Enlarge / A Verizon FiOS truck in Manhattan on September 15, 2017. (credit: Getty Images | Smith Collection | Gado) Verizon is defending its practice of forcing customers to switch plans to get a government-funded $50-per-month discount, telling the Federal Communications Commission that this is not the same thing as “upselling.” Verizon has partially backtracked […]
Enlarge / Elon Musk isn’t sure. (credit: VCG/VCG via Getty Images) The Securities and Exchange Commission is having a hard time reining in Elon Musk’s social media use, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The regulator sent Tesla three sternly worded letters between August 2019 and June 2020, asking Tesla’s attorney’s […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | s-cphoto) Trade groups representing Facebook, Twitter, and other major websites have sued Florida to block a state law that makes it illegal for social media companies to ban politicians. The industry groups say the law violates the First Amendment—and legal experts have said the same, as we’ve previously written. Florida […]
Enlarge / An Amazon Echo smart speaker. (credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images) Amazon quietly changed its terms of use last month, dropping a clause that forced customers into arbitration. Now, people can sue the company individually or in a class action. The change apparently was brought about by a surge in arbitration demands over revelations that […]
Enlarge (credit: Amazon) If you use Alexa, Echo, or any other Amazon device, you have only 10 days to opt out of an experiment that leaves your personal privacy and security hanging in the balance. On June 8, the merchant, Web host, and entertainment behemoth will automatically enroll the devices in Amazon Sidewalk. The new […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | spxChrome) US government data shows that home-Internet customers pay more each year and that average broadband expenditures are rising faster than inflation, but cable and telecom lobbies keep claiming that broadband prices are getting lower. The latest example came Wednesday from USTelecom, which represents AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink/Lumen, Frontier, and other […]
Enlarge / A worker repairs a power line in Austin, Texas, on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. (credit: Thomas Ryan Allison/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Texas’ days-long power outages during last February’s deep freeze almost stretched into weeks or even months thanks to a string of failures at “black start” generators. More than half of the state’s […]
Enlarge / A Charter Spectrum service truck in McKinney, Texas, on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg) It’s no surprise that cable companies charge lower prices for broadband when they face competition from fiber-to-the-home services. But an article yesterday by Stop the Cap provides a good example of how dramatically promotional prices […]
What comes up might go back down. (credit: Pete Markham) Yesterday was a bad day to be an oil company. First, a court in the Netherlands ruled that Royal Dutch Shell needs to slash its emissions more than it had planned in order to meet Paris Agreement targets. The court ordered the oil supermajor to […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Steve Jurvetson) Amazon today announced a definitive agreement to buy MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) for $8.45 billion. Amazon said that MGM’s filmmaking prowess “complements the work of Amazon Studios, which has primarily focused on producing TV show programming.” Buying MGM would let Amazon add plenty of movies to its Prime Video streaming […]