Bloomberg

Google Chief Executive Officer Larry Page, not known for his public speaking, zeroed in on a timely subject when he addressed privacy at Allen & Co.’s annual dealmaking retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Page, whose company makes money gathering data on users’ Internet behavior, will collect more information with release of wearables such as Google Glass. At his July 9 talk, he made the case that Google takes privacy very seriously and described how the world’s most-popular search engine thinks about it as a problem to solve, according to people who were there.

Apparently, the Justice Department has reached out to Walt Disney, Discovery Communications and CBS as it investigates whether the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger is anticompetitive.

While none of the companies has publicly opposed the acquisition, some have said they want the US to ensure that Comcast won’t favor its own programming over their content if the merger is approved. Other media companies have also been approached. Among other issues, the antitrust division is asking about most-favored-nation clauses.

The contracts are used by Comcast and other pay-TV providers to ensure competitors can’t get better content-licensing deals with programmers.

“Sports is still a great unifier of people,” said Brian Rolapp, chief operating officer of National Football League Media and Harvard Business School graduate who previously worked in media investment banking at CIBC World Markets. “I don’t want to sound like an old man, but it seems like there’s fewer of those things, and there’s something very powerful about that.”

The challenge for league commissioners and team owners like former Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, who has agreed to buy basketball’s Los Angeles Clippers for an NBA record $2 billion, is turning that power into profit.

“If you look at a lot of teams that have traded hands, the predominant cash flow of all these sports leagues are the media revenue,” Rolapp said. That’s no longer just the television set, which historically has been the principal method of delivering sports.

“You’re seeing the digital space, social media and streaming events, content in other forms increasing in dramatic numbers in terms of growth, and that’s made sports and sports franchises more valuable,” said National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman, who in 2013 signed a 12-year, $4.9 billion contract with Rogers Communications.

An overhaul of Mexico’s telecommunications industry is one step closer to becoming law and may force billionaire Carlos Slim’s América Móvil to break up or face penalties for dominating the phone business.

Mexico’s lower house is set to debate the bill that was passed by the Senate after more than six months of delays and legal challenges. An extraordinary session to discuss and approve the bill will be requested, and the law could be passed very soon, Manlio Fabio Beltrones, head of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party in the lower house, said. If approved, it would then require the endorsement of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has spearheaded the push for the sweeping legislation.

fter 17 hours of debate, the Senate on July 5 passed the bill that supporters say will help spark new competitors to take on América Móvil along with billionaire Emilio Azcarraga’s Grupo Televisa, which has dominated the broadcast industry for decades. In addition to restrictions on prices and requirements to share infrastructure, the law also lets such dominant companies propose their own breakups to reduce their market share.

“With more investment we will have more competition, more quality and options of service and accessible prices for users,” Beltrones said. “It’s urgent that we approve this reform.” The companies will face the harshest penalties they’ve ever encountered if they violate the new rules. The bill calls for fines of as much as 10 percent of Mexican annual sales -- and double for repeat offenses. América Móvil got 299 billion pesos ($23 billion) in Mexican revenue in 2013, while Televisa had about 70 billion pesos.

Orange said it failed to agree on a deal to help the French telecommunications market consolidate, leaving few options as a price war spreads from wireless to landline subscriptions.

French phone stocks declined. Orange “believes that it cannot pursue this avenue at the present time” as conditions weren’t met, the Paris-based carrier said, without elaborating.

Bouygues, the owner of Bouygues Telecom, is preparing for a future with four carriers in France as “now nothing is happening in this area,” Chief Executive Officer Martin Bouygues told a committee of the French National Assembly.

Bouygues Telecom, France’s third-largest mobile operator, was looking for a buyer as profitability and cash generation declined.

More Americans have watched the US soccer team in this World Cup than ever before. The two biggest announced acquisitions in the world in 2014 are for US pay-TV operators. Yes, there is a connection.

AT&T’s bid for DirecTV, and Comcast’s merger with Time Warner Cable, totaling a combined $134 billion, are tied together by a thread that today is driving many of the decisions in the world of pay-TV: Sports. AT&T will buy DirecTV only if the satellite-TV provider renews its exclusive Sunday night package of football games. Time Warner Cable is selling because it’s losing customers rebelling against high cable bills -- caused in part by the soaring cost of obtaining sports rights.

The two deals are prime examples of how sports programming’s immense popularity has become both the cause of, and solution to, pay-TV’s slowdown. Much of the value of sports programming for pay-TV operators stems from its immediacy. Unlike shows that can be watched later on Netflix, sports are typically watched in real time. This is great for advertisers, because commercials aren’t as frequently skipped, and it’s great for the pay-TV systems, because online options can’t offer a comparable substitute. The result: More media consolidation is on the way.

Germany favors Deutsche Telekom to replace Verizon Communications as a network provider after deciding to end the American company’s contract in the wake of reports about spy surveillance by the US.

“The federal government wants to win back more technological sovereignty and therefore prefers to work with German companies,” Tobias Plate, an interior ministry spokesman, said.

Germany is using an option in the current Verizon contract to end the arrangement in 2015, Plate said, declining to confirm whether the government had any evidence that the provider handed information from the network to the US National Security Agency.

Billionaire Carlos Slim will buy out AT&T’s $6 billion stake in America Movil SAB, propping up his Latin American mobile-phone company’s stock price as his longtime partner from the US exits the business. Slim’s holding company, Inmobiliaria Carso, told America Movil’s board it will acquire AT&T’s 8.3 percent stake, which includes 24 percent of the company’s voting shares, according to a filing. America Movil didn’t say how much Carso would pay, and Roberta Thomson, an AT&T spokeswoman, wasn’t immediately available for comment. The stake’s value of $6 billion is based on the closing price for the shares. AT&T is selling its holdings of Slim’s company after a 24-year relationship to avoid a conflict of interest because the Dallas-based company is buying DirecTV, which competes with America Movil for pay-TV customers across Latin America.

For cord cutters who want to ditch their cable service, watching broadcast TV on a computer or tablet is still possible even if Aereo disappears. Companies like TiVo and SiliconDust USA make products that work with TV antennas to turn live programs into digital bits and bytes.

And online, many shows from networks like NBC and Fox are available through Hulu. Still, those alternatives don’t offer the same combination of ease of use, affordability and up-to-the-minute programming that Aereo does.

The potential demise of Aereo’s $8-a-month service eliminates one of the easiest options for viewers who wanted to watch live football and basketball games, late-night talk shows and local news at a fraction of the cost of cable, which can cost $75 a month. That’s presenting a challenge to a new generation of consumers who have grown accustomed to viewing the programs they want on any device at any time, not just on a television on a network’s schedule.

“I should be able to get on my phone or any device and watch what’s on TV, and that’s been difficult for so many years,” said Jason Gaylor, a 38-year-old freelance application designer from Springfield, Missouri, where Aereo isn’t available. “If I want to watch the Super Bowl or the Oscars or anything that’s a huge part of American culture, I should be able to get it as easily as possible.”

As the four-star general in charge of US digital defenses, Keith Alexander warned repeatedly that the financial industry was among the likely targets of a major attack. Now he’s selling the message directly to the banks. Joining a crowded field of cyber-consultants, the former National Security Agency chief is pitching his services for as much as $1 million a month.

The audience is receptive: Under pressure from regulators, lawmakers and their customers, financial firms are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into barriers against digital assaults. Gen Alexander, who retired in March from his dual role as head of the NSA and the US Cyber Command, has since met with the largest banking trade groups, stressing the threat from state-sponsored attacks bent on data destruction as well as hackers interested in stealing information or money.

“It would be devastating if one of our major banks was hit, because they’re so interconnected,” Gen Alexander said. Gen Alexander, 62, said he was invited to give a talk to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, known as Sifma, shortly after leaving the NSA and starting his firm, IronNet Cybersecurity. He has met with other finance groups including the Consumer Bankers Association, the Financial Services Roundtable and The Clearing House.