Agenda

Net neutrality is making a comeback. President Biden, who was vice president under former President Barack Obama when the Federal Communications Commission voted in favor of net neutrality in 2015, has made clear that, if he gets his way, the Trump administration’s efforts to unwind the rules won’t stand. He has a fight ahead of him. Biden started by hiring Tim Wu, the person credited with popularizing the term net neutrality, to work on tech and competition at the National Economic Council.

Lina Khan's first six months leading the Federal Trade Commission has shown she's either shaken up a sleepy bureaucracy or pushed long-standing norms too far, depending on who you ask. As President Biden's first year ends, many are watching Khan's FTC to see whether it really can fundamentally change how the US regulates big companies and how tech should treat consumers.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a massive trade group that represents companies on all sides of the digital ads ecosystem, is about to get a whole lot more involved in tech policy discussions on Capitol Hill. IAB has tapped Lartease Tiffith, an Amazon public policy executive and former aide to Vice President Kamala Harris, to lead its policy shop. And Tiffith plans to make the group’s presence known.

Sen Joe Manchin (D-WV) stunned the White House and sent many in Washington (DC) scrambling by crushing Democrats’ chances of passing the House version of President Joe Biden’s massive social spending bill, the Build Back Better (BBB) Act. Now Senate Democrats are scheming about what elements might survive if they can assemble a more Manchin-friendly bill, including a number of tech provisions.

European Union justice chief Didier Reynders is making the rounds in Washington (DC), meeting with top Biden officials to discuss ways to improve consumer protections online. He’s sitting down with Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director (and recently departed FTC commissioner) Rohit Chopra and Consumer Product Safety Commission Chair Alex Hoehn-Saric. Reynders wants to work with the US consumer protection agency leaders to better protect consumer finance and product safety online.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said she is committed to the administration’s goal of universal broadband by 2030, but cautioned that distributing funds from the new infrastructure law to meet that deadline could take years. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $65 billion to improve broadband access and affordability. Most of that is funneled through the Department of Commerce, and Sec Raimondo said that some of those dollars – such as money for tribal governments – are starting to trickle out. But the bulk of the funding will take longer.

The security and privacy landscape has continued to evolve since NTIA first asked about it in the 2015 Internet Use Survey. High-profile data breaches and debates about the role of technology in people’s lives have kept concerns about privacy and security in the forefront. The spread of emerging technologies such as smart home devices and always-on voice assistants, as well as business models predicated on the collection, use, and sale of personal information, means these concerns have taken on increased urgency.