1. Monthly archive
  2. July 2018

July 2018

Chairman Pai Announces New Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee Vice Chair and New Member

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has made two appointments regarding the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC). First, Chairman Pai has appointed BDAC member David Young to serve as Vice Chair of the BDAC. Young represents the National League of Cities on the BDAC and is the Fiber Infrastructure and Right of Way Manager for the City of Lincoln (NE). Young replaces Kelleigh Cole, who left her position as the Director of the Utah Broadband Outreach Center and resigned from the BDAC recently to pursue professional opportunities in the private sector.

California Supreme Court: Yelp can't be ordered to remove posts

A divided California Supreme Court has ruled that online review site Yelp.com cannot be ordered to remove posts against a San Francisco (CA) law firm that a judge determined were defamatory. The 4-3 ruling came in a closely watched case that internet companies warned could be used to silence online speech. A San Francisco judge determined the posts against attorney Dawn Hassell’s firm were defamatory and ordered Yelp in 2014 to remove them. A second judge and a state appeals court upheld the decision.

Facebook: 800K users may have had bug unblock blocked people

Facebook says more than 800,000 users may have been affected by a bug that unblocked people they previously had blocked. The company said that the bug was active between May 29 and June 5. While the person who was unblocked by this bug could not see content users shared with their friends, they could have seen things that were posted to a wider audience. Facebook says the problem has been fixed. It’s the second software bug in less than a month that the company has notified users about.

News media paid Melania Trump thousands for use of photos in 'positive stories only'

Since her husband took office, Melania Trump has earned six figures from an unusual deal with a photo agency in which major media organizations have indirectly paid the Trump family despite a requirement that the photos be used only in positive coverage. President Donald Trump's most recent financial disclosure reveals that in 2017 the first lady earned at least $100,000 from Getty Images for the use of any of a series of 187 photos of the first family shot between 2010 and 2016 by Belgian photographer Regine Mahaux.

Charter Launches Spectrum Mobile, Closely Follows Xfinity Mobile Playbook

Charter unveiled Spectrum Mobile, the cable company's mobile wireless service. The new Wi-Fi first mobile service looks to be closely following the Xfinity Mobile model, which was also expected. Spectrum Mobile offers two plans: an unlimited data option for $45/month, or a by-the-gig approach for $14 per gigabyte (GB) of data, per month. Spectrum mobile matches Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile pricing for unlimited, but does charge $2 more per gig than Xfinity’s $12 per gig model, at $14 per GB.

Comcast starts throttling mobile video, will charge extra for HD streams

Comcast's Xfinity Mobile service is imposing new speed limits on video watching and personal hotspot usage, and the company will start charging extra for high-definition video over the cellular network. Videos will be throttled to 480p (DVD quality) on all Comcast mobile plans unless you pay extra, while Comcast's "unlimited" plan will limit mobile hotspot speeds to 600kbps.

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