John Eggerton

The Internet Association (IA) and Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) submitted filings with the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), which sought comment on a framework for protecting privacy. The organizations are in agreement that federal privacy legislation currently being contemplated by the White House and Congress should preempt state efforts to regulate privacy.

Department of Justice antitrust chief Makan Delrahim put an exclamation point on what might now be called the AT&T/Time Warner Doctrine given the confluence of that case with Delrahim's emphasis on spin-offs versus conditions in vertical mergers: "If a structural remedy isn’t available, then, except in the rarest of circumstances, we will seek to block an illegal merger."

the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) has agreed to modify its agreement with domain name registrar Verisign that will allow it to boost prices for .com domain names, but not to vertically integrate--say, merge with a web content supplier. That came in an extension of the six-yea.com registry agreement. Also part of the agreement, said NTIA, is "a new commitment to content neutrality in the Domain Name System (DNS)....Verisign will operate the .com registry in a content neutral manner with a commitment to participate in ICANN processes.

Brian Hart, director of the Federal Communications Commission’s office of media relations, said that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai “plans to lead the FCC for the foreseeable future.” Pai — a Republican appointed to the commission by President Barack Obama in 2012, then named chair by President Donald Trump in Jan 2017 — was asked after the FCC’s Oct 23 public meeting whether he planned to remain in that post if the Democrats took over the House in the 2018 midterm elections.

Federal Communications Commissioner Michael O'Rielly suggested the agency's children's video rules might be unconstitutional. He said a good case could, and had been, made that the rules are an abridgement of broadcasters' speech rights, and thus illegal. 

A coalition of organizations told the Federal Communications Commission that the FCC should retain its children's programming rules. The Center for Digital Democracy, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Common Sense Kids Action, Color of Change, Dr. Jenny Radesky, and the Benton Foundation wrote:

The Parents Television Council says the Federal Communications Commission needs to answer some fundamental questions before it decides to make any "material" changes to its children's TV rules, which would mean voting on an order stemming from the July Notice of Proposed Rulemakiing it approved launching the review of the rules. The questions PTC says have yet to be answered in the Notice of Propose Rulemaking:

In a brief filed in court, AT&T argues that the Department of Justice used bad numbers to come to the wrong conclusion about AT&T-Time Warner merger and a lower court was right to reject that conclusion and allow the deal. AT&T pointed out in its brief to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that, "in the crucible of litigation, DOJ's claims were exposed to be both narrow and fragile," and ultimately fell apart. "Relying primarily on a theoretical model that purports to simulate the bargaining dynamics between programmers and pay-TV distributors, DOJ sought to prove that t

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and US Chamber of Commerce are standing strongly behind the Federal Communications Commission's deregulation of internet access in the 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order.

The American Cable Association, NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, USTelecom and CTIA filed suit Oct 18 in a federal district court in Vermont against a law and executive order that attempt to regulate internet access and restore net neutrality rules rolled back by the Federal Communications Commission. "As the FCC has repeatedly recognized, internet traffic flows freely between states, making it difficult or impossible for a provider to distinguish traffic moving within Vermont from traffic that crosses state borders.