EARN IT RISES AGAIN: The Senate Judiciary Committee is taking a second shot today at helping the EARN IT Act (S. 3538) become law. The committee unanimously approved the bill on a bipartisan basis last Congress — but it never advanced to the Senate floor. The revised bill is likely to advance out of committee again, with strong backing from sponsors Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). "I think we have the votes for it," Blumenthal told Rebecca. —EARN IT would amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — which shields tech platforms from liability for content posted by their users — to allow for lawsuits in state civil and criminal courts, as well as federal civil courts, if internet companies advertise, promote, present, distribute or solicit material depicting the sexual abuse of children. The bill would also create a commission to develop voluntary best practices for how industry can identify and remove such material. —The latest version ostensibly allows forend-to-end encryption to protect the privacy and security of content. However, a new provision would allow for information about how and whether companies offer encryption to be used as evidence against them in court. — Tech companies say this could incentivize companies to refrain from using encryption. The Center for Democracy and Technology, a tech-funded think tank, said in a letter sent to the committee Wednesday that plaintiffs could use encryption as evidence in claims that companies were acting recklessly or negligently with regard to child sexual abuse material. The letter was co-signed by a slew of advocacy and civil liberties groups that have at times opposed Silicon Valley on other issues, including the ACLU, Access Now and GLAAD. — Lawmakers remained determined. "Every time you turn around, the tech companies have a reason not to do everything. That's wearing thin," Graham told Rebecca. If EARN IT advances, it will join a growing queue of tech bills awaiting floor time — including the committee's recently approved antitrust and app competition bills. MICROSOFT 'ADAPTING TO' TECH REGULATION — The company's top executives didn't specifically endorse the tech antitrust legislation making its way through Congress. But Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and President Brad Smith told reporters the company wants to be "on the right side of history" by voluntarily adopting some things that would be required by laws and regulations now under consideration in Europe. (See Leah's full write-up for Pros.) "The price of success is a heightened level of responsibility," Smith said. "We're not trying to fight new legislation. Neither do we regard ourselves as the foremost proponents. But we do want to be at the forefront of adapting to it." Nadella described Microsoft's new approach to app stores as a "responsible" and "principled way" to build platforms. "The responsibility of large platform companies and successful platform companies is to be not only innovative, but also thinking about those unintended [consequences]. That's the level of … maturity that this industry desperately needs." The Microsoft duo, together with Sarah Bond, a vice president who works on games, were in town to meet with members of Congress about the app store principles and assuage their concerns about the Activision-Blizzard deal (Nadella will also be chairing a meeting of the CEOs-only Business Council). Contra the Biden administration's concerns that the EU's draft Digital Markets Act would target only American tech giants, Smith said governments often focus on the biggest companies in major industries. "I don't think we feel that we're being targeted or picked on," Smith said. "We are trying to chart a path forward so that we're adapting to where the world is going and the regulations that are going to be adopted." NEW PRIVACY BILL TARGETS DATA BROKERS: Lawmakers in both chambers are out this morning with a bipartisan bill tasking the Federal Trade Commission with creating a system through which Americans could permanently delete personal data held by data brokers — legislation that comes as the broader debate in Washington over comprehensive privacy rules remains stagnant. Data brokers collect and resell reams of consumer data scraped from the internet and number in the thousands. The DELETE Act , sponsored by Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) in the Senate and Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) in the House, would direct the FTC to create a process where consumers contact the agency and request that their personal information be removed from broker databases forever. "Much like we have a 'do not call' list, this will create a 'do not track' list," Ossoff told MT in a call on Wednesday, which also included Cassidy. Ossoff added that ease of use (on the consumer end, at least) is a key goal of the legislation. — More work for the FTC: Under the new bill, the commission would have to keep an up-to-date registry of data brokers, manage consumer deletion requests and develop a cryptographic hash function that would be used to alert the FTC about individual deletion requests without the agency needing to upload sensitive data to government servers. The FTC is already stretched thin in terms of resources. Efforts to boost the agency's budget — including a proposed extra $1 billion in the now-moribund Build Back Better Act — have fallen short. Although the bill does not include any new appropriations to the FTC, Cassidy said more money would be "an easy add-on when the time comes." — Inching forward: The DELETE Act, with its focus on a specific portion of the data-privacy ecosystem, comes at a moment of intense frustration in Washington on privacy. Efforts to pass more sweeping privacy legislation have been stymied for years, with lawmakers quibbling over enforcement details like whether a federal privacy bill should include a private right of action or preempt state privacy laws. Neither Ossoff nor Cassidy serve on the Senate Commerce Committee, which has primary jurisdiction over data privacy. But both said they were frustrated by Congress' lack of progress on sweeping privacy rules. Cassidy said the DELETE ACT — along with the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act (S. 1628), his proposed overhaul of child data-protection rules with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) — could inch Congress towards a broader bill. "Comprehensive legislation is merely an amalgamation of a lot of individual bills," said Cassidy. The senator added that while he hopes the DELETE Act can pass as a standalone, "it may be folded in" to an eventual broader effort. YOUTUBE STILL HOSTS NOOSE-TYING TUTORIALS, DESPITE OUTCRY: After lawmakers reiterated calls this week for Google-owned YouTube to remove numerous instructional videos on tying a noose, POLITICO flagged a dozen of such videos to YouTube, causing the company to take some of them down. But dozens more such videos remain on the site, and lawmakers want them gone. Reps.Susan Wild (D- Pa.) andMary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) called on YouTube to remove these videos, alleging teenagers are using them to assist in suicide attempts. — Wild firstwrote to YouTube in September 2020, with 23 other bipartisan lawmakers, calling for more suicide warnings and mental health resources on videos. She met with a YouTube lobbyist last year, but now Wild wants another YouTube meeting to "finally get these deadly videos taken off," she said. — After POLITICO flagged 13 "how to tie a noose" videos to YouTube, the site removed three of the videos for violating its suicide and self-harm policy. One of the removed videos (with more than 7,000 views) featured a child demonstrating how to tie a noose. YouTube also put an age restriction on a fourth video — a clip of the suicide attempt from the film "The Rules of Attraction." —YouTube said the remaining videos don't violate its suicide policy. Spokesperson Ivy Choi told Rebecca, "Content promoting suicide or self-harm is not allowed on YouTube, and our policies prohibit videos with instructions on committing suicide, including by using a noose." ESHOO WEIGHS IN ON NEW OSTP HEAD: Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) , chair of the House E&C Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, had been slated to hear testimony this week from White House Office of Science and Technology Policy head Eric Lander. But that testimony fell through after his abrupt resignation Monday night — and the congresswoman is now urging President Joe Biden to nominate a woman in his place. "No president has appointed a permanent Science Advisor and OSTP Director who is a woman," Eshoo told MT on Wednesday. "It's time for that to change. President Biden has the historic opportunity to appoint a woman to head OSTP, and he should act quickly on that opportunity."
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