Last year, the Federal Communications Commission put in place a new set of rules that make it much more difficult for the providers of prison telephone services to charge the bejeezus out of inmates and their families. How might the providers continue with their scam? One shady, anonymous document may provide an answer.

Currently, making a 15-minute phone call from jail might cost you or the person you’re calling as much as $17. Those dollars add up: make three calls per week and you’re paying over $2600 per year just to talk to your loved ones. This week, the FCC ruled to put a stop to the price gouging.

While 30 Rock may have officially ended two years ago, its legacy lives on in the vodka-tampon, MILF-addled-memories of our nation’s most sensitive viewers. And now, we have the official FCC complaints to prove it.

The FCC is very likely to block Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the reigning Worst Company in America and Most Hated Company in America, from completing their $45.2 billion super-megamorph into The Worst, Most Hated Company in America, a source familiar with the deal told Bloomberg today. Hey Comcast, have you tried turning it off and rebooting it?

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote on Thursday to regulate the Internet as a public good, the New York Times reports, and Republican lawmakers who have opposed the impending decision are backing down.

Yesterday, President Obama waded into the ongoing—and somewhat confusing—debate about “net neutrality.” If you’re curious why this matters, or what “net neutrality” actually means, this explainer is for you.

As you've undoubtedly heard, earlier this week the FCC reportedly threatened to change the rules on net neutrality. Here's a good overview of why that's wrong and why you should care, and here's a petition you can sign about it.

It is 2013 and people are still offended by the animated Fox TV show The Simpsons. This week, Governmentattic.org obtained an archive of indecency complaints about the Simpsons to the FCC from 2010-2013, via Freedom of Information Act request, . They are pretty amazing. (There's also an archive of South Park complaints [pdf] but people getting upset about The Simpsons is much funnier.)

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile are teaming up with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make it harder for thieves to use stolen phones, since you seem hell-bent on accidentally leaving yours everywhere.

Nipple-obsessed bureaucratic broadcast regulator the FCC has taken definitive action towards eliminating what they call "one of the most persistent problems of the television age." No, Howie Mandel has not been ordered executed by firing squad. The problem is "loud commercials."

Seven years (almost eight, at this point) after Janet Jackson's intentional "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl and the $550,000 fine leveled against CBS is still being argued in court. Just today an appeals court in Philly threw out the case. Now it might be headed back to the Supreme Court.

In your shaky Tuesday media column: Carlos Slim loves the NYT again, ASNE downsizes, Al Sharpton's on TV to stay, the Fairness Doctrine is dead, and obligatory earthquake mention!

Bad news for Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and idiot Republican candidates on the campaign trail who have nothing better to talk about: They'll no longer be able to scare listeners with the prospect of Democrats reviving the Fairness Doctrine! Because FCC chair Julius Genachowski has agreed to take the dated, unenforced rule out of its books, once and for all.

If you run a charity helping teen girls, and you get $18,000 in funding from Comcast, and you don't like it when FCC commissioners approve massive media mergers only to almost immediately take a high-paying job with the merged company, you are apparently not allowed to say so on Twitter. Word to the wise.

You were, likely, worried about the ability of Comcast-NBC to push effectively for its interests on Capitol Hill. Sorry — we mean, push for the interests of American consumers. But worry no more! The cable giant has hired Meredith Attwell Baker for "a top DC lobbying job," and we have a feeling she's going to do a great job. You've heard of Baker — she used to be one of the Republican commissioners of the FCC. Four months ago, she voted to approve the NBC-Comcast merger? But that was four whole months ago, so Comcast probably forgot about it before they hired her.

When the FCC approved its net neutrality rules earlier this year, it pissed off just about everyone. The House of Representatives were definitely not thrilled: A bill was passed today that would strike down the FCC's net neutrality rules.

The FCC has approved the proposed combination of cable provider Comcast and NBC Universal. Pretty soon one corporation will own everything.

The FCC is investigating Google for collecting personal Wi-Fi data via its Street View vans. It may be considered criminal eavesdropping.

The ongoing dispute between cable provider Cablevision and Fox meant that Cablevision customers couldn't watch Tuesday's playoff baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the San Francisco Giants. Never fear! The FCC stepped in... and live-Tweeted the game:

Verizon is refunding 15 million customers some $50 million total after an FCC investigation into "mystery fees"—mostly charges for data transfer that never occurred. I will continue to regard my entire phone bill as one single "mystery fee."