Agenda

Justice Department Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim has briefed Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) on his unit’s newly launched investigation into the tech sector. Sen Klobuchar, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee's Antitrust Subcommittee, said, “My hope is that they’re very serious about this investigation.” And Sen.

Groups are calling on the Senate Rules Committee to launch an investigation into whether a closed-door meeting of the Senate Judiciary tech task force violated the chamber’s procedures for public notice. The working group, led by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), met in the Judiciary hearing room for an off-the-record session with privacy officers from Snap, Match, Salesforce, and Mozilla.

The fate of T-Mobile and Sprint's $26.5 billion merger may hinge on whether a federal judge sees satellite TV provider Dish Network as a viable fourth competitor in the US wireless market. But there isn't an easy answer -- especially when you balance its history of ignoring its obligations to build a wireless network with its newfound ambitions sparked by the mobile megamerger. Dish has been a major player in several past wireless auctions. And for years, the company sat on its assets without any plans for deployment.

Lately, politicians and news sources have been repeating a persistent myth about, of all things, technology law. The myth concerns a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, generally known as Section 230 or CDA 230. CDA 230 isn’t about neutrality. In fact, it explicitly encourages platforms to moderate and remove “offensive” user content. That leaves platform operators and users free to choose between the free-for-all on sites like 8chan and the tamer fare on sites like Pinterest.

Charlie Ergen has long tried to muscle his way into the US wireless business. When his rivals had no other choice, the billionaire behind Dish Network finally got his way. John Legere, the chief executive of T-Mobile US, called Ergen in late May after it became clear T-Mobile’s proposed takeover of Sprint  was in trouble. Ergen had been the most outspoken corporate critic of the proposed $26 billion deal—a merger that would leave the US with three giant cellular companies.

President Donald Trump promised to take “substantial reciprocal action” against France after the nation’s President Emmanuel Macron signed into law a tax on American tech giants. “France just put a digital tax on our great American technology companies,” President Trump said on Twitter. “If anybody taxes them, it should be their home Country, the USA. We will announce a substantial reciprocal action on Macron’s foolishness shortly. I’ve always said American wine is better than French wine!”

A group of state attorneys general met with US Attorney General William Barr  to discuss antitrust concerns related to major tech companies, as the Justice Department launches a review of whether online platforms are reducing competition. New York, Texas, Arizona, and Louisiana, sent representatives to the Justice Department for the meeting with senior officials. 

The Federal Communications Commission's Office of Economics and Analytics, in consultation with the Wireline Competition Bureau, launched the urban rate survey for 2020. The information collected in this survey will be used to develop voice and broadband reasonable comparability benchmarks that will be in place in 2020. The FCC will be collecting the rates offered by a random sample of providers of fixed services identified using December 2018 FCC Form 477 data. The FCC will collect separate samples for fixed voice and fixed broadband services with up to 500 urban Census tracts in each.

Dish has been a potential wireless entrant for some time, having scooped up a significant amount of spectrum in recent years — spectrum it is under pressure to use soon or risk losing. And, back in 2013, Dish lost out in a bidding war with SoftBank for control of Sprint.