Overnight Tech: FCC flooded by complaints over cable news

LEDE: Cable news viewers have lodged hundreds of complaints this election season with federal regulators.

Bernie Sanders supporters have complained about media bias, voters without cable subscriptions about debate access, and a few dozen Fox News watchers have complained about obscene language used by guests in reference to President Obama and Donald Trump.

{mosads}Those, and many more, make up a batch of 890 pages of complaints against Fox News, CNN and MSNBC filed with the Federal Communications Commission this election season, obtained by The Hill through a Freedom of Information Act request.  

Though the agency does not have authority to regulate content on cable, the FCC’s complaint box acts as a sort of comment section for TV viewers of all kinds. You can read through the 890 pages of records going back to last August here and read about Sanders’ supporters complaints here.

XEROX NOT PULLING SPONSORSHIP: Xerox has donated money to presidential nominating conventions going back to 1996, and it is not stopping this year. In response to a question, the company said it will donate equal amounts to the Republican and Democratic conventions, though it did not name the amount. Xerox is one of the companies targeted by advocates to pull sponsorship of the GOP convention over Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

“We have made these contributions to both parties’ host committees without prejudice towards or against those nominated by the conventions,” the company said in a statement. “Importantly, the host committees responsible for organizing the conventions that receive these funds are nonprofit corporations with no political affiliation. Legally, these are charitable contributions to host committees that foster our democratic traditions and help the localities deflect the massive cost of holding a successful political convention. Xerox makes no direct contributions to either political party and neither Xerox nor its political action committee endorses or has ever endorsed any presidential candidate.

ANOTHER UBER LAWSUIT: Uber is the subject of another lawsuit in federal court arguing over the correct employment classification of drivers, according to TechCrunch. The lawsuit in a federal court in Illinois, pertaining to drivers across the country, comes on the heels of a pair of Uber settlements in Massachusetts and California.

THE INTERNET OF THINGS: Join us on Tuesday, May 10 for Internet of Things: The Next Frontier in Tech Innovation. Policymakers & industry leaders will discuss public-private partnerships for developing and implementing cutting-edge mobile technologies, and the policies and regulations necessary to ensure the security of these new tools. Sponsored by Visa. RSVP here.

SENATE COMMERCE EYES CELL NETWORK FLAW: A Senate Commerce Committee aide says that committee staff is examining the issues posed by the vulnerabilities in the SS7 cellular network protocols. Leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have already requested briefings from wireless carriers. For more on the flaw, click here.

GOING DEEP ON RATE REG BILL: The Daily Dot took a deep dive into criticisms of the No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Act on Monday. One critic describes it as “something that seems more like a branding campaign [trying] to pass itself off as serious policymaking.” Read more here.

DAILY FANTASY OUT IN ALABAMA: Effective today, daily fantasy sports operators DraftKings and FanDuel are ceasing operations in Alabama. It’s part of a settlement with the state’s attorney general, who was behind an earlier order classifying paid daily fantasy as illegal gambling. This means that the websites — which offer a high-frequency, high-reward alternative to traditional season long fantasy games — won’t allow users with Alabama IP addresses. Given how quickly the issue has moved, we can’t blame you for losing track of which states have banned daily fantasy sports, or regulated or legalized it. We’re big fans of Legal Sports Report’s state-by-state tracker.

REMINDER: The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade will host a hearing on sports betting and daily fantasy sports next week. There’s no public witness list yet.

BENIOFF’s MESSAGE: The Wall Street Journal digs into the social activism of Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce. He has made a habit of aggressively rallying fellow executives against the so-called “religious freedom” bills making their way through many a state house and widely seen as being anti-LGBT. The piece also includes one soundbite from the lieutenant governor of North Carolina, Dan Forest, that’s getting a lot of attention: “One or two executives from San Francisco call their buddies, and then we’ve got leftist groupthink tarnishing North Carolina.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

A judge has once again blocked the WhatsApp service in Brazil because the company will not turn over data in a criminal case, Bloomberg News reported on Monday afternoon.

A top Senate Democrat is urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate a billboard company that helps advertisers target customers by using location and shopping information from people’s mobile phones.

The top Republican and Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee are worried that a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposal to open up the market for the set-top boxes that consumers use to watch television could lead to “an expansion” in the distribution of pirated content.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recommended Amazon pay more than $26 million in damages for unfairly billing app purchases made by children, but a federal judge ruled that amount was too high.

An Australian man claimed Monday that he is the secretive figure who invented bitcoin, the popular virtual currency.

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