A key House panel is holding a hearing tomorrow morning to examine the dangers of online misinformation, deception, and deepfakes. Lawmakers are rightfully concerned about the spread of misinformation across the Internet, but they have largely failed to offer solutions that would not stifle startups and other platforms’ ability to moderate troublesome—but otherwise legal—content.

As the year draws to a close, we wanted to highlight some of the main policy issues that have affected the startup community this year, and what we’ve done to advance the goals of the entrepreneurial community.

This year, Engine focused on a number of critical policy issues impacting entrepreneurs and technology startups across the United States. Guided by the startup community’s concerns, we stood up for strong net neutrality rules, highlighted the importance of intermediary liability protections, called for a federal data privacy framework that works for both consumers and startups, and much more.

As the year draws to a close, we wanted to highlight some of the main policy issues that have affected the startup community this year, and what we’ve done to advance the goals of the entrepreneurial community.

This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on “encryption and lawful access.” While the hearing largely focused on the ways large tech companies use encryption—Apple and Facebook testified—companies of all sizes, especially startups, rely on increased privacy and security protections to gain and keep user trust as well as to differentiate themselves from larger competitors.

TLDR: An appeals court is currently considering whether Internet platforms can be held liable when their users are accused of trademark infringement. Redbubble was accused of direct trademark infringement based on the accusation that its users were selling infringing Ohio State products on the platform. A trial court concluded that Redbubble should not be liable in this circumstance, and Engine filed a brief in support of Redbubble’s position on appeal. 

The Big Story: FCC proposes unlicensed spectrum boost. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced a proposal this week to reallocate spectrum in the 5.9 GHz band for unlicensed use, a move that would open up the airwaves for more Wi-Fi. The 5.9 GHz band is currently reserved for vehicle-to-vehicle communications but has largely been unused for its intended purpose. Chairman Pai’s proposal would reallocate the lower 45 MHz for unlicensed use while setting the upper 40 MHz aside for vehicle safety purposes. 

TLDR: The Supreme Court last week took up a copyright case and is hopefully poised to resolve issues about the copyrightability and permissible use of software interfaces next year. The case in question arose from a long-running dispute between Oracle and Google about one type of software interface—application programming interfaces, or APIs. Without the Supreme Court’s intervention, there is a risk that companies will copyright APIs or other interfaces, and then be able to prevent other companies from using them without paying for a license.