DOJ will push to end Google’s distribution agreements with companies like Apple, but a structural breakup isn’t likely to gain traction in the department’s antitrust lawsuit against the search giant, former DOJ and FTC officials said Tuesday (see 2410090035, 2410100036 and 2410160035).
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
Gail Slater, an economic adviser to Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, is in consideration to serve as FTC chair if Donald Trump becomes president again, but the two sitting Republican commissioners will likely get first consideration, former FTC and White House officials told us in interviews this week.
Breaking up Google should be considered a potential remedy to stop the company from self-preferencing on Chrome, Android and the Play Store, DOJ said Tuesday, filing a proposed remedy framework with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (see 2408050052) (docket 1:20-cv-03010-APM). Google and tech associations fired back the next day, calling DOJ’s framework a radical departure from the facts in the case.
Federal and state legislators should take a light-touch regulatory approach to AI because there are unsettled questions about free speech and innovation potential, a Trump-appointed trade judge, a religious group and tech-minded scholars said Tuesday.
DOJ said current laws are sufficient to prosecute child sexual abuse material (CSAM) crimes, including AI-generated deep fakes, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should lift a district court injunction against Texas’ social media law and remand the case to assess the tech industry’s First Amendment challenge at a more granular level, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) argued Wednesday (docket 21-51178).
House leaders will likely take up kids’ privacy legislation, but not before more legislative work is done on the House Commerce Committee-passed bills, a high-ranking Senate Commerce Committee staffer said Wednesday.
The lame-duck session will provide a good chance to get kids’ privacy legislation signed into law, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told us Thursday.
Statutory language in the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act allowed the FCC to act against those responsible for illegal voice-cloning in the New Hampshire presidential primary election (see 2408210039), Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Wednesday.
The House Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved a pair of kids’ online safety bills on a voice vote, opening the door for potential floor action and negotiations with the Senate.