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Quick Fix
— Order up: With a new executive order on competition, President Joe Biden is taking on the tech giants, with or without Congress behind him.
— Dethroned: For years, the Internet Association was the go-to voice for Silicon Valley in D.C. No longer.
— Budget watch: House appropriators will tackle their Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill this week.
HAPPY MONDAY! WELCOME BACK TO MORNING TECH. I’m your host, Benjamin Din. A big kudos to Richard Branson for his productive Sunday in space. He beat out fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos, who is blasting off in eight days. Bezos congratulated Branson on Instagram, but don’t let that fool you...
Got a news tip? Would you go to space? Email [email protected]. Got an event for our calendar? Send details to [email protected]. Anything else? Team info below. And don't forget: Add @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro on Twitter.
Tech of the Town
WHAT THAT COMPETITION ORDER MEANS FOR TECH — Friday’s executive order on competition wasn’t just a huge sign that Biden isn’t going to shy away from using executive power to promote competition throughout the economy. It’s also part of the broader effort to rein in Silicon Valley’s biggest players, overlapping with the House's bipartisan antitrust package.
— House, meet White House: The order focuses on three aspects of the giant tech platforms' behavior: their acquisitions of potential competitors, their gathering of consumers’ personal data and their competition with small businesses. The order’s provisions on the first point are similar to a bill from Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), although that legislation would prohibit the largest platforms from acquiring potential rivals. Biden’s order would simply increase regulatory scrutiny of these mergers — “with particular attention to the acquisition of nascent competitors, serial mergers, the accumulation of data, competition by ‘free’ products, and the effect on user privacy” — rather than banning them outright.
Other parts of the antitrust package were left unaddressed, but Biden also waded into other issues, such as privacy, which falls under the FTC’s jurisdiction but has traditionally not been associated with antitrust regulation. It’s a sign of how closely linked the two matters have become in the digital age, as major tech platforms amass troves of data about their users. (Another sign of this: Across the Atlantic, European antitrust agencies are playing a major role in privacy issues.)
— What’s next? The House is continuing to jockey over revisions to the antitrust package, which, as of late last month, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said wasn’t ready for floor consideration. But regardless of what happens on the Hill, Biden’s order indicates he may not be afraid to accomplish some of these changes on his own.
— That all said: It’s almost guaranteed that there will be legal challenges, and it’s not clear whether some of these executive actions that seem to broaden the scope of antitrust scrutiny will hold up in the courts, which have had very different ideas about antitrust over the decades.
ONCE A TECH DARLING, IA NOW ON THE OUTS — At its peak, the Internet Association hosted events that attracted high-profile figures like Jeff Bezos and Ivanka Trump. It also notched significant legislative wins, including a deal for a more tech-friendly version of FOSTA-SESTA, a law meant to crack down on online sex trafficking. But the 9-year-old tech trade group has lost much of its prominence, Emily reports in a new story, even as tech companies are in need of all the Washington influence they can muster. In short, IA is “irrelevant,” one Democratic congressional aide told her.
— Changing times: IA used to call itself “the unified voice of the internet economy,” but that’s become an increasingly untenable position as tech-world infighting has worsened. Smaller companies often find themselves at odds with the industry’s giants, which are better resourced to deal with policy changes. And those giants, which are increasingly building out their own lobbying shops, often don’t see eye to eye with one another (such as the feud over user data collection between Facebook and Apple).
“I would argue that for many members, especially the large members, it appears to be in their interest to gridlock IA,” one person familiar with internal dynamics at the association told Emily.
It doesn’t help that IA has a self-imposed handicap: At its founding, it pledged to stay out of competition matters, perhaps the most important tech issue in Washington today. That void is being filled by other tech trade groups, such as NetChoice, the Computer and Communications Industry Association and Chamber of Progress, the newly formed outfit from former Google executive Adam Kovacevich.
— Internal affairs: Meanwhile, high staff turnover — a fifth of IA’s 24-person staff has resigned since June, although some degree of personnel churn has been going on for much longer — and frustration with the leadership style of new CEO Dane Snowden is also affecting the group's ability to insert itself into the conversation on Capitol Hill, current and former employees said. In response, Snowden told Emily that "transitions are not easy," but maintained that IA is "an organization that's growing."
HUAWEI, VERIZON SETTLE PATENT FIGHT — Telecom giants Huawei and Verizon have agreed to privately settle amid a clash over intellectual property, a source familiar with the case tells John. Huawei, the embattled Chinese telecom supplier, sued Verizon last year, alleging the infringement of various patents, charges Verizon dismissed as a “PR stunt.” The settlement comes just as the parties were heading to trial in Texas.
— Geopolitical context: The U.S. has sought to block Huawei from American telecom networks and has warned allies against allowing the company any role in 5G network buildouts. Huawei’s pivot to challenging its U.S.-based competitors via the court system is an intriguing new tactic.
Huawei spokesperson Glenn Schloss said the terms of the settlement were confidential but that Huawei is pleased the two companies “were able to reach an agreement.”
WELCOME TO TECH BUDGET WEEK — House appropriators will consider today an $81.3 billion spending bill that would affect key tech and telecom agencies, such as the DOJ’s antitrust division, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is involved in 5G, spectrum and other telecom matters.
House Democrats settled on numbers that largely aligned with Biden’s budget request for those agencies. Under the bill, the DOJ’s antitrust division is slated to get $201.2 million, an increase of 9 percent from 2021 appropriations. The NTIA’s budget would nearly double to $89.5 million, with $26.7 million in one-time funding for 5G spectrum research as part of its Table Mountain field testing site. And OSTP would get $7.15 million — an additional $500,000 above the 20 percent bump that Biden had requested in May.
— This week’s agenda: The House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science panel will mark up the bill this afternoon, and a full committee markup will follow on Thursday.
Democrats hope to pass their appropriations measures on the floor by the end of the month, our budget and appropriations guru Caitlin Emma reports. But with both chambers consumed by an already-packed legislative agenda (remember that infrastructure package?) and a lack of action from Senate appropriators, don’t hold your breath. It’s more likely that lawmakers will have to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open past the Sept. 30 deadline when government funding dries up and buy more time for spending negotiations.
Broadband Land
WICKER WEIGHS IN ON BROADBAND MAPS — Senate Commerce ranking member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) wants NTIA to reevaluate how it collects data and make sure it uses only accurate and current data to update its broadband maps. He was particularly concerned about the agency’s recently released “Indicators of Broadband Need” interactive tool, which allows users to compare data and see where gaps in broadband coverage are.
“Although it is a novel approach to the challenge, I am concerned that this map is as inaccurate as previous federal maps,” he said in a Friday letter to acting NTIA chief Evelyn Remaley. “Indeed, releasing it has only created confusion regarding the state of broadband availability in the United States.”
— Context, please: Critics said the interactive map — which includes a disclaimer about its accuracy — relies on the same faulty federal data as previous maps. The FCC is working to improve that data, although new maps with more granular data aren't expected to be released until next year.
The maps are critical to agencies that distribute funds to expand broadband access, because they help identify which areas need the most help. "NTIA’s lack of accurate data threatens the effectiveness of these programs, as well as other broadband programs Congress is currently contemplating as part of an infrastructure bill," Wicker wrote.
Transitions
Jamie Susskind is returning to the Senate after two years as VP of policy and regulatory affairs at the Consumer Technology Association. She is an FCC alum and was FCC detailee to the Senate Commerce Committee and chief counsel to Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.). … Russell Hanser will join NTIA as director of communications policy initiatives. He is now a partner at Wilkinson Barker Knauer and an FCC alum. … Jane Lytvynenko is joining Joan Donovan’s team at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center. She previously covered misinformation, cybersecurity and online investigations at BuzzFeed.
Silicon Valley Must-Reads
Requesting an extension: “Brussels is set to delay plans for its controversial digital levy until the autumn in an effort to boost the prospects of a global corporate tax reform deal,” FT reports. The decision is not final, an official said, although it will be discussed when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen meets with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen today.
Think piece: Will Gen Z be the death of email? NYT investigates.
Quick Downloads
A China workaround: "Tech Companies to Buy Covid-19 Vaccines on Behalf of Taiwan," WSJ reports.
Space needs: NTIA did a deep dive into space-based operations and how they use spectrum.
Sweet dreams: “Amazon.com Wants to Monitor You in Your Sleep, for Your Benefit,” via Bloomberg.
Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King ([email protected]), Heidi Vogt ([email protected]), John Hendel ([email protected]), Cristiano Lima ([email protected]), Alexandra S. Levine ([email protected]), Leah Nylen ([email protected]), Emily Birnbaum ([email protected]), and Benjamin Din ([email protected]). Got an event for our calendar? Send details to [email protected]. And don't forget: Add @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro on Twitter.
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