The federal government's efforts to provide ubiquitous internet access have had varying levels of success. The Federal Communications Commission says  that more than 24 million Americans still lack fixed service that meets the FCC's broadband speed benchmark (25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload). About 14 million rural Americans lack mobile LTE broadband. Despite this, the FCC concluded that "broadband services are now being deployed to all Americans on a reasonable and timely basis." That's a 180-degree shift from the approach of the previous administration, which concluded broadband services were not being deployed fast enough, and used that determination to push policies like expanding subsidies to schools and libraries.

As a critical step in delivering on President Donald Trump’s call for development of a national spectrum strategy, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has asked federal agencies to report their future spectrum needs over the next 15 years. The reports will help ensure the federal government is optimizing utilization of the nation’s spectrum resources and meeting the needs of spectrum users, including critical federal missions that serve the American public. Agencies must submit their initial reports by Feb 21, 2019 and provide final reports by April 23, 2019. The federal spectrum assessment is one of several tasks in the Presidential Memorandum aimed at building a sustainable, forward-looking national strategy to ensure America’s continued leadership across technology sectors. Transparency in how spectrum is being utilized and collaboration among stakeholders are key elements of the Administration’s approach.  

Botnets and automated, distributed attacks threaten our nation’s Internet infrastructure. Solving this and other cybersecurity challenges is a top priority for the Trump Administration. To address these threats, the Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security have developed a road map that charts a path forward, setting out steps to stop the cyber threat to our internet infrastructure. It outlines a plan for coordination among government, civil society, technologists, academics, and industry sectors to develop a comprehensive strategy for fighting these threats. The road map is organized into five lines of effort -- Internet of Things, Enterprise, Internet Infrastructure, Technology Development and Transition, Awareness and Education – that include tasks aligned with the actions prescribed in the Botnet Report. While the road map focuses on addressing botnet threats, this effort will make the Internet ecosystem more secure and have an impact far beyond the boundaries of the report.

Facebook executives in recent years appeared to discuss giving access to their valuable user data to some companies that bought advertising when it was struggling to launch its mobile ad business, according to internal emails quoted in newly-unredacted court filings. In an ongoing federal court case against Facebook, the plaintiffs claim that the social media giant doled out people’s data secretly and selectively in exchange for advertising purchases or other concessions, even as others were cut off, ruining their businesses. The case was brought by one such app, Six4Three, which claims its business was destroyed in 2015 by Facebook’s actions. Using personal data as a bargaining chip — and giving special privileges to some companies while shutting out many others — appears to contradict Facebook’s repeated promises that it has never sold people’s data, as well as its claims that it restricted data in order protect privacy and that its data partners were on an equal playing field. The case also raises questions about Facebook’s compliance with a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which stipulated in 2011 that the social network could not give third party developers access to user data that people thought they had kept private.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has called an upcoming House Judiciary Committee hearing with Google CEO Sundar Pichai an important “step to restoring public trust in Google & all the companies that shape the Internet.” But the prospect of Republican lawmakers using the appearance to air allegations of bias against tech companies is giving Democratic leaders pause. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who is poised to become the panel’s chairman when Democrats take control of the House in 2019, said the hearing will probably become “one of those things about ‘Google is discriminating against conservatives.’” But don’t expect the future panel chairman to join in the bias talk. “There are a lot of topics to talk to Google about, that’s not one of them,” Rep Nadler said. He added that “[market] concentration is one issue” in the tech sector that lawmakers need to grapple with. “And there are others,” he added.

Conservative tech critics gained new ammo on the bias front after the Daily Caller reported that “Google employees debated whether to bury conservative media outlets in search results as a response to President Donald Trump’s election in 2016.”

Remember when futurists told us that the internet would result in the “death of distance”? That prophecy has fallen short, as cities remain hubs for commerce and community. The growing geographic consequences of digital technologies puts new demands on decision makers at all levels of government. Bolstering their levels of expertise on these issues is clearly needed and each of the local policy issues raised above would benefit from additional analytical scrutiny.

Improving government’s capacity to understand technology is a long-term undertaking and it is in the interest of the tech industry for this capacity to improve. Want better decisions on the growing list of tech policies at all levels of government? Then support building expertise within government to understand the nuances of policy choices. Such an effort should be expansive in its scope. Policymakers have to know something, not just about technology’s impacts, but also its interactions with adjacent policy fields, such as taxation, healthcare, and social services.

[John Horrigan is a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute]