Ownership

Verizon announced that its existing unlimited data plan is being divided into three new options: Go Unlimited (starting at $75 for a single line), Beyond Unlimited ($85 for first line), and Business Unlimited. Unlike the relatively straightforward unlimited plan that Verizon surprised customers with in February, these new monthly plans are chock-full of fine print and caveats. And in a move sure to anger network neutrality advocates, the regular “Go Unlimited” plan throttles all smartphone video streaming to 480p / DVD-quality. The new plans go into effect beginning tomorrow, August 23rd, so this change is happening fast. Existing postpaid customers can keep their current plan, but some things will change even for them.

A division of Univision Communications has sought to quickly defeat a defamation lawsuit brought over an article published on the sports website Deadspin, saying the complaint is intended to intimidate journalists. Gizmodo Media Group, the Univision unit that runs Deadspin and other blogs the company acquired in 2016 from Gawker Media, filed court papers Aug 21 in New York that seek to dispose of a lawsuit brought by Las Vegas oddsmaker RJ Bell who alleges a story critical of him and his website, Pregame, includes false and libelous statements. Bell is seeking at least $10 million. The article, “How America’s Favorite Sports Betting Expert Turned a Sucker’s Game Into an Industry”, was published in June 2016, months before Univision purchased Gawker Media blogs in a bankruptcy auction.

Lawyers for Gizmodo Media Group argue the sale and Gawker Media’s chapter 11 liquidation plan shield the company and the author of the story, freelance reporter Ryan Goldberg, who has been sued individually. “This meritless lawsuit should not have been brought in the first place and it is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate journalists,” said Gizmodo Media Group spokesman David Ford. Goldberg said in a statement that his article was the result of a monthslong investigation and that allowing the lawsuit to proceed “will chill my work and threaten investigative reporting by freelance journalists across the country.”

Arbitrating the bounds of acceptable content on global tech platforms is an enormous task. Roughly 400 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube each minute. Facebook has more than 2 billion users posting updates, comments, and videos. Increasingly, these companies rely on software. Facebook-owned Instagram recently introduced an algorithm to zap comments from trolls. Both YouTube and Facebook have deployed software to filter terrorism-related content. YouTube delivers anti-ISIS content to users searching for ISIS-related videos with a tool known as the Redirect Method. Facebook says it can identify and wipe out clusters of users that might have terrorist ties. But the software remains imperfect, and so people are almost always involved, too.

President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, under chairman Ajit Pai, has been clearing the way for a merger between Sinclair Broadcasting and Tribune Media, two television companies that together own hundreds of local news stations. However, the situation may soon become more complicated for Sinclair and its ally at the FCC. The company’s competitors, such as DishTV, are speaking out. Perhaps more important to the Trump administration are other conservative news outlets, who, recognizing the threat that Sinclair could pose to their business, are taking a stand. As this crony capitalist drama plays out, watchdog groups, meanwhile, are looking for holes in the Trump administration’s approach.

The recent rise of all-encompassing internet platforms promised something unprecedented and invigorating: venues that unite all manner of actors — politicians, media, lobbyists, citizens, experts, corporations — under one roof. These companies promised something that no previous vision of the public sphere could offer: real, billion-strong mass participation; a means for affinity groups to find one another and mobilize, gain visibility and influence. This felt and functioned like freedom, but it was always a commercial simulation. This contradiction is foundational to what these internet companies are. ]

These platforms draw arbitrary boundaries constantly and with much less controversy — against spammers, concerning profanity or in response to government demands. These fringe groups saw an opportunity in the gap between the platforms’ strained public dedication to discourse stewardship and their actual existence as profit-driven entities, free to do as they please. Despite their participatory rhetoric, social platforms are closer to authoritarian spaces than democratic ones. It makes some sense that people with authoritarian tendencies would have an intuitive understanding of how they work and how to take advantage of them.

In a conversation with Peter J. Boyer of The Weekly Standard, Steve Bannon said, “I have my hands back on my weapons,” the most important being his conservative website, Breitbart News — a “machine” he promised to “rev up” for what the site’s editor-at-large Joel Pollak described in a hashtag on Twitter as “#War.” The reported target list included President Trump’s opponents “on Capitol Hill, in the media and in corporate America,” Bannon said. If Bannon does move forward with a rival to Fox News, he will face the herculean task required to get a new channel onto cable systems, especially as people increasingly give up cable for online streaming services. If he were to acquire an existing channel, he would still have to persuade cable operators to carry it as Breitbart TV. Bannon could team up with smaller competitors on cable, Newsmax or One America News Network. This much is certain: With Bannon out, expect more informational chaos, more sound and more fury, but signifying what?

In recent months, industry pundits sat up and took notice when online advertising giant Google started doubling down on its TV advertising investment. The tech company more than doubled its TV ad spend during the 2016 holiday quarter, laying out $109.8 million for ads promoting its Google Pixel mobile device. Launching Google Home meant a further $5 million for a single 30-second spot in January.

What’s remarkable is that Google is one of the most prominent TV spenders. The company built on digital advertising seems to know something about TV advertising that other brands don’t: In many cases, there’s just no substitute for it.

Because of its “extreme hostility toward Muslims,” the website Jihadwatch.org is considered an active hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. The views of the site’s director, Robert Spencer, on Islam led the British Home Office to ban him from entering the country in 2013. But its designation as a hate site hasn’t stopped tech companies — including PayPal, Amazon and Newsmax — from maintaining partnerships with Jihad Watch that help to sustain it financially.

PayPal facilitates donations to the site. Newsmax — the online news network run by President Donald Trump’s close friend Chris Ruddy — pays Jihad Watch in return for users clicking on its headlines. Until recently, Amazon allowed Jihad Watch to participate in a program that promised a cut of any book sales that the site generated. All three companies have policies that say they don’t do business with hate groups

Is the term "google" too generic and therefore unworthy of its trademark protection? That's the question before the US Supreme Court. Words like teleprompter, thermos, hoover, aspirin, and videotape were once trademarked. They lost the status after their names became too generic and fell victim to what is known as "genericide."

What's before the Supreme Court is a trademark lawsuit that Google already defeated in a lower court. The lawsuit claims that Google should no longer be trademarked because the word "google" is synonymous to the public with the term "search the Internet." "There is no single word other than google that conveys the action of searching the Internet using any search engine," according to the petition to the Supreme Court. It's perhaps one of the most consequential trademark case before the justices since they ruled in June that offensive trademarks must be allowed.

Stephen K. Bannon, who left his post on Aug 18 as President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, has resumed his role as chairman of Breitbart News, the provocative right-wing website that propelled him to national fame. Hours after his departure from the White House was announced, Bannon led the evening editorial meeting of his former publication, Breitbart said on its website. “The populist-nationalist movement got a lot stronger today,” the editor in chief of Breitbart, Alex Marlow, said in a statement. Bannon’s previous tenure as chairman of Breitbart coincided with the site’s move to the epicenter of the nationalist brand of right-wing conservatism that swept Trump into office last year. His return to the site is likely to reinvigorate Breitbart’s role as a gathering spot for Trump’s most ardent populist supporters.