May 2018

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) go into effect May 25, and privacy groups are pushing companies to commit to the same standard for their US operations. More than two dozen privacy groups sent letters to "edge providers" Amazon, Facebook and Google, and ad giants Walmart, Nestle and others asking them to use the EU regime as a baseline for their own US data protection policies. 

More and more, rural hospitals and clinics rely on high-speed internet access to bridge the urban-rural gap and provide their patients with services that are often found only in much larger cities. But a federal program to help subsidize the cost of broadband for rural health care facilities has hit its funding cap, which may jeopardize the push to connect more rural health facilities.