News

WASHINGTON - According to press reports, Comcast announced on Saturday that it had assumed control of NBC Universal from General Electric. The nation’s largest cable and broadband provider now has a 51 percent ownership stake in one of the nation’s top content producers. Last week, federal regulators paved the way for the final deal.

WASHINGTON — A U.S. company appears to have sold Egypt technology to monitor Internet and mobile phone traffic that is possibly being used by the ruling regime to crack down on communications as protests erupt throughout the country.

WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, MetroPCS — the nation’s fifth-largest wireless carrier — filed a lawsuit, alongside the one filed by Verizon last week, to overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s Net Neutrality order passed in December.

WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) introduced the Internet Freedom, Broadband Promotion, and Consumer Protection Act of 2011, a bill that would protect the Internet’s level playing field and prohibit anti-consumer practices online.

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, Verizon announced it would file a suit challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s December Net Neutrality order.

Responding to reports that Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) has been named ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner made the following statement:

WASHINGTON — According to press reports on Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission announced its decision, by a vote of 4–1, to approve the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, one of the largest media mergers in history.

WASHINGTON — On Monday, Free Press, along with the Center for Media Justice, Media Access Project, New America Foundation Open Technology Institute and Presente.org, filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to investigate claims that new service plans being offered by mobile provider MetroPCS block and discriminate against Internet content, applications and webs

WASHINGTON — Free Press, along with the Center for Media Justice, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Media Access Project, National Consumers League, National Hispanic Media Coalition and New America Foundation Open Technology Initiative, filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission Monday in the agency’s “bill shock” proceeding.

WASHINGTON – On Thursday, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) introduced two bills that would cut off federal funding for public broadcasting in America by defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by 2013 and immediately eliminating “certain public radio funding.” The bills mirror earlier efforts by Lamborn to defund all public broadcasting.