1. Monthly archive
  2. January 2019

January 2019

What Cities Get When They Offer Free Tech Support to Residents

In Sept, the Washington DC Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) piloted its “All Hands on Tech” program, setting up two repair events in which the city’s own technicians helped residents fix their devices. Volunteers from local nonprofits like ByteBack, which prepares adults for a career in technology, also came out to help. The events were held at libraries inside Wards 7 and 8, where some of DC’s poorest communities live. America’s digital divide is essentially boiled down to three things.

FCC Reschedules February 2019 Open Meeting and Announces Tentative Agenda

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the February Open Commission Meeting has been rescheduled and will take place on Thursday, February 14, 2019. Chairman Pai also announced the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the February Open Commission Meeting. These items were originally circulated for the January meeting but were withdrawn due to the lapse in appropriations.

House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Latta Makes Pitch for Regulatory, Legislative Humility

At the State of the Net conference, House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Bob Latta (R-OH) said that regulators and legislators need to make sure they are not looking in the rearview mirror or putting up roadblocks to innovators who are looking ahead, not backwards. He said that one message he has brought back from his visit to tech startups is they are focused on innovation, so there is not a compliance officer sitting in the corner of the room. Ranking Member Latta also said he thought there was room for consensus on network neutrality.

Sens Markey, Blumenthal Demand Answers from Zuckerberg Regarding Reports that Facebook Duped Children and Parents Out of Money

Sens Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent a letter to Facebook demanding information about new evidence that the company knowingly manipulated children into spending their parents’ money without permission while playing games on Facebook. Recent findings uncovered by The Center for Investigative Reporting show that Facebook personnel had direct knowledge that children were spending large sums of their parents’ money on in-app purchases without parental knowledge or permission. Specific design features and default settings fostered this practice.

Brandeis: An Emphasis on Facts

From Louis Brandeis’s perspective, application of antitrust laws required both the embrace of hard-headed inquiry, spanning economics and the social sciences, and the litigator’s skill of distilling crucial facts. Brandeis’s work as a lawyer in private practice, his stint as special counsel to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), and his time on the bench demonstrate his commitment to solving social and economic problems, examining the practical reality of economic circumstances, and serving the purposes of the law with rigor and commitment.

Koch operation casts wary eye on tech regulation

The influence network led by billionaire Charles Koch is watching a growing push to regulate Big Tech firms with alarm. Officials, scholars, and donors with links to the network expressed unease with the idea that sweeping regulation will solve tech's problems — like platforms that facilitate the spread of malicious content or privacy practices that outrage users — and worried lawmakers aren't being precise enough.

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