The California Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee will soon be the first to consider new and terrible amendments to Assemblymember Quirk-Silva’s A.B. 2749—which is backed by AT&T and other telecommunications interests. The legislation would prohibit the state from implementing… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘Legislative Analysis’
We Finally Have a Federal Fiber Broadband Plan
There is a lot to appreciate in the recently published “Notice of Funding Opportunity” (NOFO) by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA). It is arguably the first federal government proposal that seeks to promote infrastructure policies focused… Read More ›
The EU Digital Markets Act Places New Obligations on “Gatekeeper” Platforms
The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a proposal for bringing competition and fairness back to online platform markets. It just cleared a major hurdle on the way to becoming law in the EU as the European Parliament and… Read More ›
The EU Digital Markets Act’s Interoperability Rule Addresses An Important Need, But Raises Difficult Security Problems for Encrypted Messaging
The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) allows new messaging services to demand interoperability (the ability to exchange messages) from the internet’s largest messaging services (like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and iMessage). Interoperability is an important tool to promote competition and… Read More ›
What Low-Income People Will Lose with a Deadlocked FCC
When the massive, bipartisan infrastructure package passed Congress, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was tasked with ensuring equal access to broadband services. That provision is called “Digital Discrimination” and it states, for the first time in federal law, that specifically… Read More ›
Senate Commerce Committee is Letting Big Telecom Hamstring the FCC
Six months have passed since the Biden Administration signed an Executive Order to restore Net Neutrality at the FCC. And three months have passed since the President nominated net neutrality champion Gigi Sohn, a member of the EFF board, to the… Read More ›
DSA: EU Parliament Vote Ensures a Free Internet, But a Final Regulation Must Add Stronger Privacy Protections
The European Parliament had an important decision to make this week about the Digital Services Act (DSA). After months of considering amendments, members oscillated between several policy options on how to regulate online platforms, including the dystopian idea of mandating… Read More ›
EU Parliament Takes First Step Towards a Fair and Interoperable Market
The EU’s Proposal for a Digital Market Act (DMA) is an attempt to create a fairer and more competitive market for online platforms in the EU. It sets out a standard for very large platforms, which act as gatekeepers between… Read More ›
Indonesian Court Allows Internet Blocking During Unrest, Tightening Law Enforcement Control Over Users’ Communications and Data
Indonesia’s Constitutional Court dealt another blow to the free expression and online privacy rights of the country’s 191 million internet users, ruling that the government can lawfully block internet access during periods of social unrest. The October decision is the… Read More ›
Federal Agencies Need to Be Staffed to Advance Broadband and Tech Competition
In the U.S., we need better internet. We need oversight over Big Tech, ISPs, and other large companies. We need the federal agencies with the powers to advance competition, protect privacy, and empower consumers to be fully staffed and working. New… Read More ›