How Ajit Pai tore up the rulebook this year

Catch up fast on net neutrality

Asus CEO on his company's advantage over its PC rivals

1 big idea: The "Uberization" of the Fortune 500

Tweet of the weekend

Take note

After you Login

Good morning from D.C. I'll be hosting this party for the next 48 hours while Ina and Kim are out of town. As always, you can reply directly to this email and it'll go straight to my inbox. It's Monday and you lead a busy life — so let's get to the news.

National

A smartphone with different colored buttons floating above its surface.

deepBlue

Get our smart take on technology from Silicon Valley and DC

Axios Login

Why Cloudflare's CEO took down the Daily Stormer

First in Login: White House tackles electronic medical records

The SEC takes aim at initial coin offerings

Pay more attention to Section 702

You can log out, but you can’t hide

Microsoft vet heads to IPO-bound Qualtrics

Thanks for your kind notes yesterday. Ina will be back in your inbox tomorrow morning while I go back to spending my evenings watching The Crown.

The White House has asked unnamed "internet and technology companies" to attend a meeting with staff and senior administration officials on Friday about "violent extremism online," an administration spokesperson said Wednesday.

Why it matters: The invitation, which was first reported by Politico, comes in the wake of a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, in which the suspected gunman allegedly posted an anti-immigrant manifesto on the online forum 8chan. The cybersecurity provider Cloudflare has stopped working with 8chan, which has been linked to mass shootings this year in El Paso, New Zealand and San Diego. 

Go deeper: What to do about 8chan, the net's atrocity megaphone

White House invites tech companies to discuss "violent extremism online"

The suspected gunman in a shooting in Texas allegedly posted an anti-immigrant manifesto on 8chan.

Trump makes remarks in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House after the El Paso shooting. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Technology

White House

Politics

The White House has asked unnamed &quot;internet and technology companies&quot; to attend a meeting with staff and senior administration officials on Friday about &quot;violent extremism online,&quot; an administration spokesperson said Wednesday.Why it matters: The invitation, which was <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="first reported" data-vars-click-url="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/07/white-house-to-meet-with-internet-companies-after-shootings-1451005" data-vars-content-id="527fe914-ccf7-4623-b835-3fcf959200d8" data-vars-headline="White House invites tech companies to discuss &quot;violent extremism online&quot;" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/07/white-house-to-meet-with-internet-companies-after-shootings-1451005" target="_blank">first reported</a> by Politico, comes in the wake of a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, in which the suspected gunman allegedly posted an anti-immigrant manifesto on the online forum 8chan. The cybersecurity provider Cloudflare <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="has stopped working" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/cloudflare-pulls-8chan-support-after-el-paso-shooting-a6ec19b3-919f-42d5-9433-27fee44bdb3f.html" data-vars-content-id="527fe914-ccf7-4623-b835-3fcf959200d8" data-vars-headline="White House invites tech companies to discuss &quot;violent extremism online&quot;" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/cloudflare-pulls-8chan-support-after-el-paso-shooting-a6ec19b3-919f-42d5-9433-27fee44bdb3f.html" target="_self">has stopped working</a> with 8chan, which has been linked to mass shootings this year in El Paso, New Zealand and San Diego. Go deeper: <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="What to do about 8chan, the net&#x27;s atrocity megaphone" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/what-to-do-about-8chan-the-nets-atrocity-megaphone-cb482e29-531a-46c5-bba7-c978ab9bb376.html" data-vars-content-id="527fe914-ccf7-4623-b835-3fcf959200d8" data-vars-headline="White House invites tech companies to discuss &quot;violent extremism online&quot;" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/what-to-do-about-8chan-the-nets-atrocity-megaphone-cb482e29-531a-46c5-bba7-c978ab9bb376.html" target="_self">What to do about 8chan, the net&#x27;s atrocity megaphone</a>

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Online platforms built for the living increasingly have to confront what to do when one of their users dies, leaving an account behind.

Details: Each major platform is different, but all have procedures in place should a user die.

Facebook will “memorialize” a deceased user’s account — turning it essentially into a remembrance page — at the request of family members or friends. (Family members can also request to delete the account entirely.)

Instagram, which Facebook owns, will also lock in the contents of someone’s account when they die.

Twitter will deactivate a deceased user’s account in collaboration with a “person authorized to act on behalf of the estate, or with a verified immediate family member.”

Google will work to secure a user’s account after they die. “We can work with immediate family members and representatives to close the account of a deceased person where appropriate,” the company says. “In certain circumstances we may provide content from a deceased user's account.”

Several platforms encourage users to plan ahead for their own death, often by designating an individual to handle their account. Facebook users can also tell the service to delete their account when they die.

The big picture: Social networks have repeatedly grappled with how to handle this question, developing their policies over the years — and facing criticism along the way.

Last year, a writer for Mashable noted that effectively anyone could memorialize a Facebook account, based on the way the system worked at the time.

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg announced earlier this year that the site was now “only allowing friends and family members to request to have an account memorialized.”

She also said the company uses artificial intelligence to keep content from non-memorialized accounts belonging to deceased users out of other users' feeds.

A Facebook spokesperson wouldn't specify how the platform identifies whether someone has died, but said that there "are any number of signals we look for to indicate a person may be deceased."

How death cafes are de-stigmatizing death

How the health care system fails dying patients

How tech platforms handle a user's death

Several platforms encourage users to plan ahead for their own death.

Illustration of a tombstone shaped like a computer

Deep Dive - Future of Dying

Media

Online platforms built for the living increasingly have to confront what to do when one of their users dies, leaving an account behind.Details: Each major platform is different, but all have procedures in place should a user die.

The Federal Trade Commission's antitrust probe of Facebook is looking at whether the social network used acquisitions to take out its competition, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Why it matters: It suggests that the agency was serious when it said it might look at already-completed mergers and acquisitions as part of a broader review of the tech sector.

Flashback: Two major acquisitions, of Instagram and WhatsApp, have given Facebook a shield against declining user growth on its classic social platform for nearly a decade.

It bought Instagram first, in 2012, for $1 billion.

It purchased WhatsApp two years later for $19 billion.

In recent years, critics have contended that those deals allowed Facebook to stifle competition.

They say Facebook has used proprietary data, via a virtual private network called Onavo that it acquired in 2013, to identify small companies gaining market share and buy them before they can present too much of a threat.

Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has called for appointing regulators who might be willing to unwind those acquisitions by Facebook, and other purchases by major internet firms.

Yes, but: The exact nature of the FTC's inquiries are not yet clear. Investigations are generally cloaked in secrecy and can take years.

The bigger picture: The increased antitrust scrutiny of major tech giants may already be affecting their decisions about what companies to acquire — and whether the extra fight in D.C. is worth the effort.

FTC said to look at Facebook's Instagram and WhatsApp purchases

According to a report, the agency is looking into Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

Business

The Federal Trade Commission&#x27;s antitrust probe of Facebook is looking at whether the social network used acquisitions to take out its competition, <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="according to the Wall Street Journal" data-vars-click-url="https://www.wsj.com/articles/ftc-antitrust-probe-of-facebook-scrutinizes-its-acquisitions-11564683965" data-vars-content-id="984eef3b-9d9e-46a1-a3d7-d9e0d555efcc" data-vars-headline="FTC said to look at Facebook&#x27;s Instagram and WhatsApp purchases" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/ftc-antitrust-probe-of-facebook-scrutinizes-its-acquisitions-11564683965" target="_blank">according to the Wall Street Journal</a>.Why it matters: It suggests that the agency was serious when it said it might look at already-completed mergers and acquisitions as part of a broader review of the tech sector.

The backlash against giant tech companies is stressing the public institutions tasked with examining their power, as participants, observers and critics question whether regulators have the skill, will and authority to check corporate forces.

Why it matters: The machinery of antitrust regulation will process the broader conversation about tech's role in society through the mill of American politics and law — and some wonder whether it's up to the task.

The Federal Trade Commission’s investigations into alleged privacy violations at Facebook and YouTube have raised questions about whether it has the authority it needs to police privacy in the era of aggressive online data collection. Some legislators and observers criticized the FTC’s proposed settlement  with Facebook last month for multiple consumer privacy issues as weak, given the scale of Facebook’s  revenues.

Broad reviews at the FTC and DOJ of the market power of major tech platforms like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple may put to the test the agencies’ ability to rein in alleged monopolies using decades-old legal doctrine and century-old laws.

The Department of Justice’s decision to approve T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint, as long as Dish created a fourth-major wireless carrier, was seen by critics as inadequate to protect competition in the wireless sector.

Context: Regulators are grappling with a moment where people across the political spectrum are increasingly distrustful of large tech corporations and the men and women they’ve turned into billionaires.

Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has risen in the polls attacking a corrupt culture in Washington that benefits megacorporations and the rich.

Even the right is no longer driven by purely deregulatory impulses. A vocal and influential part of President Trump’s base is more open to cracking down on large online platforms than the libertarians who have traditionally driven tech policy among conservatives in Washington.

Flashback: Earlier this month, a White House draft plan surfaced that would, per CNN, narrow the shield protecting platforms from liability for users’ content. 

The plan would throw the Federal Communications Commission into a hot political debate over political bias online by asking it to serve as arbiter of the key legal protections for vast online platforms, although it's unclear if that would be within the agency's legal authority.

Are these agencies up to the task of policing the industry?

For those who believe they are not, what should Congress do about that?

What they’re saying: Some lawmakers have raised the prospect over the past year of either giving the regulators more power — or reorganizing the whole system.

“If we need to reassign jurisdiction away from the FTC and give it to an agency that’s better suited to enforcement, then maybe we should do that,”  Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said last month before the agency’s settlement with Facebook was announced. “You look at their history of frankly dilatory or non-enforcement, it makes me wonder if they are better suited to an oversight role and not very well suited to an antitrust enforcement role.”

Officials at the Federal Trade Commission have told Congress they would welcome a new national privacy law that gives them more power.

And activists have said that the predominant view in antitrust law that monopoly cases should hinge on whether consumers have been harmed, often in terms of a price increase — which can make it hard to go after a free service like Facebook or Google — is outdated.

Yes, but: The FTC has said it is doing the most it can do with the powers Congress has granted it, and the leader of the Department of Justice's antitrust division said last year that "there are serious risks to democracy in abandoning" the current standard.

What's next: The 2020 presidential election is likely to put corporate power — from tech to healthcare — in the spotlight.

Tech regulators put to the test

Politicians on both sides have grown concerned about corporate power.

Illustration of a hand with a magnifying glass over a computer being scrutinized by a larger magnifying glass

Big Tech backlash

Big Tech

The backlash against giant tech companies is stressing the public institutions tasked with examining their power, as participants, observers and critics question whether regulators have the skill, will and authority to check corporate forces.Why it matters: The machinery of antitrust regulation will process the broader conversation about tech&#x27;s role in society through the mill of American politics and law — and some wonder whether it&#x27;s up to the task.

Advocates who say that companies like Apple lock users into costly repair arrangements are trying to influence a growing debate in Washington over whether giant tech firms have become monopolies.

Why it matters: The issue has gotten less airtime than concerns about Apple's iOS App Store, but it's another possible point of scrutiny for regulators as they look at broader concerns over Big Tech's market power.

Flashback: For years, activists for a so-called "right to repair" have raised concerns about technology companies making it impossible for customers to go to anyone other than the manufacturer if they wanted to get their gear repaired, or restricting repairs to merchants that have the manufacturer's blessing.

Apple has become one flashpoint for the issue, given the prevalence of its smartphones.

Driving the news: In letters and testimony submitted to the record for a House Judiciary Committee hearing, right to repair advocates pressed their case that restricting who gets to repair a device is a way of gaining a competitive edge.

"Repair hurts sales," of new phones, said Nathan Proctor, who leads the Right to Repair campaign at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "Apple has an incentive to restrict repair of their devices."

In a different filing, Gay Gordon-Byrne, the executive director of the Right to Repair Coalition, said that while one option would be for right to repair advocates to go to court, the coalition's members "will be best served through legislation" addressing the issue, since litigation is time-consuming and expensive.

What they're saying: ""We want to make sure our customers always have confidence their products will be repaired safely and correctly, and in a way that supports recycling," said an Apple spokesperson in a statement. "We are continually growing our network of certified technicians and most recently announced that any Best Buy store in the U.S. is now an authorized service provider."

The big picture: The House Judiciary Committee antitrust subcommittee's inquiry into the market power of major tech platforms is one of many such proceedings in Washington.

The Federal Trade Commission launched a tech task force and last week, the Department of Justice said it was carrying out its own wide-ranging investigation.

Competitors and critics of the tech companies have the opportunity to shape the probes, steering regulators towards their specific concerns.

"Right to repair" advocates lobby over antitrust concerns

Tech companies that limit who can repair their products face complaints of monopoly practices.

A man in a green shirt, layered over a red long-sleeved shirt, leans over a counter in front of a sign that says "Genius Bar"

Monopolies

Advocates who say that companies like Apple lock users into costly repair arrangements are trying to influence a growing debate in Washington over whether giant tech firms have become monopolies.Why it matters: The issue has gotten less airtime than concerns about Apple&#x27;s iOS App Store, but it&#x27;s another possible point of scrutiny for regulators as they look at broader concerns over Big Tech&#x27;s market power.

Sections

Axios Local

Axios gets you smarter, faster with news & information that matters.

About

Subscribe

David McCabe

Stories

Tech regulators put to the test

How tech platforms handle a user's death

White House invites tech companies to discuss "violent extremism online"

"Right to repair" advocates lobby over antitrust concerns

FTC said to look at Facebook's Instagram and WhatsApp purchases

Newsletter editions

Axios Login, Tuesday, December 12

Login - December 1, 2017