There’s strong, bipartisan potential for moving legislation that would establish digital identity verification practices meant to help the federal government combat identity theft, said Senate and House staffers during a Monday webinar.
Karl Herchenroeder
Karl Herchenroeder, Associate Editor, is a technology policy journalist for publications including Communications Daily. Born in Rockville, Maryland, he joined the Warren Communications News staff in 2018. He began his journalism career in 2012 at the Aspen Times in Aspen, Colorado, where he covered city government. After that, he covered the nuclear industry for ExchangeMonitor in Washington. You can follow Herchenroeder on Twitter: @karlherk
The House Commerce Committee’s bipartisan privacy legislation is stronger than California’s privacy law, Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said Thursday. He hopes to convince House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other skeptical members that the bill should set the national privacy standard.
The FTC should be “careful” in drawing up potential competition rules that might not withstand judicial scrutiny, former Democratic officials told an antitrust conference Wednesday in Washington.
The FTC should avoid injecting new, unsubstantiated liability into potential changes to its ad endorsement guidelines, advertising groups told the agency in comments due this week (see 2207250036). Consumer advocates urged the agency to hold strong on expanded definitions for social media influencers and new protections for children and teens. The FTC collected public comment through Monday on its first substantive update to the guides since 2009.
FTC Chair Lina Khan should recuse herself from the agency’s lawsuit against Meta’s acquisition of Within Unlimited because her publicly aired opinions “irrevocably tainted” the case, Meta argued Friday in 5:22-CV-04325 before the U.S. District Court in San Jose. Senate Democrats defended her willingness to hold Big Tech accountable and name executives in complaints, in interviews last week.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 15-7 Thursday to send the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (S-673) to the floor with an amendment from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that Republicans touted as a victory against Big Tech censorship.
The Senate Commerce Committee’s bipartisan kids’ privacy legislation doesn’t need any major amendments to pass, but sponsors are open to clarifying language about what companies and ages are covered, said Jamie Susskind, tech policy adviser to Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Wednesday.
If the FTC finds Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal directly participated in data practices that violated a 2011 consent decree, the agency won’t hesitate to name him in a complaint, FTC Chair Lina Khan told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during an oversight hearing Tuesday.
A federal judge questioned whether Facebook has monopolized the social media market, citing reports about hundreds of thousands of users leaving the platform. DOJ and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to revive an antitrust lawsuit against parent company Meta (see 2208240027), filed by 48 states and territories. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg dismissed the case in June 2021 (see 2106280057), saying the states waited too long to file the claim.
A potential legislative proposal from Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that would create a new tech regulator (see 2209120059) is dividing the Senate.