Politico

During his time on the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Breyer authored and signed onto a slew of significant antitrust and regulation opinions that loom large over the cases against Facebook and Google today. His departure from the bench will mean the loss of serious antitrust expertise — a development that will sadden some traditionalists and cheer progressive antitrust activists that say change is long overdue. Breyer’s views on corporate power shifted somewhat over the years, but antitrust experts point to his decision to sign onto Justice Antonin Scalia’s 2004 opinion in Verizon v.

Europe is putting its foot down on how it wants the internet to run. The European Commission presented its so-called Digital Decade Principles aimed at defining the 27-country bloc’s vision of how the digital economy should abide by values such as democracy, privacy, solidarity, freedom of choice and security.

With billions of dollars set to flow to internet connectivity, lawmakers are questioning how the Biden administration plans to coordinate spending them. In January 20 hearing before the House Agriculture Committee, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack fielded several questions from lawmakers of both parties about how the department has set up its latest round of $1.15 billion in broadband loan and grant funding through its ReConnect program, which will accept applications through February 22.

President Joe Biden donned the jersey of Team Delay by making it clear he had pushed for airlines to get more time to account for certain kinds of legacy aviation equipment. “What I’ve done is pushed as hard as I can to have the 5G folks hold up and abide by what was being requested by the airlines until they could more modernize over the years, so 5G would not interfere with the potential of a landing,” Biden said.

Senate Commerce’s top Republican, Sen Roger Wicker (R-MS), is calling for a new hearing on Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society]. He wants to dig into ethics questions after obtaining and reviewing the terms of the confidential $32 million settlement that broadcasters struck with shuttered TV streaming service Locast in 2021 (Sohn was on the board of the Sports Fan Coalition nonprofit, which ran Locast).

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai personally approved a secret deal that gave the social network a leg up in the search giant’s online advertising auctions, attorneys for Texas and other states alleged in newly unsealed court filings.

The Biden administration is getting closer to launching its proposed Alliance for the Future of the Internet. Administration officials originally hoped to launch this effort of “like-minded countries” in early December 2021 in tandem with the president’s Summit for Democracy.

Comcast has added a lobbyist with deep ties to Arizona, a state whose senior senator may hold the key to confirming Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] for the open seat at the Federal Communications Commission. The cable, broadband and broadcasting giant hired Kirk Adams of Consilium Consulting to lobby on FCC nominations.

Privacy advocacy groups Free Press Action and Fight for the Future are urging Senate Democrats to quickly confirm Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to the Federal Communications Commission and Alvaro Bedoya to the Federal Trade Commission. President Joe Biden renominated both nominees on January 4 after the Senate failed to confirm them in December 2021. Both the FCC and the FTC currently have 2-2 partisan splits, making it difficult for their Democratic chairs to advance controversial items.