Ownership

The founder and former CEO of Boost Mobile USA says the proposed T-Mobile-Sprint merger should not happen.

Major news organizations raised objections to Facebook's plans to treat ads promoting political news coverage the same as political advocacy ads. Under changes Facebook will roll out May 22 aimed at combating the spread of political misinformation, all Facebook ads featuring political content will get a “Paid for by” label and would carry a disclaimer. Publishers say these new rules are too broad. These political messaging labels would also appear on "sponsored" posts that news organizations buy to amplify the reach of an article or video on the political news of the day.

Apparently, President Donald Trump has personally pushed US Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rate the Postal Service charges Amazon.com and other firms to ship packages, a dramatic move that probably would cost these companies billions of dollars. Brennan has so far resisted Trump’s demand, explaining in multiple conversations occurring in 2018 and last that these arrangements are bound by contracts and must be reviewed by a regulatory commission, apparently.

One of the federal agencies that must sign off on the proposed merger between Sprint and T-Mobile is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), and that agency has become a more important factor in recent international merger-and-acquisition action.  Indeed, under the Trump administration and led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the CFIUS played a critical role in ultimately blocking Broadcom’s attempted hostile takeover of Qualcomm over national security concerns.

Unfortunately, there is a false narrative in Washington (DC) that ATSC 3.0 will only benefit one particular company.  In fact, this narrative goes even further, suggesting everything the Federal Communications Commission has done in the media space over the last 17 months has been to benefit one company, in this case, Sinclair Broadcast Group. This misguided fantasy is perplexing to other broadcast stations across the country that have seen real benefits to our actions.

Europe’s new data and privacy rules take effect May 25, clarifying individual rights to the personal data collected by companies around the world for targeted advertising and other purposes. Not much will change for you, at least right away; companies will keep on collecting and analyzing personal data from your phone, the apps you use and the sites you visit.

On April 16, 2018, Sen Dick Durbin (D-IL) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai regarding the merger between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media Company. "In making its determination whether the proposed merger to allow a single company to reach 72 percent of U.S. television households serves the public interest, I urge the FCC to carefully consider Sinclair's conduct and the significant harm it poses," Sen Durbin wrote.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the June Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, June 7, 2018:

In 2013 Mark Zuckerberg debuted a bold, humanitarian vision of global internet. It didn’t go as planned—forcing Facebook to reckon with the limits of its own ambition.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) has filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board against AT&T and Nexstar Media Group after the companies failed to provide information sought by the union about how the businesses planned to use their savings from the corporate tax cuts in the Republican tax law. “Like so many companies, AT&T promised that it would use savings from the tax bill to create good, family-supporting U.S. jobs,” said Lisa Bolton, vice president of CWA Telecommunications and Technologies.