Today, Public Knowledge joined 23 other public interest, consumer advocacy, and civil rights groups in a letter urging the Federal Trade Commission to protect civil rights and privacy in the digital economy by initiating a new rulemaking. The groups contend that the agency should also create an Office of Civil Rights and commit more resources to enforce against unfair and deceptive practices.

Today, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law introduced a bipartisan package of bills to invigorate competition against dominant digital platforms.

Today, President Joe Biden named Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter as acting chair of the Federal Trade Commission.

Today, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it has ordered nine social media and video streaming companies to detail how these tech companies collect, use, and present personal data; how they use that data to advertise; and how they measure user engagement. This appears to be part of a 6(b) study Chairman Simons previewed in March 2019. Public Knowledge previously urged the FTC to conduct such a study and commends the move to shine a light on the competitive impacts of these data practices.

Yesterday, Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS), with co-sponsors Sens. John Thune (R-SD), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Deb Fischer (R-NE), introduced a comprehensive federal privacy bill, “Setting an American Framework to Ensure Data Access, Transparency, and Accountability Act’’ (SAFE DATA Act).

A discussion about why consent doesn’t protect consumers & other frameworks that could be used in federal privacy legislation.

Today, Judge Lance Walker in the U.S. District Court of Maine rejected arguments from ISPs that the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of net neutrality rules, and Congress’s disapproval of FCC broadband privacy rules, preempt states from asserting authority over broadband

Today, Democrats across four key Senate committees (Commerce, Judiciary, Banking, HELP) released a Privacy and Data Protection Framework, a set of core principles that should serve as the baseline for any comprehensive federal privacy and data protection legislation. 

Today, the Federal Trade Commission released details of its $5 billion settlement with Facebook over the company’s repeated violations of a 2012 consent decree, which includes privacy violations such as the Cambridge Analytica incident.

Today, Public Knowledge and the Roosevelt Institute launched “The Case for the Digital Platform Act,” a new e-book by Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld with a foreword by former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler. The e-book operates as a guide for addressing the challenges posed by the power of digital platforms.