Bloomberg

An ambitious Federal Communications Commission plan to kill a raft of limits on media companies’ reach is likely to wind up in court.

Facebook is struggling to stamp out fake news. The company outsources the process to third-party fact checkers who can only tackle a small fraction of the bogus news that floods the social network, according to interviews with people involved in the process. And screenshots obtained by Bloomberg reveal a process that some partners say is too cumbersome and inefficient to stop misinformation duplicating and spreading. “There is no silver bullet," Facebook said. "This is part of a multi-pronged approach to combating false news.

A vast majority of Americans—95 percent—say they are concerned about businesses’ collection and sale of their personal information without permission, according to a survey taken after the recent rollback of federal privacy rules for broadband providers. The Federal Communications Commission privacy rules had required providers such as Comcast and AT&T to get affirmative consent from subscribers before collecting or selling their data. Since President Donald Trump signed a bill into law rescinding those rules, the public debate over internet privacy has escalated.

The survey, published May 4 by software company Anchorfree, asked 2,000 consumers their views on internet access and privacy. Although 90 percent of Americans say internet access must be safe and secure, they are divided as to who should be responsible for ensuring such security. Two out of five Americans say the federal government is responsible, while another two out of five point to network providers, the survey said.

An order that Alphabet's Google turn over customer data stored overseas relied more on the specific storage technology at play than on an outdated federal e-mail privacy law. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler of the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled April 19 that Google must turn over customer data stored overseas subject to a valid search warrant issued in June 2016 under the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2701. The ruling may not offer real clarity sought by companies that store large amounts of data in the cloud, such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.com, on whether they must comply with government demands for the release of consumer data stored outside the US. But it does offer some insight into how courts may parse the technological issues surrounding the storage of data and identification of the consumers tied to that data by focusing on the ability of the company to readily identify the citizenship of a particular user.

When Washington became enmeshed in a yearlong debate over internet regulation in early 2014, Netflix emerged as one of the biggest champions of network neutrality. When Netflix wrote its letter in 2014, it had about 33 million subscribers in the US. It also wasn’t yet the cultural force it is today. The company has since increased American subscribers by nearly 50 percent while revenue there doubled. This gives it considerable leverage in negotiations with internet providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon.

Smaller tech companies still discuss the issue in more urgent terms. When Snap filed to go public in 2017, it warned that weaker rules could allow mobile internet providers to undermine its service in various ways. “Were that to happen, our business would be seriously harmed,” Snap wrote in a securities filing.

Residents of rural United Kingdom are one step closer to gaining access to faster internet services capable of streaming high-definition TV shows and movies. The British Parliament passed a law giving the government authority to introduce a universal service obligation that would require broadband download speeds of 10 megabits a second for the remaining 5 percent of the population that don’t have access to that level of service -- about 1.4 million homes. To subscribe to online video services that have become increasingly popular around the world, you need fast a broadband connection. Almost 250,000 UK premises can’t get speeds higher than 2 megabits, and more than 600,000 can’t get 5, according to a report in 2016 from Ofcom, the UK communications regulator.

The vote follows months of discussions between Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government and BT Group Plc, the former British phone monopoly, about offering basic broadband in rural areas. Implementation of the law will be the responsibility of a future government, with British voters heading to the polls on June 8 for a general election called earlier this month. The broadband provision was part of the Digital Economy Bill, among several rushed through Parliament before shutting down in advance of the election.

When Hulu introduced a commercial-free option in 2015, NBC executives were frustrated. Despite owning a stake in Hulu, they could only watch even though they preferred that streaming-video provider stick with an advertising-supported model, apparently. For the past six years, the media giant has been barred from having any say over Hulu, which is also owned by Walt Disney Co., 21st Century Fox Inc. and Time Warner Inc. It’s one of dozens of restrictions that Comcast accepted to win approval to buy NBCUniversal, home of the NBC broadcast network, cable channels like USA and MSNBC, theme parks and a film studio. Now, Comcast and NBC can start to contemplate a world without government constraints. The last restrictions expire in September 2018. NBC is planning an online video service with shows from its own TV networks in the next 12 to 18 months, apparently.That sort of thing has been difficult for the media company to do up to now. “The handcuffs are off,” said Amy Yong, an analyst at Macquarie. “Now that the conditions are expiring, they’re more free to explore their options.”

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.

Apparently, Verizon has been securing streaming rights from television network owners in preparation for the nationwide launch of a live online TV service. The telecommunications company plans to start selling a package with dozens of channels this summer. The live, over-the-internet TV service would be a first for Verizon -- separate from go90, a YouTube-like streaming-video service aimed at teens -- and also independent of its FiOS home TV offer, apparently. Verizon’s preparations highlight the growing pressure to provide a cheaper, smaller package of TV networks to viewers who are turned off by a glut of programming available on traditional cable packages. Dish Network Corp. introduced a similar service, Sling TV, two years ago, and AT&T’s DirecTV Now came out late in 2016.