Patience Haggin

Alphabet's Google created a monopoly that allowed it to control parts of the online-advertising industry, a federal judge ruled April 17, a decision that could upend one of the technology giant’s core businesses. The ruling marked the second time in eight months that a U.S.

The Commerce Department is examining changes to the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program aimed at expanding internet access around the country with new rules that will make it easier for Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite-internet service, to tap in to rural broadband funding, said people familiar with the plans. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has told staff he plans to make the grant program “technology-neutral,” the people said.

Internet-service providers have been required since earlier in 2024 to list standardized price and speed data on labels that look like the nutrition-facts panels on packaged foods, allowing consumers to compare plans. But broadband users often don’t know to look for them. Or can’t find them.

Net neutrality, a set of policies designed to prevent internet-service providers from playing favorites among the websites they carry, is coming back. In a vote on April 25 the Federal Communications Commission classified internet service as a public utility. The definition is part of a new framework the FCC will use to regulate broadband networks. Net-neutrality rules typically bar internet-service providers from assigning priority to certain web traffic or creating so-called fast lanes for certain websites.

The federal government has spent $12.82 billion in the last two years helping low-income households pay for internet service. Almost a quarter of it has gone to one company. Charter Communications received $3.01 billion through the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), a larger slice than any of its competitors.

Consumers increasingly are ditching traditional broadband plans for more-affordable 5G fixed-wireless internet service. In response, cable companies say they may be losing some battles, but in the end they’ll win the war—and that customers who have switched will return.

The protests continuing around the country are historic displays of social action. For political operatives, the mass gatherings are also a unique opportunity to harvest data on potential voters. Advocacy and voter-registration groups are gathering a trove of data from protests by tracking the cellphones of participants and sending them messages about registering to vote or taking other actions. The tactics, which one user called “deeply spooky yet extremely helpful,” are the latest example of ways political groups are using cellphone data to target voters.