National

The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday will vote on a measure meant to warn companies the agency will prioritize taking action against children's online privacy violations by education technology companies.

Why it matters: Remote schooling during the pandemic led to an explosion in the use of ed tech services, raising concerns about whether those companies are safeguarding children's data.

Driving the news: The FTC, now up to full strength with the addition of privacy expert Alvaro Bedoya as the third Democratic commissioner, will vote on a policy statement on education technology and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA.

Ahead of its meeting, the agency noted the policy statement "makes clear that parents and schools must not be required to sign up for surveillance as a condition of access to tools needed to learn."

COPPA requires websites to get parents' consent to collect children's information. Schools can consent on parents' behalf for data collection, but only to use the information for an educational purpose.

What they're saying:  "I'm hoping that it signals that the FTC is going to be looking very closely at how companies are actually using the data they're collecting from children in schools," said Josh Golin, CEO of Fairplay, an advocacy group focused on ending marketing to children. 

"What we need to see after a policy statement is an enforcement action against a fairly big player because that's how you change the dynamic."

FTC to set its sights on ed tech companies

The commission prepares to take action against companies seen as using "surveillance" on kids.

an illustration of kids in front of a giant computer

Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

Technology

Regulators around the world are exploring forcing Big Tech companies to pay more for the internet service they rely on to make their billions.

Why it matters: A growing number of governments think tech giants should up their contributions to the basic internet service that makes their success possible. That money could prop up local economies or help close the digital divide.

Driving the news: The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday will vote on bipartisan legislation that would order the FCC to study the feasibility of collecting fees from companies like Google and Netflix to shore up the agency's broadband deployment subsidy fund, the Universal Service Fund.

Meanwhile, in Europe, antitrust chief and European Commission executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager said at a press conference earlier this month that "the issue of fair contribution to telecommunication networks" is something lawmakers should consider "with a lot of focus."

"We see that there are players who generate a lot of traffic that then enable their business, but they have not been contributing actually to enable that traffic, they have not been contributing to enable the investments in the rollout of connectivity," she said.

Flashback: The idea to tax Big Tech to underwrite the FCC's broadband fund, which supports internet service in rural areas, schools, libraries and hospitals, picked up steam among Republicans last year. 

Currently, a fee on phone bills pays for the Universal Service Fund, but that revenue base has been decreasing.

The big picture: Companies that connect people to the internet and those that provide what people access on the internet, like videos, TV shows and music, are battling over who should foot the bill as streaming's costs and popularity grow.

European telecommunications companies argued earlier this month that the European Commission should require Big Tech to pay telecom companies for broadband infrastructure projects.

The European telecoms say social media and tech companies — including Meta, Netflix and Amazon — account for 55% of traffic on mobile and broadband networks, costing them between 15 billion and 28 billion euro per year, per the Financial Times. 

The intrigue: Netflix is already engaged in this fight in South Korea. 

Proposed legislation there would make global content providers pay local network fees, and the streaming giant is in court fighting a local ISP's efforts to collect money, per Reuters.

The law being debated in the Korean National Assembly would incur a "huge additional cost" for YouTube and could have a "direct impact on the domestic YouTube business," making it difficult for YouTube to invest in South Korea's creator ecosystem, wrote Gautam Anand, executive vice president for Asia Pacific at YouTube, in a company blog post in Korean last month (English version courtesy Google Translate).

Internet service providers in the U.S. have argued Big Tech should pay into the increasing cost of broadband.

The Senate proposal is "critical to the future of the Universal Service Fund," USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter said in a statement to Axios. "USF has long benefitted a wide universe of companies — streaming, videoconferencing, e-commerce, cloud computing and more — that largely do not contribute to the FCC’s critical universal service programs. It’s time they step up."

The other side: "Consumers currently pay internet access fees and companies that use extra bandwidth for everything from search to video streaming already pay extra fees to internet access providers," said Matt Schruers, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which represents Big Tech companies. "These digital services help create the demand for the services internet access providers are selling."

“American families are struggling with high gas prices and skyrocketing grocery bills, and the last thing they need is a new tax on online services that bring them competition, choice and savings," said Angie Kronenberg, chief advocate and general counsel for INCOMPAS, a trade association representing both smaller broadband companies and large tech platforms like Google and Amazon.

In the Senate, The FAIR Contributions Act was introduced by committee ranking member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) but now counts communications subcommittee chairman Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) as a sponsor. 

“The FAIR Contributions Act would be an important step to help ensure that Americans in unserved and underserved areas are not left behind as we work to close the digital divide,“ Wicker said in a statement to Axios.

"The same companies that benefit from public funding for broadband connectivity should be willing to support this proposal," Luján told Axios. 

What they're saying: FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told Axios it's time for a "fundamental rethink" on who pays into the agency's broadband funds.

"It's sort of a universal idea that people are realizing that these are the companies that are benefiting from these expenditures and so why don't we look at them to pay in as well," Carr told Axios.

New push to make Big Tech pay more for bandwidth

The Senate is taking up a bill that would tax companies like Google and Amazon to support low-income Internet access.

Illustration of a loading screen with a dollar on it

Big Tech

An illustration showing a $100 bill as a half-loaded loading bar.

Regulators around the world are exploring forcing Big Tech companies to pay more for the internet service they rely on to make their billions.Why it matters: A growing number of governments think tech giants should up their contributions to the basic internet service that makes their success possible. That money could prop up local economies or help close the digital divide.

Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan has a chance to work her way down her Big Tech to-do list, nearly a year into her tenure, now that she has a Democratic majority in hand.

Driving the news: The Senate voted 51-50 Wednesday afternoon — with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking a tie — to confirm privacy expert Alvaro Bedoya to the FTC.

The big picture: Progressives last year cheered President Biden's appointment of Khan, a prominent critic of Amazon's market power, to lead the agency — but her ability to enact sweeping changes or enforcement actions has been limited so far.

The Democrats' majority at the five-person agency now opens the door for Khan's agenda, expected to include:

1. New privacy and competition rules. Biden called on the FTC to craft rules on data and surveillance, as well as rules barring unfair methods of competition on internet marketplaces, as part of a wide-ranging executive order on competition last summer.

Khan will now have the votes to propose new rules around unfair competition practices, children's privacy, consumer privacy, and the use of non-compete contracts, along with the use of data and surveillance.

2. Aggressive enforcement on deals. The same executive order said the FTC has the power to to challenge prior mergers, something the FTC itself highlighted when Amazon closed its deal with MGM after running out the clock on the agency's review.

Agency watchers tell Axios Khan may wait to file a larger case against Amazon that goes beyond its MGM purchase.

"[Khan] was put in charge of the agency with a strong bipartisan majority to address the market power problems deriving from Big Tech. Core to those problems are their ability to leverage their power into markets through acquisitions," Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, told Axios. 

3. More stringent guidelines on mergers. The administration called on the FTC to scrutinize mergers and acquisitions by dominant internet platforms, especially when buying smaller rivals, and Khan will be able to scrutinize and challenge mergers more successfully with Bedoya's vote.

Separately, the FTC and DOJ are also in the process of drawing up new merger guidelines, which could change the way businesses approach acquisitions.

"On the antitrust side, item number one is probably the revision of the merger guidelines, together with DOJ," Daniel Francis, the former deputy head of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, told Axios. "In practice, that's the most important document for merger control and review in the country, and everyone is waiting to see what the agencies will change. The new third vote will make all the difference."

What they're saying: Bedoya's arrival means "the urgent work of reining in the unchecked power of increasingly concentrated industries can finally move forward at the FTC," Alex Harman, ​director of government affairs for competition policy at the Economic Security Project, the anti-monopoly nonprofit founded by former Meta co-founder Chris Hughes, told Axios.

The other side: Critics of Khan's FTC, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said her new Democratic majority marks the end of bipartisanship at the agency. 

"As soon as she has a third vote I expect an unprecedented flood of aggressive, partisan actions that continue to erode the commission's long history of bipartisanship," said Neil Chilson, a senior research fellow for Tech and Innovation at Stand Together and a former FTC adviser.

Between the lines: Democratic commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the former acting chairwoman, and Bedoya will have considerable leverage over the agency's work as Khan will need their support to push through her agenda in the face of Republican opposition.

Yes, but: Khan will also need the support of FTC staff, who carry out the work of writing rules and guidelines. A recent survey showed low trust in senior leaders among FTC employees, and Politico reported tensions between FTC leadership and longtime staffers.

"The FTC has been a gem of an agency, a community of professionals dedicated to protecting consumer," Republican FTC commissioner Christine Wilson tweeted about the survey. "New leadership has marginalized and disrespected staff, resulting in a brain drain that will take a generation to fix."

Lina Khan's to-do list on Big Tech

With a key spot on the FTC now filled, the commissioner has a chance to pursue a bigger agenda.

Photo illustration of Lina Khan with the Capitol Building, a gavel, and binary code

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: An Rong Xu/Washington Post via Getty Images

Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan has a chance to work her way down her Big Tech to-do list, nearly a year into her tenure, now that she has a Democratic majority in hand.Driving the news: The Senate voted 51-50 Wednesday afternoon — with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking a tie — to confirm privacy expert Alvaro Bedoya to the FTC.

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

The Biden administration on Thursday urged federal agencies to rely on job-seekers' skills — rather than their academic degrees — to fill vacancies, according to new guidance shared exclusively with Axios.

Why it matters: The government is catching up with the private sector's shift to skills-based hiring amid a tight labor market — and, in doing so, opening up jobs to a pool of traditionally overlooked candidates.

Driving the news: The Office of Personnel Management released new guidance to agencies to help them implement a skills-based approach to filling jobs.

Skills-based hiring focuses on what jobs candidates can do, relying more on competency-based assessments than educational degrees.

It is also more inclusive because it makes it easier for people without degrees to show they have the talents necessary to do the work.

By the numbers: According to a March report by LinkedIn, 40% of employers use skills data when hiring through the platform, up 20% compared with a year prior.

Companies that use skills data are 60% more likely to find "a successful hire" than those who do not, the report said.

Of note: A study published in the Harvard Business Review called out Accenture and IBM as examples of IT companies that had whittled back the number of job postings with degree requirements.

"The reset that’s taking place in hiring today is vitally important," said the authors, led by professor Joseph Fuller of Harvard Business School. 

"If we want to increase equity in the labor market, one important way to do it is by removing barriers to well-paying jobs — and there’s no question that in recent years one of those barriers has been inflated degree requirements." 

The intrigue: The guidance from OPM builds on a 2020 executive order from the Trump administration that told agencies to prioritize skills over college degrees in hiring.

Several agencies, including NASA, the Department of Interior and the U.S. Digital Service, already use skills-based hiring.

The Biden administration has extended the deadline of the executive order to the end of this year for agencies to adopt some skills-based hiring practices.

What they're saying: "Given today’s booming labor market, the federal government must position itself to compete with other sectors for top talent,"  Kiran Ahuja, director of OPM, said in a statement.

White House prods agencies to focus on skills in hiring

Placing less focus on academic degrees will expand the talent pool.

Illustration of the white house on the back of a dollar with a now hiring sign hanging from it

Employment

The Biden administration on Thursday urged federal agencies to rely on job-seekers&#x27; skills — rather than their academic degrees — to fill vacancies, according to new guidance shared exclusively with Axios.Why it matters: The government is catching up with the private sector&#x27;s shift to skills-based hiring amid a tight labor market — and, in doing so, opening up jobs to a pool of traditionally overlooked candidates.

The Biden administration has charged the Federal Communications Commission with prohibiting digital discrimination — but without a third Democratic commissioner to break the agency's partisan deadlock, those plans are in trouble. 

Why it matters: One of President Biden's key domestic priorities, improving internet access and affordability, can't advance unless the Senate confirms his FCC nominee.

Catch up quick: The Federal Communications Commission has been deadlocked at 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans since Biden took office, and his nominee for the third seat, Gigi Sohn, has been awaiting a Senate vote for months amid Republican opposition.

What's happening: The agency is required by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to craft rules preventing digital discrimination on broadband access.

The rules would prohibit internet service providers such as Comcast or Verizon from deployment discrimination based on the income level or predominant race or ethnicity of the people living in an area.

A 2020 study of internet access in Oakland, Calif., found that areas that were redlined by banks in the past — denied loans or investment — now have less ISP competition and fiber-based services than their wealthier counterparts.

The intrigue: FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel launched an inquiry in March, with support from the agency's Republicans, on how to create rules preventing digital discrimination and facilitating equal access to high-speed internet.

A major question is how the agency will interpret a part of the law that says the rules should take into account issues of "technical and economic feasibility."

Advocates fear Republicans at the agency will use that exception to render new rules meaningless and say Rosenworcel will need Democratic support to craft aggressive rules.

"If the Biden administration, which fought for the inclusion of this provision, really wants to operationalize that sort of program to address more fundamental equity concerns, they need a 3-2 commission and they need it yesterday," Greg Guice, director of government affairs for tech advocacy group Public Knowledge, told Axios.

Between the lines: Despite the split, the FCC has adopted several policy items on a bipartisan basis, including a proposal to require "nutrition labels" for internet service and rules meant to boost competition among broadband providers in apartment buildings.

The big picture: The FCC is also expected to reinstate net neutrality rules and tackle regulations on TV ownership if it gains a Democratic majority.

The Federal Trade Commission, which was deadlocked at 2-2 for months, will likely take up several Biden priorities now that its third Democratic commissioner has been confirmed. 

What's next: Left-leaning public interest groups are urging the Biden administration and Senate to confirm Sohn to the commission.

Deadlocked FCC could derail Biden's digital equity plans

Biden's appointment of Gigi Sohn to the commission is still on hold in the Senate.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

The Biden administration has charged the Federal Communications Commission with prohibiting digital discrimination — but without a third Democratic commissioner to break the agency&#x27;s partisan deadlock, those plans are in trouble. Why it matters: One of President Biden&#x27;s key domestic priorities, improving internet access and affordability, can&#x27;t advance unless the Senate confirms his FCC nominee.

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Margaret Harding McGill

Stories

White House prods agencies to focus on skills in hiring

Deadlocked FCC could derail Biden's digital equity plans

FTC to set its sights on ed tech companies

Lina Khan's to-do list on Big Tech

New push to make Big Tech pay more for bandwidth