Reporting

The Department of Housing and Urban Development alerted Twitter and Google in 2018 that it is scrutinizing their practices for possible housing discrimination, a sign that more technology companies could be ensnared in a government probe of their lucrative demographic ad targeting tools. HUD on March 28 charged Facebook with housing discrimination, alleging its targeted advertising platform violates the Fair Housing Act by “encouraging, enabling, and causing” unlawful discrimination by restricting who can view housing ads.

Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who is running to be President, has pledged a broadband connection in every home as part of her trillion-dollar infrastructure rebuild plan. She said the overall rebuild/upgrade -- roads, bridges, green infrastructure, broadband and more -- would be her top budget priority from the outset. That includes connecting every household to the internet by 2022.

Washington policymakers and advocates are reacting to news that the Federal Communications Commission will propose to cap the Universal Service Fund.

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks took to Twitter: "How can we talk about capping our Universal Service programs at a time when the Commission doesn’t seem to have a good handle on who currently has broadband and who does not?" 

America’s telecommunications watchdogs have levied hefty financial penalties against illegal robocallers and demanded that bad actors repay millions to their victims. But years later, little money has been collected. Since 2015, the Federal Communications Commission has ordered violators of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a law governing telemarketing and robodialing, to pay $208.4 million. That sum includes so-called forfeiture orders in cases involving robocalling, Do Not Call Registry and telephone solicitation violations.

During both recent House Communications Subcommittee hearings regarding network neutrality, Republican lawmakers have railed against Title II, rules that have been in place since 1934. On March 26, during the bill’s markup hearing, House Commerce Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR) called the inclusion of Title II “not necessary” for any net neutrality bill, and argued that it “could provide the federal government with near unlimited and unchecked authority for bureaucrats in Washington that oversee the internet.” However, Democratic lawmakers have argued that such predictions are unfounded g

The British government released a scathing assessment of the security risks posed by the Chinese telecom company Huawei to Britain’s telecom networks, as London weighs whether to heed US calls to bar the firm from the next-generation 5G network over fears it will enable spying by the Chinese government and potential cyberattacks.

Lawmakers said that they continue to have questions after Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft briefed a House panel on their efforts to take down extremist content online. Members of the House Homeland Security Committee questioned representatives from some of Silicon Valley's largest companies in a closed-door briefing about how they deal with white supremacist and bigoted content online. "While I'm encouraged by their answers, we still have a long way to go," said Rep Val Demings (D-FL), who sits on the committee.

President Donald Trump revealed he had met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai to discuss the company's work in China and allegations of anti-conservative bias. The president said on Twitter that the unscheduled meeting went "very well" following months of Republican attacks against Silicon Valley over how social media companies handle conservative speech. "Just met with @SundarPichai, President of @Google, who is obviously doing quite well. He stated strongly that he is totally committed to the U.S. Military, not the Chinese Military," President Trump wrote.

Count Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) as critics of a proposal from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to explore a spending cap on telecommunications subsidies to expand telephone and broadband access. “Any effort that could harm classroom learning, broadband deployment, rural health opportunities, or connecting more individuals should be shelved and never considered again,” said Markey said of the FCC proposal, which would target Universal Service Fund programs.

Google is launching the Local Experiments Project, an effort to fund dozens of new local news websites around the country and eventually around the world. The tech giant says it will have no editorial control over the sites, which will be built by partners it selects with local news expertise. The first effort within the new Local Experiments Project will be ‘The Compass Experiment," which is a partnership between Google and McClatchy to launch three new, digital-only local news operations on multiple platforms. Google says the investments will be significant.