[Commentary] Congress passed the 1990 Children’s Television Act to tie broadcast-license renewals, the main asset of a local station, with a fairly general obligation to air educational and informational programming for children. Over the years, the Federal Communications Commission has imposed multiple rounds of added burdens on broadcasters under the premise of implementing the law.
Germany’s top telecommunications regulator has set its sights on US technology groups such as Google and Facebook, insisting that providers of messaging and email services should be regulated just like ordinary telecommunications companies. “What we are seeing is that the line between traditional telecommunications services and web-based services like [Google’s] Gmail and [Facebook’s] WhatsApp has become very blurred.
Less than a month after the European Union instituted rules to protect the privacy of its citizens, the United States Supreme Court took an important step to protect Americans against unwarranted government intrusion in criminal investigations. Now it is time for another branch of government—the Congress—to act to protect our privacy the rest of the time. June’s decision in Carpenter v. U.S. (16 U.S. 402) focused on the government’s access to private information.
Google, YouTube and Facebook could escape having to make billions in payouts to press publishers, record labels and artists after European Union lawmakers voted to reject proposed changes to copyright rules that aimed to make the tech companies share more of their revenues.
Republican leaders and lawmakers are setting their sights on a new target as they head into a difficult midterm election: an increasingly-powerful tech industry they view as biased against conservatives.
Geoffrey Starks, who sailed through a Senate Commerce Committee confirmation vote with unanimous backing, had seemed poised June 28 to assume a vacant Federal Communications Commission seat in a Senate vote by unanimous consent, paired with current-FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s nomination for a second term. But despite optimism from Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD), the nominations didn't go through.
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