Forty-six states, the District of Columbia and Guam appealed a U.S. District Court's June rejection of an antitrust complaint they and the FTC brought against Facebook (see 2106280057), per a notice of appeal (in Pacer, docket 20-cv-03589) Wednesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The FTC isn't part of the appeal. It and Facebook didn't comment.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the U.S. Postal Service Tuesday, seeking “records about a covert program to secretly comb through online posts of social media users before street protests.” EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington. EFF wants details about USPS internet covert operations, in which U.S. Postal Inspection Service analysts allegedly “sorted through massive amounts of data created by social media users to surveil what they were saying and sharing.” Government hasn’t “explained the legal justifications for this surveillance,” said EFF Public Interest Legal Fellow Houston Davidson. USPS didn’t comment.

Global 5G subscriptions are nearly 300 million, “on track to double that by the end of 2021,” Corning CEO Wendell Weeks told a Q2 call Tuesday. “We’re in the early innings of a large capital deployment cycle across 5G, fiber to the home and hyperscale data centers.” Q2 sales in Corning’s optical communications business were $1.08 billion, up 21% year over year. “Momentum ... is building” in its optical communications business, said Weeks. “Demand on the network has only been increasing.” June broadband usage gained 33% from pre-pandemic levels, 10% above June 2020, “a peak quarantine period,” he said.

The installed base of roaming 5G subscribers is projected to reach 210 million people globally in 2026 from 4.5 million this year, reported Juniper Research Monday. As 5G roaming “proliferates,” vendor competition for such roaming services will “intensify,” it said. Juniper forecasts that global roaming data traffic from 5G subscribers will increase to 770 petabytes by 2026, from 2.6 PB this year, “enough data to stream 115 million hours of 4K video from platforms like Netflix.” One petabyte is 1,000 terabytes.

Uber’s announcement it’s buying Transplace for $2.25 billion shows the ride-hailing company is “leaning into Freight” after divesting noncore businesses, Cowen analyst John Blackledge wrote investors Friday. On Thursday, Uber said the purchase from TPG Capital will create “one of the leading logistics technology platforms, with one of the largest and most comprehensive managed transportation and logistics networks.” Uber Freight head Lior Ron said this brings together an “industry-first shipper-to-carrier platform that will transform shippers’ entire supply chains.” Transplace has access to over 30,000 carriers, and is expected to manage about $15 billion worth of freight this year, said Blackledge. Uber Freight would serve more customers at all levels of the freight industry and expand its presence into Mexico, said the company.

The White House and Facebook should turn over any documents and communications on coordination about COVID-19 misinformation, House Republicans wrote Thursday. Republicans, including ex-President Donald Trump and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, have raised First Amendment questions about such coordination (see 2107080072). House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; Mike Johnson, R-La.; and Dan Bishop, R-N.C., sent letters to the White House and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. They demanded a staff-level briefing from the Biden administration on work with cellphone carriers and Facebook on COVID-19 misinformation on the platform. They requested all documentation and communication between the sides involving coordination. Facebook and the White House didn’t comment.

COVID-19 forced a nearly 34% decline in 2020 venture capital funding for AI to $15 billion, but a strong rebound is “imminent” for 2021, reported ABI Research Wednesday. VC rounds were reduced due to lockdown measures, and VC firms deferred much dealmaking due to macroeconomic uncertainty, it said. It also blamed U.S.-China trade tensions for cooling investor enthusiasm. ABI sees 2020 as “a slight hiccup for an otherwise steady increase in AI investments. AI VC funding this year through June was around $14.5 billion, “already closing in on 2020’s amount, and is very likely to exceed the 2019 figure,” it said.

Broadband speeds and testing them “is a really confusing topic” and “consumers are almost hopelessly confused,” a telecom economist-consultant told NARUC in Denver. Gillan & Associates President Joe Gillan said consumers don’t always know the service speeds they're buying from ISPs, echoing others (see 2107190069). “Because consumers are confused, the politics around this is confused,” Gillan continued. Maybe 10% of people want 1 Gbps, and many internet users don’t need symmetrical speeds, he said. “Networks can do more than most people need them to do.”

Though eight in 10 Americans shop online most frequently with Amazon and big box retail “goliaths” for their low prices and convenience, e-commerce consumers are increasingly “conflicted in aligning their principles with their purchases, creating new market opportunities,” reported Kenco Tuesday. The logistics company canvassed 1,300 U.S. consumers in May, finding more than a third “associate shopping online with Amazon or big box retailers with feelings of guilt,” it said. Of those who feel guilt, three-quarters worry they’re taking away from small businesses and 68% feel “they’re contributing toward unsustainable practices involved in packaging, manufacturing, and labor,” it said. Half worry “they’re not supporting more socially responsible companies,” it said. Amazon didn't comment.

The federal government can’t force companies to “censor or publish speech to comport with its view of the truth,” American Civil Liberties Union Senior Legislative Counsel Kate Ruane in an emailed statement Tuesday. She made the comment in reaction to the Biden administration’s announcement that it’s reviewing Communications Decency Act Section 230 and social media company accountability for misinformation. The government can’t “be trusted to label ‘truth’ or ‘fiction’ any more than Facebook or Twitter,” said Ruane. “The First Amendment protects people -- and social media companies -- from legal risk for misinformation, but also for information that is thought to be false and later turns out to be true. That’s essential.”