The FCC on Wednesday formally approved the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint. The vote comes months after the Justice Department greenlit the deal. The Verge reports: In May, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai first signaled that he would vote to approve the merger after the commission and the companies struck a deal that Republicans believed would help foster a faster 5G rollout. The other Republican commissioners, Brendan Carr and Michael O'Rielly, also voiced support for the merger at the time. The merger was pushed through on a party-line vote with Democrats dissenting, an FCC official told The Verge.

Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel announced her disapproval in an op-ed for The Atlantic Wednesday morning. In it, she argues that a merged T-Mobile-Sprint would only hurt consumers, driving up prices and staving off competition. "These state officials understand something fundamental: With less competition, rates rise and innovation falls. All the evidence demonstrates that this holds true in the mobile-phone industry too," Rosenworcel said. "If this merger succeeds, consumers will pay the price." The other Democrat, Geoffrey Starks, was the last to vote on the deal. In September, Starks put out a statement calling on the FCC to delay any votes on the merger until Sprint could be fully investigated for allegedly misappropriating Lifeline subsidy funds for around 885,000 ineligible accounts. "There is no credible way that the merger before us can proceed until this Lifeline investigation is resolved and responsible parties are held accountable," Starks said at the time. Before the deal closes, representatives from the two companies said they'll wait until a multistate lawsuit trying to block the deal is resolved.

Democrats running for president had their most vigorous debate yet about the power of tech companies, finally bringing the long-simmering conversation about Big Tech into the mainstream of Democratic politics. From a report: The dozen Democratic candidates quarreled for almost 15 minutes at the fourth presidential debate about topics including digital privacy rights, the monopoly power of companies like Amazon, political fundraising in Silicon Valley, and whether politicians like Donald Trump should be banned from Twitter. It was the first time tech was discussed meaningfully on the Democratic debate stage -- and a sign that the media sees the growing techlash as enough of a concern that candidates should be pressed on it on national television. The combat mostly centered on Elizabeth Warren, the new presidential frontrunner who has made her proposal to break up tech companies like Facebook a cornerstone of her presidential run.

Many of her competitors said they were not willing to go as far as her, although several decided to take their own whacks at Silicon Valley from other angles. Beto O'Rourke offered the most direct criticism to Warren's plan, even comparing her approach to Trump's rhetoric about the press. "We will be unafraid to break up big businesses if we have to do that -- but I don't think it is the role of a president or a candidate for the presidency to specifically call out which companies will be broken up," O'Rourke said. "That's something that Donald Trump has done in part because he sees enemies in the press and wants to diminish their power. It's not something that we should do." Andrew Yang, the political neophyte running on tech-infused themes such as universal basic income, said Warren was correct in diagnosing the problem but that "using a 20th century antitrust framework will not work." Cory Booker would only say that his administration would "put people in place that enforce antitrust laws" but declined to sign on to the proposal to break up the tech giants. He did use some of the harshest language on the stage, saying that tech companies were responsible for a "massive crisis on our democracy."

California senator and 2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris has formally asked Twitter to suspend President Donald Trump's account, following Trump's attacks on a whistleblower and his claim that impeachment would start a civil war. From a report: In an open letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Harris says that Trump has used Twitter to "target, harass, and attempt to out" the person who filed an explosive complaint about Trump pressuring Ukraine to dig up dirt on rival candidate Joe Biden. Trump has been tweeting angrily about the complaint for several days now. Harris cites multiple messages where he calls the whistleblower "a spy" as well as a tweet where he called to arrest Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who has helped lead the investigation into Trump's actions, for "fraud and treason." Offline, Trump has arguably insinuated that the whistleblower should be executed for spying -- something Harris says makes his tweets more threatening. "These tweets should be placed in the proper context," she writes. Around the same time, Trump quoted a Fox News claim that "if the Democrats are successful in removing the president from office (which they will never be), it will cause a civil war-like fracture in this nation from which our country will never heal," which Harris also notes. "These tweets represent a clear intent to baselessly discredit the whistleblower and officials in our government who are following the proper channels to report allegations of presidential impropriety, all while making blatant threats that put people at risk and our democracy in danger," she writes. Twitter told The Verge that it has received the letter and plans to respond to Harris's concerns.

Google's plans to implement DNS over HTTPS in Chrome are being investigated by a committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, while the Justice Department has "recently received complaints" about the practice, according to the Wall Street Journal.

An anonymous reader quotes Engadget: While Google says it's pushing for adoption of the technology to prevent spying and spoofing, House investigators are worried this would give the internet giant an unfair advantage by denying access to users' data. The House sent a letter on September 13th asking if Google would use data handled through the process for commercial purposes... Internet service providers are worried that they may be shut out of the data and won't know as much about their customers' traffic patterns. This could "foreclose competition in advertising and other industries," an alliance of ISPs told Congress in a September 19th letter...

Mozilla also wants to use the format to secure DNS in Firefox, and the company's Marshall Erwin told the WSJ that the antitrust gripes are "fundamentally misleading." ISPs are trying to undermine the standard simply because they want continued access to users' data, Erwin said. Unencrypted DNS helps them target ads by tracking your web habits, and it's harder to thwart DNS tracking than cookies and other typical approaches.

The White House released a transcript that showed President Trump urged Ukraine's leader to contact Attorney General William Barr about opening an inquiry tied to Joseph R. Biden Jr. Two intelligence officials referred Mr. Trump's activity to the Justice Dept. for a possible criminal inquiry. It declined to open one. The New York Times: President Trump released the transcript on Wednesday of a July 25 call he had with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, in which he encouraged his Ukrainian counterpart to contact Attorney General William P. Barr about investigating a political rival. Mr. Trump has defiantly denied saying anything inappropriate on the call, but the transcript shows he clearly referred by name to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, and encouraged Mr. Zelensky to reach out to Mr. Barr. Before the release, he declared on Twitter that Democrats had fallen into his trap, and that the release of the transcript would exonerate him -- and make them look foolish.

The transcript's release and content ensured a day of intense scrutiny. Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, marveled that the attorney general has now been pulled in. Republicans stuck to their position that Mr. Trump did not offer Mr. Zelensky any inducements nor did he threaten him, so his demand for a Biden inquiry was not improper. "From a quid pro quo aspect, there's nothing there," said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. The release did not go far enough for many Democrats, who have demanded to see the full complaint about Mr. Trump's actions lodged by a whistle-blower, which has not been shared with Congress. On Tuesday, Nancy Pelosi announced formal Trump impeachment inquiry. From a report: "Today, I'm announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. I'm directing our 6 committees to proceed with their investigations under that umbrella ... The president must be held accountable," she said.

A U.S. House panel unveiled bipartisan legislation this week that would authorize $1 billion for small and rural wireless providers to replace network equipment from companies including Huawei and ZTE that lawmakers say pose a national security risk. From a report: The legislation is similar to a bill approved in July by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee that would authorize about $700 million in grants to remove Huawei equipment, in a bid to boost the security of the U.S. telecommunication network's supply chain. The top Democrats and Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said in a joint statement the bill would protect the "nation's communications networks from foreign adversaries by helping small and rural wireless providers root-out suspect network equipment and replace it with more secure equipment."

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang announced at Thursday's primary debate that his campaign will use funds raised from his supporters for a pilot program meant to resemble his universal basic income proposal. The Hill reports: Under the Freedom Dividend Pilot Program, at least 10 American families will receive $1,000 a month, or $12,000 a year. Participants can enter the giveaway on Yang's campaign website. Three people are already receiving the dividend, and his campaign said in a news release that they are "already noting the benefits of having an extra $1,000 per month -- from being able to make home improvements, to fixing a car needed for work, to affording medical care for family members." "The campaign is excited to work together with our supporters to help create more stories about what the Freedom Dividend means for American families. It will enable and empower citizens to pay their bills, switch jobs, take care of loved ones, and plan for the future," campaign manager Zach Graumann said in the Thursday night release.

In an opinion article published last week on Wired, New York City Mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bill de Blasio said as president he would issue a robot tax for corporations displacing humans and would create a federal agency to oversee automation. CNET reports: "The scale of automation in our economy is increasing far faster than most people realize, and its impact on working people in America and across the world, unless corralled, will be devastating," de Blasio wrote. De Blasio would call the new regulator the Federal Automation and Worker Protection Agency, which would safeguard jobs and communities. In addition, his proposed "robot tax" would be imposed on large companies that eliminate jobs as they become more automated. The tax would be equal to five years of payroll taxes for each employee eliminated, according to De Blasio.

Attorneys general for 50 U.S. states and territories today officially announced an antitrust investigation of Google, embarking on a wide-ranging review of a company that Democrats and Republicans said may threaten competition and consumers. From a report: The bipartisan group, led by Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, referred to Google as an "online search juggernaut," on the steps of the Supreme Court. State regulators from California, where Google is based, and Alabama did not join the probe. In a blog post published on Friday, Google senior vice president of global affairs Kent Walker wrote, "We have always worked constructively with regulators and we will continue to do so."States have the ability to levy fines or receive damages from companies found to be engaging in anticompetitive practices but, according to Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, the most important aspect of the investigation is that it will reveal how exactly Google works. "The trial is the remedy. Exposing the deals and how the companies use customer data, etc, will have a salutary effect," Stoller told BuzzFeed News.

Bernie Sanders may not love how the media covers him, but he wants to save it anyway. His plan involves blocking future media mergers and a possible tax on Silicon Valley to support newsrooms. From a report: The proposal, rolled out in the Columbia Journalism Review on Monday, comes as Sanders and the Washington press corps are at each other's throats. Campaign aides have lambasted reporters for what they see as selective coverage of polling data and unfair treatment of policy proposals like Medicare for All. Political journalists also cried foul after the senator suggested earlier this month that Jeff Bezos' ownership of The Washington Post influenced its coverage of his campaign. On Monday, the Democratic hopeful echoed long-standing left-wing complaints of a rapidly consolidating industry, separating "real journalism" from "the gossip, punditry, and clickbait that dominates today's news." He warned of the hollowing-out of local outlets and laid blame for the perverse pressures now reshaping media at the feet of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and President Donald Trump. "One reason we do not have enough real journalism in America right now is because many outlets are being gutted by the same forces of greed that are pillaging our economy," Sanders wrote.

In July Google was sued by Tulsi Gabbard, one of 23 Democrats running for president, after Google mistakenly suspended her advertising account.

"I believe I can provide assistance on where to focus your discovery efforts," posted former YouTube/Google senior software engineer Zach Vorhies (now a harsh critic of Google's alleged bias against conservatives). He says he witnessed the deactivation of another high-profile Google account triggered by a malicious third party. I had the opportunity to inspect the bug report as a full-time employee. What I found was that Google had a technical vulnerability that, when exploited, would take any gmail account down. Certain unknown 3rd party actors are aware of this secret vulnerability and exploit it.

This is how it worked: Take a target email address, change exactly one letter in that email address, and then create a new account with that changed email address. Malicious actors repeated this process over and over again until a network of spoof accounts for Jordan B. Peterson existed. Then these spoof accounts started generating spam emails. These email-spam blasts caught the attention of an AI system which fixed the problem by deactivating the spam accounts... and then ALSO the original account belonging to Jordan B. Peterson!

To my knowledge, this bug has never been fixed.
"Gabbard, however, claims the suspension was based on her criticism of Google and other major tech companies," reports the Verge. But they also quote the campaign as saying that Gmail "sends communications from Tulsi into people's Spam folders at a disproportionately high rate."

"Google may blame this on automated systems, but the reality is that there is no transparency whatsoever, which makes it difficult to determine the truth."

The Federal Trade Commission voted this week to approve a roughly $5 billion settlement with Facebook over a long-running probe into the tech giant's privacy missteps, WSJ reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. From the report: The 3-2 vote by FTC commissioners broke along party lines, with the Republican majority lining up to support the pact while Democratic commissioners objected, the people said. The matter has been moved to the Justice Department's civil division and it is unclear how long it will take to finalize, the person said. Justice Department reviews are part of the FTC's procedure but typically don't change the outcome of an FTC decision. A settlement is expected to include other government restrictions on how Facebook treats user privacy. The additional terms of the settlement couldn't immediately be learned. An FTC spokeswoman declined to comment, as did a Facebook spokesman. Facebook said April 24 that it was expecting to pay up to $5 billion to settle the probe. A resolution was bogged down by a split between Republicans and Democrats on the FTC, with the Democrats pushing for tougher oversight of the social-media giant.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to block Ajit Pai's attempt to kill a San Francisco ordinance designed to promote broadband competition in apartment buildings. As we reported last week, the Federal Communications Commission chair has scheduled a July 10 vote on a measure that would preempt the San Francisco city ordinance, which lets Internet service providers use the existing wiring inside multiunit residential and commercial properties even if the wiring is already used by another ISP that serves the building. The ordinance applies only when the inside wiring belongs to the property owner, but it makes it easier for ISPs to compete in many multiunit buildings already served by another provider.

Pai claimed that the city's rule "deters broadband deployment" and infringes on the FCC's regulation of cable wiring. But US Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) proposed a budget amendment that would forbid the FCC from using any funding to implement or enforce Pai's preemption proposal. The House, which is controlled by Democrats, yesterday approved the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act for fiscal 2020 in a mostly party-line vote of 224-196. Earlier in the day, the House approved a block of amendments including Porter's proposal that "prohibits the Federal Communications Committee from finalizing a draft declaratory ruling that would overturn local ordinances that promote broadband competition." The amendment's passage by a vote of 227-220 was also noted in the Congressional Record.

Andrew Yang, who says he's running "the nerdiest campaign in presidential history," made an almost immediate splash when he arrived without a tie on the second night of the first presidential Democratic debate. The former head of Venture for America, a nonprofit that sends entrepreneurs into cities to help revitalize them, Yang brought his passion to the stage on how to deal with economic disruption and a universal basic income for all Americans. This is how he thinks UBI would work in America: "Oh, so it's difficult to do if you have companies like Amazon, trillion-dollar tech companies, paying literally zero in taxes while they're closing 30 percent of our stores. We'd save money on things like incarceration, homelessness services, emergency room health care, and just the value gains from having a stronger, healthier, mentally healthier population would increase GDP by $700 billion. Yang thinks his proposals for UBI and a value-added tax will help those at the bottom end of the income spectrum readjust to the changing economy. He added: "We automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and we are about to do the same thing to millions of retail jobs, call center jobs, fast food jobs, truck-driving jobs and other jobs through the economy," he said. But the debate did not go as planned for Yang, who complained that there were few times when his mic was not on. He said: "There were also a few times, FYI, where I just started talking, being like, 'Hey, I want to add something there,' and my mic was not on," Yang said while speaking to supporters after the event. "And it's this sort of thing where, it's not like if you started talking, it takes over the [conversation]. It's like I was talking, but nothing was happening. And it was like, 'Oh f---.' So that happened a bit too."

Oregon's climate change bill that would cap carbon emissions and make polluters pay for their greenhouse gas production is dead, Senate President Peter Courtney, a Democrat, announced on the state Senate floor Tuesday morning. "As a walkout by Republican senators over the cap-and-trade bill entered its sixth day -- and in an apparent attempt to bring them back -- Courtney gave assurances that the bill would die in the Senate chamber," reports NPR. From the report: Republican Sen. Cliff Bentz said Tuesday morning he had only just heard of Courtney's announcement and that he had questions about its meaning. "The question becomes, 'What are they trying to do?' " said Bentz, who is believed to be staying in Idaho while the boycott plays out. "Are they trying to make some sort of arrangement? If they are suggesting they don't have the votes, what's the procedure they're going to use to kill the bill?" Sen. Tim Knopp, a Republican from Bend, Ore., echoed that confusion. "We need clarification. What does that mean?" Knopp said. "Does it mean it's dead until the 2020 session? Is the governor going to take it up in a special session?" Meanwhile, senators who backed the bill appeared livid and declined to speak to reporters on the floor. All 11 Republican senators fled the state last week to avoid voting on the bill. Gov. Kate Brown ordered the Oregon State Police to find the Senate Republicans and bring them back to the Capital in Salem for a vote, but none of the Republicans had been found. The New York Times explains what this fight is really about, what's actually in the bill, and how Oregon's bill compares to other state climate policies. Here's an excerpt from the report: Senate Republicans say the legislation would have a devastating effect on farmers, dairies and the state's struggling logging industry, among others. More than that, Republicans say, the bill represents an existential threat to rural life, and they want the residents of Oregon to decide on the proposal, not the Democrats who control the state's capital.

The highly debated bill would make Oregon one of several states to impose an emissions-trading program, a market-based approach to lowering greenhouse gas emissions. The bill would place limits on the amount of carbon dioxide that businesses could lawfully emit. By 2050, for instance, the bill would mandate an 80 percent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels. Some businesses would be required to buy credits for every ton of greenhouse gas they produce. Those credits would then be purchased at special auctions and traded among businesses. Over time, the state would make fewer credits available, ultimately forcing companies to pollute less. The plan, commonly known as cap-and-trade, is modeled after a California law. It is far more extensive than most. Oregon would become just the second state, after California, to require that businesses in every sector of the economy pay for the planet-warming greenhouse gases that they emit.

JustAnotherOldGuy writes: A government watchdog says the FBI has access to about 640 million photographs -- including from driver's licenses, passports and mugshots -- that can be searched using facial recognition technology. The figure reflects how the technology is becoming an increasingly powerful law enforcement tool, but is also stirring fears about the potential for authorities to intrude on the lives of Americans. It was reported by the Government Accountability Office at a congressional hearing in which both Democrats and Republicans raised questions about the use of the technology.

The FBI maintains a database known as the Interstate Photo System of mugshots that can help federal, state and local law enforcement officials. It contains about 36 million photographs, according to Gretta Goodwin of the GAO. But taking into account the bureau contracts providing access to driver's licenses in 21 states, and its use of photos and other databases, the FBI has access to about 640 million photographs, Goodwin told lawmakers at the House oversight committee hearing. Kimberly Del Greco, a deputy assistant director at the FBI, said the bureau has strict policies for using facial recognition. She said it is used only when there is an active FBI investigation or an assessment, which can precede a formal investigation.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Forty-seven Democratic members of Congress are calling for a net neutrality compromise with Republicans, who have refused to support a full restoration of the net neutrality rules repealed by the Ajit Pai-led Federal Communications Commission. The Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives voted in April to pass the Save the Internet Act, which would restore the Obama-era FCC's net neutrality rules. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared the bill "dead on arrival" in the Republican-majority Senate.

Republican lawmakers say they'll only accept a net neutrality law that isn't as strict -- even though large majorities of both Democratic and Republican voters support the FCC's old net neutrality rules. On Wednesday, dozens of Democrats asked their party leadership to compromise with the GOP leadership. "We, the undersigned, voted for [the Save the Internet Act] because it represented an opportunity to resolve questions that courts have struggled with for decades," the Democrats wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "At the same time, we recognize that this legislation is unlikely to become law, or pass through the Senate, in its current form. If that proves true, consumers will be left without enforceable net neutrality protections while partisan conflict continues. We believe this result is unacceptable and unnecessary." The letter to Pelosi was led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and signed by another 45 Democratic members of the House. It goes on to suggest that the House create "a bipartisan working group" that would write a net neutrality law that's acceptable to Republican lawmakers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Democrats have introduced a host of plans designed to make the U.S. carbon neutral. Presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke outlined a $5 trillion scheme to reach that target by 2050, and other candidates are expected to follow suit. New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other backers of the Green New Deal are calling for an even more aggressive timeline: net-zero emissions by 2030. Meanwhile, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who's basing his run for the Democratic presidential nomination on fighting climate change, has released a "100% Clean Energy for America Plan." Any U.S. effort to cut net emissions to zero would "be a massive project over decades," says Alex Trembath, deputy director of the Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland, California-based environmental research group. The goal of 2050 is "a reach, but it's perfectly feasible in terms of technological innovation and scaling," Trembath adds, but 2030 "is functionally impossible."

It would also be costly. Cleaning up U.S. industries may require investments amounting to more than $1 trillion annually by 2050, according to the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project, a global collaboration of energy research teams led by the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development & International Relations and the United Nations-backed Sustainable Development Solutions Network. That's in line with an estimate by BNEF that found achieving the Green New Deal's goals of de-carbonizing the U.S.'s energy, transport, and agriculture sectors would cost roughly $980 billion a year. Critics say the costs would be even higher, and would unfairly penalize the U.S. economy given that China, India, and other carbon dioxide-emitting countries in the world aren't doing their share. The report goes on to note that doing nothing to mitigate the effects of climate change could cost companies $1.2 trillion during the next 15 years, "and if everyone does nothing, everyone's economy will be penalized."

schwit1 writes: The new rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will force companies to disclose the prices of prescription drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid that cost $35 or more for a month's supply. Addressing high prescription drug prices has been one issue that the Trump administration and Democrats have agreed on over the past two years, with Congress calling big pharma executives and pharmacy heads to testify. "Requiring the inclusion of drugs' list prices in TV ads is the single most significant step any administration has taken toward a simple commitment: American patients deserve to know the prices of the healthcare they receive," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement.

Google has reviewed more than 1 million suspected terrorist videos on YouTube in the first three months of 2019, according to a letter the tech giant sent to US lawmakers. From a report: In the April 24 letter, made public Thursday as part of a press release from the House Committee on Homeland Security, Google said 90,000 of those videos violated its terrorism policy. Google, which owns YouTube, said it spends "hundreds of millions of dollars annually" on content review. The House committee urged Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft to do a better job of removing violent content, following posts about the deadly New Zealand mosque shooting in March. In April, Rep. Max Rose and other Democrats asked for the websites' budgets, to see how the platforms were fighting terrorism.