That’s the question I’m asking myself after the latest episode of the Cyberlaw podcast. Jeffrey Atik presents the government’s best case: that it artificially strengthened its domination in search by paying to be the default search engine everywhere. It’s not exactly a watertight case, at least in my opinion, and the government does not inspire confidence when it goes off the beaten track by suggesting that it lacks evidence because Google has done a very good job of deleting “bad” internal company messages. Furthermore, if paying for defaults is a bad thing, what is the cure: not paying for those defaults? Randomly assign default search engines? This would set consumer confidence back a generation. There are still many twists and turns in the litigation, but the Justice Department has work to do.
The other big story of the week was the opening of Schumer University on the Hill, with closed-door Socratic tutorials on AI policy issues for lawmakers. Sultan Meghji suspects that, despite all the kumbaya moments, it will be difficult to reach agreement on a legislative solution. Jim Dempsey sees more possibilities for an agreement, although he is also not optimistic about the outcome of these negotiations, pointing the finger at a few odd couples proposal from senators Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) for a framework that denies Type 230 immunity and requires registration and audits of AI models overseen by a new agency.
Former Congressman Bob Goodlatte and Matthew Silver launched two separated opinion articles attacking me and Michael Ellis by name during FBI searches of Section 702 FISA data. They believe such searches should require probable cause and a warrant if the subject of the search is an American. Michael and I think this is an outdated idea but one This will not end real abuses but will harm national security. We’ll challenge Goodlatte and Silver to a debate, but in the meantime, watch for our rebuttal, hopefully on the same RealClearPolitics site where the attack was posted.
No one ever said industrial policy was easy, Jeffery tells us. And the release of a new Huawei phone with impressive specifications has some observers insisting that the United States controls the chips and AI technology. are already failing. Meanwhile, efforts to rebuild U.S. chip manufacturing are also losing steam, as Taiwan Semiconductor finds that Japan is more competitive than the United States.
Can the Sacramento effect compete with the Brussels effect by imposing the Californian notion of good regulation on the world? Jim reports that California’s new privacy agency is have a good race to set cybersecurity standards for everyone else. Jeffery explains how law DELETE could transform (or kill) the personal data brokerage industry, an outcome that won’t necessarily protect your privacy but will likely reduce the number of companies exploiting this data.
A Democratic candidate for a hotly contested legislative seat in Virginia raked in as much as $600,000 by having sex with her husband on the Internet for tips. Susanna Gibson, however, is not backing down. She says that It’s a sex crime, or maybe revenge pornfor opposition researchers to criticize his creative approach to campaign financing.
Finally, in brief:
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