Now, as Congress returns from recess, it faces a shrinking window to overcome major hurdles standing in the way of passage of big tech items — including privacy and antitrust legislation, and the confirmation of key federal regulators.
Here’s what to watch as lawmakers embark on a major legislative overhaul:
A new target post for lawmakers’ antitrust tech pack
After a years-long effort to investigate allegations of anti-competitive behavior by tech giants and craft legislation meant to address it, lawmakers set early summer as their unofficial deadline to pass antitrust legislation, amid fears the election would derail the plans.
“I hope we get the opportunity this month, not next month, not after the August recess,” Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), one of the lawmakers leading the push, said in early June about a possible vote on the Senate floor on several closely watched proposals.
He added, “We all know what happens after the August holidays. After the August recess, we need to clean up the issues before the election and immediately after the election, before the end of this Congress.”
That deadline has come and gone, and to this point neither the House nor the Senate have taken up the bills — the American Innovation and Online Choice Act (S.2992) and the Open Application Marketplace Act (S. 2710) – for a floor vote. That means lawmakers will have to juggle a growing list of priorities, including high-stakes elections, as they try to pass the bills.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) pledged in early August to hold a vote on the legislation, as the New York Post reported. But he privately says he doesn’t think the proposals have the 60 votes needed to pass, according to Bloomberg News, and his office has said he’s still working with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) to garner enough support. This leaves the fate of the attempt up in the air.
And while the effort is bipartisan, the bills are likely to die if Republicans retake the House. “The antitrust laws that we’re currently considering are not going to move forward under Republican leadership, and that’s been a very clear signal that’s been sent,” Buck told me in March.
A growing push for privacy hits a familiar wall
An unexpected breakthrough in negotiations on federal privacy legislation earlier this year catapulted discussions on Capitol Hill further than they have ever gone, with a key House panel advancing a so-called comprehensive bill for the first time. of data privacy.
But the strong backlash from two critical Democratic leaders has put the effort on life support.
Senate Commerce Chair Mary Cantwell (D-Wash.) has expressed deep reservations that the bill that came out of committee 53-2 in the House of Representatives, the American Privacy and Data Protection Act (ADPPA), has major loopholes in implementation and said she does not there are plans to mark it.
“I don’t even think so Nancy Pelosi there are plans to bring it in, so it’s pretty certain we won’t bring it in,” Cantwell told me in July.
Instead, Cantwell’s panel approved advancing a privacy bill that would cover all American consumers and instead greenlighted legislation to expand data protections for children and teens.
That campaign, too, now faces a major hurdle in the House. Pelosi, the chamber’s top Democrat and its most powerful Californian, echoed concerns expressed by colleagues in her delegation that the ADPPA would overturn state laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act.
After remaining mum on the subject for months, Pelosi released a statement last week calling it “imperative that California continue to provide and enforce the nation’s strongest privacy rights.”
The remarks dealt another blow to the negotiations, with Pelosi now calling for the kind of changes Republicans have rejected during the talks.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement in response, “California … should not be dictating privacy and data security rules for the rest of the country.”
A key nomination in oblivion, with more to come
Throughout President Biden’s tenure, the Federal Communications Commission has operated without a full complement of commissioners and a Democratic majority, as former agency employees Gigi’s son‘s nomination has been stalled for nearly a year amid partisan gridlock.
That has left FCC Democrats unable to carry out key agenda items, including restoring Obama-era net neutrality regulations.
It’s unclear whether Sohn has the votes among Democrats to clear the chamber. If Republicans retake the Senate in this year’s midterm elections before she is confirmed, a prospect that looks increasingly unlikely, it will likely destroy her prospects, making the next few months critical.
On the Federal Trade Commission, Republican Commissioner Noah Phillips is set to leave the agency this fall and the Democratic Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughterits term is set to expire. That likely means the agency will soon be operating at limited capacity again.
Security firm Cloudflare takes down Kiwi Farms website
Cloudflare’s move marks a reversal of course for the company, which had previously justified its defense of Kiwi Farms. Joseph Menn AND Taylor Lawrence report. Kiwi Farms is best known for being used by followers to stage real-world harassment as well as online hacks and abuse.
“As Kiwi Farms has felt more threatened, they’ve responded by becoming more threatening,” Cloudflare’s CEO. Matthew Prince told The Post. “We think there is an imminent danger, and the pace at which law enforcement is able to respond to those threats, we don’t think is fast enough to keep up.” Contributors to the forum have posted home addresses of perceived enemies and called for them to be shot, Prince said.
Last week, Cloudflare faced pressure to divest from Kiwi Farms. Organizations and influencers joined together Clara Sorrenti, a trans Canadian Twitch streamer known online as Keffals, calling for Kiwi Farms to be removed from Cloudflare’s services. Sorrenti launched the #DropKiwiFarms campaign after being targeted by forum users for months. Forum users doxed Sorrenti and her family, and they also called the police to come to her home in “swatting” attacks.
Cloudflare isn’t the only firm that cut Kiwi Farms. DDoS-Guard, a Russian service that protects websites from cyber attacks involving overwhelming amounts of traffic, had acquired Kiwi Farms after Cloudflare shut it down. But that didn’t last long. On Monday, the firm said it was ending its services to Kiwi Farms after receiving reports that the forum was violating its policies. “After analyzing the site’s content, we decided to terminate DDoS protection services for kiwifarms.ru. To all those who brought this incident to our attention, we thank you,” the firm said.
Twitter lacks the resources to combat major threats like disinformation
Twitter’s former head of security, Peter “Mudge” Zatkocommissioned an external audit of the firm’s ability to counter disinformation, and the review described a company grappling with sophisticated disinformation campaigns while under-resourced, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Joseph Menn AND Zakrzewski the cat report. The audit was included in an explosive whistleblower complaint by Zatko, a famous hacker.
“While Zatko’s allegations about Twitter’s security failures, first reported last month by The Post and CNN, have received widespread attention, the audit of the misinformation has gone largely unreported,” my colleagues write. . “However, it highlights a fundamental conundrum for the 16-year-old social media service: Despite its role in hosting the opinions of some of the world’s most important political leaders, business leaders and journalists, Twitter has been unable to build safeguards in proportion to the large size of the platform. social influence. It has never generated the level of profit necessary to do so, and its leadership has never demonstrated the will.”
Twitter disputes much of the report, which said the company was too lax, silent and unresponsive to threats. Alethea Group, the firm behind the report, declined to comment.
European regulator fines Instagram $400 million for violating children’s privacy
It’s the second-largest fine a European regulator has slapped on a tech giant for violating Europe’s GDPR privacy regulation, Politico Europe’s Vincent Manancourt reports. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) is working on at least half a dozen other investigations into firms owned by Instagram parent Meta, reports Manancourt.
The Instagram investigation focused on 13- to 17-year-old users of the app who may have run business accounts that published contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses, Reuters reported.
Instagram plans to appeal the fine, a Meta spokesperson told Reuters. “This investigation focused on legacy settings that we updated over a year ago, and since then we’ve released many new features to help keep teens safe and their information private,” said a spokesperson for Meta for Politico Europe. “Anyone under 18 automatically has their own private account when they join Instagram, so only people they know can see what they post, and adults can’t message teens they don’t follow. We engaged fully with the DPC throughout their investigation and are carefully considering their final decision.”
Apple plans to double workforce of digital advertising business (Financial Times)
Amazon Care is dead, but the tech giant’s healthcare ambitions live on (Caroline O’Donovan)
4,000 Google cafeteria workers quietly banded together during the pandemic (Gerrit De Vynck and Lauren Kaori Gurley)
FTC digs into Amazon’s iRobot deal (Politico)
Biden to hit Chinese tech with new executive order (Semafor)
He used AI to win a fine art competition. Was it a scam? (Drew Harwell)
- The CIA’s chief technology officer Nand Mulchandani and retired Lt. Gen Jack Shanahan discuss software-defined warfare at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event on Wednesday at 2 p.m.
- CSIS hosts an event on stopping disinformation and disinformation on Wednesday at 3 p.m.
that‘That’s all for today – thank you so much for joining us! Be sure to tell others to subscribe of technology 202 here. Get in touch with tips, comments or greetings I tweet or email.
