June 2022

As China shuts out the world, internet access from abroad gets harder too

One of the most sweeping surveillance states in the world, China has all but closed its borders since the start of the pandemic, accelerating a political turn inward as nationalism is on the rise and foreign ties are treated with suspicion.

FCC And Institute Of Museum And Library Services Sign Agreement To Promote Broadband Access

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Crosby Kemper, Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to jointly promote public awareness of federal funding opportunities for broadband. Through this MOU, the FCC and IMLS will focus on communities where broadband access is particularly challenging, such as rural areas and Tribal lands. The joint effort will include commitments to:

Lawmakers Urge FTC Chair Khan to investigate Apple and Google for engaging in deceptive practices by enabling the collection and sale of consumer data

Sens Ron Wyden (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep Sara Jacobs (D-CA) wrote to Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan requesting the agency investigate Apple and Google for engaging in unfair and deceptive practices by enabling the collection and sale of hundreds of millions of mobile phone users’ personal data. "The FTC should investigate Apple and Google’s role in transforming online advertising into an intense system of surveillance that incentivizes and facilitates the unrestrained collection and constant sale of Americans’ personal data," says the letter.