Ownership

News organizations have long hoped that tech platforms would pay them for news. Now regulators abroad are moving to make that happen. A report by Australian regulators left little doubt about what they see as the cause of local journalism’s demise — the near-monopolistic power of Google and Facebook.

Rural broadband provider Windstream Holdings Inc. is closer to exiting from chapter 11 under a proposal that would allow hedge-fund manager Elliott Management Corp. and other investors to buy the bulk of the company’s equity out of bankruptcy while wiping out most junior debt.

History at the crossroads, one of those inflection points when we have the opportunity to learn from our experiences and use them to build a better future. Coronavirus brings us to another of those crossroads. Which road will we take?

Liberty Global and Telefónica have struck a landmark deal to combine their British operations O2 and Virgin Media in a £31.4bn agreement that will reshape the UK’s telecoms market. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will have equal ownership of O2 and Virgin Media and have built-in mechanisms for a potential float of the combined business in three years.

The Federal Communications Commission announced the largest civil penalty involving a broadcaster in the agency’s 86-year history. Specifically, Sinclair Broadcasting Group has agreed to pay a $48 million civil penalty and abide by a strict compliance plan in order to close three open investigations. This penalty is twice the prior record for a broadcaster, which was the $24 million paid by Univision in 2007.

Business closures and stay-at-home orders have hit the real-estate sector hard. But an obscure corner of the industry is benefiting from people staying at home. Fiber-optic cables are drawing a growing interest from investors. These cables, which transmit data through light and are a crucial component of high-speed internet, aren’t technically real estate.

The ICANN Board made the decision to reject the proposed change of control and entity conversion request that Public Interest Registry (PIR) submitted to ICANN. After completing extensive due diligence, the ICANN Board finds that withholding consent of the transfer of PIR from the Internet Society (ISOC) to Ethos Capital is reasonable, an

The connectivity and services built by information capitalists have become too important to be left any longer without public participation in determining the rules they follow. Critical nature of these digital services warrants public interest representation in decisions about their practices. Here are four ideas to incorporate public participation in establishing the rules for the critical services of the information era:

I’m proud to announce that I will be hosting a virtual conversation with HBCU Presidents on May 4th to discuss how the transition to online learning has impacted their students’ ability to continue learning, innovating, and connecting. During this discussion, I look forward to hearing how these universities rose to the occasion to connect students without broadband access and get devices in the hands of those without laptops and tablets so they could complete their assignments online. But the need for connectivity does not end with our students.

The Federal Communications Commission refers certain applications to Executive Branch agencies when there is reportable foreign ownership in the applicant. On June 24, 2016, the FCC adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to improve the timeliness and transparency of the process involving referral of certain applications with reportable foreign ownership to Executive Branch agencies, including the Team Telecom agencies, for feedback on any national security, law enforcement, foreign policy, or trade policy concerns.