LEDE: European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager started her tour of Washington D.C. on Monday.
The commissioner who handed down the hotly contested ruling for Apple to pay $14.5 billion in back taxes started her visit with a press conference Monday morning where she defended the European Union’s antitrust pursuits. She critiqued international cartels like the “worldwide cartel in automobile parts,” but declined to specify any names of U.S. institutions the European Commission was looking at. Vestager did however defend the Apple ruling, saying that the company breached EU state aid rules.
{mosads}Vestager plans to meet with lawmakers and officials while in Washington including Edith Ramirez, Chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission; Jack Lew, Secretary of the Treasury; as well as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance; and members of that committee. Lew and the Senate Committee on Finance have been vocal critics of the European Commission’s decision and have suggested that Vestager’s organization has been targeting U.S. businesses.
After their meeting on Monday, Sen. Hatch issued a statement in which he reinforced opposition to Vestager’s commission’s rulings and investigations.
“Though our meetings were cordial, the Commissioner failed to build an effective case for this highly politicized ruling rooted in an erroneous interpretation of law, underscoring the need for additional action in international courts,” Sen. Hatch’s statement read.
Vestager is slated to deliver remarks tomorrow at the Georgetown Law 10th Annual Global Antitrust Enforcement Symposium, which The Hill’s tech team will be covering.
“THIS ICANN THING”: Politicians and reporters are understandably having a bit of a hard time wrapping their heads around the White House’s proposed move to relinquish management of internet domain systems to an international authority. No one is confused about Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) position on the Obama administration’s plans, though. Cruz wants the transition to die a swift and painful death. On Monday, the Texas senator delayed a vote on the government funding bill so that he could add language to it preventing the transition. “They’ve eliminated the political riders,” Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.) said. “The hold up now is Ted Cruz and this ICANN thing.”
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BEHIND THAT ALERT: The Atlantic’s Kaveh Waddell has a great look at what went into the push alert many in the New York area received today, telling them to be on the lookout for Ahmad Khan Rahami, a person of interest in the bombings that have made headlines over the last 48 hours. The alert — which gave Rahami’s name and his age, and told users to call 911 if they spotted him — took 15 minutes to draft and send. “We are empowered to make the decision locally,” a spokesperson told The Atlantic. Rahami was arrested on Monday after a shootout with police officers.
Waddell also pointed us to an article we missed from Motherboard, which detailed the way wireless companies have pushed back on an attempt to expand the features of wireless emergency alerts. An FCC item in November proposed expanding the maximum character length of the alerts and said it was now worth considering whether allowing URLs in emergency alerts would be appropriate.
Read more on the alert and some attendant criticism here.
DATA WORKAROUND: In a serendipitously timed release, an FCC working group unveiled a report recommending “that the FCC, broadcasters, the wireless industry, device manufacturers and AOs support radio and TV initiatives to complement alerts.” The report noted that in emergencies mobile data networks often get overloaded and that information distributed over FM airwaves — which many phones are already manufactured to access — can help complement Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) like the one used Monday morning to find New York bombing suspect, Rahmani.
GOOGLE PARENT ALPHABET TAKES ON TROLLS: Earlier this year we noted that Alphabet was spinning off its in-house think tank into an organization called Jigsaw. Today, the team there announced something it has titled “Conversation AI.” Wired reports that the tool uses machine-learning techniques to spot harassers on the internet. “I want to use the best technology we have at our disposal to begin to take on trolling and other nefarious tactics that give hostile voices disproportionate weight,” Jigsaw chief Jared Cohen tells the magazine.
TWITTER GIVES YOU MORE: Twitter said on Monday that it was rolling out its long-reported update that will stop counting links and other types of media against the 140-character allotment for each message.
ON TAP:
At 9:15 a.m. European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager will give a speech at the Georgetown Law 10th Annual Global Antitrust Enforcement Symposium.
At 11:30 a.m., the U.S. Chamber of Commerce hosts an event on “the impact that technology and data have on all sectors of the economy.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Google is facing a potentially expensive tax probe in Indonesia.
Lawsuits are making things harder for the Tesla-Solar City merger.
Lyft’s CEO says that within five years the majority of its rides will be delivered by self-driving cars.
The House will vote Wednesday on a bill meant to help small businesses with cybersecurity.
A purported hacker known as Fear claims to have hacked hundreds of government servers used to upload and download files from the internet — a claim that’s being described as a hoax.