Axios

Meta —the parent company for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — could drag hundreds of competitors into its legal battle, aiming to slow the Federal Trade Commission's prosecution and "bury" its lawyers in paperwork.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, President Biden's most powerful appointee on technology, has largely been an ally to the sector, defending US tech firms abroad and pushing for funding domestically. With Big Tech critics in charge of the government's antitrust enforcement efforts, Sec Raimondo has become the industry's key advocate within the Biden administration. She was deeply involved in negotiations on the bipartisan infrastructure law, with her agency 

The tech world order that came together in the '90s at the Cold War's end is falling apart as a new rift between Russia and the West opens and a great retrenchment begins. The breakup of the USSR in the early '90s opened an era in which internet use rapidly spread around the globe and US tech companies viewed the entire planet as both factory floor and market. Working from that assumption helped a handful of companies grow to previously inconceivable size, wealth and power.

The tech industry is lobbying statehouses across the country to pass privacy bills that critics call weak. Most tech firms would prefer a nationwide law, but since Congress hasn't budged on the issue, the industry now seeks to preempt states from approving tougher privacy rules like California's. Utah lawmakers considered and passed a state privacy bill in less than two weeks, and it's now awaiting the governor's signature. Utah would become the fourth state with a privacy law, following Colorado, Virginia and California.

The race to 5G is forcing the world's biggest telecom giants to consolidate. 5G is all about scale; when companies combine, they have more resources and capital to bid on spectrum and build out tools to get ahead. Orange and Masmovil announced they entered exclusive talks to merge their operations in Spain at a valuation of €19.6 billion ($21.7 billion).