Here is your recap of cable and Internet service industry news from around the US and the world for the week of August 14, 2017:
Google Cancels “All Hands” Meeting Due to Safety Concerns
Google was going to have an employee meeting to discuss the infamous “Differences between men and women” memo by one of their (now) former engineers and their firing of the engineer. Some employees said that they were concerned for their safety if they asked sensitive questions at the public meeting, so Google CEO Sundar Pichai canceled it. Okay. Let me get this straight. Google canceled the meeting because some employees were worried that their personal opinions might be shared online? Basically, they were worried about their online privacy. Gosh Google, don’t you hate it when your privacy gets violated?
Google Wanted to Snap Up Snap
According to reports, Google offered $30 billion for Snapchat a while back. Snap founder Evan Spiegel is still determined to go it alone. This is even after getting steamrolled when Facebook copied many Snapchat features after Spiegel refused Facebook’s $3 million offer a few years ago. With that said, Google has not been successful so far when it comes to social media type offerings such as the never popular Google Buzz and Google+. Maybe they will make another offer.
Hacker Who Disabled WannaCry Malware Arrested For Distributing Malware
Marcus Hutchins, known online as MalwareTech, accidentally rose to fame by finding the kill switch for the WannaCry Malware back in May. He was arrested in Las Vegas last week for being involved in a banking malware attack in 2014. He was in Las Vegas for the Black Hat and Def Con cyber-security conference when he got arrested at the airport on his way back to England. Many hackers, security researchers, and supporters are working to help him raise the $30,000 bail the judge set.
Is Disney Tracking and Selling Children’s Private Data?
The Walt Disney Company is facing a lawsuit alleging it violated a federal law aimed at protecting children’s online privacy. The company allegedly allowed ad tech companies to embed software in its apps, enabling the collection of children’s personal information. Advertising companies, Upsight, Unity, and Kochava were also named in the suit for embedding software that tracks, collects and exports children’s personal data.
Comcast Opens Revolving Door for NJ Consumer Affairs Director
Comcast has hired Steve Lee away from the New Jersey Department of Consumer Affairs to become their deputy general counsel. Lee had been in talks with Comcast for several months. Let’s hope this doesn’t become like Monsanto’s revolving door that has worked very well for the company with lawyers like Michael R. Taylor moving back and forth between the government agencies like FDA, and corporations like Monsanto. Having said that it is likely that Ajit Pai will go back to being a telecom attorney when he leaves his position as chairman of the FCC.
Disney To Join Other Content Providers in Creating OTT Service
The Walt Disney Company is pulling Disney and Pixar content from Netflix in preparation of launching its own direct to consumer streaming service. They purchased another 42% of BAMTech bringing their ownership to 75%. BAMTech provides streaming for the NHL, WWE, HBO, and MLB. Disney owned ESPN will also roll out a streaming service soon. The fate of other Disney owned content like Marvel and Lucasfilm is uncertain at this point. The BAM, in BAMTech, stands for Baseball Advanced Media and was started by MLB. Netflix stock prices took a bit of a hit when the word got out that it would be losing Disney programming.
Netflix Buys Its Own Comic Book Company
Maybe as a response to losing content when Disney and Pixar Studios creates its own streaming service, Netflix bought comic book company Millarworld. Millarworld is the publisher behind comic turned movie properties Kick-Ass, Reborn, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and Wanted. Millarworld founder Mark Millar helped Marvel reboot the Avengers series before creating his own publishing house.
FCC’s Ajit Pai says Americans Might Not Need Fast Internet at Home
The FCC has just begun proceedings that may lower the speed guidelines for home Internet. Former Verizon attorney and FCC Chairman is looking in to see if mobile broadband can be a substitute for fast home Internet. That was Internet Service Providers like Verizon and Comcast won't be required to build out service to homes - coincidentally saving Pai’s former boss a ton of money. Mobile speeds are generally much slower than home Internet and there may be charges if usage goes over a certain limit, sometimes as much as $15 per gigabit of data over the limit.
The One And Only Formal Net Neutrality Complaint is against Verizon
Although there have been tens of thousands of informal complaints about Net Neutrality, there has only been one formal complaint. Maybe that is because it costs $225.00 to file one officially. That complaint is appropriately against Verizon. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai tried to ignore it when he announced he was trying to roll back Net Neutrality by saying there haven't been any formal complaints. He changed that later to one formal complaint. It is unclear if he is trying to run out the clock on the complaint by doing away with Net Neutrality rules before having to decide the complaint.
Facebook Copies YouTube in New Feature
In another step to be all things to all people, Facebook has rolled out its “watch” feature tab for Facebook users to watch video without leaving Facebook. The feature rolled out to a limited number of Facebook users last week but will release more shows in more areas soon. Some of the shows coming will be baseball, cooking, and children’s shows as well as programming from National Geographic, NASA, and the NBA. It also has your normal social media features like “what friends are watching” and “most talked about” videos. Facebook has previously borrowed many features from Snapchat in different Facebook apps
Altice Eyes Charter Acquisition
All their acquisitions of other cable companies seem to have made Charter an attractive target for being acquired itself. After Charter rebuffed Sprint’s merger overtures recently, Sprint’s owner, SoftBank, expressed interest in buying Charter outright. Now, Netherlands based Altice is said to be working on an offer to take over Charter. Altice recently bought US telecom Suddenlink and cable provider Cablevision and has about five million customers compared to Charter’s 26 million. Sprint has about 60 million mobile customers. Charter’s price tag for a takeover might be as high as $200 billion so any company that wants to purchase Charter has its path cut out.