The White House urged House passage of the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act (HR-3843) (see 2209260060). Merger fees to the FTC and DOJ haven’t kept pace with the number, size and complexity of deals, the Office of Management and Budget said Tuesday in a statement of administration policy.

Internet users in North America are facing significant connectivity issues despite increases in connection speeds, reported network diagnostics company RouteThis Monday. Though upstream and downstream speeds have risen dramatically, “pandemic-related behavioral shifts and device upgrades have increased demand on home Wi-Fi environments,” it said. “Every new device added to a home network comes with new requirements and increases the opportunity for a poor subscriber experience,” said RouteThis. North America’s home networks host the world’s highest median number of devices, with nine in the average household, and it’s likely “at least one will suffer from a bad connection,” it said. Up to half an ISP’s “support engagements” can be traced back to problems with the home Wi-Fi setup, rather than with the lines or equipment itself, said the company. Its data shows about 25% of diagnostic scans “reveal a less congested Wi-Fi channel available, while 30% indicate an underlying problem of signal strength, even with no issues with the home internet connection,” it said.

The National AI Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology plans an open hybrid meeting Oct. 12-13, beginning each day at 9 a.m. PDT. Members “will discuss how to direct their input into actionable recommendations” to the president and the National AI Initiative Office, said a notice in Monday’s Federal Register. Registration is required for those planning to attend in person at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, but not for watching the meeting online, it said. A final agenda will be posted at the committee’s website, it said. Oct. 5 is the deadline for comments to be considered at the meeting, it said.

Big Tech needs to contribute its “fair share” to network builds, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Monday during a visit with EU officials in Brussels. Carr is visiting with regulators from the European Commission, European Parliament and state entities Monday and Tuesday. He said he looks forward to consideration in the U.S. and the EU for updated approaches that would “require Big Tech to start contributing a fair share.” Tech companies benefit “tremendously” from high-speed networks, and “they generate the lion’s share of network traffic both in Europe and in the U.S.,” he said. Carr also welcomed discussion on security threats related to TikTok’s “surreptitious data flows” (see 2209070073).

Legislation that would force social media companies to pay to carry news content from Canadian companies would damage the internet ecosystem and exacerbate media concentration, the Computer and Communications Industry Association said Friday. Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which the House of Commons’ Heritage Committee considered at a hearing Friday, would allow Canadian news companies to negotiate for pay when platforms and search engines index content or users link and quote it. The Senate Commerce Committee passed a similar bill Thursday (see 2209220077), and Australia implemented a similar law. “Targeting a select few U.S. firms ... to force payments to Canadian news businesses, would not only constitute an unwarranted and discriminatory subsidy, but worsen competition in the media market by entrenching Canadian media conglomerates,” said CCIA Vice President-Digital Trade Jonathan McHale.

U.S. businesses are at a high and growing risk of data security threats from “increasingly effective phishing attempts and the lack of procedures to restrict data access,” reported GetApp Tuesday. “Newer companies are especially vulnerable to security threats,” said GetApp, which bills itself as the recommendation engine for small businesses. The company canvassed about 1,000 respondents in August, finding the total number of ransomware attacks has doubled in the past two years, while the proportion of companies paying the ransom has “steadily decreased,” it said. “This finding can be attributed to more companies either successfully decrypting data and removing the malware or recovering from the attack by using a backup without paying a ransom.”

The federal government will pay out $185 million in fiscal 2022 as part of a $1 billion state and local cybersecurity grant program included in the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Department of Homeland Security announced Friday. Applicants have 60 days to apply for a grant. “Investing in securing our digital infrastructure is a national security necessity, and all levels of government must partner together to better defend against cyberattacks,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., in a joint statement with House Cybersecurity Subcommittee Chair Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., who proposed the grant program with her State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act.

YouTube, Twitch, Microsoft and Meta joined the White House Thursday in announcing collaborative efforts to design products in an effort to curb online extremism and hate. President Joe Biden hosted the United We Stand Summit to “counter the corrosive effects of hate-fueled violence,” citing impacts of attacks and mass shootings in places like Orlando, Charleston, Pittsburgh, El Paso, Atlanta, Buffalo and Wisconsin's Oak Creek. Government agencies will use feedback and consultation to “carefully evaluate government support following past incidents and offer recommendations for improvements in the delivery of government assistance,” the White House said. YouTube is expanding policies for “removing content glorifying violent acts for the purpose of inspiring others to commit harm.” Twitch will deploy new tools for combating violent livestream content. Microsoft will deploy artificial intelligence and machine learning “tools with appropriate privacy protections that can help detect credible threats of violence or to public safety, and is making a basic, more affordable version of these tools accessible to schools and smaller organizations to assist in violence prevention.” Meta established a partnership with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies’ Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism to study “trends in violent extremism and tools that help communities combat it.”

Adobe agreed to buy Figma, a web-first collaborative design platform, for about $20 billion in cash and stock, Adobe said Thursday. “Figma’s web-based, multi-player capabilities will accelerate the delivery of Adobe’s Creative Cloud technologies on the web, making the creative process more productive and accessible to more people,” said Adobe. The transaction, expected to close in 2023, awaits the approval of Figma’s shareholders.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday signed a new law establishing transparency requirements for social media platforms’ content moderation practices (see 2208310049). Social media transparency was a major focal point during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday (see 2209140067).Newsom signed AB-587, saying Californians “deserve to know” how platforms shape public discourse and how social media might be “weaponized” to spread disinformation and hate. The new law violates the First Amendment, “hands online predators a ‘roadmap’ to evade child protection measures, hinders platforms’ rapid response to online threats, and harms California’s small businesses, innovation, and competitiveness,” NetChoice said in a statement. The new law will “pull back the curtain and require tech companies to provide meaningful transparency into how they are shaping our public discourse and addressing hate speech, disinformation, and dangerous conspiracy theories,” said Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D), lead author.