Ownership

Apparently, Alphabet’s Google has proposed overhauling its shopping search results so that rivals can bid for space to display products for sale, as part of the company's efforts to comply with the European Union’s antitrust order. Under the proposal, Google would bid against rivals to display products for sale in the space above its general search results, apparently. Google would set itself a price cap that it wouldn’t be able to bid above, but competitors could do so if they wished. Rival shopping sites have hit back, saying an auction-based remedy wouldn’t assuage the EU regulator’s demands that the company treat its competitors’ offerings and its own shopping service equally.

The Trump administration, the Federal Communications Commission, Congress and greedy companies are attacking people’s rights to connect and communicate so relentlessly that staying on top of everything that’s happening can feel like an impossible task. That’s why we’ve put together this handy list of five of the biggest threats people are facing:

1) The FCC’s scheme to kill Net Neutrality
2) Anti-Net Neutrality legislation
3) Mega media mergers
4) Local news crisis
5) Lies, lies and more lies: The proliferation of fake news — which Trump embraces — is making it hard to get the truth out about these attacks on our rights to connect and communicate, what’s at stake and what we can do about it.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau has asked Sinclair to back up a bunch of its pledges to bring its proposed $3.9 billion purchase of Tribune stations within the FCC's current media ownership rules, including the duopoly and national ownership cap, as well as of the benefits of the deal. The FCC also wants more supporting material to back up claims about benefits to the ATSC 3.0 transmission standard transition and assertions the deal would offer greater value to MVPDs. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has signaled he thinks the ownership regulations need loosening, but Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey, in a letter to Sinclair dated Sept. 14, signaled that Sinclair needs to get a lot more specific about what exactly it will do to comply with the current rules.

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission has finally gotten around to asking Sinclair how it intends to comply with the national and local ownership rules. The merger puts it in nominal violation of the caps and it will have to do something to get below them. I applaud the FCC move as the public has the right to know just how Sinclair plans to proceed.

[Commentary] Every day a new front emerges in Big Tech’s battle against fake news. Signs of trouble reared their head during the election, when hyper-partisan misinformation began materializing on Facebook. Months later it became known that many of these sites had been weaponized in a larger misinformation campaign spearheaded by external players, including the Russian government.

While they make head nods toward trying to fix the misinformation problem, the tech giants refuse to own up to these issues–citing the privacy of their clients and their own proprietary ad systems. While it may seem noble that the big tech companies are taking up the charge, their current attempts will likely produce little effect. The problem rests in the very advertising systems these companies created. No amount of content tagging or ad category de-incentivizing is going to stop the beast unless a bigger upheaval begins to take root.

[Cale is a Brooklyn-based reporter.]

Verizon is disconnecting another 8,500 rural customers from its wireless network, saying that roaming charges have made certain customer accounts unprofitable for the carrier. The 8,500 customers have 19,000 lines and live in 13 states (Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wisconsin), a Verizon Wireless spokesperson said. They received notices of disconnection this month and will lose access to Verizon service on October 17.

"These customers live outside of areas where Verizon operates our own network," Verizon said. "Many of the affected consumer lines use a substantial amount of data while roaming on other providers’ networks and the roaming costs generated by these lines exceed what these consumers pay us each month." "We sent these notices in advance so customers have plenty of time to choose another wireless provider," Verizon also said. We wrote about an earlier wave of disconnections in June. The affected customers are supported by Verizon’s LTE in Rural America (LRA) program, which relies on a partnership between Verizon and small rural carriers who lease Verizon spectrum in order to build their own networks.

Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), joined by other Democrats concerned about consolidation, has introduced a bill that would change antitrust laws to shift the burden of proof on merging parties to prove that their merger does not harm competition. The Consolidation Prevention and Competition Promotion Act of 2017 would clarify that "mergers that increase consumer prices, lower the quality of goods, exclude competitors, undermine innovation, or allow a company to unfairly lower the prices it pays can be illegal." Those are all characterizations that have been leveled at merging media companies in arguments against their deals. The bill would also "add the term 'monopsony' to the Clayton Antitrust Act so single buyers controlling the market are also illegal" and would "create an Office of the Competition Advocate to help consumers with complaints, encourage antitrust investigations, and analyze and publish reports on merger activity."

Joining Sen Klobuchar were a Who's Who of media merger critics, including Sens Al Franken (D-MN), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).

The social media site Gab.ai is accusing Google of violating federal antitrust laws when the tech giant booted Gab from the Google Play Store, according to lawsuit filed Sept 14. The legal action is the latest salvo in an escalating battle between right-leaning technologists and leaders against Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Google.

Gab alleges in the lawsuit that “Google deprives competitors, on a discriminatory basis, of access to the App Store, which an essential facility or resource.” “Google is the biggest threat to the free flow of information,” said Gab chief executive Andrew Torba. “Gab started to fight against the big tech companies in the marketplace, and their monopolistic conduct has forced us to bring the fight to the courtroom.”

Longtime Comcast customer Drew Weaver was surprised in mid-May of 2017 when he got an automated call notifying him that he’d gone over his 1TB monthly data cap. First of all, Comcast alleged that he'd exceeded the data cap two months in a row, and Weaver says he never got a notification about the first overage. Moreover, Weaver just didn't believe that he'd used more than 1TB of data. But after a weeks-long, tedious process of troubleshooting with Comcast, the company insisted that its data meter was accurate. Comcast agents also repeatedly urged Weaver to pay an extra $50 a month to upgrade to an unlimited data plan or risk paying a $10 overage fee for each additional 50GB, up to a maximum of $200 in extra fees each month.

According to Comcast, Weaver had used up his "courtesy months" in which a customer is allowed to exceed the data cap without penalty and would have to pay overage charges going forward unless he limited his usage or bought unlimited data. Weaver could afford the additional payments—but out of principle, he decided not to give Comcast the extra money. And so he ended his nearly 14 years of being a Comcast customer.

The geeks are raiding their digital vaults to transform themselves into lords of entertainment – or at least owners of content – and in the process shape what we watch and how we watch. Traditional broadcast and cable networks, giants which for decades shaped popular culture, are scrambling to keep up.

For traditional broadcast and cable networks it’s no longer enough to make hit shows. They must make them available for streaming and downloading on multiple platforms or risk losing advertising and subscription revenues. And to grab a share of those revenues, and to differentiate their products and services, technology companies must own content – either by buying or making it.