Brief #74 – Technology Policy
By Mindy Spatt
Will $65 billion in Infrastructure funds finally bridge the digital divide and connect the 19 million Americans who still lack access to high-speed internet? The FCC’s First Step Appears to be a Misstep.
Brief #72– Technology Policy
By Mindy Spatt
Workers, regulators even its own investors want Amazon to improve its abysmal worker safety record. But the company has fought tooth and nail to quash those efforts.
Brief #69 – Technology
By Mindy Spatt
State AGs are coming for Amazon, while major antitrust actions by the FTC and Congress loom. Efforts to rein in Amazon’s market power are ramping up in the nation’s capital and at the state level.
Brief #68 – Technology
By Mindy Spatt
All day, every day, our phones are tracking our locations, collecting minute by minute data on our whereabouts that phone companies, apps can use or sell.
Customers may agree to location tracking in order to use a GPS or a fitness monitor, but be less aware of how many others are getting in on the act; Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft are just a few examples of the many apps and services that are continuously keeping track of where we go and what we do. I can’t remember whether I ever gave any of them permission, can you?
Brief #66 – Technology Policy
By Mindy Spatt
Who’s Afraid of a President, or a Presidential Front Runner? Uber and Lyft are lobbying to kill legislation supported by President Biden, and Lyft is pushing a California ballot initiative that likely presidential candidate Governor Gavin Newsom is staunchly opposed to.
Brief #63 – Technology Policy
By Mindy Spatt
Internet giants like Google and Facebook are selling our personal data or selling access to the data they collect. The resulting barrage of advertisements are not just annoying, they violate our privacy, perpetuate discrimination and spread misinformation.
Brief #61 – Technology Policy
By Mindy Spatt
According to a US Surgeon General’s advisory, online misinformation is dangerous to our health. Abortion advocates agree. So does my pregnant daughter whose Tik Tok and Instagram are filled with horror stories of premature births and preeclampsia that just exacerbate the normal anxieties that come with being pregnant. According to a recent LA Times article she is not alone.
Few people are likely to miss the click-to-cancel rule. Consumers won’t, since they never had a chance to enjoy it, and businesses won’t because they hated it. The rule, which would have required all sorts of online businesses to make it easy for consumers to cancel unwanted subscriptions and memberships, was blocked by a federal appeals court just days before it was set to go into effect, a ruling that is unlikely to be appealed. Trump opposes consumer protections and is reshaping the FTC to carry forward his pro-business agenda.
Palantir Technologies’ data tracking software and Artificial Intelligence tools are playing a huge role in the ICE sweeps plaguing communities throughout the US, sparking a national day of protests and concerns over a revolving door between the company and key government agencies.
The Trump organization has dropped any pretense of avoiding conflicts of interest. Instead, it is blatantly cashing in on Trump’s presidency in every conceivable way. At the top of the list is tech, with both Trump and his wife selling digital currencies and a new Trump mobile phone on the way. An additional bonus is that Trump has a great deal of power over the agencies that oversee these industries, and Congress is doing nothing to stop him from taking advantage of it.