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For Immediate Release
January, 04 2010, 03:02pm EDT
Contact:
Liz Rose, Communications Director, Free Press, (202) 265-1490 x32
Free Press, Consumer Groups Call on Antitrust Authorities and Congress to Investigate 'TV Everywhere'
New Report Shows Cable and Media Giants Colluding to Kill Competition for Online TV
WASHINGTON
Free Press and other consumer groups are calling on federal
antitrust authorities and Congress to investigate agreements among
giant media companies to stifle competition in the emerging market for
online television programming.
This call for an investigation is based on a Free Press report
released today. In the report, Free Press details how giant cable,
satellite and phone companies and many leading programming networks,
led by Comcast and Time Warner, are colluding on an industry-wide
initiative called "TV Everywhere" that requires consumers to pay for
cable TV subscriptions to access online programming. While being
marketed as a consumer-friendly feature, TV Everywhere is designed to
eliminate the threat of online competition, limit consumer choice, and
build on the cable TV model that gouges consumers.
"This is a textbook antitrust violation," said Marvin Ammori, a law
professor at the University of Nebraska, senior adviser to Free Press,
and author of the report. "The old media giants are working together to
kill off innovative online competitors and carve up the market for
themselves. TV Everywhere is designed to eliminate competition at a
pivotal moment in the history of television. The antitrust authorities
should not stand by and let the cable cartel crush Internet TV before
it gets off the ground."
Read TV Competition Nowhere: How the Cable Industry Is Colluding to Kill Online TV here: https://www.freepress.net/files/TV-Nowhere.pdf
On Dec. 15, Comcast became the first company to launch its TV
Everywhere product, under the brand "Fancast Xfinity"; the other
dominant cable, satellite and phone companies have announced plans to
follow suit. Using published statements by industry executives and news
reports about industry discussions, Free Press demonstrates in the
report that the TV Everywhere initiative rests on an illegal agreement
among competitors -- and that the initiative would not be possible
without this illegal collusion.
"Internet TV could actually inject much needed competition into a
TV market long dominated by cable companies -- this is a valuable
opportunity to provide greater innovation for consumers," said Ben
Scott, policy director of Free Press. "More competition means lower
prices for consumers. The Internet offers the potential for
democratizing the TV screen now controlled by a handful of powerful
media companies. We urge antitrust authorities to move immediately to
promote competition."
Parul Desai of Media Access Project said, "This is an important test
for Congress and the antitrust authorities to make sure dominant old
media companies don't kill off potential sources of innovative, new
competition just as consumers are getting accustomed to the possibility
of that new competition."
The consumer groups -- which include Free Press, Media Access
Project, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, New America
Foundation's Open Technology Initiative, Public Knowledge, and the
Participatory Culture Foundation -- filed letters
with the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and
congressional committees with jurisdiction over competition issues and
media and broadband Internet services.
Read the report here: https://www.freepress.net/files/TV-Nowhere.pdf
Read the letter to the Department of Justice here
Read the letter to the Federal Trade Commission here
Read the letter to Sens. Leahy and Sessions here
Read the letter to Sens. Rockefeller and Hutchison here
Read the letter to Reps. Waxman and Barton here
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
(202) 265-1490LATEST NEWS
Trump Rebuked for Bypassing Congress With $8.6 Billion Weapons Sale to Israel and Gulf Allies
"The vaults are open and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," said one Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
May 03, 2026
As the US voting public continues to express its discontent over the disastrous war of choice against Iran that US President Donald Trump launched just over two months ago, fresh criticism followed after weekend reporting revealed the administration skirted congressional review to approve an $8.6 billion weapons deal with the United Arab Emirates and other allies in the Middle East.
Announced Friday night quietly by the US State Department, as the New York Times reports, the "sales would entail the transfer of rockets to Israel, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and air-defense equipment to Qatar and Kuwait."
According to the Times:
Under the terms of the deal with Qatar, the Gulf country would pay more than $4 billion for American-made Patriot missile interceptors — global stockpiles of which have dwindled during the war with Iran.
Israel, the Emirates and Qatar would receive an Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, which fires laser-guided rockets. Kuwait also purchased an advanced aerial defense system for about $2.5 billion.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio expedited the deals under an emergency provision allowing the “immediate sale” of the weapons, the State Department said, bypassing standard congressional review and prompting criticism from Democratic lawmakers. This is the third time the second Trump administration has invoked an emergency authorization during the Iran war to bypass Congress on arms sales.
"No comment," said Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in an eye-rolling response to the news on social media.
After a commenter suggested that "America opened the door to war for [the countries taking part in the sale] so they would open their treasuries and the Israeli-American arms trade would boom after a slump," ElBaradei seemed to agree.
"The vaults are open, and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," he said.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor at Princeton University, said: "Trump is bypassing Congress to fast-track arms sales to the United Arab Emirates, apparently without receiving any promise that the UAE would stop arming the genocidal Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan."
The RSF has been accused of atrocities in the ongoing Sudanese civil war, and the backing it has received from the US, with the UAE as its closely allied proxy, has been the source of outrage and criticism.
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"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said one watchdog group who called the leak of personal information "a goldmine for identity thieves" and other fraudsters.
May 03, 2026
A newly reported failure of the Trump administration's ability to handle sensitive private information in the social programs it is tasked with operating triggered a fresh wave of anger over the weekend after it was revealed that healthcare providers' Social Security numbers were made public as part of a faulty Medicare portal rollout.
The Washington Post discovered the compromised database and alerted the administration last week, before publishing a story about it on Friday, after efforts had been made to protect the sensitive information from further compromise.
According to the Post:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last year created a directory to help seniors look up which doctors and medical providers accept which insurance plans, framing it as an overdue improvement and part of the Trump administration’s initiative to modernize health care technology.
But a publicly accessible database used to populate the directory contains some of the providers’ Social Security numbers, linked to their names and other identifying information. For at least several weeks, CMS made the database available for public use as part of its data transparency efforts.
While the reporting noted that the files were "not immediately visible to users who [visited] the provider directory," lawmakers and experts said the compromised information would be a treasure trove for fraudsters.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes."
Critics pounced on the new reporting, calling it "yet another mess-up by the Team Trump" and only the latest evidence that the administration cannot and should not be trusted to protect the nation's most successful anti-poverty programs or the sensitive personal data of the American people who entrust the government with that information.
"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said Social Security Works, an advocacy group that serves as a public watchdog for the nation's social programs.
The compromised database, said the group, "is a goldmine for identity thieves, scammers, and foreign governments. And it is undermining the very foundation of our Social Security system."
"This is a failure by this administration," said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in response to the reporting. "Exposing Social Security numbers, whether patients or providers, is unacceptable."
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House committee that oversees the Medicare program, put the onus on his Republican colleagues in Congress.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes,” Neal told the Post in a statement. “Do House Republicans need to see their own data exposed before they do right by their constituents and act?”
In March, as Common Dreams reported at the time, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Social Security Administration accusing a former staffer with Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run for a time by right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, of trying to share information from SSA databases with his private employer.
Since the outset of Trump's second term, DOGE's meddling with Social Security and Trump's undermining of the program have been the source of deep anger and concerns among the program's defenders.
In a social media post on Saturday citing the whistleblower allegations from March, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said, "For more than a year, 'DOGE' has been combing through the American people's records. They want to use your data to overturn elections and profit in the private sector. Enough! This administration must be held accountable for this massive data breach!
On Friday, responding to the Post's new reporting about the compromised database of physicians' private information, Larsen condemned Republicans for their ongoing and pervasive failures in the face of Trump's malfeasance and incompetence.
DOGE, said Larsen, "has been in your data for more than a year. We just learned that physicians' Social Security numbers were publicly exposed in an online portal launched by ‘DOGE’ officials."
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"Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood, and it will live forever in our memory."
May 02, 2026
Explosive Media, one of the independent outfits generating the viral videos about the war in Iran, created a short piece on Saturday to honor the American father of two who climbed atop a bridge in the Washington, DC this weekend to demand an end to the conflict.
"In honor of Guido Reichstadter, the man who climbed the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to make his voice of protest heard," the group said in a post alongside the video short. "Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood, and it will live forever in our memory."
As Common Dreams reported, Reichstadter climbed the bridge wearing a t-shirt that simply read "End War" beginning on Friday afternoon, remained in protest overnight, and told one reporter he intends to remain "for a few days at least."
In honor of Guido Reichstadter,
the man who climbed the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to make his voice of protest heard.
Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood,
and it will live forever in our memory. 🫡🏔️ pic.twitter.com/WANYzS7kIh
— Explosive Media (@ExplosiveMediaa) May 2, 2026
Reichstadter said he climbed the 168-foot-tall bridge “because the government of the United States is engaged in acts of mass murder in my name. And I refuse to be complicit in that.”
"The world is proud of you, Guido," Explosive Media said in a separate post on social media. "Soon, side by side, we will celebrate peace and victory together."
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