Information that is published or distributed in a digital form, including text, data, sound recordings, photographs and images, motion pictures, and software.
Digital Content
FTC Looks to Modernize Its Guidance on Preventing Digital Deception
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is seeking the public’s input on ways to modernize the agency’s business guidance titled “.com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising.” First published in March 2013, this resource provides guidance to businesses on digital advertising and marketing. As digital deception grows in sophistication, some companies are wrongly citing the guides to justify practices that mislead consumers online.
The Era of Borderless Data Is Ending
The information pings around the world at the speed of a click, becoming a kind of borderless currency that underpins the digital economy. Largely unregulated, the flow of bits and bytes helped fuel the rise of transnational megacompanies like Google and Amazon and reshaped global communications, commerce, entertainment and media. Now the era of open borders for data is ending.
Senators Introduce Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act
Sens Mike Lee (R-UT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have introduced the Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act. The bill would restore and protect competition in digital advertising by eliminating conflicts of interest that have allowed the leading platforms in the market to manipulate ad auctions and impose monopoly rents on a broad swath of the US economy.
Industry and worker groups talk takeaways from $45 billion broadband funding notice
Experts from three key industry and worker groups dished on what they view as the key hits and misses in the US government’s broadband policy after the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued rules that will guide the distribution of $45 billion in funding for network rollouts. Among other things, they spotlighted a focus on fiber, secure networks, state planning grants and workforce provisions.
![](https://www.benton.org/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/ftc_22.jpg?itok=p2E4zjq2)
FTC Announces Tentative Agenda for May 19 Open Commission Meeting
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina M. Khan announced that an open meeting of the Commission will be held virtually on Thursday, May 19, 2022. The following items will be on the tentative agenda:
Federal appeals court reinstates Texas social media law
A federal appeals court has reinstated a Texas state law that bans "censorship" on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, allowing Texas to enforce the law while litigation continues. A US District Court judge had granted a preliminary injunction blocking the law in December 2021, ruling that it violates the social networks' First Amendment right to moderate user-submitted content.
Sen Bennet Introduces the Digital Platform Commission Act
Sen Michael Bennet (D-CO) introduced the Digital Platform Commission Act, the first-ever legislation in Congress to create an expert federal body empowered to provide comprehensive, sector-specific regulation of digital platforms to protect consumers, promote competition, and defend the public interest.
Battle lines for the future of the internet
When the late Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow penned his “Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace” in 1996, proclaiming “our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty,” he railed against “the great invertebrate in the White House” and the “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel.” So what would Barlow have thought when, on April 28, 2022, 60 governments, mostly from the industrial world, met (in person or in their virtual selves) at the White House to sign a “ Declaration on the Future of the Internet,” initiated by the United States along with Au