Top Stories

  • Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. said they are pledging $60 million to fund a new California 2020 ballot initiative to create an alternate employee classification for their drivers as the state legislature gears up to vote on Assembly Bill 5, which would make it difficult for sharing economy companies to classify workers as independent contractors. Following the ride-hailing companies’ announcement, delivery service DoorDash also pledged $30 million to fund the ballot initiative. (Los Angeles Times)
  • The Democratic National Committee will recommend state election officials in Iowa and Nevada scrap their plans for phone-based virtual caucuses in the 2020 primary elections due to cybersecurity concerns, sources said. Both states had planned to allow voters to cast caucus votes in the February 2020 elections using their phones, rather than showing up at the meetings, and the final determination on whether to allow the virtual caucuses will be decided by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee. (The Associated Press)
  • Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said “it sure looked like” Anthony Levandowski, the former head of the company’s self-driving unit, stole information from Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo — adding that although he was not CEO at the time of the incident, Uber has gone “to incredible depths” to ensure the allegedly stolen information didn’t make it to the company. Federal prosecutors charged Levandowski with 33 counts of trade secret theft earlier this week. (Bloomberg)

Chart Review

Events Calendar (All Times Local)

09/04/2019
K&L Gates and the American Bar Association Forum on Communications Law Digital Communications Committee’s webinar on content moderation 12:00 pm
View full calendar

Understanding Gen Z: The Definitive Guide to the Next Generation

Based on nearly 1,000 survey interviews with 18-21 year-olds, Morning Consult’s ‘Understanding Gen Z’ report digs into the values, habits, aspirations, politics, and concerns that are shaping Gen Z adults and the ways they differ from the generations that came before them.

Download the full report →

General

Huawei Boosted Research Spending at Berkeley Before Sanctions, Documents Show
Matt Drange, The Information

Huawei sharply increased its spending on research projects at the University of California, Berkeley last year and this year, immediately before the university cut ties with the Chinese telecom manufacturer amid U.S. government sanctions, according to documents obtained by The Information.

Senators Want Answers About Listings for Unsafe Merchandise on Amazon.com
Alexandra Berzon et al., The Wall Street Journal

Three U.S. senators wrote a letter to Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos asking him to take action to stop the sale of unsafe items and to ensure accurate warning labels on his company’s giant sales platform. The letter, signed by Senate commerce committee members Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) and Ed Markey (D., Mass.), along with Bob Menendez (D., N.J.), detailed on Thursday the findings from an article The Wall Street Journal published last week and asked for a response from Mr. Bezos.

Defense Department Awards Its Other Multibillion Cloud Contract
Aaron Boyd, Nextgov

While the Pentagon and Oracle continue to fight over the JEDI cloud, the Defense Department and General Services Administration announced the award of the department’s other multibillion-dollar cloud contract, the Defense Enterprise Office Solutions. The potential $7.6 billion contract to provide back-office tools like email, word processing, spreadsheets and file-sharing was awarded to a team led by CSRA, a managed affiliate of General Dynamics Information Technology.

The Trump administration stands up US Space Command as fate of Space Force is still undecided
Loren Grush, The Verge

Today, the Trump administration stood up a new unified combatant command within the military that will be entirely focused on space. Aptly named the US Space Command, the organization will be run by a four-star general, and it will be responsible for setting the US’s military agenda and doctrine for space in the years to come.

Internal data shows Uber’s reputation hasn’t changed much since #DeleteUber
Faiz Siddiqui, The Washington Post

Uber has a reputation problem. The ride-hailing giant launched a half-billion dollar marketing campaign last year to rebuild its image.

China Studying Tech Companies’ Exposure to U.S. Suppliers
Yoko Kubota, The Wall Street Journal

China is studying technology companies’ reliance on American suppliers, according to people familiar with the matter, an apparent attempt to assess their ability to withstand further trade-war shocks, even as Beijing prepares to roll out a retaliatory blacklist of foreign businesses.

The Long-Term Stock Exchange raises $50 million in new funding
Kia Kokalitcheva, Axios

The Long-Term Stock Exchange has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Founders Fund, with new investors joining existing ones like Andreessen Horowitz, Obvious Ventures, and Initialized Capital.

How Amazon’s Shipping Empire Is Challenging UPS and FedEx
Sebastian Herrera and Vanessa Qian, The Wall Street Journal

Amazon.com Inc.’s recent breakup with longtime shipping partner FedEx Corp. shows how far the e-commerce giant has come in creating its own delivery network. Over the years, Amazon has played down its ambitions. 

Stocks Rise, Treasuries Slip to End Volatile Month: Markets Wrap
Laura Curtis, Bloomberg

U.S. equity futures climbed alongside European stocks and Asian shares rallied on the final trading day of a tumultuous month dominated by the trade war. Treasuries retreated.

Intellectual Property and Antitrust

Inside the media industry’s struggle to take on Silicon Valley
Nancy Scola and Margaret Harding McGill, Politico

Executives from some of the biggest U.S. news organizations met with a British economist last fall at Washington’s exclusive Metropolitan Club to strategize on a mutual obsession: getting their industry out from under the thumb of Google and Facebook.

Telecom, Wireless and TV

FTC Narrows Focus to Advertising Practices In Probe of Largest ISPs
Christopher Stern, The Information

The Federal Trade Commission’s probe of the nation’s largest Internet Service Providers is narrowing its focus to the privacy practices of their advertising operations, the agency signaled today. In an unusual move, the FTC announced that it is dropping its requests for information from Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc., but now wants documents and other materials from their advertising divisions.

AT&T tees up 24 GHz for drive tests
Monica Alleven, FierceWireless

AT&T is asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a Special Temporary Authority (STA) to conduct drive testing in the 24 GHz band in order to calibrate its propagation models for 5G deployments. AT&T Spectrum Frontiers, an affiliate of AT&T, was the high bidder in Auction 102 and walked away with 831 licenses covering 383 partial economic areas (PEAs).

Mobile Technology and Social Media

Facebook Said It Aced Brazil Elections. Internally, There Were Doubts.
Deepa Seetharaman and Jeff Horwitz, The Wall Street Journal

Facebook Inc. executives last year publicly touted their efforts ahead of Brazil’s presidential election as evidence of the company’s progress in combating misinformation on its platforms. Inside Facebook, the picture was more complicated.

Users of a Major Online Trump Hub Expect They’ll Be Kicked off Reddit—and They Don’t Know Where to Go
Ali Breland, Mother Jones

For years, Reddit had hesitated to take action against one of its most prominent toxic communities: r/The_Donald, which in addition to being the site’s fan club for supporters of President Trump, has become a noxious hotbed of hate speech and bigotry.

YouTube Reinstated A Prominent European White Nationalist After He Appealed His Removal
Mark Di Stefano, BuzzFeed News

YouTube removed and then swiftly reinstated the channels of two prominent Europe-based far-right YouTubers — white nationalist activist Martin Sellner and British YouTuber the Iconoclast — raising new questions about how the video platform takes action against such material.

Cracked iPhone screen? You’ll have more places to fix it
Michael Liedtke, The Associated Press

Apple is loosening its grip on how its products are repaired to give customers more options for fixing cracked screens and other defects on their older iPhones. Under the new policy announced Thursday, Apple will begin selling its tools and parts to more independent phone-repair shops in the U.S. Apple will expand that to other countries later.

New Miami Hurricane Hazard: Dockless Scooters as Projectiles
Jonathan Levin, Bloomberg

Florida is facing its first major storm in the age of dockless scooters. Miami — home to a large proportion of them — isn’t taking any chances. The city has told all rental services to get their conveyances off the streets by Friday lest they fly perilously through the air when Dorian reaches land over the Labor Day weekend, according to Ken Russell, a municipal commissioner.

Apple Announces Sept. 10 Launch Event to Unveil the Latest iPhones
Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

Apple Inc. announced the date for unveiling its next iPhones and potentially a slew of other products. The launch event will take place on Sept. 10 in the Steve Jobs Theater at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, according to an invitation Apple sent out.

Cybersecurity and Privacy

Tech giants want rules on facial recognition, but critics warn that won’t be enough
Ryan Browne, CNBC

It almost comes naturally to many smartphone users today. You can just take out your iPhone — or Android equivalent — and hold it up to your face to unlock the device.

Google Says Malicious Websites Have Been Quietly Hacking iPhones for Years
Joseph Cox, Motherboard

In what may be one of the largest attacks against iPhone users ever, researchers at Google say they uncovered a series of hacked websites that were delivering attacks designed to hack iPhones. The websites delivered their malware indiscriminately, were visited thousands of times a week, and were operational for years, Google said.

Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives

Superior Space Launch Security Required to Stand Up to China
Peter Huessy, Morning Consult

Very large and unprecedented protests have recently occurred within the Hong Kong International Airport, the world’s eighth busiest flight destination. Hong Kong protesters have canceled hundreds of international flights to raise awareness about the creeping state of China’s authority over the region.

California’s War on Gigs
The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal

California gave birth to the so-called gig economy with startups like Uber, Lyft and Postmates that are used by millions. But now Golden State Democrats are trying to smother their babies, and the progressives running for President want to help.

The Election Watchdog That Can’t Bark
The Editorial Board, The New York Times

The United States is headed into what promises to be among the most contentious and expensive campaign cycles in modern history — with foreign and domestic actors eager to make mischief — without the chief elections cop on the beat.

What we can learn from video game violence
Anna Goshua, The Washington Post

In the aftermath of mass shootings in Ohio and Texas, President Trump blamed violence in video games for the “glorification of violence in our society.” It’s an old refrain, and gamers and their allies typically respond by pointing to the facts.

Research Reports

OEA Releases Data on Voice Telephone Services as of December 2017
Office of Economics and Analytics, Federal Communications Commission

The Commission has used FCC Form 477 to collect subscribership information from providers of voice telephone services – the incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs), competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), and mobile voice providers – since December 1999.

McAfee Labs Threats Report August 2019
McAfee

Ransomware attacks grew by 118%, new ransomware families were detected, and threat actors used innovative techniques.

Morning Consult