After years of fielding complaints from residents about the speed, reliability, and poor customer service of the city’s single wireline broadband provider, Springboro, Ohio (pop. 19,000) has decided enough is enough. Over the next year, the city (situated ten miles south of Dayton) will build a 23-mile fiber loop for municipal services and, at the same time, lay five additional conduits to entice additional Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to come in and offer service, stimulating competition and economic development in the region moving forward. Springboro’s model represents something of a middle ground, with the city firmly committing to fiber infrastructure for its own services but also leveraging that investment to build the conduit that will attract additional providers to town.

The 116th Congress opened with great energy and promise for federal privacy legislation across both houses and parties. By the end of 2019, though, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) each released separate proposals, respectively the draft US Consumer Data Privacy Act (USCDPA) and the Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act (COPRA). Despite sharp differences when it came to federal preemption of state privacy laws and individual rights to sue, these bills showed promising agreement on significant issues, including data minimization, individual privacy rights, transparency, and discriminatory uses of personal data In the end, these efforts fell short. The pandemic took up most of the legislative energy and made it more difficult to overcome partisan polarization.

As for whether USCDPA or COPRA will emerge as the main vehicle for privacy legislation in 2021, that will depend on who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee come January. If Republicans hang on to the Senate next year, the SAFE DATA Act will serve as a focal point for negotiations with Senate and House Democrats—and potentially with the White House. But if Democrats take the Senate, COPRA will be the focal point. Whoever sits in the White House will also play into the prospects for privacy legislation. The process will also be influenced by the result of California’s Proposition 24 ballot initiative, which could harden preemption positions by expanding the California Consumer Privacy Act, and by what could be a federal legislative agenda packed with initiatives to address economic recovery, pandemic management, and other crisis responses. While the need for privacy legislation will remain fundamentally the same in 2021, the political situation could look vastly different.

Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) released a  report showing the impact of the transformation of news online and the accompanying loss of revenue. The report shows one factor of the revenue loss is the unfair and abusive practices by tech platforms. The impact of these practices indicates the need for Congress to provide the Federal Trade Commission new authority to protect the local news industry. The report closely examines the unfair and abusive practices by major tech platforms that have contributed to the drastic revenue declines. The biggest online platforms unfairly use content, take local news consumer data and divert customers away from local news websites, while providing little in return.  The Congress and the FTC should act to address these unfair and abusive practices to help sustain the competition that local news provides. The report highlights the important role local news and journalists play in communities of all sizes throughout the country.  The report shows innovative new models already being used by publishers and broadcasters based on their value as a trusted brand. However, COVID-19 is also having an adverse impact.  The report shows a 45% decline in print ad revenue in 2020.