Digital Content

Facebook, Google, and Amazon all have business models that require them to scoop up large amounts of data about people to power their algorithms, and they derive their power from this information. Like the oil barons at the turn of the 20th century, the data barons are determined to extract as much as possible of a resource that’s central to the economy of their time. The more information they can get to feed the algorithms that power their ad-targeting machines and product-recommendation engines, the better. Their dominance is allowing them to play a dangerous and outsize role in our polit

AT&T will soon offer a new streaming video service thanks to its acquisition of Time Warner, and it will be buying more companies in order to beef up its advertising platform, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said. The streaming service will be free for AT&T mobile customers who subscribe to unlimited data plans and $15 a month for everyone else. AT&T will announce more acquisitions soon to improve its advertising system.

The US Supreme Court agreed to hear Apple's bid to kill an antitrust lawsuit over the market for iPhone apps in a case that could shield e-commerce companies from consumer claims over high commissions. The lawsuit accuses Apple of monopolizing the app market so it can charge excessive commissions of 30 percent. Apple, backed by the Trump administration, says it can’t be sued because the commission is levied on the app developers, not the purchasers who are suing.

Historians may look back on this week as a turning point in the evolution of the internet. First came the end of net neutrality rules which ensured that broadband and wireless providers couldn't act as gatekeepers picking and choosing who succeeds on the internet and who doesn't. Then a federal judge decided to allow AT&T, one of the largest broadband and wireless providers in the country, and Time Warner, a major media company, to merge without any conditions.

Ultimately, the internet could someday look like the current cable model where the internet service provider takes a portion of advertising revenue and subscriber fees. “This would be gradual and would most likely affect new services that would have been free, but we may now have to pay for,” said Marty Puranik, chief executive officer of cloud service provider Atlantic.Net.

The relationship between technology platforms and news publishers has endured a fraught 18 months. Even so, the external forces of civic and regulatory pressure are hastening a convergence between the two at an accelerated rate beyond what we saw when we published our first report from this study in March 2017. Journalism has played a critical part in pushing for accountability into the practices of companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter, yet newsrooms are increasingly oriented toward understanding and leveraging platforms as part of finding a sustainable future.

The House Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection Subcommittee drilled down on targeted digital advertising. Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta (R-OH) said the idea behind the hearing was to look at the benefits as well as the "emerging, high-profile challenges" of digital advertising, including the Russian election influence ads that have drawn calls, and some action, for better identifying who is placing those digital ads. The use of the word "challenges" was telling. Other legislators have labeled them "scandals" or "problems" in need of government fixes. Subcommittee 

Since 2004, Pew Research Center has issued an annual report on key audience and economic indicators for a variety of sectors within the US news media industry. On June 13, 2018, Pew released the Newspapers Fact Sheet. 

AT&T emerged victorious from its courtroom battle with the Department of Justice. What this means for the future of TV: