Chairman Wheeler Quibbles With Stations’ Share Tactics

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is on a mission to crack down on TV station sharing arrangements, particularly ones that look like efforts to skirt the rules.

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FTC Seeks Comment On Nielsen Spin-Off of LinkMeter to comScore

Before the Federal Trade Commission decides whether to approve the divestiture, the agency wants to hear from the public on Nielsen's proposal to sell its LinkMeter technology to comScore.

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Phone firms balk at proposed NSA surveillance changes

Telephone companies are quietly balking at the idea of changing how they collect and store Americans' phone records to help the National Security Agency's surveillance programs. They're worried about their exposure to lawsuits and the price tag if the US government asks them to hold information about customers for longer than they already do.

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President Obama ‘remains committed’ to network neutrality

“President Obama remains committed to an open internet, where consumers are free to choose the websites they want to visit and the online services they want to use, and where online innovators are allowed to compete on a level playing field based on the quality of their products.”

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Will the FCC strike down AT&T’s Sponsored Data plan?

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler indicated that he'd be watching closely as AT&T rolled out a new offering called Sponsored Data, which promises to keep certain mobile browsing from counting against your monthly data cap but which has raised the ire of network neutrality advocates.

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Borrowers Hit Social Media Hurdles

More lending companies are mining Facebook, Twitter and other social media data to help determine a borrower's creditworthiness or identity, a trend that is raising concerns among consumer groups and regulators.

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Modernizing the Communications Act

One of the most common criticisms of the Communications Act is the so-called “siloed,” sector-based nature of the law and resulting regulation. The Communications Act consists of seven titles: general provisions, common carriers, provisions related to radio, procedural and administrative provisions, penal provisions and forfeitures, cable communications, and miscellaneous provisions. Each of the titles governs a specific sector of the communications economy with inconsistent approaches to definition and regulation.

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Slow Broadband Internet Speeds Vex Nation’s Schools

As public schools nationwide embrace instruction via iPads, laptops and other technologies, many are realizing they lack the necessary broadband speed to perform even simple functions. This is crimping classroom instruction as more teachers pull lesson plans off the Internet and use bandwidth-hungry programming.

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Online Video Could Get a Boost From Proposed Laws

Lawmakers have introduced at least three different bills that would reshape the consumer video market, including online video, similar to efforts used to boost the satellite industry in the 1990s. None of the bills is expected to pass right away, and companies looking to expand in online video remain uncertain how far Congress will open the door for them.

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A new way to skin the net neutrality cat

The main trouble with the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules is that the rules, as written, don’t really address the problem they’re trying to remedy. They attempt to regulate what is essentially anti-competitive behavior by Internet service providers, or the potential for anti-competitive behavior, by treating it as a matter of communications law, instead of antitrust law.

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