Ownership

The Justice Department is investigating whether AT&T and Verizon may have colluded to thwart a technology that could allow wireless customers to switch network providers more easily.

In 2016, Google changed its terms of service, allowing it to merge its trove of tracking and advertising data with the personally identifiable information from our Google accounts. Google uses, among other things, our browsing and search history, apps we’ve installed, demographics such as age and gender and, from its own analytics and other sources, where we’ve shopped in the real world. Google says it doesn’t use information from “sensitive categories” such as race, religion, sexual orientation or health.

Apparently, the Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into potential coordination by AT&T, Verizon and a telecommunications standards organization to hinder consumers from easily switching wireless carriers. In Feb, the Justice Department issued demands to AT&T, Verizon and the GSMA, a mobile industry standards-setting group, for information on potential collusion to thwart a technology known as eSIM, apparently. 

[Commentary] The FCC chairman has done much to advance his deregulation agenda but there’s one conspicuous exception — the local TV ownership rule that prevents ownership of two top-four stations in a market. To put such combos together, you have to get what amounts to a waiver and that can be costly and time consuming.

Comcast and Charter announced a joint venture that will fuel both cable company's' continued move into the mobile broadband ecosystem. The partnership will focus on developing and operating backend systems that support both Xfinity Mobile and Spectrum Mobile, signaling a more committed effort for cable MSO-based mobile offerings. Each company will continue to operate their own mobile brands and their own customer-facing sales and marketing operations.

All 2.2 billion people who use Facebook will soon see changes to their privacy settings, in response to a sweeping new privacy law in Europe — but American users won't see exactly the same thing as their European counterparts.

The Federal Communications Commission faced skeptical questioning from judges about a rule change that made way for Sinclair Broadcast Group’s proposed acquisition of Tribune Media, raising the possibility of turmoil for the $3.9 billion deal.  Judges at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, hearing a challenge April 20 to the change, questioned why the FCC had reinstated a rule allowing owners of some TV stations to count just part of their audience when tallying holdings against a national limit of 39 percent.

Facebook has quietly altered its terms of service, making stricter Irish data protection laws no longer binding on the vast majority of its users. Now, Facebook’s headquarters in California will be responsible for processing any relevant legal claims, and American law will be binding for those outside the European Union.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit April 20 is hearing oral argument in the Free Press v. Federal Communications Commission challenge to the FCC's reinstatement of the UHF discount. A politically divided FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai voted back in April 2017 to reverse the previous Democratic majority's decision to eliminate the discount. That discount meant TV station group owners only had to count half of the audience to their UHF stations towards the 39% national audience reach cap.

AT&T’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, attacked the Justice Department’s lawsuit to block its merger with Time Warner, saying that a combined company would be no different from the Silicon Valley giants that make and distribute video content. As the last witness for the defense in the Justice Department’s legal battle against AT&T’s $85.4 billion deal to buy Time Warner,  Stephenson portrayed the 140-year-old phone giant as being in an existential crisis and in need of the deal with Time Warner to compete against tech companies.