Karl Herchenroeder

If Amazon was untruthful in July when it testified about third-party seller data, a perjury referral would be "appropriate,” said House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline, D-R.I., on Thursday. Last week, Cicilline said he was considering whether a perjury referral is warranted due to discrepancies between a Wall Street Journal report (see 2004300054) and testimony from Amazon Associate General Counsel-Litigation and Regulatory Legal Nate Sutton. “It certainly appears as if the testimony Mr. Sutton gave was contradicted directly by the WSJ report, and so I’m going to review all of that carefully,” Cicilline said during a Politico livestream.

The Senate Intelligence Committee will vote “as soon as possible” to advance the nomination of Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, to be national intelligence director, Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said during Tuesday’s hearing. Fielding questions from supportive Republicans and skeptical Democrats, Ratcliffe vowed to run an apolitical office free of outside political influence, while highlighting threats from China in the race for 5G.

At least four Supreme Court justices questioned why Booking.com can’t trademark its domain as companies do with toll-free phone numbers, in oral argument Monday. Four other justices raised concerns about enabling monopoly power by granting such trademarks, which might preclude rivals like ebooking.com from using "booking" in marketing materials.

Antitrust enforcers are weighing the competitive impacts of Amazon’s collection of seller data, but it’s unclear whether it will result in concrete action, academics and antitrust attorneys told us. Amazon got antitrust scrutiny last week after a Wall Street Journal article said the company uses seller data to build products that compete with third-party sellers on the platform. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., called for a DOJ investigation, and Public Knowledge wrote Congress asking lawmakers to consider dramatic policy changes. The company didn’t comment.

China, India, Indonesia and Chile are among the top countries the U.S. is targeting for weak intellectual property protections, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Wednesday in its annual special 301 report (see 1904250052). In a controversial move, the administration singled out Amazon. President Donald Trump and the company have been at loggerheads over some issues.

A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel Tuesday was skeptical about DOJ arguments to seal a lower court’s ruling blocking the agency's attempt to force Facebook to break Messenger encryption. Judges Margaret McKeown, Randy Smith and Jacqueline Nguyen questioned the potential harm to investigations, while weighing the public’s right to access. Livestreamed argument was in ACLU Foundation v. DOJ (19-15472, in Pacer).

Annotated state legal code isn’t copyright protected, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday in Georgia v. Public.Resource.org (18-1150). The state sued after Public.Resource.Org founder Carl Malamud posted official state code online and shared copies. The government edicts doctrine dictates officials can’t be the authors of “the works they create in the course of their official duties,” meaning they aren't copyright protected, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer dissented. The ruling will likely be “a shock” to the 22 states, two territories and Washington, D.C., that “rely on arrangements similar to Georgia’s to produce annotated codes,” Thomas wrote for dissenters. He claimed the decision extends the government edicts doctrine to a “new context,” when Congress should be deciding whether the Copyright Act “needs an upgrade.” Public Knowledge Policy Counsel Meredith Rose called the decision a “resounding victory for public access to the law,” saying copyright law shouldn’t block citizens’ fundamental rights. Center for Democracy & Technology interim co-CEO Lisa Hayes made similar remarks: “People must have the right to anonymously access the law, without needing to pay hundreds of dollars.” The Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel didn’t comment.

The threat of large fines in European and California privacy law focused the tech industry’s attention on compliance, FTC Chairman Joe Simons said Friday. His remarks to the American Bar Association came the day after U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly approved the agency’s $5 billion privacy settlement with Facebook (see 1912050061).

COVID-19 demonstrates why flexibility is important for enforcers while also showing the benefits of contact tracing, FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips said Tuesday. An industry representative and privacy attorney in interviews debated recent contact tracing-related testimony to the Senate Commerce Committee.

With the Google antitrust probe ongoing, there are reasons to be concerned about a monopoly in advertising tech and its harm to competition, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said Wednesday. Depriving rivals access to necessary data inputs is potentially anticompetitive, he said. “Competitors that hope to compete with Google in the online digital marketplace may not be able to do so if Google maintains a strategic bottleneck on access to critical user data,” he told the American Bar Association. He noted he wasn’t speaking directly about the ongoing Google probe (see 1909090060).