Some of the stories people are talking about this morning:»  Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) is warning Hollywood movie studios about something they likely expected all along: the company is preparing to file for bankruptcy in the middle of next month. [LATimes] »  Newsweek is losing another top editor: Mark Miller, who…

Some of the stories people are talking about this morning:»  Former US Weekly editor Janice Min is spicing up The Hollywood Reporter—but is the venerable trade mag getting too gossipy? [The Wrap] »  Ad prices for Conan O’Brien’s new TV talk show on Turner are pretty close to what a…

Back in June, it was reported that the FTC was reviewing allegations into Apple’s new policies that limited access to the iPhone’s the mobile-advertising market for rival platform providers. Now, the New York Post is reporting that European regulators have teamed with the FTC in its investigation.

Some of the stories people are talking about this morning:»  Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has been doing some soul-searching about how deeply it can and should delve in to mining the data its collected over the years. [WSJ] »  Sidney Harman’s purchase of Newsweek has drawn eye-rolling, but David Carr says…

In an effort to put to rest reports in the NYTimes last week that they are collaborating on pay tiers for the internet, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) issued a manifesto today on ways to keep the internet open. The thorniest of the seven principles was the…

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) just posted its response to proposals the FTC has said it is looking into in order to support the “reinvention of journalism.” In the document, embedded after the jump, Google argues that the challenges facing the news industry are business problems, not legal problems, and can therefore…

The Federal Communications Commission informed Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) and NBCU that on July 6 it had officially re-started the shot clock on its review of their proposed joint venture. That confirms a report in Multichannel News July 7. The FCC’s informal 180-day shot clock had been stopped for the second…

As part of its lobbying efforts to get approval—and acceptance—for its pending merger with NBC Universal (NYSE: GE), Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) promised U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush in writing today that it will establish a $20 million venture capital fund for minority entrepreneurs to develop “new media content and applications” when…

Who’d be a big American web company in Europe? Two of the biggest, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Facebook, have been facing scrutiny in the union over the last year or two, and the heat is getting hotter…

The Federal Communications Commission has named Douglas Sicker as chief technologist. Chairman Julius Genachowski said in announcing the appointment that he will “help the FCC pursue policies that spur investment, create jobs, promote innovation, and advance our nation’s global technology leadership.” Sicker will be based in the Office of Strategic…

One way Greece hopes to extricate itself from its economic crisis? Tax its news websites. In pension reform law due to be voted upon by parliament next Thursday, the government has proposed raising a 21.5 percent levy on news portals’ online advertising income. The money would go in to an…

The FCC is stopping the shot clock on the Comcast-NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) merger for a second time. Thursday, June 24, had been day 50 on what is an informal 180-day deadline for vetting the deal. The review began March 18. The commission says that the companies returned incomplete answers…

So, what did the private WiFi data that Google disclosed last month it had been mistakenly collecting consist of? French data protection officials say there was “data that are normally covered by ... banking and medical privacy rules”—and “passwords for e-mail services and chunks of text from messages” (via BBC).…

Just as ad agencies and marketers descend on the south of France this week for the 57th annual Cannes Lions advertising festival, advertisers are hoping to impress U.S. regulators back home that they can be trusted to use behavioral targeting without new rules. With help from former About Group head…

Telegraphed for weeks, the FCC’s vote on an inquiry into Title II classification of broadband (and other options) came as no surprise. As a result, reaction came thick and quick to the decision. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a fan of network neutrality regulations and FCC chairman Julius Genachowski’s so-called “third way”…

An arm of the U.S Treasury is looking into concerns about AOL’s pending $187.5 million sale of instant messaging service ICQ to Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies, due to fears that criminal investigations could be compromised, the FT reports (registration req.). ICQ, which was founded and run from Israel,…

What a strange world we live in, where the dominant players in an industry can literally flip-flop overnight with the underdogs. First, the FTC approves Apple’s acquisition of Quattro Wireless without even blinking, so that it could enter the mobile-ad business, then meanwhile it makes Google (NSDQ: GOOG) wait months…

Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, is calling for a raft of strong conditions on any Comcast/NBCU deal, including that it divest its stake in online video site Hulu within a year and apply program access rules to online video. That came in a letter…

A CNN International debate programme that took viewers’ questions via YouTube broke UK rules by offering product placement and sponsorship to the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) video site, according to UK media regulator Ofcom. The CNN YouTube Debate on Climate Change, as it was called, was aired on UK and worldwide…