The legal showdown between Google and Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood originally centered on whether Google would have to provide Hood with a slew of documents related to online copyright infringement by sites indexed in its search engine. But the fight has now taken a new direction, with Google and Hood feuding over whether he must provide Google with material that could reveal details of his office's relationship with the entertainment industry.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers today introduced a new bill that would protect consumers' rights to post bad reviews. The Consumer Review Freedom Act of 2015 would prohibit businesses from requiring consumers to sign contracts that restrict their ability to post reviews. The measure was introduced by Representatives Darrell Issa (R-Calif), Eric Swalwell (D-Calif), Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), and Brad Sherman (D-Calif), and is backed by Yelp, Angie's List, TripAdvisor and advocacy groups.
In February, when AT&T said it was going to roll out a 1 GB fiber service in Kansas City, the company announced that the price of service will depend on consumers' willingness to be tracked for ad-targeting purposes. People who accept AT&T's ad targeting -- which the company calls the "Internet Preferences" program -- can purchase 1 GB service for $70 a month. People who don't want to participate in Internet Preferences will be charged $99 a month for the same 1 GB service.
Regulators might have killed Comcast's attempt to take over Time Warner Cable, but the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice are inclined to support AT&T's $48.5 billion merger with DirecTV. That's according to "The Wall Street Journal," which reported today that regulators believe the deal will result in broadband deployment to rural America.
Before the deal collapsed this week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler hadn't said much publicly about Comcast's $45 billion bid to take over Time Warner Cable. Now that the merger is dead, Wheeler no longer is keeping his views to himself.
Comcast reportedly will walk away from its $45 billion deal to acquire Time Warner Cable. The news comes shortly after reports surfaced that staff at the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission oppose the deal, which would vastly increase Comcast's broadband footprint.
Comcast, which is still trying to convince regulators to approve its $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable, is now facing questions about whether it lived up to the conditions of its acquisition of NBC Universal. When Comcast merged with NBC Universal in 2011, the company promised to refrain from managing the streaming video service Hulu -- a joint venture of NBC, Fox and Disney.
In the latest of a long string of moves by the entertainment industry against Web companies, the Recording Industry Association of America has sued MP3Skull for allegedly enabling consumers to download pirated music. "MP3Skull's database of MP3 links is vast and contains links to an enormous number of plaintiffs' copyrighted works," the record labels allege in a complaint filed on Friday in federal court in Miami.
Late last year, soon after Sony's servers were hacked, company attorney David Boies sent letters to news outlets demanding that they stop writing about emails that were never intended for public consumption. Boies told news organizations to destroy the "stolen information" that was hacked, and said that Sony didn't consent to any publication of the material.
Comcast's proposed $45 billion merger with Time Warner might run into a significant roadblock, Bloomberg reports. Antitrust lawyers with the Department of Justice reportedly are poised to recommend that the agency file suit to prevent the deal from closing. DOJ staffers intend to present their findings to top officials, who will then decide whether to go to court, according to Bloomberg.