The New York Timesreports Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court has rejected a proposed ballot measure that would have enshrined Uber and Lyft's business model in law. The court said the measure violated the Massachusetts constitution by including two unrelated policy decisions, including one hidden by "obscure language."
The bulk of the proposed ballot measure outlined limited benefits for rideshare drivers. However, the offending provision would have said that drivers couldn't be treated as an "employee or agent" of gig-based companies. If voted into law, this might have shielded outfits like Uber or Lyft from liability in the event of a crash or crime — not to mention kneecapping any attempts to reclassify drivers as employees in the state. The unrelated provisions raised concerns that voters might be "confused, misled and deprived" of a real choice, the court wrote in its decision.
Uber, Lyft and their supporters contended that formalizing the gig worker model would have protected flexibility for drivers seeking their own hours. Groups supporting the companies, such as Chamber of Progress, have claimed employee status could cost jobs and income. Critics like AFL-CIO union federation, however, have argued that measures like this create a false dichotomy between flexibility and benefits — they see ballot options like this as attempts to cut employment costs at the expense of laborers.
Uber and Lyft declined to comment. The two spent a total of $17.8 million endorsing the ballot measure, and have had mixed success promoting similar efforts in other states. They got Californians to vote for Proposition 22, a bid to reverse a state law protecting drivers as employees, only to watch as a judge ruled the measure unconstitutional. The companies struck an agreement with Washington State legislators in early 2022, but failed to get much traction in New York State.
The $7,500 federal EV tax credit has been used for several years to entice consumers to make greener car purchasing decisions, but it has expired for some automakers — and they feel the government needs to remove limits on that incentive. Reuters has learned the CEOs of Ford, GM, Stellantis and Toyota sent a letter to congressional leadership asking them to eliminate the sales-based tax credit cap. The move would help counter economic factors and supply shortages that have raised the costs of producing EVs, according to the companies.
The credit currently applies to the first 200,000 cars sold by any given brand. GM and Tesla have already reached the 200,000-unit mark, while both Ford and Toyota could hit the cap this year. This doesn't affect state-level discounts. The companies hope Congress will replace the unit-based cap with a sunset date that would end the credit once the EV marketplace is "more mature."
It's not certain that enough politicians will warm up to the idea. Senator Joe Manchin, for instance, recently questioned the need for extended credits when EV demand regularly outstrips supply. And when the current Senate frequently shoots down bills without clear bipartisan support, any attempt to legislate the credit could fall apart.
The companies have strong motivations to act now, though. Republicans may regain control of one or both sides of Congress during this fall's midterm elections, and car industry execs are concerned the shift in power could kill chances of extending tax credits. Former President Trump tried to axe the credit in his proposed 2020 budget, and had the support of Republicans — the chances aren't high that the GOP will back an extension.
The customer tax breaks might not be as necessary as they once were, mind you. GM plans to sell a Chevy Equinox EV around $30,000, while Tesla has long-term plans for a $25,000 car. Although these models are years away and won't compete with the lowest-priced conventional cars, they hint at a future where EVs are genuinely affordable without government subsidies.
Politicians are quickly seizing on US government efforts to study and regulate crypto. Reutersreports Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) have introduced a bill, the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, that would forge a "complete regulatory framework" for cryptocurrency and other digital assets. The measure is meant to protect consumers and fold crypto into existing laws without restricting technical progress.
RIFA would set clearer definitions, such as establishing which assets are commodities or securities. It would also create requirements for stablecoins (cryptocurrencies pegged to another asset, such as conventional money) to minimize risks and enable speeder payments. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) would have the power to regulate digital spot markets, while providers would be subject to disclosure requirements. There would be a "workable" tax structure that would let you buy products with cryptocurrency without having to account for and report income.
The act would also prompt the government to further research digital assets. It would create a "sandbox" where federal and state regulators could work together on experimental launches of financial technology. The CFTC and Securities Exchange Commission would have to develop both security guidance and a self-regulatory organization. Other government agencies and offices would be tasked with studying energy consumption, the benefits (and dangers) of investing retirement savings in crypto and the security concerns around China's official digital currency.
The bipartisan nature of the bill could increase its chances of surviving a Senate vote. Reuters also points out that the CFTC is considered friendlier to crypto assets than the SEC, That's potentially useful for winning over regulation-averse politicians worried the SEC might limit crypto's growth.
A House equivalent has yet to exist, and it's unlikely that RIFA would reach President Biden's desk before the current session of Congress ends. It's likewise unclear just which digital assets are covered, and whether or not NFTs might be affected. We've asked for more details. The bill nonetheless represents the strongest effort yet to regulate crypto, and might just serve as a blueprint for future efforts to control and legitimize the blockchain in the US.
Amazon made an appeal to its third-party sellers to oppose a Senate antitrust reform bill aimed at helping their businesses. In a post on Amazon’s internal forum for third-party merchants, the company’s vice president of worldwide selling partner services Dharmesh Mehta urged sellers to oppose The American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S.2992), and asked them to contact their senators.
"As we have noted in previous communications to you throughout the past year, Congress is considering legislation, including S. 2992, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, that could jeopardize Amazon’s ability to operate a marketplace service and, as a result, your business’s ability to sell in our store," wrote Mehta.
Just under 500 sellers have responded to Mehta’s post since Thursday, many of them unconvinced by Amazon’s claim that the Senate bill will harm their businesses. “The bill jeopardizes the way Amazon wants to operate. It would not jeopardize marketplaces. Amazon, get your own house in order before asking us as sellers to defend you,” wrote one seller.
“I am personally sick of the condescending posts by Amazon management directed at us. We are not morons and know how to read and think for ourselves,” wrote another seller.
Mehta’s attempt to recruit Amazon’s third-party sellers into unpaid lobbyists follows a wider push by the company against The American Innovation and Choice Online Act. Last week, a public-facing post by Amazon’s VP of Public Policy Brian Huseman warned of potentially degraded Prime membership benefits for customers if the bill passes into law; similar to Mehta, Huseman also suggested anti-trust action might "make it difficult to justify the risk of Amazon offering a marketplace in which selling partners can participate."
The Senate bill contains provisions intended to prevent tech giants like Amazon and Google from giving their own services preferential treatment, thus putting other businesses at a disadvantage. Amazon over the years has been accused of using a number of tactics to put third-party merchants at a disadvantage, including using sales data on third-party products to develop its own competing products and prioritizing products that use Prime shipping in search results.
Trade groups funded by Big Tech have spent millions in ads that frame the bill as an “innovation killer” and harmful to small businesses, reported the Washington Post. The ads run primarily in states represented by vulnerable Senate Democrats, in an effort to amp up pressure from their own constituents. The Senate is expected to vote on the S.2992 sometime this summer. The House Judiciary Committee passed a similar bill last year, but it has yet to be scheduled for a floor vote.
New York lawmakers have passed a bill that would temporarily ban new bitcoin mining operations. Early on Friday, state senators voted 36-27 to pass the legislation. It's now bound for the desk of Governor Kathy Hochul, who will sign it into law or veto the bill. The law would come into effect immediately after it's signed.
An attempt to enact similar legislation last year hit a wall when the New York State Senate passed it but Assembly members did not. The latest bill passed the Assembly in April.
The legislation seeks to establish a two-year moratorium on licenses for cryptocurrency mining operations that use power-hungry proof-of-work authentication methods for validating blockchain transactions. Right now, bitcoin and ethereum (the two largest cryptocurrencies) fall under that category, though the latter is shifting to a different setup.
The moratorium only covers mining operations that run on carbon-based power sources. Any that harness entirely renewable energy sources or an alternative to proof of work that requires less power won't be affected. Existing operations and those already going through a permit renewal process won't be impacted either.
While the moratorium is in place, New York will carry out a study into the environmental impact of proof-of-work authentication methods, per the bill. As CNBC notes, New York has ambitious climate goals that require the state's greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by 85 percent by 2050 under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
New York became a hotbed for crypto mining operations in part due to its plentiful hydroelectricity, low electricity prices and cooler climate than other areas of the US (which means less energy is needed to cool mining hardware).
Some mining companies have threatened to leave New York due to regulatory uncertainty and set up shop in more crypto-friendly states. Even so, crypto proponents have suggested that, given New York's status as a legislative leader, other states could follow suit with similar regulations.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is working on a policy regarding bitcoin mining. The White House is looking into the impact of such technology on greenhouse gas emissions.
China must develop capabilities to disable and maybe even destroy Starlink internet satellites, the country's military researchers said in a paper published by the Chinese journal Modern Defense Technology. The authors highlighted the possibility of Starlink being used for military purposes that could aid other countries and threaten China's national security. According to South China Morning Post, the scientists are calling for the development of anti-satellite capabilities, including both hard and soft kill methods. The former is used to physically destroy satellites, such as the use of missiles, while a soft kill method targets a satellite's software and operating system.
In addition, the researchers are suggesting the development of a surveillance system with the ability to track each and every Starlink satellite. That would address one of their concerns, which is the possibility of launching military payloads along with a bunch of satellites for the constellation. David Cowhig's Translation Blog posted an English version of the paper, along with another article from state-sponsored website China Military Online that warned about the dangers of the satellite internet service.
"While Starlink claims to be a civilian program that provides high-speed internet services, it has a strong military background," it said. Its launch sites are built within military bases, it continued, and SpaceX previously received funds from the US Air Force to study how Starlink satellites can connect to military aircraft under encryption. The Chinese scientists warned Starlink could boost the communication speeds of fighter jets and drones by over 100 times.
The author warned:
"When completed, Starlink satellites can be mounted with reconnaissance, navigation and meteorological devices to further enhance the US military’s combat capability in such areas as reconnaissance remote sensing, communications relay, navigation and positioning, attack and collision, and space sheltering."
Between hard and soft kill, the researchers favor the latter, since physically destroying satellites would produce space debris that could interfere with China's activities. The country previously filed a complaint with the United Nations about the Tiangong space station's near-collision with Starlink satellites. Apparently, the station had to perform evasive maneuvers twice in 2021 to minimize the chances of collision. Destroying a few satellites also wouldn't completely take out the Starlink constellation, seeing as SpaceX has already launched over 2,500 satellites at this point in time.
Texas's HB20 was put on hold Tuesday by the Supreme Court, five-to-four. As is typical for emergency for emergency requests, the majority did not define its reasoning; Justice Alito wrote a six page dissent joined by fellow conservatives Gorsuch and Thomas, while Kagan, a moderate, wrote she would "would deny the application to vacate stay" without signing onto the dissent.
The bill — which has been tied up in court since it was passed by the state's Congress and signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott last September — targets "censorship" by online platforms, insofar as conservatives have in recent years been wont to conflate any form of content moderation with censorship. It reframes large social platforms as "common carriers" similar to telecom companies, but uses that logic to restrict the ability of platforms to limit the spread of, ban or demonetize content based on “the viewpoint of the user," whether or not that view is expressed on the platform.
Unsurprisingly, the content, users and viewpoints the law's supporters believe are being unfairly targeted hew rightward: as the Texas Tribunereported last year, Governor Abbott said he believed social platforms were working to "silence conservative ideas [and] religious beliefs." The aggrievement of the interested parties and their desired outcomes weren't lost on Judge Robert Pitman of West Texas's District Court, who wrote that "the record in this case confirms that the Legislature intended to target large social media platforms perceived as being biased against conservative views."
An emergency application to the Supreme Court to suspend HB20 was filed earlier this month by two tech industry groups — NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) — after a Fifth Circuit court had lifted an injunction on the law, doing so in a startling 2-1 decision for which no explanation was provided. Netchoice's members include Airbnb, TikTok, Amazon and Lyft among many other; Apple, Google, eBay, Meta and others count themselves among those associated with CCIA. Counsel for NetChoice at the time told Protocol that the Texas law was "unconstitutional" and would compel "online platforms to host and promote foreign propaganda, pornography, pro-Nazi speech, and spam.”
These same concerns were given new urgency after the Buffalo, New York shooting, in which a gunman with white supremacist beliefs killed 10 people and injured three others in a majority-black neighborhood while live-streaming the carnage. Social media companies worked to remove copies of the footage from their services. Even as they did so, the question remained unsettled as to whether those removals would result in Texas dragging these platforms into court. Confusion as to the law's application was not limited to interested observers, either: in a Twitter exchange with Techdirt's Mike Masnick, the sponsor of the bill seemed unsure on how such situations would play out.
A related law in Florida, using a similar common carrier approach, had most of its major provisions deemed unconstitutional by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month. The question of constitutionality for HB20 will continue to move forward in the Fifth Circuit Court.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed how we live, how we work, how we get from where we live to where we work or even if we have to leave where we live to get to where we work. But the number of workers that have had their commutes shortened from 45 minutes to 45 feet constitute only a fraction of the American workforce — the remainder are still making the twice daily trek. In his new book, Going Remote: How the Flexible Work Economy Can Improve Our Lives and Our Cities, urban economist Matthew E. Kahn examines how this tectonic shift in work-life balance might eventually play out, as well as the increased economic and social stratification it could bring about.
Not everyone can engage in remote work. If 35 percent of the workforce is engaged in remote work at least a few days a week, this will have at least three effects on other workers. First, service jobs demand will rise in the residential areas where remote workers move to. As remote workers move farther from city centers, this will create exurban demand for service workers at the Starbucks and other stores where they shop. Land prices are cheap at the suburban fringe and the purchasing power of such local service providers will be higher than if they sought jobs in the center city. While service workers cannot work remotely, they can move to remote locations where rents are cheaper if more people work from home. If 35 percent of the workforce begins to work from home three days a week and thus are home five days a week, there is a demand for a service sector in areas where they live. This creates new jobs for less educated workers in such areas. In these areas, housing is cheap. This increases the quality of life for such service providers. There will also be new construction jobs as new homes are built farther from the employment centers. Families who spend more time at home will invest money to upgrade the home. This creates new opportunities for those who supply home improvement services. Some people may add a new office to their home or other features to customize it to their needs.
While there are significant opportunities for less skilled workers to live and work far from the cities in the cheaper parts of metropolitan areas, one countervailing force is the rising minimum wage. In cities, the minimum wage is usually not binding as workers must be paid higher nominal wages to attract them. In contrast, in more suburban and exurban areas, being required to pay service workers $15 or more per hour may reduce demand for workers. If workers can find very cheap housing far from the cities, then many would be willing to work for less than $15 an hour. While most people think that a high minimum wage is “good” for low-skill workers, economists emphasize the likely unintended consequence. When employers are required by law to pay a higher than competitive market wage to people, they create fewer jobs. For example, such firms can substitute and rely on robots or other pieces of capital. Economists argue that a higher minimum wage increases unemployment for less skilled workers. In places where housing is cheaper, the minimum wage will more likely be a binding constraint on employers. The net result here is perhaps counterintuitive. Less skilled workers will gain more from the rise of WFH when they live and work in states with less generous minimum wages.
Throughout this chapter, I have focused on how the WFH eligible reconfigure their lives to make the most of this new opportunity. Here it is important to note that those who are currently not WFH eligible are not locked into this category. Younger workers can retrain in fields to open up this possibility for themselves. Parents of younger children can make investments in their children to raise their probability of being WFH eligible in the future.
Those who work in the service industry and thus earn a living from face-to-face interaction still gain from the rise of WFH because they gain from a larger menu of options of where to live their lives. If a wealthy environmentalist community forms in Bozeman, Montana, then this creates new opportunities for those in the service sector to live and work there. While this option may not be attractive to everyone, the key is to increase the menu of possibilities. Non-WFH-eligible workers know themselves and their life goals, and they will make the right choices for themselves and gain from having a larger menu of alternatives.
As more people have the opportunity to live and work where they want to be, this increases not only their physical and mental health but also the accountability of our institutions. If there are places whose governments are failing to meet the desires of local residents, then people will be more likely to move away. In this setting, real estate prices will more quickly reflect changes in local quality of life. If an area features a rising crime rate, in the new WFH economy people will “vote with their feet” and real estate prices will decline in that area. This demands that local officials be more responsive in addressing emerging quality-of-life challenges because if they fail to do so, the tax base will shrink.
While this has been an optimistic chapter, I must add a few cautionary notes about concentrated urban poverty. WFH creates an incentive for the American people to spread out. This chapter has sketched out the benefits from this emerging trend. At the same time, such suburbanization may contribute to the further isolation of the urban poor. Poor people live in center cities in areas such as Baltimore and Detroit because there is old, cheap housing and there is good public transit. If the poor remain in these center city areas and richer people are suburbanizing, then there is greater geographic isolation of the poor and this may reduce political support for programs that redistribute to them because there is an “out of sight, out of mind” effect and the physical distance between the groups acts as a type of moat. Past research in urban economics has documented that college graduates are more likely to suburbanize when violent crime increases in the center city. This propensity to engage in “flight from blight” is likely to increase in a WFH economy because educated people no longer commute to center city jobs five times a week.
A group of US senators led by Ed Markey of Massachusetts is calling on Apple and Google to implement new app store policies that prohibit developers from collecting data that would threaten women seeking abortions. In separate letters sent to the CEOs of both companies, the group said the two tech giants “must” act to protect individuals exercising their right to choose from groups that would target them for their decision.
“Following the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, we are concerned that anti-abortion prosecutors and other actors will attempt to access and leverage personal information – including data regarding location, online activity, health, and biometrics – in ways that threaten the wellbeing of those exercising their right to choose,” the letter addressed to Google CEO Sundar Pichai states.
Pointing to the prevalence of online platforms selling user information to data brokers, the group warns that abortion prosecutors and “even vigilantes” could exploit those practices to intimidate women who seek abortions or harass them retroactively.
Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont also signed the letters. The letters follow a separate call from Congressional Democrats that came earlier in the week urging Google to stop collecting location data over many of the same concerns. The idea that various groups, including law enforcement agencies, could weaponize app data isn’t an imagined threat. A recent report from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has built up a mass surveillance system that includes information about almost all US residents, and it did so partly by purchasing data from private companies. The senators asked Pichai and Tim Cook to respond to the letters by June 17th.
Senator Ron Wyden and 41 other Democratic lawmakers are urging Google to stop collecting and keeping location data that could be used against people who've had or are seeking abortions. In a letter (PDF) to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, the lawmakers referenced the Supreme Court draft obtained by Politico in which SCOTUS justices have voted to reverse Roe v. Wade. The landmark case protected the federal rights to abortion across the country, and states with trigger laws will immediately criminalize abortion if it truly gets overturned.
"[W]e are concerned that, in a world in which abortion could be made illegal, Google's current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records of cell phone location data will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care," the lawmakers wrote. Their issue mostly lies with how Google designed Android so that it also has to receive location data if a third-party app asks users for access to their location information. On iOS, Google can only collect information data while people are using Google Maps.
As Google reveals in its transparency reports, it routinely gets court orders, subpoenas and search warrants from law enforcement agencies looking to get their hands on user information. In the first half of 2021, for instance, the tech giant received 50,907 requests for disclosure of user information involving 115,594 accounts. A total of 82 percent of those requests resulted in the disclosure of some information.
In their letter, the lawmakers pointed out how a quarter of the court orders Google gets is for "geofence" data, which can show information on people near a particular location at a given time. They means it could be used to identify people who visit reproductive health clinics and other places that help people seek access to abortions.
The signees praised Google for being one of the first companies to require a warrant before disclosing user data, but they said it's not enough. They compared Google to Apple, saying the latter shows that it's "not necessary for smartphone companies to retain invasive tracking databases of their customers' locations." By continuing to collect location data, the lawmakers say Google is creating a digital divide, since those who can afford iPhones have greater protection against government surveillance.
They closed the letter with this plea:
"[W]e urge you to promptly reform your data collection and retention practices, so that Google no longer collects unnecessary customer location data nor retains any non-aggregate location data about individual customers, whether in identifiable or anonymized form. Google cannot allow its online advertising-focused digital infrastructure to be weaponized against women."
