With help from Leah Nylen, John Hendel and Rebecca Kern
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— (Tech) politics doesn’t stop at the water’s edge: The Biden administration is earning praise from progressives for its tough talk on tech at home — but it’s increasingly being vilified for its defense of Silicon Valley abroad.
— Put the controller down: Sony’s $3.6 billion acquisition of video game developer Bungie could kick-start a new wave of antitrust action in Washington.
— Raimondo talks broadband buildouts: The Commerce Secretary is slated to testify today on her plan to pay out $48 billion in broadband investments.
IT’S TUESDAY, FEB. 1. Welcome to Morning Tech! I’m your host, Brendan Bordelon. Thanks for stopping by! I’ve somehow avoided dependency until now, but this newsletter gig has me on the cusp of a full-blown coffee addiction — should I fight it or embrace the bean?
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WHITE HOUSE TORN ON TRANSATLANTIC TECH: The Biden administration is increasingly stretched between its effort to defend U.S. tech firms abroad and the need to placate anti-tech progressives at home, as left-leaning groups ratchet up the pressure on Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo for her perceived coziness with U.S. tech giants — at least where Europe is involved.
First in MT: More than a dozen progressive groups and advocates are pressing Raimondo to release her calendar, planning documents and meeting agendas for 2021. In a letter sent to Raimondo late on Monday, the groups — which include Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, AccountableTech and The Digital Democracy Project — accused the Commerce head of undercutting the Biden administration’s antitrust agenda with her December claim that the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, which have yet to be fully negotiated, would disproportionately target U.S. tech companies.
“Your comments also renewed questions about what, if any, meetings you have taken with representatives from Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple,” the groups told Raimondo.They called on Raimondo to proactively release information about any future business meetings.
— A growing headache for the Biden administration: Progressives are so far reserving most of their ire for Raimondo specifically, suggesting she’s undercut President Joe Biden’s plans to regulate the tech industry and calling into question her “commitment to the administration’s popular antitrust and pro-worker agenda.”
But it may not be long until the broader administration is sucked into the maelstrom. Sam Stolton with POLITICO Europe reported Monday that the U.S. government is circulating an 8-point policy document among “select” members of European Parliament and member countries. The paper calls on EU policymakers to avoid narrowing revenue thresholds in the Digital Markets Act in a way that would exclusively target large U.S. tech firms.
This expanding effort suggests Raimondo isn’t alone in her concerns about Europe’s new rules for digital platforms — putting the Biden White House on a collision course with progressives who have otherwise supported its push to rein in U.S. tech giants on the home front.
2022: THE YEAR OF GAMING ANTITRUST? — Sony’s $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie on Monday may not make antitrust waves by itself. But regulators are likely to look at this deal in tandem with Microsoft’s recent buyout of Activision-Blizzard, amid concerns about growing concentration in the video game industry.
A brief history of Bungie: Born in Bellevue, Wash. in the 1990s, Bungie has had deals over the years with both Microsoft (which bought the company back in 2000 for access to Halo, the military sci-fi shooter that became a top-selling video game franchise) and Activision. After parting ways with Activision in 2019, Bungie went on to publish Destiny — another popular sci-fi shooter — as a free-to-play title on Microsoft’s Xbox, Google’s Stadia and Sony’s Playstation.
With Sony now in charge, regulators will likely be looking to see whether it will curtail Bungie’s offerings across these various gaming platforms. Antitrust investigators are likely to examine any exclusivity deals (which aren’t always announced) that Bungie has with console makers, as well as how the acquisition fits into Sony’s ambitions around augmented or virtual reality. In its statement announcing the deal, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons said the company will continue to make its games available across platforms — which could help assuage any regulatory concerns that the studio will start making its games exclusive to Playstation.
Who gets the ball? It’s still undecided who will review the deals, the Justice Department or Federal Trade Commission. DOJ has traditionally taken all things Microsoft, while the FTC has handled much of the gaming industry. But some believe Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter’s previous ties to Microsoft might give the FTC the upper hand.
RAIMONDO TESTIFIES ON BROADBAND— MT will also listen to Raimondo’s testimony this afternoon before Senate appropriators for any resource requests she may have regarding the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. That Commerce Department agency is set to stand up $48 billion in broadband investments in last year’s infrastructure bill and is on a hiring spree.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who chairs the subcommittee overseeing Commerce funding and who negotiated the broadband provisions with Raimondo, plans to press the Commerce secretary for an update about obtaining accurate broadband mapping from the FCC and how she’ll work with states, according to excerpts of Shaheen’s opening statement shared with MT.
Sen. Jerry Moran, the top Republican on the subcommittee, plans to highlight the need for qualified personnel to helm these broadband efforts in his own opening statement.
— Accountability, please: Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, another member of the appropriations panel set to question Raimondo who also co-chairs the Broadband Caucus, recently argued that Congress was intentional in giving these infrastructure funds to Commerce and not the FCC, which she said has been less precise in doling out broadband subsidies. (FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, trying to impose new accountability measures, has offered her own gripes.)
Raimondo “wanted it in her department,” Capito said during a broadband event last week, saying Congress will now “hold [the Commerce Department] accountable” in steering spending to underserved and unserved parts of the country before upgrading areas that already enjoy broadband infrastructure.
MENTAL HEALTH HOTLINE DROPS DATA-SHARING ARRANGEMENT: Crisis Text Line, a nonprofit mental health hotline, announced late Monday it is ending a data-sharing agreement it had with for-profit spinoff company Loris.ai. The announcement came three days after POLITICO reported on ethics and privacy concerns raised by the arrangement. More from John for Pros.
EARN IT IS BACK: Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) reintroduced the EARN IT Act late on Monday, which would remove Section 230 liability protections for online platforms that host child sexual abuse material. The bill creates a new commission that would set voluntary best practices for companies to prevent such content from appearing on their platforms.
The EARN IT Act, S. 3398 (116), advanced unanimously out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 116th Congress, but faced pushback from some privacy groups due to concerns it would lead to weakened encryption. Reps. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) and Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) will introduce a House companion bill.
ADVOCATES, TECH GROUP CLASH ON APP STORE BILL — Senators poised to consider the bipartisan Open App Markets Act, S. 2710 (117), on Thursday are being hit with competing asks this morning, as both sides jockey for position ahead of the key antitrust markup.
— Dueling letters: In a letter first shared with MT, more than a dozen left-leaning groups urge Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin and ranking member Chuck Grassley to move the bill quickly out of committee in a bid to undercut Google and Apple’s grips on their respective app stores. In a separate letter also exclusive to MT, the App Association — an industry group that represents smaller app developers but counts Apple among its donors — pressed the same senators to oppose the Open App Markets Act.
— App devs split: The App Association clearly doesn’t speak for everyone in the small-dev market. In a letter sent to Durbin and Grassley last Thursday, the heads of 20 of smaller tech companies, led by the Coalition for App Fairness, pushed the senators to support the bills in Thursday’s markup.
Dentons Global Advisors-ASG is adding Xiaoqing Boynton as SVP for China, Paul Triolo as SVP for China and technology policy lead, and Kevin Allison as VP for Europe and Eurasia and technology policy. Boynton most recently was at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, and Triolo and Allison were at the Eurasia Group. … The FCC announced the appointments of Alejandro Roark as chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau; Debra Jordan as chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau; Holly Saurer as chief of the Media Bureau; Loyaan Egal as acting chief of the Enforcement Bureau; and Michele Ellison as general counsel. … Kiley Naas, who previously focused on data privacy and cybersecurity issues as an attorney at Covington & Burling LLP, joins SineWave Ventures as chief of operations. … Brian Wesolowski is now senior public affairs manager at Microsoft, focused on privacy and responsible AI.
Meta-morphosis: The New York Times digs into the major changes underway at Facebook — I mean, Meta.
Pound for pound: The EU’s planned semiconductor subsidies are set to more or less match the $52 billion in chip funds Washington’s considering, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Whatever that means: “Information batteries” may be the key to solving green energy’s intermittence problem, according to Wired.
First in MT: The Consumer Technology Association released a report quantifying the value and diversity of the marketplace around devices that tap unlicensed spectrum (think Wi-Fi, garage door openers and wearables).
Can’t quit the crypto: Days after dropping its big cryptocurrency project, Meta becomes the largest crypto tech patent holder to join the Crypto Open Patent Alliance, Protocol reports.
Even Congress: In a bid to bring “crypto into the mainstream,” Rep. Tom Emmer is apparently open to receiving part of his salary in cryptocurrencies.
Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Heidi Vogt ([email protected]), Konstantin Kakaes ([email protected]), Brendan Bordelon ([email protected]), Emily Birnbaum ([email protected]), John Hendel ([email protected]), Rebecca Kern ([email protected]om) and Leah Nylen ([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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