Mediagazer: Disney, CBS Said to Be Queried by U.S. in Comcast Merger (Bloomberg)

11:05 AM ET, July 11, 2014

Top News:

US knew in advance of British plans to destroy Guardian hard drives containing NSA documents — US given heads up about newspaper data destruction — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration knew in advance that the British government would oversee destruction of a newspaper's hard …

Discussion: Washington Post, The New York Observer, RT, Guardian, @janinegibson, @jackgillum and The Newspaper Guild

David Drummond / Guardian:

Google's top lawyer describes challenges in implementing EU's Right To Be Forgotten, urges public debate — We need to talk about the right to be forgotten — After the European court ruling, we at Google want to encourage debate on where the public interest lies in restricting web searches

Discussion: Associated Press, TechCrunch, PandoDaily, The Official Google Blog, Search Engine Land, Electronista, Mashable, Washington Post, Business Insider, Press Gazette, The Verge and Gigaom

James Ball / Guardian:

Google admits to errors over Guardian ‘right to be forgotten’ link deletions — David Drummond, chief legal officer of internet search firm, says adjusting to EU rule on removing content is ‘work in progress’ — Google has acknowledged that it “incorrectly” removed links to several Guardian articles …

Discussion: Engadget and Search Engine Land

Bloomberg:

Disney, CBS Said to Be Queried by U.S. in Comcast Merger — Walt Disney Co. (DIS), Discovery Communications Inc. (DISCA) and CBS Corp. (CBS) are being asked for information by U.S. antitrust officials probing Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)'s planned purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc., according to three people familiar with the matter.

Discussion: StreetInsider.com and Jewish Business News

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

FCC sets clock for Comcast's Time Warner Cable and Charter deals — The Federal Communications Commission has released its schedule for the public and the media industry to weigh in on Comcast's proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable and its complex deal to trade some cable systems with Charter Communications.

Discussion: Washington Post, Multichannel News, Variety, DSLreports, Deadline.com and Re/code

Robert Mackey / New York Times:

Rumor and Leaks Fill a Void as Israel Silences Press Over Killings — Israeli intelligence officials used gag orders in recent weeks to stifle reporting on the initial investigations into both the abduction and the killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, and the apparent revenge killing …

Discussion: @kia_mak, @lpolgreen, The Times of Israel, @nytimesworld, BuzzFeed and @robertmackey

Committee to Protect Journalists:
Israeli airstrike destroys press car, killing Palestinian media worker

Discussion: Gawker, New York Times, Al Jazeera English, New York Times, IFJ, @ibnlarry, Reuters, IMEMC, The Huffington Post, @josephwillits, @jessradio, @mlcalderone, Washington Post and Reuters

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon ends all book discounts in France, charges penny for shipping books to sidestep law — Amazon Shelves French Book Discounts — U.S. Online Retailer Bows to French Law Protecting Local Bookstores — PARIS— Amazon.com Inc. ended all book discounts in France on Thursday …

Discussion: Engadget, France 24 and The Local

Richard Russo / The Authors Guild:
Authors Guild to Amazon in Hachette standoff: “We're not interested in a short-term windfall”

Discussion: Bookseller news, @authorplanet, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, @thegernertco, @watershedchron, @alex_shephard and Washington Post

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Sony Threatens to Bypass Licensers in Royalties Battle — A month after the Justice Department said it would review the decades-old regulatory agreements governing the music licensing agencies Ascap and BMI, the world's biggest song publisher has threatened to end its relationship with those groups if the changes it wants are not made.

Discussion: @sterlewine, @legrandnetwork, New York Post, hypebot and The Week

Cory Doctorow / Guardian:

What Canada's national public broadcaster could learn from the BBC — The beleaguered CBC could do worse than look to the BBC's now-shelved plans for a publicly funded online archive of the nation's collective cultural memory — The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) …

Discussion: @jonathan_pinto

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Chromecast and Roku sold an estimated 3.8M units each in 2013 in US, compared to 2M Apple TVs — Roku and Chromecast go head-to-head in streaming race, Apple TV falling behind — Roku and Chromecast were the two most successful streaming devices sold in the U.S. in 2013 …

Discussion: BGR, Electronista, MacRumors and 9to5Mac

Patrick Kingsley / Guardian:

In Egypt, watching the World Cup means choosing from two politically controversial networks — Egyptian fans must choose Hebrew or Arab channel to watch World Cup final — Ultra-nationalists face difficult choice between ‘enemy’ networks but most people seem only to care about not missing the game

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

World Cup shows Twitter's unique strength: dominance in real-time sports news and commentary — Twitterball — In the old days of Twitter — at least ‘old’ by Silicon Valley 2.0 standards, which is anything over five years — you could count on a couple of things.

Discussion: @sporttechie and @kevindeshazo