And now, we shall talk about one of life's great pleasures: beer. This nectar of the gods has been something of a focus of mine, particularly given the explosion of the craft brewing industry and how that explosion has created an ever-increasing trademark apocalypse over the past decade. It is important context for the purposes of this post that you understand that the craft brewing industry, before it exploded but was steadily growing, had for years operated under a congenial and fraternal practice when it came to all things intellectual property. Everything from relaxed attitudes on trademarks, to an artistic bent when it came to beer labels, up to and including the regular willingness of industry rivals to regularly collaborate on specific concoctions: this was the basic theme of the industry up until the past decade or so. It was, frankly, one of the things that made craft beer so popular and fun.

With big business, however, came corporatized mentalities. Suddenly, once small craft breweries doubled in size or more. Legal teams were hired and there was a rush to trademark all kinds of creative names. The label art, once the fun hallmark of the industry, became a wing of the marketing department. This is how, now in 2020, you get trade publications like Craft Brewing Business arguing that beer is one of the most all-encompassing products when it comes to intellectual property.

To be fair, given the current climate, you can see some of the logic in the following:

Beer aficionados worldwide can easily describe the nuances of pilsners, IPAs, milkstouts, and lagers. More hazy is the fact that beer is a product that touches upon nearly every type of intellectual property. Indeed, the names of breweries and beers are subject to trademark; label art and packaging are works of authorship covered by copyright law; and hops—that critical component of a beer’s aroma and flavor—can be patented.

It's a fair point, certainly. Though, left entirely unsaid in the entire post is whether any of this is a good thing. Instead, the post goes on to explore in some detail just how all things IP can be applied to brewers' products. Even when it gets absurd, the post hand-waives away any concerns. We'll start with the patenting of hop varieties.

The short answer to this seemingly straightforward query is the plant patent. By statute in the United States, whoever:

” invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, . . . may obtain a patent therefor. . . .”

Hops can be among these new plant varietals, and as part of the bargain for inventing a novel strain, brewing innovators release their work into the public domain after 20 years. But until that two-decade window closes, the creator and owner of a plant patent gets to cash in exclusively on the agricultural brainchild.

A couple of things here. First, the idea that mild differences in varieties of particular plants should get patents doesn't strike me as a great thing. And, given the longstanding practice of patent-extending by making minor tweaks to the biology of the plants and then re-patenting them, I can't imagine why the craft beer industry, once rife with creative brews, would want any of this protectionism.

Second, as the post mentions, though barely, patent holders for even some of the most well-known hop varieties regularly fail to hold up their end of the patent deal with the public.

Of note, if a patent owner does not adequately teach the world (translation: the public domain) about the plant at issue and how to make it upon the patent’s expiration, the patent’s owner—by effectively keeping the invention secret and taking advantage of the 20-year monopoly bestowed by patent law—has not kept up its side of the bargain. This unfortunately seems to be the case with respect to the Citra hops patent, which does not offer much in the way of substantive direction for replication of this varietal, meaning it may not be enabled and, therefore, subject to challenge.

Great.

When it comes to trademarks, the post does a decent job of articulating how trademarks are chiefly meant to avoid customer confusion. While true, the industry survived for decades without putting any real emphasis on trademarks. That seems worth mentioning. Instead, the post goes on to use an absolutely awful example of trademarks being used to protect an industry brand.

To be clear, marketplace confusion is what trademarks are meant to prevent. That being said, if a shopper strolls down a grocery aisle, peruses the beer selection, and confuses a bottle of Stone IPA with and a Keystone Light by virtue of packaging—and advertisement—encouraging drinkers to “grab a Stone,” Molson Coors Beverage Company (owner of the Keystone brand) may be infringing upon Stone IPA’s trademark. If this scenario sounds familiar, that is because this very dispute between Stone Brewing and Molson Coors is scheduled for an October trial in federal court.

Here again we have errors of omission. While Stone is indeed in a fight with Molson Coors as described above, the article fails to point out that Stone Brewing, in service of getting a huge judgement in this court case, has turned on a ton of other craft breweries with which they used to coexist peacefully, and has started bullying them with its trademarks as well. And, what's more, Stone went on to piss and moan when the wider public thought it was behaving like bullying dickheads in all of this. This seems like exactly the sort of thing craft breweries could learn from, yet it's all totally absent from the post.

And, while the post goes on to ignore the question of copyright in label art, the most glaring absence of information has to do with the history of the industry. Again, this is an industry that exploded before everyone decided to have corporatized legal firms challenging every trademark application that's even close to infringement. If there is a lesson in the last decade for the craft beer industry, it's that it should have striven really hard to retain its roots when it became big business.

And the real shame of it is that new brewers reading trade magazines like Craft Brewing Business may not know, and now won't learn, of those far better times.

Law enforcement officials love to defend asset forfeiture. While sidestepping the fact that it almost always directly enriches the agency doing the forfeiting, these officials love to claim it's an invaluable tool that helps cops dismantle dangerous criminal organizations.

This is why they fight reporting requirements. No one knows you're just making poor people poorer unless you're required to report all of your forfeitures. Up in Minnesota -- like far too many other places around the country -- law enforcement officers roll Sheriff of Nottingham style. Unfortunately, there's no Robin Hood lurking in the forests patrolled by opportunistic officers.

Here's state auditor Julie Blaha offering her opinion about forfeitures in Minnesota after digging into the data the agencies provided:

“The data shows that when it comes to the impact of forfeitures, the big story is in the small numbers,” Blaha said in a statement. “Those kinds of amounts have a small impact on government systems, but they have a big impact at the individual level.”

[...]

“If you are managing a public safety budget, small forfeitures are a minor and unpredictable part of your revenue stream,” Blaha continued. “But if you are a low income person experiencing a forfeiture, those amounts can have a big effect on your life. Having a few hundred dollars seized can mean the difference between making rent or homelessness. Losing that old car can lead to missing work and losing your job.”

The program punishes the poor. Very few law enforcement agencies which rely on forfeiture for their discretionary funds want to tangle with an actually organized criminal organization. Those guys can afford lawyers. Most citizens can't. That's why most seizures are so small they're not worth fighting in court. At the end of the jurisprudence day, citizens may win back their cash or cars, but they'll lose the war, having paid more in court and legal fees than what their property is worth.

Everything adds up to real money if you have enough of it. Here's the ugly truth, straight from the auditor's report [PDF].

523 (12 percent) forfeitures were less than $100.
1,414 (32 percent) forfeitures ranged from $100 to $499.
858 (20 percent) forfeitures ranged from $500 to $999.
1,252 (29 percent) forfeitures ranged from $1,000 to $4,999.
304 (7 percent) forfeitures were equal to or greater than $5,000.

Only seven percent targeted amounts that might actually do damage to criminal organizations. 64% of forfeitures targeted less than $1,000.

Here's the list of crimes associated with these seizures, which shows officers are willing to take easy wins and easy cash, rather than actually tangle with criminal enterprises far more harmful and dangerous.

In 2019, DUI-related and controlled substance accounted for 94 percent of the forfeitures. DUI-related forfeitures accounted for 3,654, or 47 percent, of reported forfeitures, while forfeitures involving a controlled substance accounted for 3,611, or 47 percent, of reported forfeitures. The remaining forfeitures involved fleeing (251), prostitution (69), “other” crimes (36), weapons (31), robbery/theft (23), assault (20), and burglary (13). Figure 5 on the following page shows completed forfeitures by type of crime.

Oh thank god. They're dismantling Big Drunk. We won't have to fear the scourge of alcohol/drug consumers for much longer. #Heroes. And if that wasn't enough, the dangerous Sinola Fleeing Cartel is being destroyed bit-by-bit. Abandoned property is so much easier to seize and forfeit than stuff people are still standing next to and stating their claim for.

This is how asset forfeiture works: easy wins predicated on criminal activity that rarely affects anyone besides the person stopped and their property. It all adds up though. For the state of Minnesota, the total was $7.5 million. And what did it accomplish? Did it cripple the non-organized crime of driving under the influence? Did it make it less likely for people to carry their personal stashes of illicit substances? No one dismantled a drug cartel. No one ensured Minnesotans would be subjected to fewer violent crimes. All that happened was cops took stuff that was easy to take and spent the money once it rolled in.

Homeland Security and its various sub-organizations have a fairly tragic history of seizing things they shouldn't, claiming that non-infringing works are "counterfeits." And DHS continues to cluelessly push out press releases that only highlight how ignorant they are regarding the basics of the very laws they're supposed to be enforcing.

Usually, our posts on this subject focus on ICE, but it appears that its sister organization, Customs and Border Patrol, wants to get in on the act as well. Last week, CBP put out a ridiculous press release proudly claiming to have "seized" counterfeit Apple Airpods at JFK.

On August 31, CBP officers seized 2,000 counterfeit Apple Airpod Earbuds from Hong Kong destined for Nevada at an air cargo facility located at John F. Kennedy International Airport. If the merchandise were genuine, the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) would have been $398,000.

“CBP Officers are protecting the American public from various dangers on a daily basis,” said Troy Miller, Director of CBP’s New York Field Operations. “The interception of these counterfeit earbuds is a direct reflection of the vigilance and commitment to mission success by our CBP Officers daily.”

Because at some point, CBP may wise up and delete this press release, here's an archived version.

To understand why this is laughable, you have to see the pictures of the seized "counterfeit" Airpods. Conveniently, clueless people at CBP decided to tweet it out:

It's almost depressing how bad DHS, CBP, and ICE are the jobs we've given them. Perhaps it's time to just do away with all of them.

Moderation at scale is impossible. And yet, you'd still hope we'd get better moderation than this, despite all the problems inherent in policing millions of transactions.

Archie McPhee -- seller of all things weird and wonderful -- recently tried promoting its "tardigrade" line of goods only to find out PayPal users couldn't purchase them. Tardigrades are the official name for microscopic creatures known colloquially as "water bears." Harmless enough, except PayPal blocked the transaction and sent this unhelpful response:

If you can't read/see the tweet and the screenshot, here's what it says:

Just an FYI that @PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word "tardigrade" in the product name or description. We've contacted them and they told us we should just stop using the word tardigrade.

And PayPal's response:

Every transaction that goes through our system, is reviewed by our internal security team. Certain words can trigger our security system. Unfortunately, this cannot be overridden. I would advise you to change the wording on your website to prevent this from happening.

PayPal's size demands the use of automated moderation. But this outcome seems inexplicable. It says the "internal security team" manually reviewed the block… and decided to keep it in place anyway. What's the point of having a "security team" if they can't override the algorithm's decision?

Then there's the question as to why "tardigrade" is blocked in the first place. It's the official name for a particularly hardy micro-animal found all over the world. Early speculation centered on the Scunthorpe Problem, suggesting PayPal blocks transactions involving forms of the word "retarded."

But it appears to be even more ridiculous than that. Tim Ellis at GeekWire received this explanation from PayPal:

A PayPal representative put the blame on the US government’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions, which contain an entry for an industrial supply company called “Tardigrade Limited” located in the country of Cyprus. According to PayPal, the word “tardigrade” triggered a manual review process because their system determined that the payments “may potentially violate US sanction laws."

Customers have a Balkan arms dealer to blame for their inability to purchase tardigrade goods.

Slobodan Tesic (Tesic) was identified in the annex of E.O. 13818 on December 21, 2017. At the time of his designation, Tesic was among the biggest dealers of arms and munitions in the Balkans, spending nearly a decade on the United Nations (UN) Travel Ban List for violating UN sanctions against arms exports to Liberia.

[...]

Tesic also utilized Cyprus-based Tardigrade Limited (Tardigrade) to conduct business in third-party countries, particularly Arab and African countries. Tesic has also used his Serbian companies to sign contracts with Tardigrade before selling the goods to a final buyer.

So, "tardigrade" is flagged by the system as indicative of sanctions violations. But there's that term again: "manual review." Is it impossible for reviewers to distinguish between arms sales through third parties and these?

Now, it could be the manual review team didn't want to end up on the wrong side of sanctions and felt safer blocking transactions than possibly allowing an arms dealer to launder money through the sale of adorable water bear products. Or it could be the manual "review" consists of scrolling through a list of flagged items as quickly as possible and hitting the "approve all" button. Whatever it is, it ain't working. And Archie McPhee isn't the first retailer to run into this problem. Two months ago, Two Photon Art noted it had to rename its Tardigrade pin to "Water Bear Enamel Pin" to allow PayPal users to purchase it.

Erring on the side of caution seems like the smart thing to do. But when the term "manual review" accompanies "automated process," you'd think manual reviewers would see these errors for what they are, rather than allow the blocking to continue. It appears PayPal is doing a little more manual review for tardigrade-related purchases now that it's gone a bit viral, with customers experiencing delays rather than being hit with warnings their purchases have violated PayPal policies.

The upshot is stuff like this will only become more common as time goes on. The more pressure that's placed on tech companies to aggressively police content, the greater the chance harmless content will be rendered inaccessible. It's not that companies shouldn't make efforts to keep their sites free of illegal content and whatever the companies would rather not see on their sites, but automated moderation will always create issues like these. And there just aren't enough manual reviewers available to clean up algorithmic mistakes.

I think if I stopped writing about other stuff, I could still fill Techdirt with the same number of posts just covering the problems facing copyright trolling lawyer Richard Liebowitz. Today we have a story of Liebowitz being in trouble, yet again. This is in the Chevrestt v. Barstool Sports case. We mentioned this one back in May, where a judge sanctioned Liebowitz and benchslapped him pretty significantly for failing to follow "simple" orders from the court. The judge in that case noted that in the case last year where Liebowitz lied about the death of his grandfather, that he had promised to attend some courses on how to better manage his legal practice. The judge asked for some details about whether or not he actually carried that out:

As noted above, this Order is neither the only time the Undersigned has sanctioned Mr. Liebowitz nor is the Undersigned the only judge in this district who has sanctioned him. In Berger v. Imagina Consulting, Inc., 18-CV-8956 , in responding to a contempt citation that was precipitated by Mr. Liebowitz having lied to Judge Siebel, Mr. Liebowitz’s attorney argued that Mr. Liebowitz should not be held in contempt and recommended a number of steps Mr. Liebowitz should take to improve the professionalism of his practice. Among counsel’s recommendations was professional psychological help and a CLE course on small law firm management. See 18-CV-8956, Dkt. 61 at 4. While both may be helpful, psychological help is best obtained because the patient wants help. Whether Mr. Liebowitz wants to improve or not (and the Court questions whether he does), this Court concurs with Mr. Liebowitz’s attorney in Berger that management training is in order. Accordingly, Mr. Liebowitz is ordered to participate in CLE training regarding management of a small law firm. Mr. Liebowitz must attend such training on or before September 1, 2020. The course must cover the basics of setting up and running a law practice, including how to maintain systems so that Court obligations are tracked and obeyed. Mr. Liebowitz is directed to provide the Court with information about the course he wishes to attend for the Court’s approval. He will, at the end of the course, be required to present proof of attendance and to provide a sworn statement to the Court on what he learned from the course and what concrete steps he has instituted in his practice to improve compliance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Court orders.

That was back in May. You may note that we are now in September. Liebowitz had many months to write up the required book report for Judge Valerie Caproni. But what he actually turned in would embarrass your average 3rd grader who forgot to do the book report he had a month to write up and then tried to write something on the bus to school. First, he did apparently take some CLE (Continuing Legal Education) classes -- though not all the ones the judge required. He lists out six classes he claims he attended. The judge did require him to not just present proof of attending the courses, but also the "sworn statement" about "what he learned" and "what concrete steps he has instituted in his practice to improve compliance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures and Court orders."

That second part is... lacking. First he notes:

One program entitled Panel of Lawyers Who are Doing it: Practice Management Technology to Grow Your Solo/Small Law Practice Ethically was not recorded and thus I was unable to watch this program on-line. However, instead of watching only two of the following in number 5 in your Honor’s Order, I watched all three programs. What I learned in Admitting our mistakes: Owning up to Lawyer Missteps, is relevant here because I didn’t realize that this program was only available as a live event and was not going to be recorded like the other programs identified above. I apologize to the Court for this mistake.

Then he just copy/pasted the outlines of each of the courses into the filing. This is, literally, the least he could do. And it's not the kind of effort that tells anyone from your 3rd grade teacher to the federal judge who has significant power of your future livelihood that you actually did the work you were required to do. Then, he adds two more paragraphs at the end that... do not actually answer what the judge ordered, and again sounds like he scribbled it down just in time to meet the deadline. It's the legal equivalent of "this book is a book that I read, that is called [x] and has so and so many pages."

Based upon what I learned in the above CLE’s, I am continuing to learn new things in my practice management software to run things more efficiently and smoothly. I also am making sure to own up to my mistakes that do happen. I am also improving my time management skills by implementing some of the essential guidelines learned such as managing a plan at the beginning of the day. I am changing the way I use technology such as calendaring to make sure tasks get done on time and items get docketed correctly. I have also learned to delegate tasks that can be delegated to make the work flow more efficient.

I thank the Court for recommending these CLE programs and look forward to continuing to implement what I learned into my practice.

I cringe just reading that.

Guess who else was not impressed. Judge Caproni responded the very next day saying "um, no, try again." Also, points docked for typos.

Mr. Liebowitz was directed to submit a report detailing "how he is changing the practices in his firm based on what he learned" in these courses. Dkt. 28. Mr. Liebowitz's above-statement that he is "changing the way I use technology such as calendaring to make sure tasks get done on time and items get docketed correctly" is insufficient. No later than September 8, 2020, Mr. Liebowitz is directed to file a letter detailing the specific and concrete changes he is making to his practice. Additionally, no later than September 8, 2020, Mr. Liebowitz is directed to explain why he unilaterally substituted another course in direct violation of a previous Court order and without the Court's permission. Mr. Liebowitz is also directed to proofread carefully his submissions before submitting them. His letter dated August 31, 2020, is riddled with typos that presumably would have been caught had Mr. Liebowitz proofread the letter prior to submission.

Oof. Now, to a normal person, you might recognize that this judge is not happy and maybe, just maybe, try a little harder for the next time. But, come on, this is Richard Liebowitz we're talking about. He basically submitted the same work over again with slight modifications:

The reason why I took all three of the courses in Number 5 is because one program in Number 4 entitled Panel of Lawyers Who are Doing it: Practice Management Technology to Grow Your Solo/Small Law Practice Ethically was not recorded on video but was only available as a live event. Thus, I was unable to watch this program on-line. I did not realize that this program was only available as a live event and was not video recorded as was the case with the other programs identified above. I apologize to the Court for this mistake.

Based upon what I learned in the CLE’s, the specific and concrete changes I have made – and will continue to make – include delegating tasks to employees to make the Firm more efficient in managing cases. This includes tasks such as client intake, discovery, motions, calendaring, etc. I am doing this by implementing a plan at the beginning of each week. Also, by making a weekly plan this will improve my time management. In addition, I am actively training and supervising new staff and current staff on new calendaring/scheduling/client protocols in the office while maintaining a well-balanced and flexible work schedule for employees. The continued education on our practice management software is ongoing. In addition, I plan on taking more CLE courses dedicated to management for small law firms so that I can be continually educated by professionals in the field.

That's it. That's literally it. I mean, even I can hardly believe that this is all Liebowitz would do. I mean, holy shit, dude. Do you really think this would suffice?

Judge Caproni is... not happy. She wants young Richard in court in person tomorrow to explain himself. In detail.

WHEREAS on September 8, 2020 Mr. Liebowitz submitted a letter that fails to address adequately these two issues (Dkt. 31);

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT: Mr. Liebowitz must appear in-person on September 15, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. in Courtroom 518 of the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, New York, New York, 10007. Mr. Liebowitz should be prepared to explain in detail what concrete steps he has taken, based on the CLE courses he took, to improve his practice or otherwise ensure that the non-compliance that gave rise to the sanctions in the first instance will not be repeated. He should also be prepared to explain why, when he learned that due to his own inattention to detail one of the courses he was ordered to take was unavailable, he did not ask the Court to modify its prior order rather than unilaterally deciding he could take a different course.

I get the feeling tomorrow is going to be another bad day for Liebowitz.

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The TikTok saga, which was insanely stupid to begin with, kicked into overdrive last month when President Trump issued a blatantly unconstitutional executive order that was designed to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American company. We had all sorts of questions about this, but effectively ByteDance had until this week to find a buyer. While Microsoft was rumored for a while, late last night Microsoft announced that its proposal had been rejected and the only competitor left standing was... wait for it... Oracle. This led many to conclude that Oracle was buying TikTok. That is not the case. But hold on, we'll get there.

There was one other serious bidder: Walmart. Last night the company claimed it was still interested in buying TikTok, but the White House rejected that plan, because it would have made it totally obvious that the "national security" pretense for demanding the sale was obvious bullshit. Nope, the White House said: it has to be sold to a "tech" company, so that the White House can stand by its totally unsubstantiated by evidence claims that TikTok's dancing teens represented a national security threat.

So, with Walmart blocked, and Microsoft's deal not accepted, that left Oracle. But immediately the descriptions of Oracle's involvement were... weird. They very clearly did not say anything about "buying" TikTok. Instead, Oracle put out a very short press release saying that it will "serve as the trusted technology provider" to TikTok. That's not how you describe a sale.

This is a hosting deal.

Oracle will just host TikTok on its wannabe, way-behind-the-competition, cloud platform. And Trump and his cult-like supporters will pretend this actually accomplishes something. Oracle's executive suite has long been vocal Trump supporters, so this basically dumps a giant hosting contract into Oracle's lap. ByteDance will effectively still own TikTok, and Trump will pretend he's done something. For what it's worth, this is the second big Oracle cloud deal done in the last few months, with the previous one being with videoconferencing company Zoom.

As Russell Brandom over at the Verge notes, this deal "accomplished nothing." ByteDance still owns TikTok (and, according to reports, retains full control over TikTok's algorithm). As former Yahoo and Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos points out, literally none of the concerns people have raised about TikTok (most of which were bogus in the first place) are solved by an Oracle hosting deal:

As Stamos points out, accepting this deal would show that it's nothing but "pure grift," basically dumping a forced contract into Oracle's lap, a company which (again) has had an executive licking Trump's boots since day one.

And people can't even truly argue that Oracle will somehow make whatever little "private" data there is on TikTok "more secure." It's not like it was just months ago that an Oracle-owned subsidiary, BlueKai, leaked data that tracked users all over the web, exposing billions of records.

In other words, the whole thing was a joke. Like so much of this administration it was performative nonsense by Trump, who was mad that some kids made him look foolish on TikTok, combined with anti-Chinese racism, to push for a deal he had no legal right to push for, resulting in a weird scramble that doesn't accomplish what he wanted, but does shift a bunch of money to some of his vocal and wealthy supporters. The "Art of the Grift."

Every time legislation is looming that could threaten its broadband monopoly, AT&T attempts to get in front of it and steer the conversation away from subjects it doesn't want tackled by legislation. The biggest of those subjects is the lack of overall competition caused by sector monopolization, and the high prices, crappy customer service, and patchy availability that usually results. With COVID-19 resulting in folks realizing the importance of affordable broadband more than ever, it's becoming pretty clear that AT&T is worried somebody might just try to finally do something about it.

You'd be hard pressed to find a company more responsible for this country's broadband shortcomings than AT&T, whose lobbyists work tirelessly to scuttle absolutely any attempt whatsoever to disrupt the mono/duopoly status quo. Which is why it's ironic to see AT&T CFO John Stankey publish an op-ed at Politico professing to have the cure for America's longstanding digital divide. Not too surprisingly, AT&T's solution for the problem is greater subsidization of companies like AT&T, a company that has already received countless billions in subsidies for fiber networks it almost always only partially deploys.

Amusingly, most of Stankey's fixes are things AT&T has routinely lobbied against. Like here, where Stankey acknowledges that fixing the digital divide isn't something private industry can do alone:

"Our country needs to close that gap, and now is the time for legislators and policymakers to act to ensure the educational and economic success of all Americans by making broadband connectivity more accessible, affordable and sustainable. Market forces and private companies can’t do it alone because of the lack of return on the significant investment necessary to reach all Americans."

Well gosh, perhaps AT&T shouldn't have lobbied for (and in many instances written) legislation in nearly two-dozen states blocking towns and cities from building their own creative broadband alternatives then, huh? AT&T lobbyists have long fought tooth and nail against public or even public/private alternatives because, as a monopoly, it simply doesn't like competition. Any suggestion AT&T has credibility on this subject is laughable.

From there, AT&T goes on to support another idea its lobbyists have routinely opposed: better broadband maps:

"To close the digital divide, we must know the contours of where the divide starts and ends. We need to telescope our broadband maps from the macro, census-block level to the micro, building level to understand with more precision where broadband is unavailable. The government’s existing mapping methodology is past its shelf life."

Here too, AT&T has lobbied against better, more accurate broadband maps (or the inclusion of broadband pricing in said maps) because it doesn't want people highlighting the lack of competition and coverage gaps in the sector. And while some broadband mapping improvements have finally been passed after relentless pressure from states looking for their cut of the pie, AT&T has lobbied to exclude technologies like 5G from those improvements.

Stankey also takes some time to pretend that deploying fiber isn't "economical," despite his company receiving untold billions in tax breaks, subsidies, and regulatory favors to deploy fiber networks that mysteriously, routinely, wind up only partially deployed:

"The FCC currently heavily weights subsidies toward gigabit speeds (fiber) over other technologies (such as fixed wireless). It is simply not practical or responsible to assume a fiber broadband service can be delivered to every unserved rural household—the prohibitive cost is part of why connecting many of these households has been uneconomical."

This one's a real laugher if you know AT&T's history. For the better part of the last generation AT&T has received a fountain of taxpayer cash in exchange for fiber it never fully deploys. AT&T spent much of the aughts under-investing in fiber despite rampant deregulation that was supposed to incentivize it to do so. It just received a $42 billion tax cut from the Trump administration that resulted in more than 41,000 layoffs and a $3 billion CAPEX reduction for 2020. AT&T's running a 30-year con in which it takes taxpayer dollars, pockets the lion's share of it, under-deploys broadband, then tries to obfuscate the results.

AT&T just spent $150 billion on an array of terrible mergers that saddled the company in an ocean of debt and resulted in customers leaving in droves. Between tax breaks, subsidies, and the gutting of FCC consumer protections like net neutrality and privacy, it's almost impossible to calculate the amount of taxpayer assistance AT&T has received in the last decade alone. In fact, the only reason Stankey is even CEO is because the last CEO got driven out of town for wasting money on misguided ideas. Yet here we have AT&T giving advice on what is or isn't "cost prohibitive."

What's AT&T and Stankey really up to here? With stories in the press about kids having to squat outside of Taco Bell just to get online for class, AT&T's policy guys know we're likely to see new legislation in the next year to help bridge the digital divide. AT&T would prefer that legislation fixate on throwing billions in additional subsidies at monopolies like AT&T, instead of tackling the real cause of U.S. broadband mediocrity: rampant state and federal corruption, or the monopolization that results from timid policymakers fecklessly bending the policy knee to monopolistic telecom giants for the better part of a generation.