WHITE HOUSE PLANS FOR NEW TECH ALLIANCE — The Biden administration is getting closer to launching its proposed Alliance for the Future of the Internet. Administration officials originally hoped to launch this effort of "like-minded countries" in early December in tandem with the president's Summit for Democracy. ( Here's a draft of the White House's plans for alliance from the time.) — Watch for a formal launch "in the coming weeks," Ruth Berry, who directs digital technology policy at the National Security Council, said Wednesday during an event hosted by USTelecom and the European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association. One caveat she offered: "We are not proposing to reinvent or supplant existing good work being done in multi-stakeholder bodies that focus on the technical governance of the internet or the work being done to bring together the internet community." — The goal: "The alliance is really focused on governments making commitments regarding their actions on how they will behave with respect to the global internet and recommitting to the principles of competition, respect for human rights, multi-stakeholder approaches, closing the digital divide" and other issues, she told attendees. She criticized authoritarian forces taking advantage of the open internet and lamented "worrying trends" like misinformation, market consolidation and malicious cyber activity — all issues that have created the need for "like-minded partners" to push back. She also explicitly dinged Chinese telecom giant Huawei as an untrustworthy 5G vendor. — Next steps: Berry suggested that once the alliance is launched, there will be further global conversations about how to structure it. White House spokespeople declined to offer a more precise timeline for when the alliance may go online. The Chinese government has already condemned the proposal as having the potential to sunder the global internet (China's own Great Firewall notwithstanding). FCC CHAIR PROPOSES BREACH NOTIFICATION MANDATES — Rosenworcel shared a draft rulemaking Wednesday that would toughen requirements for telecommunication companies to notify customers when customer data has been breached. — Existing rules "need updating to fully reflect the evolving nature of data breaches and the real-time threat they pose to affected consumers," Rosenworcel said. — The proposal includes: cutting the seven-day waiting period before notification, alerting customers of inadvertent breaches and requiring telecom carriers to notify FCC, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service of all reportable breaches. — However, Rosenworcel would need the support of at least two other FCC commissioners to advance the rule — which would mean at least one Republican, given the agency's current 2-2 partisan split. MT EXCLUSIVE: GOP CALLS FOR NTIA OVERSIGHT — House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans, led by committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), wrote to Chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and telecom subcommittee chair Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) in a letter dated Wednesday to request for a review of the appropriations NTIA has received for broadband deployment. — House E&C hasn't had an oversight hearing for NTIA since 2018, the Republicans write. The request comes a day after the Senate confirmed Alan Davidson to lead the Commerce Department agency in charge of administering $48 billion in new broadband investments. — A Democratic House E&C spokesperson said the committee had "long planned" to have Davidson testify once he was confirmed. "We look forward to hearing from NTIA in the coming months." — The Republicans also want to review NTIA's role in managing spectrum disputes between federal agencies, including on the recent 5G fight between the Federal Aviation Administration and the FCC. COMING SOON: FULLER VERSION OF TEXAS-GOOGLE SUIT — A federal judge has cleared the way for the public to see a version of a Texas-led multistate antitrust suit targeting Google's advertising business — this time, with far fewer details scrubbed out. U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel told the plaintiffs in an order Wednesday to file the revised complaint by the end of the week. TECH COMPANIES CALL FOR USICA PASSAGE — More than 40 tech companies, universities and nonprofits — including corporate giants like IBM and institutions like MIT and Brookhaven National Lab — wrote to members of the New York congressional delegation today to advocate for passage of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S. 1260 ), which the Senate passed last summer but has since stalled in the House. The organizations want funding for one bill folded into USICA, the CHIPS Act, which would establish a resource center for semiconductor chip innovation and production, and they want that center to be built in New York. AMAZON SELLERS UNITE — Three Amazon sellers are urging half a million of their fellow U.S.-based vendors today to mobilize against antitrust legislation. "Like you, we partner with Amazon to help our customers quickly and easily purchase the products they want and need," wrote Toyin Kolawole, Kerry Mellin and Kristin Rae in a letter out this morning. They said they each met their respective congressional representatives in the House and Senate "to discuss how proposed legislation jeopardizes Amazon's ability to operate a marketplace for sellers" and remain worried that their concerns will be ignored. — Sound familiar? Emily wrote last week about Amazon and Google's strategy of deploying their small-business customers and other users to help fight antitrust bills. The Senate is eyeing a markup of antitrust legislation later this month, and Amazon set up an online form this week that generates automated emails to Congress opposing it. The sellers link to the form twice in today's letter, urging others to make their "voices heard." | 
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