Digital Content

Democratic lawmakers are expected to call on Congress to blunt the power of big technology companies, possibly through forced separation of online platforms. The House Antitrust Subcommittee is nearing completion of a report wrapping up its 15-month investigation of Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook. The report follows the committee’s collection of more than one million documents from the companies and competitors, as well as a July hearing with CEOs of the four tech giants.

A system Google set up to promote competition on Android has left some smaller search engines having trouble gaining traction, fueling rivals’ complaints about the tech giant’s compliance with a European Union antitrust decision ahead of potential US charges. Since March, Google has been showing people in Europe who set up new mobile devices running the company’s Android operating system what it calls a “choice screen,” a list of rival search engines that they can select as the device’s default.

The Federal Communications Commission could look very different next year, even if President Donald Trump is reelected. If President Trump wins a second term, industry observers believe the agency will push ahead with the administration's desire to reform a prized legal shield for content moderation on online platforms and remain focused on expanding rural broadband policies.

A host of companies, are challenging the way Apple runs its App Store. The App Store generates at least $15 billion in annual sales for the tech giant. Critics say Apple takes too big a cut of app makers’ sales and wields monopoly power over the gateway that connects hundreds of millions of users to mobile apps. Apple disputes that characterization, saying that it collects only a portion of sales from a small percentage of the almost 2 million apps available on the App Store and that its practices are in line with competitors’ app marketplaces.

For people who spend a lot of time on TikTok, the last few months have been surreal: a president with no presence on the platform has been agitating to ban it on the basis of national security.

On behalf of the Trump Administration, the Department of Justice sent draft legislation to Congress to reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  The draft legislative text implements reforms that the Department of Justice deemed necessary in its June Recommendations and follows a yearlong review of the statute.  The legislation also executes President Trump’s directive from the Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship.

The Department of Justice’s impending lawsuit against Google has narrowed to focus on the company’s power over internet search, a decision that could set off a cascade of separate lawsuits from states in ensuing weeks over the Silicon Valley giant’s dominance in other business segments.

In 2019, about a year after the California Consumer Privacy Act was passed—but before it had gone into effect— CA State Sen Bob Hertzberg, who by then was majority leader of the CA State Senate, pitched a new idea to CCPA brain-child Alastair Mactaggart. In a total reversal from his earlier stance, Hertzberg urged Mactaggart to bypass the legislative process. Instead, he should fund and draft a new ballot initiative to improve upon the CCPA. And this one wouldn’t be a bargaining chip. It would go all the way to a vote by the people of California.

Federal Trade Commissioner Rebeca Kelly Slaughter agrees with FTC Chairman Joseph Simons that political speech is outside the agency’s purview. “We are not the political speech police,” she said. Commissioner Slaughter said tech’s liability shield — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — is an “important area to consider reform,” but she rejects the idea that the law requires companies to be viewpoint neutral. Two of Slaughter’s colleagues have proposed the FTC use its unique research authority to conduct a study on targeted advertising. “I think it is a good idea,” she said.

As the country’s most powerful newsmaker and the person in charge of a government that’s been aggressively pursuing antitrust cases against big tech companies, President Donald Trump does have leverage over Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. So the chief executive officer could be forgiven for flattering President Trump.