Ownership

To get an idea of how the Dish/T-Mobile case went in front of the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC), this one bit of testimony might shed some light: They literally started to shut off the lights in the building before all was said and done. The purpose of the hearing was to determine if the CPUC should penalize T-Mobile for lying to the Commission about its obligations in the merger with Sprint. The CPUC approved the transaction in April 2020 with conditions.

T-Mobile has made rural America a clear aim, with a push on brand recognition alongside deployments, retail stores, and initiatives like its Hometown Grant program. The company announced 25 small town winners that are part of its five-year commitment to provide $25 million in grants for community projects, alongside earlier stated plans to hire 7,500 new employees in small towns and rural areas.

The way that Facebook controls its News Feed is often controversial and largely opaque to the outside world. Now the company is attempting to shine more light on the content it surpresses but doesn't remove entirely. Facebook published its “Content Distribution Guidelines” detailing the roughly three-dozen types of posts it demotes for various reasons in the News Feed, like clickbait and posts by repeat policy offenders.

Facebook conditioned its $5 billion payment to the Federal Trade Commission to resolve the Cambridge Analytica data leak probe on the agency dropping plans to sue Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg individually, shareholders allege in a lawsuit. Two groups of shareholders claimed that members of Facebook’s board allowed the company to overpay on its fine in order to protect Zuckerberg, the company’s founder and largest shareholder.

As social media and technology companies face criticism for not doing enough to stem the flow of misleading information on their platforms, a sizable portion of Americans continue to turn to these sites for news. A little under half (48%) of U.S.

The Federal Trade Commission voted to withdraw its approval of the Vertical Merger Guidelines, issued jointly with the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the FTC’s Vertical Merger Commentary. The guidance documents, which were published in 2020, include unsound economic theories that are unsupported by the law or market realities. The FTC is withdrawing its approval in order to prevent industry or judicial reliance on a flawed approach. In voting to withdraw, the FTC reaffirmed its commitment to working closely with the DOJ to review and update the agencies’ merger guidance.

The Federal Trade Commission made public the findings from its inquiry into past acquisitions by the largest technology platforms’ that did not require reporting to antitrust authorities at the FTC and the Department of Justice. The inquiry analyzed the terms, scope, structure, and purpose of these exempted transactions under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act and the FTC's reporting requirements by Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2019. These companies comprise the top five US companies by market capitalization.

Twelve former top US national security officials are urging Congress to hit pause on a package of antitrust bills in order to consider how breaking up tech companies could harm the US 

President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Alvaro Bedoya for Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. Alvaro Bedoya is the founding director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, where he is a visiting professor of law. His research and advocacy focus on the idea that privacy is for everyone.

CenturyLink, since renamed Lumen, has agreed to pay the Department of Justice (DOJ) $275,000 to settle the department's complaint stemming from the company's violation of the terms of its acquisition of Level 3 Communications. According to the DOJ, it is the second such violation by CenturyLink. The DOJ will file a civil contempt claim in DC federal court and at the same time ask the court to accept the settlement, which resolves the claim. “CenturyLink is a repeat offender,” said acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Powers of the Antitrust Division.