October 2018

Sponsor 

Federal Trade Commission, Global Antitrust Institute

Date 
Mon, 10/15/2018 - 14:00 to Wed, 10/17/2018 - 23:30

The three-day event will examine the potential for collusive, exclusionary, and predatory conduct in multi-sided, technology-based platform industries. The sessions will also examine antitrust frameworks for evaluating acquisitions of nascent competitors or occurring in nascent markets, including in the technology and digital marketplace; and the approach to addressing antitrust issues regarding labor markets.

Multi-Sided Platforms (Oct. 15, 16, and 17):



What You Stand For

We all know Michael J. Copps as a person and a public official. But I want to speak to Michael’s values. As an FCC Commissioner, Michael Copps brought the FCC to the public and the public to the FCC. He engaged broad constituencies in policy discussions. Among these, he valued input and participation from groups he termed “non-traditional stakeholders" like civil rights groups, Native Americans, people with disabilities, and other marginalized communities.

Facebook Briefs Lawmakers on Breach in Effort to Guard Against Backlash

Facebook officials have begun briefing lawmakers about its massive security breach as the social-media company tries to quell a potential backlash in Washington over its latest setback involving user data. Facebook briefed Department of Homeland Security officials the week of Sept 24 and some individual lawmakers the following week, apparently. The company is expected to meet with other congressional committees, including the Senate Intelligence Committee, about the breach as early as the week of Oct 1.

Wi-Fi now has version numbers, and Wi-Fi 6 comes out in 2019

In the past, Wi-Fi versions were identified by a letter or a pair of letters that referred to a wireless standard. The current version is 802.11ac, but before that, we had 802.11n, 802.11g, 802.11a, and 802.11b. It was not comprehensible, so the Wi-Fi Alliance — the group that stewards the implementation of Wi-Fi — is changing it. All of those convoluted codenames are being changed. So instead of the current Wi-Fi being called 802.11ac, it’ll be called Wi-Fi 5 (because it’s the fifth version). 

FTC Announces Agenda for the Oct 15-17 Hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection

The Federal Trade Commission announced the agenda for its Hearings initiative with three full-day sessions, co-sponsored with the Global Antitrust Institute and held at the Antonin Scalia Law School of George Mason University in Arlington (VA) on Oct 15-17, 2018. The three-day event will examine the potential for collusive, exclusionary, and predatory conduct in multi-sided, technology-based platform industries.