1. Monthly archive
  2. April 2016

April 2016

Google files for experimental license to test in 2.5 GHz band in California

Google is seeking an experimental license from the FCC to perform tests in the 2.5 GHz band near its California headquarters, supplementing experiments already done in the 3.5 GHz band in Kansas City.

Not much else is revealed in the filing, the public version of which is heavily redacted for confidentiality reasons. Google argues that if the information were to be made public, it would cause significant commercial, economic and competitive harm. Google says its proposed operations will not cause harmful interference to other users of the 2.5 GHz band. If it receives any complaints about interference, it promises notify -- a redacted entity or entities -- immediately and cease operations on the leased transmission capacity until issues are resolved.

FTC Welcomes Revised OECD Guidelines for E-commerce

The Federal Trade Commission welcomed the issuance by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of new, revised guidelines for protecting consumers in e-commerce.

The guidelines are designed to strengthen consumers’ trust in the expanding electronic marketplace. The original 1999 e-commerce guidelines established a set of principles developed in cooperation with all the OECD countries. The revised guidelines announced today are designed to address the newest developments in e-commerce, such as services that are exchanged for consumer data, mobile transactions and payments, and new platforms that enable consumer-to-consumer transactions. They form part of the OECD’s trust agenda, to be addressed at the upcoming June OECD Ministerial on the Digital Economy.

The independence and diversity of Europe’s media is under threat from political interference and concentrated ownership

.

“No EU member state is today free from risks to media pluralism,” the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) at the European University Institute in Florence said after conducting a detailed examination of media plurality across 19 European Union member states.

Across the entire group, the major area of concern was media ownership. Control of media outlets often resides in the hands of only a few players, giving them outsized power, while in some places it’s unclear who TV channels or newspapers are owned by. That lack of transparency means citizens can’t “gauge the extent of potential bias in the information that is provided by a media outlet,” it said. Five countries were graded as being at high risk on ownership: Finland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, and Spain. Eight others were rated a medium risk: the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, and Sweden.

The report also raised concerns about political independence.

© 1994-2026 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.