Week in Review for the Week of 12/24/18
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| Week in Review for the Week of 12/24/18 | |
| Number | 711 |
| Broadcast Date | DECEMBER 29, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 4:35 |
| Hosts | Rich Stroffolino |
India announces major new tech policies, the first passenger permit for an autonomous car is granted in California, and the IRS wants to look at social networks.
Headlines
- This week, we had a lot of news about tech policy coming out of India. It started on the 25th with a report that India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology was meeting Google, Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter regarding newly published rules that would require online platforms to actively remove, and create tools to seek out, unlawful content. Content would need to be removed within 24 hours of notice and larger platforms would have to keep records of unlawful activity for 180 days.
On the 26th, the Indian government announced new e-commerce rules that will have a major impact on Flipkart and Amazon in the country. Starting February 1st, e-commerce companies will be prevented from entering into exclusive agreements with sellers, and be forbidden from selling products from companies they hold an equity interest in.
Then on the 27th, Reuters reported that according to sources, flagship iPhone models would be manufactured in India for the first time. This would see Foxconn investing 25 billion rupees to expand a plant in Tamil Nadu, and create 25,000 jobs.
- This week, we had a lot of news about tech policy coming out of India. It started on the 25th with a report that India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology was meeting Google, Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter regarding newly published rules that would require online platforms to actively remove, and create tools to seek out, unlawful content. Content would need to be removed within 24 hours of notice and larger platforms would have to keep records of unlawful activity for 180 days.
- The US House of Representatives passed H.R. 4174, the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2017, which requires public information to be open by default to the public in machine-readable formats. On Saturday, the Senate passed a resolution to resolve two amendments to the bill approved by the House which limited the Act to larger agencies, and provided some exemptions for the Federal Reserve. The bill now awaits the President's signature before going into law.
- This week also saw major news for riding hailing and autonomous fleets. First, TechCrunch reported that Uber reached a tentative settlement with drivers in individual arbitration over employment status. The settlement would pay out $0.11 per mile driven for Uber, but would not address payment of expenses related to driving raised in the initial lawsuit. The settlement requires an unspecified number of the 160,000 drivers in arbitration to accept the offer before becoming effective.
- Then the driverless car startup Zoox received the first permit in California to transport passengers in their vehicles, as part of the Autonomous Vehicle Passenger Service pilot. The permit requires Zoox to have safety drivers onboard and cannot charge for rides, as well as provide the California Public Utilities Commission with incident reports, passenger mileage, and safety protocols. For those not familiar with Zoox, the company has raised $800 million in venture funding since 2015, and plans to launch a fully autonomous, all-electric ride hailing fleet by 2020.
- The German Higher Regional Court of Saarbrücken ruled that domain registers can be held secondarily liable for copyright infringement by customers if notified by rights holders of obvious infringement. The ruling was based on an appeal by Key-Systems to a 2013 injunction to remove the domain H33t.com, brought by Universal Music.
- Reuters reports that according to sources, The White House is considering issuing an executive order in early 2019 barring US companies from buying foreign telecommunication equipment from makers that pose a significant risk to national security. This order would seemingly target Huawei and ZTE, although they would reportedly not be specifically named in the order. This order would invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president authority to regulate commerce in the event of a national emergency.
- Qwartz reports that according to a Request for Information by the IRS’s National Office of Procurement, the agency is investigating using a social media search tool to aggregate publicly available social media information to help auditors investigate tax evasion. The tool would need to be able to pull reports including biometric information, posts relating to business sales, and any public blog or chat room conversations. Currently, IRS employees are barred from using personal social media accounts for work, or from creating fake accounts. Product demonstrations are due to the IRS the week of January 28, 2019.
- The New York Times reported on 1400 pages of content moderation rulebooks from Facebook, received from an anonymous employee, and confirmed by Facebook as being authentic. The patchwork of rules come in the form of PowerPoint slides and Excel sheets, and attempt to put complex speech and geo-political issues into simple yes-no policy. The Times examination found that Facebook's rules are often out of date, and written without native language speakers, with moderation actually being done by outsourced firms of which Facebook has little oversight or visibility.
Links
| Preceded by: "Facebook Content Moderation Guidelines Leak" |
Week in Review for the Week of 12/24/18 |
Followed by: "Tribune Publishing Hit With Malware" |