Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., won’t bring up bipartisan privacy legislation the House Commerce Committee introduced for markup this week, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told reporters Wednesday.
The FTC and DOJ will issue draft merger guidelines in the “coming months,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said Tuesday during the agencies’ final public listening forum on the topic (see 2204270064). Republican commissioners warned the Democratic majority against politicizing the document and to base any changes on established legal and economic analysis.
The FTC voted 4-1 Thursday to issue a report recommending Congress use “great caution” when mandating or promoting use of artificial intelligence in order to reduce online harms. Some AI tools show promise, but overall, AI is inadequate and shouldn’t be overly relied on, the report said.
The House Consumer Protection Subcommittee plans to mark up privacy legislation next week, Chair Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., told reporters Tuesday, as expected (see 2206080054). An aide said those details aren’t yet official.
Bipartisan legislation introduced last week for regulating digital assets is weighted too heavily in favor of industry, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told us Thursday. Various committees are jockeying for position to define digital asset markets, which have drawn White House attention (see 2203090072).
Seven witnesses representing industry and consumer groups are expected to testify with a former FTC chair at Tuesday’s House Consumer Protection Subcommittee legislative hearing on a bipartisan privacy discussion draft, according to committee materials reviewed Friday.
Expect a subcommittee markup on bipartisan privacy legislation in the weeks after a June 14 legislative hearing (see 2206070062), House Consumer Protection Subcommittee ranking member Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., told us Wednesday.
The tech industry and state officials were waiting Friday for a potential Supreme Court decision that could prove significant for social media content moderation practices. Various court decisions issued throughout the week raised questions about interpretation of Communications Decency Act Section 230 that some want the Supreme Court to settle.
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us Wednesday she’s willing to support federal preemption in a privacy bill with ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss. But a consumer’s right to sue remains a sticking point, she added. The development follows a May 16 meeting between Wicker and Cantwell, which was an effort to renew privacy negotiations, ongoing since 2018 (see 2205130058).
The Department of Homeland Security should permanently shutter its disinformation board, Republicans told us last week after the director resigned (see 2205180051). Democrats also had critical comments about the board’s rollout, following free speech objections from Republicans (see 2205050048).