Ownership

Facebook’s effort to establish a service that provides its users with local news and information is being hindered by a lack of outlets where the company’s technicians can find original reporting. The service, called "Today In" and launched in 2018, is available in some 400 cities in the United States. But the social media giant said it has found that 40% of Americans live in places where there weren’t enough local news stories to support it.

On March 8, 2019, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took to Medium to outline her plan to break up digital monopolies. Her proposal aims to restore competition in the tech sector and ensure online platforms play by the rules. Warren goes beyond the familiar “break ‘em up” rhetoric and actually offers sustainable sector-specific regulation -- an important step in advancing the policy debate around Big Tech.

It was quite noteworthy to see Freshman Sen Josh Hawley (R-MO) tear the Federal Trade Commission a new one for its failure to do anything about how tech companies generally (and Google and Facebook specifically) vacuum up everyone’s personal information. I’m not going to argue with Sen Hawley, but since he is new in town I think it is important for him to understand why the FTC (and other federal agencies charged with consumer protection) have generally gone from fearsome watchdog to timorous toothless Chihuahua with laryngitis.

The gatekeeper and competition issues caused by app stores aren’t going away. At the same time, solutions to them should seek to maintain the convenience, security, and privacy benefits of software that is at least somewhat screened, since we’ve learned from experience that allowing any app, from anywhere, to have unfettered access to a user’s computer or other device is not good, either. No one wants smartphones to become like the virus and “toolbar”-infested Windows 98 family computers of the past.

Some of the country’s most influential state attorneys general are signaling they’re willing to take action against Facebook, Google and other tech giants, warning that the companies have grown too big and powerful -- and that Washington has been too slow to respond. Some state officials feel that Washington bears some of the blame for the tech industry’s string of scandals in the first place.

Regulating big tech is quickly becoming a central theme of the 2020 presidential race. But many of the tech-industry insiders I spoke with, including some who agree with Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) that the big companies are too powerful, cautioned that some of the details in her proposal were too vague, and could backfire if put into effect as written. Warren’s plan is a bold first stab at reform, and some of her proposals make a lot of sense. But I’d offer a few edits.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere told the House Judiciary Committee that his network does not now include technology from Chinese Telecom Huawei, that a new T-Mobile-Sprint 5G network would not contain such tech, and that he would even help others try to clear their networks of the technology. That was just one of many pledges he was making to help sell lawmakers on his plan to buy Sprint.

House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline(D-RI) said he's concerned with a broad range of implications tied to the multi-billion-dollar merger deal between T-Mobile and Sprint. "I'm particularly concerned about the impact on consumers, on the price of services, on choice," he said. Also at the hearing, T-Mobile CEO John Legere commented on Huawei.

“This is for the first time 100-plus premium channels—not the junk nobody wants—purely over the top, a mobile-centric platform, for $35 a month.” And soon, it might be the last time. This was AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson describing the promise of DirecTV Now just 27 months ago, as the company launched what would become one of the video business’ fastest growing subscription over-the-top products.

On February 12, 2019, 9 senators wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai urging the FCC to reject the proposed merger between T-Mobile and Sprint. The senators said the deal is likely to raise prices for consumers, harm workers, stifle competition, exacerbate the digital divide, and undermine innovation. "Furthermore, we remain unconvinced that the merger would speed up the deployment of next-generation 5G networks or extend affordable coverage to all Americans," they wrote.