Overnight Tech: Trump huddles with telecom execs | Record fine for robocaller | Uber employees petition for ex-CEO’s return | Twitter to join net neutrality ‘day of action’

TELECOMS HUDDLE WITH TRUMP: President Trump on Thursday vowed to cut back on “job-killing” regulations on the tech industry in a meeting with business executives.

Trump met with leaders from the drone and broadband industries at the White House, the latest event in the administration’s “tech week.”

“We want to remain number one in certain areas,” Trump said. “We’re going to give you the competitive advantage that you need.”

“My administration has been laser focused on removing government barriers to job growth and prosperity. We’ve created a deregulation task force to find wasteful, intrusive and job-killing regulations, which there are many,” he continued.

{mosads}Execs from AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and General Electric Co. joined representatives from drone and venture capital firms at the meeting, titled “American Leadership in Emerging Technology.”

The administration has been soliciting recommendations on tech policy and modernizing government IT from industry CEOs.

The execs discussed drones, 5G wireless broadband, the so-called Internet of Things and financing emerging technology in three breakout sessions prior to their meeting with the president in the East Room of the White House.

“We had a very good conversation this morning,” said AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson at the meeting.

Read more here.

Please send your tips, comments and tech week thoughts to Ali Breland (abreland@digital-release.digital-release.thehill.com) and Harper Neidig (hneidig@digital-release.digital-release.thehill.com) and follow us on Twitter: @alibreland, @hneidig and @HilliconValley. We’re also on Signal. Email or DM us for our numbers. 

FCC PROPOSES RECORD FINE FOR ROBOCALL OPERATION: The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday proposed a $120 million fine, its largest ever, on a Florida man who is suspected of making nearly 100 million illegal robocalls over a three-month period.

FCC officials said that Adrian Abramovich of Miami apparently made 96 million “spoofed” robocalls in an attempt to lure consumers into buying into vacation packages and timeshares.

The proposed fine is based on 80,000 such calls that the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau verified as originating from Abramovich.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai added that the operation may have disrupted medical services.

Read more here.

FACEBOOK WON’T RELEASE POLITICAL ADVERTISING DATA: Facebook is refusing to release data on political advertising on its platform, saying that the company is obligated to protect the confidentiality of its advertisers.

“Advertisers consider their ad creatives and their ad targeting strategy to be competitively sensitive and confidential,” Rob Sherman, Facebook’s deputy chief privacy officer, said in an interview with Reuters.

“In many cases, they’ll ask us, as a condition of running ads on Facebook, not to disclose those details about how they’re running campaigns on our service. From our perspective, it’s confidential information of these advertisers.”

Read more here. 

UBER EMPLOYEES PETITIONING TO BRING BACK KALANICK: Uber employees have launched a petition urging the company’s board to keep Travis Kalanick on as CEO two days after he was forced to resign, Recode reported Thursday.

According to Recode, an email being sent around the company asks employees to fill out an online form calling for Kalanick’s return.

“Nobody is perfect, but I fundamentally believe he can evolve into the leader Uber needs today and that he’s critical to its future success,” the email says. “I want the Board to hear from Uber employees that it’s made the wrong decision in pressuring Travis to leave and that he should be reinstated in an operational role.”

Read more here.

FCC VOTES TO GIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT ACCESS TO BLOCKED CALLER IDS: The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted to move forward with a proposal to allow law enforcement to access blocked caller ID information in the case of threatening calls.

The proposed rule comes after Jewish community centers (JCC) across the country were hit with anonymous threats.

“Months of investigation yielded few results,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said at the agency’s monthly meeting. “Law enforcement officers were unable to identify the callers partly because of one of our rules. That rule requires carriers to honor a customer’s request that his or her telephone number not be transmitted or otherwise revealed to the party called, which prevents third parties, including law enforcement, from figuring out who’s calling.”

Read more here.

FOCUS ON DRIVERLESS CARS: Washington is racing to keep up with the rapid development of self-driving cars.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate are crafting a package of autonomous vehicle bills due out this summer, the Trump administration is rewriting federal guidelines for driverless cars and K Street has increasingly ramped up lobbying on the issue.

The effort reflects just how close many believe the emerging technology is to becoming a practical reality for the masses — and policymakers want to make sure they are firmly in the driver’s seat.

“This is happening very fast,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), one of the members behind the Senate’s legislative effort, told The Hill. “That’s the challenge, is you have a technology that is moving at an exponential rate, and you have public policy and regulations that move at a snail’s pace.”

Read more here. 

TWITTER JOINS NET NEUTRALITY PROTEST: Twitter announced Thursday that it will join the net neutrality “Day of Action,” giving a high-profile boost to the campaign to preserve Obama-era net neutrality rules.

The San Francisco-based social media giant is the latest in a string of prominent companies jumping into the fight to protect the 2015 net neutrality rules.

The rules aim to maintain a level playing field for companies on the internet and prevent certain types of content from being prioritized over others.

Read more here.

ON TAP:

The Woodrow Wilson Center will host an event on the intersection of patents and politics at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 

White House: Overseas airports can avoid electronics ban if they beef up security

House reauthorizes technical job skills training program

Bipartisan push to prioritize cyber advice for small businesses

Recode: Kara Swisher on Susan Fowler and Uber

Reuters: Amazon to charge $2.8M for NFL ad packages

Morning Consult: Rural broadband gains momentum

Wall Street Journal: Foxconn eyes states for $10B investment

Bloomberg: Facebook, Google face legal pressure to curtail extremism