Wall Street Journal

Attorney General Jeff Sessions plans to meet with state attorneys general in Sept 2018 to discuss whether tech companies may be “intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas.” The meeting will also consider whether tech platforms “may have harmed competition” with their actions, a hint that the Justice Department may be weighing antitrust action against the firms. Legal experts said the agency's announcement “clearly suggests” a willingness to intervene on behalf of conservative critics who say they are victims of discrimination by the companies. The Justice Department’s statement:

California moved to reinstate Obama-era open-internet rules, challenging Trump administration rollback efforts and setting the state on a path to have the strongest net-neutrality rules in the nation. The California bill would forbid internet service providers from blocking websites, intentionally slowing down a website or app, or accepting payments to make online services go faster.

If America’s tech and telecom giants have an opinion about T-Mobile US’s plan to reshape the wireless industry by taking over Sprint , most are keeping it to themselves.Few large companies have gone on record to back or oppose the roughly $26 billion merger, which would combine the country’s No. 3 and No. 4 carriers. Fewer still are using their lobbying prowess to fight the deal behind the scenes. “I don’t think you’re going to have any entity that has motive and means to oppose this deal” among big business, said Blair Levin, an industry analyst at New Street Research.

The tech industry has largely declared it is off limits to scan emails for information to sell to advertisers. Yahoo still sees the practice as a potential gold mine. Yahoo’s owner, the Oath unit of Verizon Communications has been pitching a service to advertisers that analyzes more than 200 million Yahoo Mail inboxes and the rich user data they contain, searching for clues about what products those users might buy, said people who have attended Oath’s presentations as well as current and former employees of the company. Oath said the practice extends to AOL Mail, which it also owns.