Tech Policy Podcast

This week, the Department of Justice approved the merger of Charter and Time Warner Cable, the sixth and third biggest broadband providers in America. If the agency thinks the merger will benefit consumers without harming competition, why is the FCC attaching conditions to the deal? Is this consumer protection? Or regulation by extortion? Evan and Berin discuss. For more, see our statement.

Last week, Uber settled a class-action lawsuit alleging that the company misclassified its drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. While the settlement carries no legal precedent, it does mean that Uber can continue with its current business model while paying out up to $100 million to the plaintiffs — with $25 million alone going to attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, who has sued several gig-economy companies. The rest will be split among roughly 385,000 drivers in California and Massachusetts who can expect an average of $80 each in winnings. Uber also agreed to increase transparency around its driver ratings and deactivation policies, among other concessions. Jared Meyer, a research fellow at the Manhattan Institute, joins to discuss the settlement and what it means for the gig economy going forward.

The FCC wants to “unlock” the cable box. But shouldn’t the agency be helping to kill the box? The FCC recently proposed rules that would force cable, satellite, and telco video providers to make their programming accessible through third-party apps. Sure, it sounds great in theory, but the proposal poses serious concerns around privacy, piracy, and the way that independent and minority-owned programmers present their content. Moreover, the video industry is already moving away from clunky, costly boxes and offering programming through their own apps on devices like Roku, Apple TV, and Chromecast. Just last week, Comcast announced that its entire X1 interface would be available through an app. In the Golden Age of Television, what exactly is the FCC trying to solve? Is having too many apps and remotes really a national emergency? For more, see our press release and comments, which explains why the FCC’s proposal is doomed to fail in court.

These days, it costs almost nothing to publish information online. So why isn’t more government information available to the public? Taxpayers spend $100 million a year on the Congressional Research Service (CRS), but only Congress gets to decide whether the research gets published. Is that fair? Should the CRS just put it all online? Evan is joined by Kevin Kosar, Senior Fellow at the R Street Institute and a supporter of legislation that would make all CRS reports public. Is there any potential harm to releasing this information? Could more transparency improve citizens’ view of government? For more, see Kevin’s post on Medium.

Our national student debt is sittin’ pretty at $1.3 trillion, and the number is rising by $3,000 every second. Can technology help solve the problem of ballooning student debt? Evan is joined by Liz Wessel, CEO of WayUP, a company whose mission is to get every college student the job — or jobs — they need to pay off student debt and have a fruitful career. What makes WayUP different? How is technology impacting the policy debate over student debt? What does this have to do with labor laws on the sharing economy? All that and more on today’s show.

When the encryption debate is so often framed as “Apple v. FBI,” it’s easy to forget that digital security is a global issue. Nonetheless, how the United States decides to handle the issue will have an outsized impact on the rest of the world. Evan is joined by Amie Stepanovich, US policy manager at Access Now, an international civil society group dedicated to human rights in technology. She argues that we need global leadership on encryption, starting with the White House. What does President Obama think about encryption? How are other nations reacting to issues of digital security? For more, check out https://securetheinternet.org/.

While the FCC chooses not to regulate the prices that consumers pay for residential broadband — for now — the same isn’t true for businesses. Special access services are dedicated connections used by businesses to transmit voice and data. The FCC regulates the price of special access lines to ensure they’re provided at “reasonable” rates and terms and conditions. The Commission is looking at updating these regulations, and a new study from Hal Singer, Senior Fellow at GW Institute for Public Policy, warns that the new rules could depress investment in fiber technology. Evan and Singer discuss the study, whether the FCC should be in the rate-regulation business, and what this all means for consumers.

Uber’s surge pricing has come under fire — and not just from drunk passengers who paid exorbitant fares for rides home on New Years’ Eve. A new lawsuit alleges that Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and anyone who signs up to drive for Uber is party to an illegal conspiracy to fix prices. Is surge pricing just a reflection of supply and demand and economics 101? Or is it something nefarious. Jared Meyer, a research fellow at the Manhattan Institute joins the show to discuss. For more, see his article in Reason.

Before the last FCC monthly meeting, GOP Commissioners Pai and O’Rielly (previous guests of the show) struck a deal with Democrat Commissioner Mignon Clyburn on Lifeline. The Universal Service program subsidizes access to communications services for low-income Americans. This rare moment of bipartisanship at the politicized FCC would have extended Lifeline to cover broadband while capping its budget and rooting out fraud and abuse that have long plagued the program. At the 11th hour, Chairman Tom Wheeler pressured Commissioner Clyburn to renege on the deal and rammed through his own proposal on a 3-2 party line vote. What happened behind the scenes? Matthew Berry, Chief of Staff to Commissioner Pai, joins to show to discuss.

Is email privacy finally happening?  Will Congress finally protect the privacy of Americans’ emails? Will law enforcement finally be required to get a warrant before accessing the private files we store in the cloud? After six years, the House Judiciary Committee is finally marking up the Email Privacy Act — which has the support of over 70% of the House. But what will the Senate do? And what about geolocation data? Will we have to wait another six years for that? Evan and Berin discuss.