Daily Digest 3/28/2018 (Net Neutrality Rollback Takes Next Step)

USTelecom, a lobby group that represents AT&T, Verizon, and other large telecommunication companies, plans to sue states and cities that try to enforce network neutrality rules. "Broadband providers have worked hard over the past 20 years to deploy ever more sophisticated, faster and higher-capacity networks, and uphold net neutrality protections for all," USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter wrote. "To continue this important work, there is no question we will aggressively challenge state or municipal attempts to fracture the federal regulatory structure that made all this progress possible." Spalter also wrote that the US should have one net neutrality standard instead of different rules in each state and city, Spalter reiterated the broadband industry's argument that websites should be as heavily regulated as Internet providers. USTelecom hasn't announced specific lawsuits yet, but any state that passes a net neutrality law is likely to be sued by USTelecom or other broadband lobby groups and ISPs. Broadband industry lawsuits will argue that the FCC has authority to preempt the local laws. The FCC's preemption authority is limited, but legal experts disagree on whether states can impose strict net neutrality laws.

Facebook has been rocked by reports of a massive data scrape carried out by Cambridge Analytica and one of its then-contractors, a Cambridge University academic named Aleksandr Kogan. Kogan claims that the data he collected from thousands of Facebook users and their friends—amounting to data on over 50 million users—abided by Facebook’s terms; Cambridge Analytica promises it deleted the data; and Facebook is auditing everyone it can for signs of the data. But while Facebook provided the original data, it wasn’t the only vehicle for Kogan’s app. Kogan acquired what he wanted from individual people—over 240,000 over a six-month period—recruiting them and paying them for their quiz answers and data using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk micro-work platform and Qualtrics, a survey platform. The two platforms are often used by companies to conduct experiments and surveys and by academic researchers to, for instance, recruit psychology subjects. Research ethics require that scientists only gather people’s data for specified uses with their explicit consent, and Amazon’s polices prohibit tasks from harvesting people’s Facebook data. At the time, multiple survey-takers took to a message board, Turkopticon, to report the quiz for violating of Amazon’s Terms of Service. The company eventually booted Kogan from its platform in 2015–over a year later–after learning from a Guardian article that he had passed the data to Cambridge Analytica. But Kogan’s new company, Philometrics, continues to post questionnaires to Mechanical Turk, according to Turkopticon. Kogan’s collaborator on the Cambridge Analytica project, Joe Chancellor, also still uses the platform; according to one review website, he posted a task on Mechanical Turk in February.

[Commentary] The problems at Facebook and others, real and perceived, at Google, Amazon and Apple have led to an easy consensus: The large technology companies should be regulated. Such an outcome would be a bad mistake — bad for the companies, of course, but also bad for us, their users, and bad for the country. I do not pretend to be unbiased in writing this. While I am about as tech-savvy as your average 72-year-old , I met Mark Zuckerberg when he was 20, and spent six years on Facebook’s board. As publisher and later chairman of The Post, I watched the rise of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, sometimes with hope, sometimes with awe and sometimes with horror for what it meant to The Post’s business. The most important control over Facebook — greater than anything governments could come up with — is the ability of its users to quit.

[Donald E. Graham, chairman of Graham Holdings Company, was publisher of The Washington Post from 1979 to 2001.]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation did not exhaust possible solutions to unlock an iPhone connected to a gunman involved in a late-2015 shooting spree before seeking a court order to compel Apple to help access the device, a US Justice Department internal watchdog said. The conclusion may pose challenges for the Trump Administration in possible future litigation to force companies to help crack into encrypted devices. The DOJ watchdog also said top FBI officials did not make inaccurate statements before Congress and in court filings about the bureau’s ability to unlock an iPhone belonging to an alleged shooter in the 2015 San Bernardino terror attack. However, the internal probe into the case did turn up evidence that miscommunication within the bureau resulted in a delayed solution to accessing data stored on the device, which the FBI needed as part of its investigation into the December 2015 attack.

In separate announcements, AT&T and Verizon provided launch details for core networks to support mobile broadband service for public safety users. A key capability of both the AT&T and Verizon public safety offerings is to prioritize public safety network traffic and, where necessary, to pre-empt regular commercial traffic – a capability that could be important in the case of a major emergency.  Both the AT&T and Verizon public safety core networks are designed to separate public safety traffic from other types of traffic. In AT&T’s case, the core network uses physically separate hardware from the network that supports other types of customers.Verizon apparently doesn’t use separate hardware. Verizon said its public safety core network will be operational beginning on Thursday. AT&T said it would start with a “controlled introduction” with a limited number of customers while the First Responder Network Authority completes “extensive” testing of the network core. Additional FirstNet customers likely will be moved in the April/May timeframe, AT&T said.

Amid sky-high cable bills, many TV viewers have sought to cut costs by firing their TV providers and switching to a relatively new crop of online alternatives offering fewer channels at a lower price. These “skinny bundles” are often streamed live over the Internet and on mobile devices, creating new experiences for TV fans. But that video revolution could be threatened if the government allows AT&T to buy Time Warner, according to one of America's first providers of live-streaming skinny bundles. Under AT&T's ownership, Time Warner could force those new TV providers to take on more channels than customers want or need, Warren Schlichting, the head of Dish Network's Sling TV, told a federal judge March 26 in AT&T's landmark antitrust trial at the US District Court for the District of Columbia.  “They will jam as many networks as possible into the base package, and you'll have that bloated bundle again,” Schlichting said. “We fight like crazy to keep the network numbers low.” Schlichting also predicted higher prices and more TV blackouts stemming from contract disputes between AT&T-Time Warner and its rivals and business customers.

President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate the following individual to a key position in his Administration: Rebecca Kelly Slaughter of Maryland, to be a Member of the Federal Trade Commission for the remainder of a seven-year term expiring September 25, 2022. Slaughter is currently chief counsel to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY).  A native New Yorker, she has worked for Minority Leader Schumer since 2009, advising him on legal, competition, telecom, privacy, consumer protection, and intellectual property matters, among other issues.  Prior to joining Sen Schumer’s office, Slaughter was an associate in the DC office of Sidley Austin LLP. Slaughter received her BA in Anthropology magna cum laude from Yale University.  She received her JD from Yale Law School, where she served as an editor on the Yale Law Journal.  She is the second Democrat President Trump nominated to the commission. If the president’s full slate is confirmed, the FTC would have a 3-2 Republican majority.