The FTC’s cases against Facebook and Google show a paradigm shift in privacy enforcement, Consumer Protection Bureau Director Andrew Smith told an FCBA event Monday. The Facebook case (see 1907240042) provided a new model for relief, while the Google case, which involved Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) allegations (see 1909040066), established a new approach for liability, said Smith. The broader message in the Google case is that if users are violating the law, the platform can’t necessarily escape enforcement when there’s knowledge of the violations, he said.
Karl Herchenroeder
Karl Herchenroeder, Associate Editor, is a technology policy journalist for publications including Communications Daily. Born in Rockville, Maryland, he joined the Warren Communications News staff in 2018. He began his journalism career in 2012 at the Aspen Times in Aspen, Colorado, where he covered city government. After that, he covered the nuclear industry for ExchangeMonitor in Washington. You can follow Herchenroeder on Twitter: @karlherk
President Donald Trump’s recent actions against TikTok “certainly” gave the company “profile and visibility,” but it would have been better had that not happened, ex-CEO Kevin Mayer told the Technology Policy Institute in an interview shared Friday (see 2009280028). Profile and visibility are “usually not bad things,” he said. It's a “good enough product with a good enough team behind it and good enough technology behind it, that it would have succeeded just fine, and it was succeeding just fine without any of that.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee will seek voluntary testimony from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey “probably after the election,” Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters Thursday. The comment came after the committee majority voted unanimously to subpoena testimony from the CEOs. Democrats boycotted the hearing over Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Facebook and Twitter declined comment.
Congress authorized the FCC to interpret “all provisions” of the Communications Act, including amendments, so the agency can issue a rulemaking clarifying the immunity shield’s scope, General Counsel Tom Johnson blogged Wednesday (see 2010210022). Authority originates from the “plain meaning of” Communications Act Section 201(b), “which confers on the FCC the power to issue rules necessary to carry out the provisions of the Act,” Johnson wrote. Congress inserted Section 230 into the CDA, making clear “rulemaking authority extended to the provisions of that section,” he wrote. Johnson cited Supreme Court decisions by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in AT&T v. Iowa Utilities Board in 1999 and 2013's City of Arlington v. FCC.
Congress authorized the FCC to interpret “all provisions” of the Communications Act, including amendments like Section 230, so the agency has the authority to issue a rulemaking clarifying the immunity shield’s scope, General Counsel Tom Johnson blogged Wednesday.
DOJ and 11 Republican state attorneys general sued Google Tuesday for its alleged monopoly in general search services and search advertising. Senior Vice President Kent Walker called the lawsuit “deeply flawed,” saying consumers choose to use Google, “not because they're forced to or because they can't find alternatives.” New York Attorney General Letitia James and six other Democratic state AGs announced they’re continuing a parallel investigation and could potentially consolidate the case with DOJ in coming weeks. Industry groups condemned the suit; reaction from consumer advocates varied.
The European Commission will “very soon” issue a draft for modernized standard contractual clauses, said International Data Flows and Protection Head Bruno Gencarelli during a Technology Policy Institute panel Monday. There’s a vital need to maintain international data flows after the Schrems II decision (see 2009250071), but it must be balanced with privacy protections, he said. The EC didn’t comment about an exact timeline.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai are to testify remotely at an Oct. 28 Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Section 230, the committee announced Friday. A day earlier, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the agency will begin a rulemaking on Communications Decency Act Section 230 (see 2010150057). The agency will soon release a blog post about FCC authority to interpret the statute, General Counsel Tom Johnson tweeted Friday. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., welcomed the FCC decision, saying the committee will get more information directly from the CEOs at the Oct. 28 hearing, set for 10 a.m. in G50 Dirksen.
The FCC intends to move forward with a rulemaking to clarify the meaning of Communications Decency Act Section 230, Chairman Ajit Pai said Thursday (see 2010150067). He said the FCC’s general counsel told him the agency has the “legal authority to interpret Section 230.” The announcement drew backlash from Democratic commissioners and praise from NTIA and Commissioner Brendan Carr. Republicans on Capitol Hill welcomed a potential rulemaking.
The FCC intends to move forward with a rulemaking to clarify the meaning of Communications Decency Act Section 230, Chairman Ajit Pai said Thursday. He said the FCC’s general counsel told him the agency has the “legal authority to interpret Section 230.” Pai cited bipartisan concerns about “prevailing interpretation” of Section 230 immunity, a bipartisan desire to revise the law, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ statement asking the high court to review the statute.