Over the last decade, lawmakers and regulators slowly woke up to the consequences of the tech industry’s unchecked rise in power. In the 2020s, they'll try to take back control. Here are (some) of the top issues the Washington Post will tracking at The Technology 202 in 2020:
A Q&A with Detroit director of digital inclusion Joshua Edmonds.
YouTube said it is rolling out new protections for children viewing videos on its site, an effort to satisfy federal regulators who in 2019 fined the company tens of millions of dollars over alleged privacy violations. The changes, which include limitations on data collection and advertising, are a step toward addressing concerns from advocacy groups who have complained the Google-owned company has run afoul of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which forbids tracking and targeting users 12 and under.
High-Performance Broadband delivers opportunities and strengthens communities. In the Digital Age, open, affordable, robust broadband is the key to all of us reaching for — and achieving — the American Dream. But since the mid-1990s, the U.S. has struggled with a persistent dilemma called the digital divide — the unfortunate reality that for too many people, meaningful connectivity is out of reach.
We saw giant steps backward on communications, media, health, education, environment, voting rights, court appointments, money in politics, equal opportunity, women’s rights, labor rights… the list goes on and on.
Across Missouri there are pockets of rural communities that do not have stable access to high-speed broadband internet, leaving them disconnected and technologically behind urban areas 20 minutes away. And Internet connectivity is now a necessity for small businesses. The lack of broadband in Missouri is a critical infrastructure crisis, according to Tim Arbeiter, director of the Office of Broadband Development. Close to 1.2 million Missourians don’t have access to high-speed internet in their area, Arbeiter said.
When it comes to being able to connect to high-speed internet in rural Colorado, “universal service” is still an aspiration, not a reality. With upward of 600,000 rural households in the state, an 87% service rate means somewhere in the range of 80,000 to 90,000 households are living with subpar internet, according to state officials’ estimates. Tony Neal-Graves, executive director of the state’s broadband office, knows there are plenty of barriers to reaching the state's goal of 92% rural access by June 2020, starting with collecting reliable information about who has broadband and who doe
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