General
Uber and Lyft face new lawsuit from CA Labor Commissioner
Megan Rose Dickey, TechCrunch
Uber and Lyft are both facing another lawsuit from the office of the California Labor Commissioner alleging wage theft. Filed today, the suits argue both Uber and Lyft are misclassifying their drivers as independent contractors and aim to enforce the labor practices set forth by AB 5.
White House unveils partnership to boost quantum science education
David Shepardson, Reuters
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy said on Wednesday the Trump administration is launching a national education partnership to expand access to K-12 quantum information science (QIS) education with major companies and research institutions. The public-private initiative with the National Science Foundation includes Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services, Boeing Co, Alphabet Inc’s Google, IBM Corp, Lockheed Martin Corp , Microsoft Corp, the University of Illinois and University of Chicago.
The Trump administration unveiled a wild plan to wall off China from the US internet
Isobel Asher Hamilton, Business Insider
Banning TikTok was only the tip of the iceberg. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday announced a new “Clean Network” initiative, aimed at blocking off large swathes of China’s internet from the US.
FTC Chair Says Agency Lacks Authority to Enforce Trump Order on Social Media
Christopher Stern, The Information
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons told a U.S. Senate Committee today that his agency lacks the authority to regulate political speech, a strong indication that the FTC will not act on President Trump’s Executive Order seeking to regulate social media companies. Simon’s answer seemed to take Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, by surprise.
Sen. Ron Wyden helped create the Big Tech industry. Now he wants to hold it accountable.
Sara Morrison, Recode
Sen. Ron Wyden is ready to send the CEO of Facebook to prison, and he has the bill to do it. “When Mark Zuckerberg tells a whopper to the federal government about his privacy policy, not only would he face a fine, but he can face prison time!” Wyden said.
Deasy: Biggest JEDI mistake was letting the narrative slip away from DOD
Jackson Barnett, FedScoop
The Department of Defense’s biggest mistake in its now yearslong effort to develop and award the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract is that it let the narrative escape its control, CIO Dana Deasy said Wednesday “Once you let the narrative get away from you … trying to recover is nearly impossible,” Deasy said during the Forbes CIO Summit Virtual Series Wednesday of the $10 billion contract, which is still tied up in legal limbo.
Coronavirus Hobbled Amazon. Then the Tech Giant Bounced Back.
Sebastian Herrera and Merrill Sherman, The Wall Street Journal
Amazon.com Inc. just reported its greatest quarter ever, but getting there wasn’t easy. The coronavirus pandemic brought enormous challenges to the tech giant early on, tripping it up in a way rarely seen in its history.
AAA: Partially automated driving systems don’t always work
Tom Krisher, The Associated Press
Two tests by AAA during the past two years show that partially automated driving systems don’t always function properly, so the auto club is recommending that car companies limit their use. Researchers with AAA recently tested systems from five manufacturers over a distance of 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers), and said they encountered problems every eight miles (13 kilometers).
Intellectual Property and Antitrust
Microsoft could buy TikTok for as much as $30 billion
Jessica Bursztynsky, CNBC
Microsoft plans to finish its acquisition talks with TikTok within the next three weeks, ahead of the Sept. 15 deadline, CNBC’s David Faber reported Wednesday. The deal could be worth up to $30 billion.
Sonos CEO says Amazon is breaking the law by selling Echo smart speakers below cost
Janko Roettgers, Protocol
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence believes that Amazon is breaking the law by selling its Echo speakers below cost. “That’s predatory pricing,” Spence told Protocol on Wednesday. His comments came in response to last week’s Big Tech hearing, which included Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ first appearance on Capitol Hill.
Microsoft hasn’t drawn Trump’s censure. Owning TikTok could change that.
Steven Overly, Politico
Microsoft has successfully avoided angering President Donald Trump for years. Now the software giant’s bid to buy TikTok is plunging it deep into some of the tech industry’s most volatile Washington fights.
Congress’ next moves to rein in Big Tech
Ashley Gold, Axios
After grilling the CEOs of Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple last week, members of Congress are grappling with whether to accuse any of the firms of illegal anticompetitive behavior, to propose updating federal antitrust laws — or both. The big picture: Congress is just one arm of government making the case against these companies.
Telecom, Wireless and TV
U.S. Justice Department asks court to block California net neutrality law
David Shepardson, Reuters
The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday asked a federal judge to block California’s net neutrality law, arguing that federal law preempts the state statute. In October, a U.S. appeals court largely upheld the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repeal of landmark U.S. net neutrality rules.
Office of Minority Broadband Initiatives Proposed to Link Minority Communities
Gary Arlen, Multichannel News
Senators Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) have introduced the “Connecting Minority Communities Act,” saying it will further accelerate broadband development in underserved and rural communities. The bill codifies the existing Minority Broadband Initiative at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in a new Office of Minority Broadband Initiatives (MBI).
Despite the pandemic, 5G still rolls on
Mike Murphy, Protocol
If you’d gone to any tech trade show in 2019, or read any tech publication, you’d have expected 2020 to be the year that 5G really hit its stride. And a global pandemic notwithstanding, it appears that it still is.
Mobile Technology and Social Media
Google pulls 2,500 China-linked YouTube channels over disinformation
Raphael Satter, Reuters
Google says it has deleted more than 2,500 YouTube channels tied to China as part of its effort to weed out disinformation on the videosharing platform. The Alphabet-owned company said the channels were removed between April and June “as part of our ongoing investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to China.”
Instagram Displayed Negative Related Hashtags For Biden, But Hid Them For Trump
Ryan Mac, BuzzFeed News
For at least the last two months, a key Instagram feature, which algorithmically pushes users toward supposedly related content, has been treating hashtags associated with President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in very different ways. Searches for Biden also return a variety of pro-Trump messages, while searches for Trump-related topics only returned the specific hashtags, like #MAGA or #Trump — which means searches for Biden-related hashtags also return counter-messaging, while those for Trump do not.
TikTok rolls out new political misinformation policies
Chris Mills Rodrigo, The Hill
TikTok on Wednesday announced a series of new steps aimed at countering political misinformation on the short-form video sharing platform. The popular app is updating its policies to prohibit synthetic or manipulated content, like deepfakes.
US Army esports team unbans commenters who asked about American war crimes
James Vincent, The Verge
The US Army’s esports team is unbanning Twitch users it blocked from its streams for asking about American war crimes, and says it will be returning to Twitch soon. In a statement sent to The Verge, a spokesperson for the army said the esports team would be “reinstating access for accounts previously banned for harassing and degrading behavior” and that it was “reviewing and clarifying its policies and procedures for the stream.”
From Twitter to TikTok, Trump Supporters Spread ‘Sleepy Joe’
Alyza Sebenius, Bloomberg
President Donald Trump may be lagging in the polls, but his nickname for his opponent is finding traction on social media sites. “Sleepy Joe” even garnered more posts than the Super Bowl and the musical “Hamilton” so far this year, according to new research from Clemson University.
Cybersecurity and Privacy
Doomed Data Transfer Pact Must Be Honored, FTC’s Simons Says
Daniel R. Stoller, Bloomberg Law
Companies must live up to promises made under a now-invalidated EU-U.S. data transfer agreement or face possible enforcement, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons told a Senate panel. “It’s a problem” if companies don’t keep the promises under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, Simons said. “We are going to enforce” if companies don’t keep them, he said.
Teen Accused in Twitter Hack Sees Hearing Hacked With Porn
Chris Dolmetsch, Bloomberg
A bail hearing by Zoom for the 17-year-old accused of hacking some of the world’s highest-profile Twitter accounts last month offered some surprises when a lawyer revealed that the teenager was already under investigation last year — and then the session was interrupted by participants showing porn.
Top federal official says more details coming on foreign election interference
Maggie Miller, The Hill
The director of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency said Wednesday that more details will be released in the future around foreign election interference efforts amid calls from congressional Democrats to release more information to the public.
Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives
Antitrust Can’t Bust a Monopoly of Ideas
Vivek Ramaswamy, The Wall Street Journal
The House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee grilled the CEOs of Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon last week about alleged anticompetitive practices and market abuses. Chairman David Cicilline concluded by declaring that “we need to ensure the antitrust laws first written more than a century ago work in the digital age.”
Trump’s flagrant assault on the First Amendment is disguised as a defense of it
Editorial Board, The Washington Post
President Trump sent a message to Twitter — and by extension all communication platforms and outlets: If you cross me, you’ll be punished. Now, he has sent a message to the Federal Communications Commission: Cross me for misusing my powers in this way, and you’ll be punished, too.
Research Reports
The Rise Of The Business-Aligned Security Executive
Forrester and Tenable
We live in the era of the digital business, which operates on a complex, dynamic, and highly fragmented matrix of on-premises, cloud, and hybrid infrastructure, applications, data, mobile, internet of things (IoT), and IT/OT converged systems. Every digital business must protect this sprawl of interconnected technologies that make up the modern attack surface.
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