The 1980s saw major changes in the tech and telecommunications landscape, primarily the breakup of AT&T, which agreed to end its telecom monopoly by splitting into a number of “baby bells.” At the start of the ‘90s, the Federal Trade Commission was already scrutinizing computerized systems that seemed to facilitate entirely new monopolistic and collusive schemes.
Congressional and state actions to preserve strong net neutrality protections have bipartisan support—while the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal had bipartisan opposition. Put another way, net neutrality is, and has always been, a bipartisan issue, and more Republicans, in particular, should follow suit. Here’s why:
In the decade after the 9/11 attacks, the New York City Police Department moved to put millions of New Yorkers under constant watch. Warning of terrorism threats, the department created a plan to carpet Manhattan’s downtown streets with thousands of cameras and had, by 2008, centralized its video surveillance operations to a single command center. Two years later, the NYPD announced that the command center, known as the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, had integrated cutting-edge video analytics software into select cameras across the city.
The European Union approved Apple’s planned acquisition of British music discovery app Shazam, saying an EU antitrust investigation showed it would not harm competition in the bloc. The deal, announced in December 2017, would help the iPhone maker better compete with Spotify, the industry leader in music streaming services.
The United States Senate Committee on Intelligence convened on Sept 5 to review the practices of internet platform companies, especially as they relate to protecting against any further election interference. What was notable was who refused to participate: the alpha dog of the internet—Google. Instead of an open back-and-forth that would educate both the senators and the public, Google determined that written testimony from their general counsel was sufficient.
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