If you step into the headquarters of the Internet Archive on a Friday after lunch, when it offers public tours, chances are you’ll be greeted by its founder and merriest cheerleader, Brewster Kahle.

On Friday, Israel struck what it claimed was Hezbollah’s center of operations in southern Beirut, aiming to assassinate the organization’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli Army radio is reporting it used F-35 planes with 2,000-lb. “bunker buster” bombs to hit southern Beirut and cited a senior official saying Israel had informed the U.S. of the strike. Follow our Twitter thread, which will be updated as new reporting emerges, as the event unfolds.

The strike came roughly at the same time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was addressing the United Nations. Excerpts from his speech, as well as news of the diplomatic boycott by dozens of diplomats, are in the same thread. 

Earlier this year, The Motion Picture Association (MPA) revealed that it’s planning to work with Congress to establish site-blocking legislation in the United States. With such an order in place, broadcasters, rights holders and content owners would be able to ask the court to order Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block websites sharing stolen content. MPA CEO Charles Rivkin highlighted that many countries use blocking as a tool against piracy and he strongly believes that the U.S. should be one of them.

For years, sports providers and media and entertainment companies outside the U.S. have been using domain and server blocking because it is a sophisticated enforcement method that stops piracy more effectively than traditional approaches.

A survey conducted by AlixPartners asked 60 executives from various fiber companies in the telecom space whether consolidation among fiber firms would happen. The result? 93% of respondents said consolidation is either happening now or will happen soon.

(NEXSTAR) — LinkedIn confirmed that it is using personal user data to train its artificial intelligence models after being accused of opting members in without properly notifying them.

The Microsoft-owned company announced in a blog post on Wednesday that it recently updated its privacy policy to clarify how it uses personal data to train its AI-powered tools, which can generate writing suggestions and post recommendations.

When members use the professional networking platform, it collects data on their activity, such as their posts, language preferences, login frequency, and any feedback they may provide.

LinkedIn said it is using this information to “fine-tune” its AI products and those belonging to “its affiliates.” Beyond Microsoft, the other affiliates are unclear.

The Antitrust Division sued Visa for levying a private sales tax on every merchant in America. It's about time. The DOJ is going to win, as this case looks a lot like the case against Google search.

Where would Harris and Trump take antitrust enforcement?

Two new anti-ESG bills would install corporate lobbyists within the SEC and hamper shareholders and local governments.

A California telecom and electrical cooperative says the state’s ongoing last-mile broadband grant program will help deploy affordable fiber to multiple communities across four heavily unserved and underserved California counties. The cooperative says it’s poised to receive roughly $67 million in FFA grants to expand affordable broadband to roughly 6,600 unserved and underserved locations across Sierra, Plumas, Lassen, and Nevada Counties.

New polling shows roughly 80 percent of Democrats feel the government should be doing more to take on corporate monopolies. Still, prominent party donors are urging Kamala Harris to dump Lina Khan.

John Malone wants to simplify his cable portfolio, with his Liberty Broadband looking to merge with Charter Communications.

After 40 years of rampant corporate crime, there’s a new sheriff in town: Jonathan Kanter was appointed by Biden to run the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, and he’s overseen 170 “significant antitrust actions” in the past 2.5 years, culminating in a court case where Google was ruled to be an illegal monopolist:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

Kanter’s work is both extraordinary and par for the course. As Kanter said in a recent keynote for the Fordham Law Competition Law Institute’s 51st Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy, we’re witnessing an epochal, global resurgence of antitrust:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/assistant-attorney-general-jonathan-kanter-delivers-remarks-fordham-competition-law-0

Kanter’s incredible enforcement track record isn’t just part of a national trend — his colleagues in the FTC, CFPB and other agencies have also been pursuing an antitrust agenda not seen in generations — but also a worldwide trend. 

Her speech on the economy was guarded. The details laid out by the campaign paint a brighter picture.

Trump’s Project 2025 will give him unchecked political power with no guardrails, and it would take Black America backwards. Project 2025 would strip away our voting-rights protections, and it eliminates the Department of Education. It would also require states to monitor women’s pregnancies, it bans abortion, and would rip away health coverage for millions. — Harris/Walz 2024 television campaign ad

We are in the process of the second American Revolution. ... [It] will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be. — Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, publisher of Project 2025

In mid-September, the crew behind Master Plan gathered in a small office in podcast editor Ron Doyle’s southeast Denver home. The three stared wearily at computer screens, quite apparently sleep-deprived. They’d been up late the night before, first doing an online Q&A with subscribers to the podcast, then working to address a newly discovered issue with an upcoming installment.

The Commission announced today over a hundred companies that are the first signatories of the EU artificial intelligence (AI) Pact and its voluntary pledges.

There is endless misinformation about California’s SB1047. I get it. Bills — even short bills — are hard to read. In the face of endless lobbyist messaging, they’re even harder to understand.

So here, in a single thread, is all you need to understand the bill. (If you want to read along, here’s a clear version of the bill, nicely indented.)

Today on TAP: The giant credit card company offers a textbook case in abuse of market power to buy off or crush potential competitors and reap excess profits at consumer expense.