Multichannel News

Brian Hart, director of the Federal Communications Commission’s office of media relations, said that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai “plans to lead the FCC for the foreseeable future.” Pai — a Republican appointed to the commission by President Barack Obama in 2012, then named chair by President Donald Trump in Jan 2017 — was asked after the FCC’s Oct 23 public meeting whether he planned to remain in that post if the Democrats took over the House in the 2018 midterm elections.

In a brief filed in court, AT&T argues that the Department of Justice used bad numbers to come to the wrong conclusion about AT&T-Time Warner merger and a lower court was right to reject that conclusion and allow the deal. AT&T pointed out in its brief to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that, "in the crucible of litigation, DOJ's claims were exposed to be both narrow and fragile," and ultimately fell apart. "Relying primarily on a theoretical model that purports to simulate the bargaining dynamics between programmers and pay-TV distributors, DOJ sought to prove that t

The American Cable Association, NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, USTelecom and CTIA filed suit Oct 18 in a federal district court in Vermont against a law and executive order that attempt to regulate internet access and restore net neutrality rules rolled back by the Federal Communications Commission. "As the FCC has repeatedly recognized, internet traffic flows freely between states, making it difficult or impossible for a provider to distinguish traffic moving within Vermont from traffic that crosses state borders.

At an event celebrating the 20th anniversary of his Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) said protecting children's privacy is a moving target, but a target that must be hit -- including taking on big companies who collect and mine children's data. Sen Markey said his strategy will be to push for extending COPPA protections to all children under 16 (currently it is under 13) and for an eraser button that allows parents and kids to delete information from their online history (the California privacy bill has such an eraser button).