Startups Oppose Senate Bill Creating Exceptions to Bedrock Internet Law. A bipartisan group of Senators introduced legislation this week that would undermine Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), the fundamental intermediary liability law that protects Internet companies from being held legally responsible for what their users say on their platform. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act has the admirable goal of cracking down on sex trafficking online, however, injecting an exception like this in to CDA 230 would create a huge litigation risk for early stage companies that could drastically diminish investment in the sector. While we continue to work with legislators and victims groups to curb the horrific practice of sex trafficking, Engine has opposed this legislation. If you are a startup, sign onto our letter and tell Congress not to undermine the protections that created the Internet. Also, check out our op-ed with the Charles Koch Institute on the importance of CDA 230 to the success and growth of the Internet.

Alexa Accelerator Names Nine Startups for Inaugural Amazon and Techstars Program. Amazon, in partnership with Techstars, welcomed the first class of its new Alexa Accelerator. Amazon will incubate nine startups for three months, providing seed money, mentorship opportunities, and access to University of Washington researchers. The Alexa Accelerator is an initiative spun out of the Alexa Fund, and is specifically geared toward incubating startups that work on applying machine learning and artificial intelligence to voice platforms. Amazon’s Alexa product line utilizes voice recognition to allow people to interact with a robot personal assistant, and the company has been heavily investing in technology to help bolster the products.

Engine Testifies Against Bad Patents at House Judiciary Committee Hearing. On Thursday, Engine’s President, Julie Samuels, testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet on the impact of bad patents on American businesses. Julie spoke to the weaknesses in the patent system and the progress that has been made to weed out low quality patents by Congress, the courts and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Patent trolls, armed with low-quality patents, are able to extract settlements from startups and small businesses, adversely impacting the companies that can least afford these threats. Since startups and small businesses are key drivers of innovation and job growth, troll threats against them are particularly stifling to American economic growth and prosperity.

Watch the hearing here. And read Julie’s full testimony here.

Engine Welcomes Reintroduction of Stock Options Bill. On Tuesday, Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Dean Heller (R-NV), along with Reps. Erik Paulsen (R-MN) and Joseph Crowley (D-NY) reintroduced the Empowering Employees through Stock Ownership (EESO) Act, bipartisan legislation that will make it easier for startup employees to exercise their stock options. Engine was joined by more than 70 companies and organizations in sending a letter supporting the legislation. In response to the reintroduction, Engine Executive Director, Evan Engstrom, noted that “The Empowering Employees through Stock Ownership Act will allow more employees to obtain a stake in the companies that they help to build and grow. This policy change is a no-brainer and a win-win for both startups and their employees.” Read more here.

The Venue Debate isn’t Over Yet. The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods LLC. In his opening statement, Chairman Goodlatte stated that he hoped the decision will close the loophole that has allowed patent trolls to haul startups and innovators to the Eastern District of Texas. Several Members of Congress were extremely supportive of the Court’s decision and stated that they hoped startups would see relief from abusive patent litigation. Several of the witnesses testified that the decision will see a substantial curb in forum shopping and will restore order to a broken patent system.  

Tech Stages Internet Day of Action for Net Neutrality. In response to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) recent announcement that it intends to roll back Obama-era open internet protections, a number of the tech industry’s biggest names, including Etsy, Amazon, Mozilla, and Kickstarter, have publicly announced that they will hold a national day of action in protest. On July 12, the companies, along with numerous other organizations (including Engine), will change their websites to bring awareness to the FCC’s attempts to undermine the free and open internet. At stake are the rules implemented under a Tom Wheeler-led FCC in 2015 that prohibit internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or throttling internet users. The effort is reminiscent of the wide-scale internet blackout orchestrated by tech companies in protest against SOPA and PIPA in January of 2012, which would have resulted in significant censorship on the internet. If you or your company are interested in participating, you can sign up here. 

Trump Asks Supreme Court to Revive Travel Ban. The Trump Administration has petitioned the Supreme Court to revive his immigration travel ban after yet another court blocked the effort last week. In a 10-3 ruling, a federal appeals court in Richmond, VA upheld an earlier Maryland ruling that suspended key parts of the Executive Order, which would would prevent entry for immigrants from six Muslim-majority countries and ban refugees from around the world. In response, President Trump has filed an appeal and asked the high court to temporarily lift the freeze. Trump will need the votes of five of the nine justices to stay the lower court orders and just four votes to add the case to the court’s docket. The startup community has pushed back against the President’s ban, with more than 300 startups and investors calling the it “morally and economically misguided” in a February letter to the President. We’re tracking.

Supreme Court Delivers Blow to Patent Trolls. The Supreme Court delivered a blow to patent trolls this week by unanimously reversing the Federal Circuit’s decision in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC. The high court ruled that defendants in patent cases can only be sued where they are incorporated or have a regular and established place of business. The decision will make it significantly harder for patent trolls to file lawsuits in jurisdictions that patent-friendly but otherwise unrelated to the claims at issue—most notably the Eastern District of Texas, where almost forty percent of patent cases were filed last year. In a statement reacting to the ruling, Engine Policy Director, Rachel Wolbers, noted, “The Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland is another important step to preventing abusive patent litigation tactics that disproportionately impact startups...While this ruling is a significant victory in the in the fight against patent trolls, Congress must continue to work to protect startups from abusive patent litigation...We are thankful for today’s ruling, but know there is much more work to be done.”

On Tuesday, President Trump shocked the country by firing FBI director James Comey. The broader population probably knows Comey best as a result of his decision to reopen an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server just days before the general election. But Comey was an especially contentious figure within the tech community due to his broader pro-surveillance and anti-encryption stances and last year’s very public confrontation with Apple over the unlocking of an iPhone used during the San Bernardino terrorist attack. And while Director Comey’s relationship with tech companies during his time in leadership could best be described as tumultuous, it is unlikely that the President will appoint someone with a friendlier approach. During his time on the campaign trail, President Trump blasted tech giant Apple over its unwillingness to enable a backdoor for government on encrypted devices in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting.

On Tuesday, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) revealed the committee’s top tech priorities for this Congress. Among the issues he hopes to address are encryption and surveillance, as well as high skilled immigration. On immigration, he suggested that too many green cards were being given to family members of current U.S. residents, instead of going to skilled laborers. He told reporters that his goal was to “find a balanced solution to increase the high-skilled talent pool to promote job growth through visa and green card reforms,” and to protect “job opportunities for similarly qualified Americans.”

On Wednesday morning, more than 800 startups, innovators, investors, and entrepreneurial support organizations from all 50 states joined Engine, Y Combinator, and Techstars in sending a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to protect a free and open internet. As we note in the letter, the success of America’s startup ecosystem depends on strong, enforceable net neutrality rules. Any effort to roll back these rules would allow for discrimination and impede entrepreneurs’ ability to grow their companies, reach customers, and compete with incumbents. Rather than dismantling the existing net neutrality framework, signatories called on Chairman Pai to “focus instead on policies that would promote a stronger Internet for everyone,” such as removing unnecessary barriers to construction of new networks. Read the full letter and add your company’s name here.

On Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reiterating the Administration’s policy to buy and hire American. On the ‘Hire American’ side, the EO directs federal agencies to evaluate the various programs that allow foreign workers to enter the United States, with a particular focus on the H-1B visa program. While the EO will not have a direct, immediate impact on the H-1B program, it brings new scrutiny to a visa category relied on heavily by the tech and startup communities. In a statement responding to the EO, Engine Executive Director, Evan Engstrom, called on the the Administration to consider the concerns of the startup community when reviewing and reforming the program: “[I]t is essential that they take into account the economic realities of the startup ecosystem and work to craft reform policies that do not inadvertently make it harder for startups to hire the talented workers they need.”

Last week, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai floated a proposal during a meeting with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that would roll back the net neutrality rules put in place by the previous Administration and replace them with “voluntary” commitments from ISPs. The proposal would completely undermine the Open Internet Order that the startup community backed in 2015, and Engine has put together a startup letter in conjunction with Y Combinator to push back, telling FCC Chairman Ajit Pai that any efforts to undo net neutrality will threaten startups’ ability to innovate and thrive. Learn more and sign the letter here.

H-1B season kicked off on Monday, and while the the White House missed the opportunity for a larger overhaul of the program before the lottery opened, the Administration did slip in a few changes at the last minute that have made the already chaotic process of applying for H-1Bs even more frenzied. Late last Friday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) quietly issued a policy memo indicating a more rigorous vetting process for computer programmers. While the changes are mostly cosmetic in nature (USCIS has maintained that the guidance is a clarification of existing policy, not a “policy change”), the agency also announced on Monday that it would be increasing the number of targeted site visits to crack down on H-1B abuse and fraud. The same day, the Justice Department issued a strong warning that employers seeking H-1B visas must not discriminate against American workers. On their own, each of these changes is arguably meant to target outsourcing firms and abuse of the system, not technology companies (most of whom reserve their visas for more complicated, higher paying roles that cannot be filled by U.S. workers). But taken together, they indicate an intentional effort by the President to deliver on his campaign promise to “end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program.” We’re tracking.

Engine Examines the Limits of Filtering. In a congressional briefing on Tuesday, Engine Executive Director, Evan Engstrom, and Princeton University professor Nick Feamster introduced the report they co-authored exploring various content filtering technologies and the impact that their mandatory application could have on startups. Feamster, a computer scientist, explained the primary modes of filtering and each of their shortcomings in identifying copyright infringing material. Engstrom addressed the implications for startups if policymakers moved to require the use of these technologies. Not only would companies suffer because of the limited ability of the current methods to accurately filter infringing content, he said, but they would also be unable to pay the extremely high price required for full-scale operation of the filtering technology. The full report, which elaborates on the speakers’ remarks, can be found here.