Axios

For tech executives, the Trump administration's child separation policy provided a moment of clarity when the choice to speak out was relatively easy. But after Trump's executive order, companies were once again struggling to figure out how to respond.

The White House is in the early stages of determining what a federal approach to online data privacy should look like. The preliminary conversations show that the White House wants a voice in the contentious domestic and global debate about how to protect consumer privacy online. Gail Slater, special assistant to President Donald Trump for tech, telecom and cyber policy at the White House National Economic Council, has met with industry groups to discuss possible ways to put in place guardrails for the use of personal data, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner will create a media conglomerate that combines premium content with a vast distribution network to deliver it to consumers. One of its first experiments in marrying the two will be a "skinny bundle" called AT&T Watch, providing Time Warner content (minus sports) to mobile customers.

Several major acquisitions have helped Google and Facebook on their way to unprecedented dominance over the advertising supply chain, antitrust analysts argued at the Open Markets Institute forum. There are six acquisitions that experts cited as missed opportunities by regulators at the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to curb the advertising market dominance of Google and Facebook.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that competition regulators should weigh the increased dominance of Google and Facebook over the digital ad market. “We do want to make sure that there is a competitive marketplace, so that involves taking a holistic view of what the market structure is,” Chairman Pai said, noting his comments were not about a specific transaction.

The dissolution of net neutrality regulations and the AT&T/Time Warner decision could shape the internet for years to come.