News

The feds just axed a rule requiring ISPs to protect user data in a victory for broadband giants.

Opponents of AT&T’s plan to acquire Time Warner may have to rely on the Department of Justice as their sole federal option for blocking the $85.4 billion deal as it looks increasingly likely that the FCC won’t review it.

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, the Federal Communications Commission voted 2–1 to stay one of the agency’s broadband-privacy rules adopted in October 2016 and scheduled to take effect tomorrow, March 2.

WASHINGTON — The Sinclair Broadcast Group, the largest U.S. television-station owner, is reportedly in negotiations to merge with the Tribune Media Co., according to a report Wednesday by Reuters. This deal would create a television broadcaster reaching nearly seven out of every 10 homes in the country.

WASHINGTON — On Tuesday morning, Donald Trump’s FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, spoke at a broadband-industry conference and falsely claimed that Net Neutrality protections contribute to uncertainty in the marketplace and a decline in industry investments in networks.

In its first few weeks in office, the Trump administration has taken aim at a number of its predecessor’s policies.

According to Timothy Karr, senior director of strategy for Free Press, “No FCC chair over the past 40 years has been so bent on undermining the agency’s public-service mission and destroying the safeguards on which hundreds of millions of Americans rely.”

The pace of FCC enforcement actions may quicken under a possible change that new Chairman Ajit Pai is contemplating.

WASHINGTON — On Friday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced plans to sidestep the agency’s procedures to prevent implementation of part of the FCC’s landmark broadband-privacy rules.

The Republican-led Federal Communications Commission still hasn’t said if it will dismantle the Net Neutrality regulations, but it’s already picking apart the rules to make them less potent.