Ownership

Department of Justice Antitrust Chief Makan Delrahim is facing congressional scrutiny over his recently revealed texts with DISH Chairman Charlie Ergen, according to a set of questions for the record from House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI). I

A group of respected internet pioneers and nonprofit leaders is offering an alternative to Ethos Capital’s bid for .org: a nonprofit cooperative corporation. The incorporation papers for the new entity, the Cooperative Corporation of .ORG Registrants, were filed in California. The goal of the group is not only to persuade the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees internet domain names, to stop the sale.

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons said that the FTC was still investigating Facebook for antitrust violations, and that the FTC's $5 billion settlement with the company is the thing he is most proud of over the past year. The other was the $170 million settlement with Google/YouTube over kids privacy. Chairman Simons renewed his call for Congress to pass comprehensive privacy legislation, but does not favor a Democrat-backed proposal to create a new, separate, privacy enforcement agency.

Over the last decade, lawmakers and regulators slowly woke up to the consequences of the tech industry’s unchecked rise in power. In the 2020s, they'll try to take back control. Here are (some) of the top issues the Washington Post will tracking at The Technology 202 in 2020:

We saw giant steps backward on communications, media, health, education, environment, voting rights, court appointments, money in politics, equal opportunity, women’s rights, labor rights… the list goes on and on.

The most consequential stories for tech in 2020 pit the industry's corporate colossi against the US government, foreign nations, and the human needs of their own customers. The big battles ahead include: Securing the 2020 U.S. election; Defining the limits of privacy; Coping with the antitrust onslaught; Defending a global industry in an age of "decoupling;" and Flipping tech from harm to "wellness."

Over the past few decades, the notion of a world without the newspaper industry has gone from grimly conceivable to a foregone conclusion. Once the cornerstone of localism and community, over the past two decades, the local newspaper has become nearly extinct. History is set to repeat itself in the broadcast television space. From 2014 to 2019, the total percentage of local advertising dollars spent on broadcast television fell from 14.3% to 11.2%. By 2023, BIA Kelsey forecasts, that percentage will drop to 9.7%.

In November 2019, the Federal Communications Commission approved the acquisition of Cox Media, the owner of the Dayton Daily News, by Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm. Apollo’s first move?

The tech industry's most consequential policy fights in 2020 will play out in the states, not Washington (DC). Momentum on a range of tech issues, from governing online privacy to regulating the gig economy, has stalled in DC as impeachment and election campaigns consume attention. State leaders and legislators are stepping in to fill the void. For example, California and Vermont are facing litigation over their attempts to impose their own net neutrality regulations after the Federal Communications Commission repealed the Obama-era open-internet rules. New York Gov.