The outgoing administration spent its final full week hardening the digital walls, and the courts turned off an app used by 170 million Americans. The FCC, in Chairwoman Rosenworcel's closing days, voted to declare that federal wiretap law obligates carriers to secure their networks, the agency's most direct regulatory answer yet to the Salt Typhoon intrusions, over Republican objections that guaranteed the ruling a short life. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the TikTok divest-or-ban law on January 17, and by the night of January 18 the app had gone dark for US users, the most consequential government action against a communications platform in the internet era, with service providers and app stores suddenly on the legal front line.
A holiday-shortened week in the U.S. still managed to move the regulatory ground under the industry's feet. The Supreme Court closed its term with Corner Post, extending the window to challenge federal agency rules just days after overturning Chevron deference — a one-two punch that puts decades of FCC rulemaking within reach of fresh litigation. In Brussels, regulators charged Meta over its pay-or-consent ad model, the second-ever Digital Markets Act case. And in the world's second-largest mobile market, India's brutal price war officially ended as Jio and Airtel's first tariff hikes since 2021 took effect.
The Supreme Court ended its term by detonating four decades of administrative law: Loper Bright overturned Chevron deference, stripping federal agencies — very much including the FCC — of the benefit of the doubt when statutes are ambiguous. It is the single most consequential development for telecom regulation in a generation, landing three weeks before the FCC's net neutrality rules were due to take effect. The same week, Brussels filed its first-ever Digital Markets Act charges against Apple over App Store steering, and the Court separately let the government keep talking to social platforms about misinformation, tossing Murthy v. Missouri on standing.