• The Pentagon canceled its 10-year, $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract with Microsoft Corp. amid a legal battle with Amazon.com Inc. over the deal, and will begin work on a new contract and bidding process. (The Washington Post)
• The Republican National Committee said one of its technology providers, Synnex, was hit by Russian hackers last week, but that none of the organization’s data had been accessed. Investigators in the case said the likely suspect in the hack is Russia’s S.V.R. intelligence agency, which also hacked the Democratic National Committee six years ago and was responsible for the massive SolarWinds cyberattack. (The New York Times)
• The White House intends to direct the Federal Trade Commission to draft new regulations that would allow consumers to repair certain products such as cellphones on their own or have them fixed by independent shops, according to a person familiar with the plan for the executive order, which is expected to be released in the coming days. (Bloomberg) 
• The chief of staff for FTC Chair Lina Khan, Jen Howard, has ordered the agency’s employees to cancel all public appearances and press outreach, according to internal emails viewed by Politico, with an FTC spokesperson saying the agency is “severely under-resourced” and is ensuring its staff is “being used to maximum benefit and productivity.” (Politico)

YouTube Regrets: A crowdsourced investigation into YouTube’s recommendation algorithm
Mozilla Foundation

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U.S., Russian Officials to Meet Following Kaseya Ransomware Attack
Mariam Baksh, Nextgov

Senior members of the Biden administration’s national security team plan to meet with senior members of the Kremlin following a supply-chain attack that delivered ransomware to as many as 1,500 entities via network management software firm Kaseya, according to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

Unions Endorse Rosenworcel for FCC Chair
John Eggerton, Broadcasting + Cable

A number of unions have called on President Biden to name acting FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel to the permanent position, saying the commission is understaffed and has a lot of work to do that needs a full commission and a full-time chair.

US piles pressure on EU to drop digital tax plan
James Politi et al., Financial Times

Brussels pushes ahead with own proposals but Washington argues they clash with OECD and G7 deal.

We tried out the first statewide vaccine passport
Rebecca Chowdhury, MIT Technology Review

In anticipation of attending my first comedy show in years, at Union Hall in Brooklyn, I registered for the Excelsior Pass. Spoiler: It did not go smoothly.

Rep. Ken Buck Is the New Face of Republican Antitrust
Makena Kelly, The Verge

After nearly two years of investigations into Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, the House Judiciary Committee pushed through a package of six bills last month that would force these companies to unwind anti-competitive mergers and make the data they obtain on users more portable, in an effort to spur greater competition in the market. The package was surprising in its size and scope, but even more surprising — it was bipartisan. Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, the top Republican on the antitrust subcommittee, played a large role in building that coalition, which has put him at the leading edge of Republican tech policy.

The Democrats’ Divorce From Silicon Valley Is Almost Final
Gabriel Debenedetti, Intelligencer

The last few years have seen a slow-motion breakup between the big-tech companies and Washington — especially Democrats skeptical of their market share, anticompetitive behavior, speech policies, and labor practices. But this spring and summer have seen the divorce papers finally being drafted. 

Samsung Electronics Expects 53% Increase in Operating Profit
Jiyoung Sohn, The Wall Street Journal

Samsung Electronics Co. expects a 53% rise in operating profit for the second quarter, lifted by strong demand for memory chips that offset weaker device sales hurt by component shortages.

Verizon demos THOR, its new vehicle for frontline rapid humanitarian response
Danny Crichton, TechCrunch

Designed on top of a Ford F650 pickup truck chassis, THOR is designed to provide highly mobile and resilient connectivity to frontline responders and citizens through wireless technologies like 5G Ultra Wideband and satellite uplinks.

Why AT&T moved its core tech — but not everything — to Microsoft Azure
Tom Krazit, Protocol

Telecommunications companies, traditionally concerned with stability and control, have been slower than companies in other industries to embrace cloud computing. Those days are long gone.

Argonne’s machine-learning work may help ease U.S. microchip shortage in time
Dave Nyczepir, FedScoop

Argonne National Laboratory researchers have used machine learning to rapidly optimize the application of thin films to semiconductors, a move that may eventually help ease the microchip shortage in the U.S.

The Pizza Delivery Guy Will Be a Robot at Many Campuses This Fall
Georgi Kantchev, The Wall Street Journal

Delivery company Grubhub Inc. plans to roll out food-delivering robots across U.S. college campuses from this fall, as automation grows in a sector turbocharged by the pandemic.

Biden: US damage appears minimal in big ransomware attack
Frank Bajak and Zeke Miller, The Associated Press

President Joe Biden said Tuesday that damage to U.S. businesses in the biggest ransomware attack on record appears minimal, though information remained incomplete. The company whose software was exploited said fewer than 1,500 businesses worldwide appeared compromised but cybersecurity experts caution that the incident isn’t over.

Biden faces ‘moment of reckoning’ over sprawling Russian cyberassault
Eric Geller, Politico

Russian cybercriminals’ latest massive ransomware attack is placing new pressure on President Joe Biden to follow through on his promise to make Moscow pay for turning a blind eye to digital assaults emanating from within its borders.

Twitter shares its ideas around new privacy features, including a way to hide your account from searches
Sarah Perez, TechCrunch

Twitter has shared a few more ideas it’s thinking about in terms of new features around conversation health and privacy. This includes a one-stop “privacy check-in” feature that would introduce Twitter’s newer conversation controls options to users, and others that would allow people to be more private on the service, or to more easily navigate between public and private tweets or their various accounts.

Google challengers say the internet business model is broken and call for a ban on ‘surveillance advertising’
Martin Coulter, Insider

A group of 14 tech firms hoping to challenge big tech’s dominance have signed a letter calling on the European Union to ban “surveillance-based” advertising. 

The ransomware-attack leaderboard
Scott Rosenberg and Ina Fried, Axios

The July 4 weekend’s Kaseya ransomware attack was huge — but while some experts and lawmakers are calling it “the biggest ever” or “largest ransomware attack in history,” it’s too soon to award that title.

Why company hacks tend to happen over holiday weekends
Jennifer Alsever, Fortune

Long weekends are becoming the choice time for cyber criminals to attack, and the Kaseya ransomware attack over the July 4 holiday weekend is just the latest example. 

Chinese social media giant WeChat shuts LGBT accounts
Fu Ting, The Associated Press

China’s most popular social media service has deleted accounts on LGBT topics run by university students and nongovernment groups, prompting concern the ruling Communist Party is tightening control over gay and lesbian content.

YouTube algorithm keeps recommending ‘regrettable’ videos
Chris Mills Rodrigo, The Hill

YouTube users have reported potentially objectionable content in thousands of videos recommended to them using the platform’s algorithm, according to the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation.

TikTok is quietly testing a Cameo-like feature called Shoutouts that lets fans buy custom videos from influencers
Amanda Perelli, Insider

The tool could rival the video shout-out platform Cameo, which lets people hire actors, artists, and influencers to create personalized videos. Cameo video prices range from as low as $1 to as high as $2,500, depending on the celebrity.

A Planned Biden Order Aims to Tilt the Job Market Toward Workers
Neil Irwin, The New York Times

The order will encourage the Federal Trade Commission to ban or limit noncompete agreements, which employers have increasingly used in recent years to try to hamper workers’ ability to quit for a better job. It encourages the F.T.C. to ban “unnecessary” occupational licensing restrictions, which can make finding new work harder, especially across state lines.

Ransomware Attacks Will End, But Not Anytime Soon
Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg

The scalability of the internet can be a major virtue. But it also makes it easier for vices to proliferate. There are now the equivalent of venture capital markets to help fund ransomware attacks.

The Data Economy Is a Barter Economy
Gillian Tett, Harvard Business Review

Policy makers, economists, techies, lawyers, business leaders, and consumers should borrow an idea from cultural anthropology and consider the concept of “barter.” Doing this will clarify the minds of regulators and investors to focus on the scale and nature of long-concealed exchanges that now lie at the heart of the tech world, and how to create a more acceptable framework that protects consumers.