• Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. is reviewing whether TikTok and its acquisition of Musical.ly pose any national security threats to the United States and plans to hand its recommendations to President Donald Trump this week. The official review comes after officials said the United States was weighing a possible ban of the app, which is owned by China-based ByteDance Ltd., over concerns that personal data about Americans could be used by Beijing. (The Wall Street Journal)

• Lawmakers on the House antitrust subcommittee unveiled a sweep of new documents that have aided in their investigation of anti-competitive behavior in the tech industry during a nearly six-hour hearing Wednesday with the chief executives of Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. — including emails depicting Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram as an attempt to neutralize competitors and claims that Google threatened to delist Yelp Inc. after the site complained that Google had copied its reviews. Following the hearing, Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the chairman of the subcommittee, said the testimony from the executives “confirmed the evidence that we’ve collected over the last year” and that he expects a report concluding the investigation in late August or early September. (Morning Consult) 

• European regulators are gearing up to launch a full-scale investigation next week into Google’s proposed $2.1 billion purchase of Fitbit Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, indicating that Google’s offer to not use health data collected by Fitbit for ad targeting was not enough to fend off regulatory scrutiny. The European Commission is expected to launch the probe after its preliminary review ends on Aug. 4, and Google said in a statement that the company’s move would “increase competition” in the “crowded” wearables sector. (Reuters)

• In a tweet before the highly anticipated antitrust hearing Wednesday, Trump threatened to regulate the industry himself through executive orders “if Congress doesn’t bring fairness to Big Tech, which they should have done years ago,” adding that it has been “ALL TALK” and “NO ACTION” for years in Washington on tech regulation. (Protocol)

Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data
Makena Kelly, The Verge

During Wednesday’s antitrust hearing, Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos came under fire by lawmakers over the company’s alleged use of third-party seller data in developing its own products. Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon employees have accessed sales data from independent sellers on its marketplace to help the company develop competing products for its private-label.

Arizona leads multi-state probe into older iPhones slowing, shutting down
Paresh Dave and Stephen Nellis, Reuters

Arizona is leading a multi-U.S. state probe into whether Apple Inc’s deliberate slowing of older iPhones violated deceptive trade practice laws, documents reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday showed. Last week, a separate document released by a tech watchdog group showed the Texas attorney general might sue Apple for such violations in connection with a multi-state probe, without specifying charges.

Facebook ad boycott organizers ask European firms to join campaign
Katie Paul and Kanishka Singh, Reuters

Organizers of a Facebook Inc advertising boycott said on Thursday the campaign would “not go away” until their concerns were addressed and they would ask advertisers in Europe to join their cause. The campaign, set up in June by U.S. civil rights groups, aims to pressure the world’s largest social media company to take concrete steps to block hate speech and misinformation from its platform in the wake of George Floyd’s death in May.

Big Tech results move center stage after Congressional bruising
Sagarika Jaisinghani and Neha Malara, Reuters

Four of the United States’ big tech firms, accounting for nearly a fifth of the S&P 500’s total value, report results on Thursday on the heels of a bruising Congressional hearing to look into alleged abuse of their global dominance. It will be the first time Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc and Facebook Inc post financial results on the same day and investors wonder if they can deliver enough to extend a rally that has been central to Wall Street’s recovery since March.

Amazon’s virus stumbles have been a boon for Walmart and Target
Jay Greene and Abha Bhattarai, The Washington Post

For Amazon, five straight months of sustained mania triggered by the pandemic has shaken the retail giant and created an abrupt opening for rivals. Amazon is still the big gorilla online, and sales have surged amid the pandemic.

‘Instagram Can Hurt Us’: Mark Zuckerberg Emails Outline Plan to Neutralize Competitors
Casey Newton and Nilay Patel, The Verge

In late February 2012, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg emailed his chief financial officer, David Ebersman, to float the idea of buying smaller competitors, including Instagram and Path. “These businesses are nascent but the networks established, the brands are already meaningful, and if they grow to a large scale the could be very disruptive to us,” he wrote.

Here are the internal documents that Congress used to grill Big Tech
Rishi Iyengar, CNN

As the CEOs of Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple faced Congress on Wednesday, many things they or their employees had said in the past were used against them. As they grilled Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook about whether their companies were too powerful and engaged in monopolistic practices, members of the House Judiciary subcommittee used several internal documents, including some from the CEOs themselves, to highlight instances when the companies stifled — or even threatened — competitors.

Telegram files EU antitrust complaint against Apple’s App Store
Javier Espinoza, Financial Times

Messaging company is latest company to criticise restrictions and fees. 

Why the tech giants may suffer lasting pain from their Hill lashing
Nancy Scola, Politico

Wednesday’s much-anticipated antitrust hearing subjected four of the tech industry’s most powerful CEOs to hours of aggressive questioning by Republicans and Democrats alike. But it also may have revealed something far more lasting: A Congress that has largely soured on Silicon Valley is beginning to figure out how to hold it to account, compiling piles of documents that could back up allegations that the industry’s biggest companies aren’t playing by the country’s competition rules.

‘This Is a New Phase’: Europe Shifts Tactics to Limit Tech’s Power
Adam Satariano, The New York Times

In Brussels, European Union leaders are pursuing a new law that could make it illegal for Amazon and Apple to give their own products preferential treatment over those of rivals that are selling on their online stores. In Britain, officials are drawing up a law to force Facebook to make its services work more easily with rival social networks, and to push Google to share some search data with smaller competitors.

Qualcomm Inks Licensing Deal With Huawei Despite U.S.-China Tensions
Asa Fitch, The Wall Street Journal

U.S. mobile-phone chip maker Qualcomm Inc. said it resolved a protracted licensing dispute with China’s Huawei Technologies Co. and signed a long-term deal with the smartphone maker despite heightened tensions between the U.S. and China. Qualcomm on Wednesday said it would receive a $1.8 billion lump-sum payment from the Chinese tech giant to cover previously unpaid licensing fees.

FCC chairman highlights focus on telehealth, online learning during pandemic
Rachel Scully, The Hill

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Wednesday said his agency has been working closely with Congress during the pandemic, particularly to improve telehealth and online learning as more Americans stay at home to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Pai, the keynote speaker at The Hill’s virtual technology event, told The Hill’s Bob Cusack that the pandemic accelerated efforts to pursue remote learning initiatives and required funding “more quickly and in a more flexible way.”

Charter’s donations to charities and lawmakers may help it impose data caps
Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica

Nonprofits and local politicians are lining up to support a Charter Communications petition that would let the ISP impose data caps on broadband users and seek interconnection payments from large online-video providers. Charter filed the petition with the Federal Communications Commission last month, asking the FCC to eliminate merger conditions applied to its 2016 purchase of Time Warner Cable two years early.

TikTok says it isn’t the enemy – Facebook is
Emily Birnbaum, Protocol

In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning, TikTok’s top lobbyist, Michael Beckerman, said the company hopes to “set the record straight” about its ties to China, whether it poses a national security threat to the U.S. and how its existence counteracts the massive power of dominant social media companies like Facebook.

Memers Have a New Campaign Aimed at Getting Trump Out of Office
Taylor Lorenz, The New York Times

Meme 2020, the collective of social media influencers and content creators that posted sponsored content in support of Michael Bloomberg’s Democratic presidential primary run, is back with a new campaign aimed at preventing the re-election of President Donald Trump. For the campaign, the group, which released its first round of election memes in February, has partnered with the Lincoln Project, a political action committee formed by Republicans who oppose Mr. Trump, and Rhyme Combinator, a viral media company that promotes artistic and progressive causes.

Snapchat releases first-ever diversity report
Sara Fischer, Axios

Snapchat on Wednesday released its first-ever diversity report, showing that the company is still slightly behind its peers in terms of equal representation of people of color and women, especially on its technology teams, but that it’s made progress adding more women to its leadership team.

Google Says it Will Continue to Work With Law Enforcement
Matthew Gault, Motherboard

During the Congressional antitrust hearing with tech CEOs Wednesday, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz grilled Google CEO Sundar Pichai about Google’s relationship with law enforcement and the U.S. military. At the end of the exchange, Pichai promised Google would continue to work with and support the cops.

US files superseding indictment against former Twitter employees accused of spying for Saudi Arabia
Shannon Vavra, CyberScoop

U.S. prosecutors have filed a superseding indictment in federal court against two former Twitter employees for allegedly spying on dissidents on behalf of Saudi Arabia. The Department of Justice had alleged last year that a Saudi national with ties to the royal family had recruited two former Twitter employees, Ahmad Abouammo and Ali Alzabarah, to abuse their access to Twitter to collect sensitive information about Saudi dissidents, including location data, email addresses, and phone numbers.

Possible TikTok sale fails to satisfy Senate critics
Aime Williams, Financial Times

Leading China hawks say divestment would still leave questions about app’s data sharing.

The Rise of Zoom Shows Competition Is Far From ‘Dead’ in Tech
Neil Chilson, Morning Consult

“Let’s Zoom!” Imagine a work colleague’s awkward response if you enthusiastically proposed this last December. Just five months ago, the video conferencing software was not widely known. Now its name has become a popular verb for video conferencing and its market capitalization of more than $71 billion as of yesterday makes it more valuable than the seven largest airlines in the world combined.

Big Tech’s Antitrust Paradox
The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal

Everyone seems to hate America’s giant tech companies these days—except the hundreds of millions of people who use their products. Amid the new political and antitrust scrutiny of Big Tech, this not-so-small matter of consumer benefit should be the legal and policy watchword.

How did tech CEOs do on Capitol Hill? Google ‘robber barons.’
Dana Milbank, The Washington Post

Want to know how Sundar Pichai handled himself during his testimony to Congress? Google “controlled flight into terrain.” Wondering what will happen to his company if it can’t come up with better answers for the multitude of anticompetitive abuses lawmakers have uncovered?

There’s No Escaping Tech
Ian Bogost, The Atlantic

Like many professional families, mine is spending most of our time at home. I watch our younger daughter while my wife works, then we swap. I cheat, though, letting my daughter watch Amazon Prime Video on her iPad while I Slack on mine.

Stop treating internet platforms as the enemy — they’re not
Joe Kennedy, The Hill

From investigations launched by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to senators calling for their dismantling, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google long have been the target of heated debates around antitrust concerns. As their CEOs prepare to testify in front of the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee on competition in the digital marketplace, it’s time for regulators to finally engage in fact-based discussions about internet platforms and stop attacking some of America’s most innovative companies.

Ongoing Face Recognition Vendor Test
Mei Ngan et al., National Institute of Standards and Technology

Now that so many of us are covering our faces to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, how well do face recognition algorithms identify people wearing masks? The answer, according to a preliminary study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is with great difficulty.