Digital Content

The White House convened a listening session with experts and practitioners on the harms that tech platforms cause and the need for greater accountability. The Biden-Harris Administration announced the following core principles for reform:

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is asking the public to weigh in on whether new rules are needed to protect people’s privacy and information in the commercial surveillance economy. Commercial surveillance is the business of collecting, analyzing, and profiting from information about people. Technologies essential to everyday life also enable near-constant surveillance of people’s private lives.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)'s major move towards crafting data privacy rules is the latest signal of a potential end to Big Tech's expansive use of online data. As people grow warier of the online trails of digital data they leave behind, the lack of data privacy protections in the US has increasingly become a glaring source of concern for many. The FTC voted 3-2 along party lines to seek comment on the harms of "commercial surveillance" and whether privacy rules are needed.

Cox Communications parent company Cox Enterprises inked a deal to acquire well-known news outlet Axios for more than half a billion dollars, in a move the former pitched as part of an effort to diversify its business. As part of the transaction, Cox Enterprises CEO Alex Taylor will join Axios’ board. Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz will lead editorial operations and retain “substantial stakes” in the company.

Two dozen Texas cities have sued streaming giants Netflix, Hulu and Disney Direct-to-Consumer for not paying what the municipalities said are the millions in franchise fees that the streaming services owe them. A favorable decision could lead to millions more from other cities seeking more funds for municipal services. The cities are alleging that the streamers should be paying annual franchise fees back to 2007, as they said is required by the Public Utility Regulatory Act (PURA). Those are the fees that cable/broadband operators provide that go toward city services.

Broadband providers are telling the Federal Communications Commission in no uncertain terms to reject calls by cable programmer Fuse Media and public advocacy groups to mandate that those providers collect data on the diversity of the video content vendors they buy programming from, including for their owned or affiliated streaming services which, they point out, are not regulated by the FCC.

Comcast failed to gain broadband subscribers for the first time in its history. Comcast had 32.16 million subscribers at the end of the second quarter, the exact same number it had at the end of the first. The company lost about 10,000 net broadband residential subscribers compared with the first quarter, while it added about 10,000 business-services broadband customers. Despite the broadband-subscriber slowdown, company executives said there have been few broadband customers leaving Comcast. In past quarters, the company has attributed the slowdown to fewer people changing homes.

The House of Representatives passed three consumer protection and commerce bills including:

H.R. 3962, the “Securing and Enabling Commerce Using Remote and Electronic Notarization Act of 2021,” was introduced by Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) and 32 original bipartisan cosponsors. The bill allows a notary public commissioned under state law to remotely notarize electronic records and perform notarizations for remotely located individuals.  The bill passed by an en bloc vote of 336-90.

Since 2020, misinformation and disinformation related to election and voter suppression have continued to spread at a growing rate across online platforms. While internet platforms ramped up attempts to combat such information during the 2020 elections, many of these efforts appear to have been temporary measures. In anticipation of the 2022 US midterm elections, this report evaluates how online platforms are combating misleading election information against a selection of recommendations made by the Open Technology Institute in 2020.

Washington’s political power brokers are quietly inching toward a full embrace of influencers. If not handled with care, however, that can be hazardous—particularly when the arrangement is unmasked. Urban Legend, a small ad-tech startup operating out of a loft in Alexandria (VA), pledges on its website to “help brands run accountable and impactful influencer campaigns.” Launched in 2020 by a pair of former Trump administration staffers, its more comprehensive mission, one rarely articulated in public, is slightly more ambitious.