The FTC, DOJ and California attorney general should investigate whether Google violated antitrust or copyright law last week when it blocked news websites in the state, the News/Media Alliance wrote in a letter to enforcers Tuesday. Google temporarily limited access to news websites, “retaliating” against the California Journalism Preservation Act (see 2307060034), a legislative proposal that would require platforms to pay news publishers for use of their content, the letter said. Google may have violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, the FTC Act or the Lanham Act, it said. The California News Publishers Association joined the alliance in its letter to California AG Rob Bonta (D). The letter's “baseless claims deflect” from the real issues with the legislation, Google said in a statement Wednesday: “This bill is unworkable and will hurt small, local publishers to benefit large, out-of-state hedge funds. We have proposed reasonable alternatives to CJPA that would increase our support for the California news ecosystem and support Californians' access to news.” Offices for the FTC, DOJ and Bonta didn’t comment Wednesday.
The Senate plans to vote Thursday on reauthorization of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday (see 2404120044). The upper chamber “must come to an agreement” before Friday’s deadline for reauthorization, said Schumer: “Otherwise, this very important tool for ensuring our national security is going to lapse, and that would be unacceptable.” The House hasn’t made the Senate’s job “any easier” with its “bogus impeachment trial,” but FISA needs to be extended, he said. The Senate on Wednesday rejected articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., spoke on the floor Wednesday and urged lawmakers to renew Section 702 of FISA. About 60% of items in the president’s daily intelligence brief are sourced from information gathered using Section 702, he said. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on Tuesday asked colleagues to reject the House proposal, saying it “gives the government unchecked authority to order millions of Americans to spy on behalf of the government.” He argued the proposal expands Section 702, citing bill language saying the government can compel information from any “service provider who has access to equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store wire or electronic communications.” The House was scheduled to vote at 5 p.m. Wednesday on the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act. The bill would ban intelligence agencies from buying consumer data from brokers without a warrant. The White House opposes the legislation (see 2404160064). “If the government wants to track a suspect today, they could go through the trouble of establishing probable cause and getting a warrant,” House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who co-wrote the legislation, said on the House floor Wednesday.
The Consumer Technology Association looks forward to working with congressional committees to pass a federal privacy law, CEO Gary Shapiro said in a statement Monday. CTA “appreciates” the American Privacy Rights Act, a “bipartisan, bicameral effort to pass a federal data privacy law to protect consumers’ personal information,” he said. The organization supports a “national privacy standard that preempts state laws, providing legal clarity for companies to operate and consistent protections across state borders for consumers.” CTA didn’t address the bill’s private right of action provision. Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has said he won’t “support any data privacy bill that empowers trial lawyers” and that the APRA has “no chance” of passing (see 2404080062 and 2404150059). Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., are moving forward with committee deliberation. A House Commerce Committee legislative hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. It’s “possible” Senate Commerce will hold a legislative hearing, but there will definitely be a markup “at some point,” Cantwell’s senior counsel on the committee, Shannon Smith, said Monday. Cantwell and Rodgers began negotiating in late December, said Smith. The senator didn’t support the House Commerce Committee’s previous privacy bill, the American Data Privacy Protection Act, largely because its private right of action provision allowed companies to address claims through arbitration, said Smith. It was important for Cantwell to prohibit forced arbitration in the APRA, she said.
The Biden administration “strongly opposes” legislation that would ban intelligence agencies from buying consumer data from brokers without a warrant, the White House said in a statement Tuesday. The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (HR-4639) would block law enforcement from accessing commercially available information but wouldn’t prevent foreign enemies or the private sector from buying the same data, the administration said: That means the legislation jeopardizes national security but doesn’t protect privacy. The House is expected to vote on the bill this week, after Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., agreed to bring it to the floor during debate on reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (see 2404120044). Responsible use of commercially available data is vital to investigations related to China, illegal drug sales, cyberthreats, child exploitation and terrorist activity, the White House said. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Tuesday urged Democrats and Republicans to work together to pass FISA reauthorization so surveillance authorities don’t lapse on April 19. Schumer filed cloture on the motion to proceed to House-passed legislation Tuesday. “If we don’t cooperate, FISA will expire, so we must be ready to cooperate,” he said.
DOJ should investigate Apple for “illegal monopolization” of global electronic supply chains, consumer groups wrote the department Tuesday. The American Economic Liberties Project, the Demand Progress Education Fund, the Tech Oversight Project and X-Lab signed. Enforcers should probe Apple’s reported deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to “exclusively buy TSMC’s entire output of the most advanced silicon chips,” they wrote. Apple is the largest electronic component buyer in the world and has used its dominant position to “demand exclusive deals with suppliers, squeeze prices below the level of profitability, and lock up the capacity of suppliers in order to prevent competitors from using them,” they wrote. Apple’s conduct as an electronics component buyer is separate but related to its “monopolization” of the final market for smartphones, about which DOJ has already filed an antitrust lawsuit, the groups wrote. The company’s practices have “undermined competition in markets for silicon chips and other electronics components as well as allowed Apple to extend those advantages to the final markets for smartphones,” they wrote. DOJ didn’t comment.
Consumer protection, anti-discrimination and data privacy laws apply to AI systems, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell (D) said Tuesday in an advisory to AI developers, suppliers and users. AI’s benefits, including innovation and market efficiency, don’t outweigh the technology’s “real” risks like bias and lack of transparency, said Campbell in a statement. AI use is becoming more common, and laws apply to the technology as they would in other contexts, she said: “My office intends to enforce these laws accordingly.” She highlighted a list of unfair and deceptive practices that can be prosecuted under state law, including false advertising, performance misrepresentation and deceptive content.
The Commerce Department granted Samsung up to $6.4 billion in federal funding to increase chip manufacturing in central Texas, the department announced Monday. The two sides signed a “non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms” for direct funding under the Chips and Science Act (see 2208090062). Samsung expects to invest more than $40 billion and create more than 20,000 jobs in the region related to semiconductor production. The investment will “cement central Texas’s role as a state-of-the-art semiconductor ecosystem,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. Samsung will manufacture “important components to our most advanced technologies, from artificial intelligence to high-performance computing and 5G communications,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. Samsung plans to build a “comprehensive advanced manufacturing ecosystem, ranging from leading-edge logic to advanced packaging to R&D” in Taylor, Texas, near Austin. The company plans to expand facilities in Austin to “support the production of leading fully depleted silicon-on-insulator process technologies for critical U.S. industries, including aerospace, defense, and automotive.” Strengthening local semiconductor production will position the U.S. as “a global semiconductor manufacturing destination,” said Kye Hyun Kyung, CEO of Samsung’s Device Solutions Division.
U.S. and European officials should continue sharing enforcement strategies to keep pace with the tech sector and AI-related matters, U.S. and EU competition enforcers said Wednesday. DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Jonathan Kanter, FTC Chair Lina Khan and European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager met in Washington, D.C., for the fourth session of the U.S.-EU Joint Technology Competition Policy Dialogue. Khan said in a statement: “As businesses move at breakneck speed to build and monetize AI and algorithmic decision-making tools, engaging with our international partners and sharing best practices will be especially critical.” Kanter said the growth of “data monopolies” and AI’s “rapid expansion” increase competitive threats from “digital gatekeepers.” Vestager said the tech sector raises “global challenges” related to AI and cloud computing: “It is essential to anticipate and address such challenges through close cooperation, leveraging our respective experiences for the benefit of consumers and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.”
The FTC on Friday denied the videogame industry’s request to use face-scanning technology to determine user ages under child privacy rules, the agency announced. The agency denied the request without prejudice to allow the National Institute of Standards and Technology to examine the proposed age-verification method. The Entertainment Software Rating Board, Yoti and SuperAwesome filed an application in June seeking FTC approval for the age-estimation technology that uses facial geometry (see 2401300018). The group on March 22 requested a stay on the decision to allow NIST time to analyze results. The commission voted 4-0 to deny the request without prejudice, meaning ESRB can refile after NIST completes its work. Newly seated Commissioner Melissa Holyoak (see 2403080038) participated in the unanimous vote. Andrew Ferguson, also recently confirmed, hasn’t taken office yet. ESRB said in a statement Monday it’s “disappointed” the FTC declined to issue a “substantive decision” and delay further an application the agency already twice postponed. “We remain hopeful that facial age estimation and other innovative technologies will be considered COPPA-compliant when used to obtain verifiable parental consent in the near future,” ESRB said, referring to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, the statutory basis for the application.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) should veto a “weak” data privacy bill the House approved Wednesday, Consumer Reports said Thursday. The House passed HB-15 with a 94-0 vote. The Senate vote was 35-0 on March 11. The bill would grant consumer rights to access, correct and delete data and allow them to opt out of targeted advertising and sale of data. Kentucky's attorney general would have sole authority to penalize offenders under HR-15, which would go into effect in January 2026 if enacted. Consumer Reports Policy Analyst Matt Schwartz called HB-15 an “industry bill,” saying it “offers almost no new substantive limitations on how companies collect or process data.” The bill is similar to Virginia’s privacy law but lacks kids’ privacy protections the commonwealth added this year, Husch Blackwell’s David Stauss said in a blog post Thursday. The Kentucky bill treats biometric data similar to a privacy law in Connecticut, he said: Video, audio and related data isn’t considered biometric data “unless it is used to identify a specific individual.” Kentucky would become the 15th state to pass a comprehensive privacy law if Beshear signs.