults (26%) get news from two or more social media sites, up from 15% in 2013 and 18% in 2016. But there is considerable variation in the extent to which each site’s news users get news from other sites, and which sites those are. Facebook claims the largest share of social media news consumers, and its news users are much more likely to rely solely on that site for news. Just under half (45%) of U.S. adults use Facebook for news. Half of Facebook’s news users get news from that social media site alone, with just one-in-five relying on three or more sites for news. U.S. adults who get news from multiple social networking sites are more likely to be nonwhite and younger. About half (47%) of news consumers who rely on two or more social media sites for news are nonwhite (including Hispanics), compared with about one-fourth (26%) of those who use just one site.
Facebook, Take Note: In China’s ‘New Era,’ the Communist Party Comes First
American tech giants need to rethink their relationship with China. Now. The need to do so was evident on Oct 30 when Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, and a bevy of other leaders in the worlds of technology, finance and industry were whisked to the Great Hall of the People to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. President Xi was fresh off a Communist Party congress that anointed him as China’s paramount leader. The business chieftains, members of an advisory board to Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management, were the first foreigners to congratulate President Xi in person on his success. Congratulate, they did. According to the official People’s Daily, Cook expressed his admiration for President Xi’s leadership in global governance. Zuckerberg borrowed a phrase from President Xi’s speech to the congress, “Never forget where you started,” and hoped China would develop as fast as it has the past 30 years.