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DC Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s appellate court decisions and public comments suggest that he will accelerate the trend toward a political system dominated by wealthy elites — often operating in the shadows, without any form of disclosure. At a March 2016 event at the American Enterprise Institute, Kavanaugh was asked point-blank if he believes that “money spent during campaigns does represent speech, and therefore deserves First Amendment protection.” His answer: “Absolutely.” In 2009, Kavanaugh authored an opinion in a case called EMILY’s List v.

Secret donors financed more than four out of every 10 television ads that outside groups broadcast in 2018 to influence November’s high-stakes congressional elections. Leading the way: organizations affiliated with billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, whose conservative donor network plows hundreds of millions of dollars into politics and policy debates each election cycle.

Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) hosted a press conference July 11 to call for the Federal Communications Commission to convert its children's television notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) into a notice of inquiry (NOI) so it can collect more data on the impact of its proposals. He was joined by Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and other children's TV advocates.

Mail.Ru Group, a Russian internet company with links to the Kremlin, was among the firms to which Facebook gave an extension which allowed them to collect data on unknowing users of the social network after a policy change supposedly stopped such collection. Facebook said apps developed by Mail.Ru Group were being looked at as part of the company's wider investigation into the misuse of Facebook user data in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Mail.Ru Group developed hundreds of Facebook apps, some of which were test apps that were not made public.

When AT&T officially closed its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, it spun up advertising as one of four core pillars of its newly expanded business. Over the next few years, that business could grow into a beast tough enough to fight off the digital ad giants of the world. Though linear television is experiencing some secular decline, it’s still a massive advertising magnet. Before the merger, AT&T had access to a modest amount of ad inventory through its DirecTV platform.

Change is coming to HBO, now that it is part of the AT&T corporate family. John Tankey is a longtime AT&T executive who now oversees HBO in his new role as chief executive of Warner Media. He told employees that HBO would have to become more like a streaming giant to thrive in the new media landscape. Stankey described a future in which HBO would substantially increase its subscriber base and the number of hours that viewers spend watching its shows.

Privacy policies from companies including Facebook, Google and Amazon don’t fully meet the requirements of th European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according to the pan-European consumer group BEUC. An analysis of policies from 14 of the largest internet companies shows they use unclear language, claim “potentially problematic” rights, and provide insufficient information for users to judge what they are agreeing to.

Imagine if, ahead of HBO’s next “Westworld” premiere, AT&T sent a 5-minute video recap to millions of users it knows watch science fiction. The mobile giant could target young women with the latest trailer of Warner Bros.’s upcoming romantic comedy “Crazy Rich Asians.” Or analyze users’ interests to create customized CNN news clips for customers to watch on their lunch breaks.

During a daylong public hearing, the Federal Election Commission’s four remaining commissioners — two seats are vacant because President Donald Trump hasn’t appointed anyone to fill them — couldn’t find consensus on how to best drag federal political ad regulations into the Internet age. “I don’t think we’ve gotten very far,” FEC Chairwoman Caroline Hunter, a Republican, said two hours into the hearing, which featured testimony from 12 representatives of think tanks, activist groups and legal organizations.

Facebook and Google introduced new privacy settings in order to comply with Europe’s sweeping new privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation, but campaigners still aren’t satisfied. Some official complaints on the day the new law went into force, and now others have raised further concerns about how the companies manipulate people into exposing their data.