Growing up in Johnson County (KS), Geoffrey Starks could walk from his Leawood home to the Sprint campus in Overland Park. Starks, 39, sworn in earlier in 2019 as the newest commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, offers this piece of personal history to say that the FCC’s upcoming vote on T-Mobile’s $26 billion merger with Sprint is more than just his first big decision. It hits close to home, where Sprint employs 6,000 people. “I know what Sprint means to Kansas City,” he said. “I believe in a muscular public interest standard in evaluating mergers and that is not only whether consumers will be harmed by mergers. Our public interest standard actually looks at whether consumers and competition will be enhanced. That includes pricing. That includes service. And that does include jobs as well,” Commissioner Starks said, speaking broadly about all mergers reviewed by the commission. “I don’t think it is improper for me to consider the impact on jobs, jobs gained and jobs lost.”

House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR) said that the goal of new internet regulation, which he says he generally supports, should be to prevent bad behavior by Internet service providers, not to re-enshrine the Title II telecommunication definition suited to monopoly telephone companies. While Ranking Member Walden signaled Title II was a nonstarter, he said [Democrats and Republicans] should and ought to be able to agree on no blocking and throttling and "even" no paid prioritization. He also said it is time to have a serious debate about breaking up or regulating Edge Providers--removing liability carve-outs for third party content, for example--who he says engage in de facto speech regulation. He pointed out that Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) has recently suggested he may agree with Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) about the need to break up the Biggest Tech. Ranking Member Walden said he didn't know if he was there yet, but he was ready to consider whether The Edge was the common carrier and that the issue of regulating or breaking up the edge was ripe for debate and "deep consideration...Are we seeing monopolies before our eyes."

On March 12, Utah legislators voted unanimously to pass landmark legislation in support of a new privacy law that will protect private electronic data stored with third parties like Google or Facebook from free-range government access. The bill stipulates that law enforcement will be required to obtain a warrant before accessing “certain electronic information or data.” (Unlike consumer privacy laws, the bill does not give individuals the ability to see the information that companies collect on them, and doesn’t regulate how personal data is used internally.) The bipartisan bill is expected to go to Gov Gary Herbert’s (R-UT) desk for final approval the week of March 25. If he signs the bill, Utah will be the first state in the nation to lawfully protect the electronic information that individuals entrust to third parties.