Mergers, diversity of ownership, and multiple perspectives.
Bigger isn’t always better.
Of all the cable, telephone and Internet companies, the one with the most awful reputation is Comcast. Type the words “Comcast customer service” into a search engine and prepare to be flooded with customers using words like “nightmarish,” “embarrassing,” “worst ever,” “epic failure” and “customer service from hell.”
And America is not enduring this for the sake of bargain-basement prices.
For Immediate Release: February 26th, 2015
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Consumer groups renewed their call today for the California Public Utilities Commission to reject the proposed Comcast–Time Warner Cable merger and announced that they had collected 90,000 petition signatures from Californians opposed to the deal. Today’s announcement coincided with the California PUC’s All-Party meeting on the merger scheduled to begin at 2pm in San Francisco (California PUC Auditorium, 505 Van Ness Avenue).
The petitions organized by Common Cause, Consumers Union, Courage Campaign, CREDO, Daily Kos, Greenlining Institute, Media Alliance, Presente, TURN, and the Writers Guild of America, West, will be delivered to the California PUC, which is currently reviewing the merger. Continue reading 90,000 Californians Sign Petition Calling on PUC to Block Comcast Merger
Radio World – September 14 2015
WASHINGTON — A power-increase proposal is stirring new debate about low-power FM broadcasters and has LPFM and translator advocates again taking up positions on the subject.
Through a petition for rulemaking, REC Networks asked the Federal Communications Commission to consider allowing eligible 100-watt LPFM stations to boost power to 250 watts in order to increase building penetration and overcome the effects of multipath in their coverage areas. REC also seeks other benefits for LPFMs including second-adjacent channel protections from FM translators and boosters.
35 civil rights organizations (including Media Alliance) joined a sign-on letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, also the owner of the Washington Post newspaper, to desist from marketing facial recognition technology to the government.
Public records requests reveal that the company has developed and sold a prototype product called “Rekognition” to police departments in Florida and Oregon. Continue reading 35 Civil Rights Organizations Tell Amazon To Get Out Of The Facial Recognition Business
June 21, 2018
Honorable Mayor Jesse Arrequin and Members of the Berkeley City Council: Ben Bartlett, Cheryl Davila, Lori Droste, Sophie Hahn, Kate Harrison, Linda Maio, Susan Wengraf, Kriss Worthington
cc: City of Berkeley City Manager Dee Williams-Ridley, City of Berkeley City Attorney Farimah Brown, City of Berkeley City Clerk
City of Berkeley 2180 Milvia Street Berkeley, CA 94709
In Re: Council Subcommittee Urban Shield Vote
On behalf of Media Alliance’s constituency in your city, I am writing to you with regard to Mayor Arreguin’s statment on June 19, 2018.
The purpose of this letter is to do two things:
Continue reading An Open Letter To The Berkeley City Council
They could restore it but…..
At a time when it is difficult to pay attention to much besides the disaster that is the Trump adminstration’s”family separation policy”, the CA Legislature is rushing through an evisceration of online privacy, in a shameful ending to AB 375. The bill was introduced with much fanfare in 2017 by Assembly privacy chair Ed Chau to replace FCC broadband privacy regulations repealed by Congress. Continue reading The Online Privacy Quickie Sell-Out Deal
One of the things Media Alliance does on your behalf is participate as a party in some merger proceedings for big telecom companies before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
We do this without accessing the state intervenor compensation program, so we rely on your support to make this possible, as we have participated in the AT&T/TMobile proceeding (2011), Comcast/Time Warner proceeding (2014), Charter/Time Warner proceeding (2015) and now TMobile/Sprint (2018). We do it because we believe that important as lawyers are, there need to be other voices at the table in these proceedings.
Update: Northern California Public Participation Hearing
January 15 – Fresno City Hall 2600 Fresno Street Fresno 93721 at 6:00pm
Background:
18 prominent privacy groups (including Media Alliance) wrote to the Senate Commerce Committee objecting to hearings held on national privacy legislation that included absolutely no consumer or privacy rights advocates.
The letter states ” There is little point in asking industry groups how they would like to be regulated. ”
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