A photo illustration of a city's internet connections. (Image: metamorworks, via Shutterstock)Internet service providers in the United States have spent more than $1.2 billion on lobbying since 1998, and 2018 was the biggest year so far with a total spend of more than $80 million. Comparitech researchers compiled and analyzed 51 ISPs’ lobbying expenses from the US Senate’s Lobbying Disclosure Act database, which dates back to 1998.
An illustration of internet security, a padlock on a digital background. (Image: Titima Ongkantong, via Shutterstock)The pressure is on: High-stakes, closed-door maneuvering involving lawmakers and the fate of a November ballot initiative is roiling the Capitol. The initiative would boost privacy rights for millions of online customers. But it won’t go directly to voters at all, the sponsor promises, if a bill emerges from the Legislature and makes it to the governor’s desk by Thursday, June 28.
As you are no doubt aware, we are sponsoring a privacy initiative to appear on the November 2018 California ballot, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. The measure would allow California consumers to protect their personal information from the type of breach that just occurred at Facebook.
Ethernet cables tangled over a digital device. (Photo illustration: Ivan Marc)The latest skirmish in California-vs.-the-Trump-Administration is developing around the repeal of “net neutrality,” in which purveyors of internet access treat all data equally. The Federal Communications Commission, chaired by former Verizon executive Ajit Pai, repealed net neutrality in a Dec. 14 ruling on a party-line 3-2 vote, with the Republican commissioners in the majority.
A sports complex with the Time Warner Cable logo. (Photo: Katherine Welles, Shutterstock)Change may be coming to millions of California cable TV and broadband users. A looming $78.7 billion merger between Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications would have a major impact on California’s cable TV and broadband markets, with the new entity, called New Charter, serving nearly four of every 10 customers in the state.
Comcast company trucks await assignments. (Photo: Associated Press, Gene Puskar)A national merger between communications giants Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable could lead to an unprecedented consolidation of California cable and broadband markets. The pending $45 billion merger would grant Comcast — already the state’s No. 1 cable provider — a greater share of the California market, stretching from northern California and San Francisco Bay area and Sacramento region, down the Central Valley through the Los Angeles basin, east to the Nevada and Arizona lines and southeast to the Mexico border.