Executive Summary

Ultra-Wideband (“UWB”) is a short-range wireless technology somewhat like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, but with superior locating abilities, enabling the highly accurate identification of an object’s position in three-dimensional space. UWB capabilities are now standard on many newer-model smartphones, allowing users to track UWB-enabled beacons from their smartphones and allowing vendors to leverage inbuilt UWB capabilities to create massive sensor networks using unwitting users’ mobile devices. This report focuses on privacy and anti-trust concerns surrounding UWB beacons, the tip of the iceberg of planned UWB applications. Because UWB’s locating abilities are so precise, beacons provide an easy way to track and stalk people. Beacons pass detailed device location data through neighboring devices’ networks, introducing the twin risks of malicious hacking and commercial exploitation by vendors. Apple and Amazon have acted to shut competitors out of the UWB beacon space, demonstrating a clear linkage between the story of these beacons and the larger story of Big Tech anti-trust concerns.

This report was supported in part by a grant from the Open Society Foundations and by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

I.              Introduction

Ultra-Wideband (“UWB”) is a short-range wireless technology somewhat like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but with superior “ranging” abilities, enabling the highly accurate identification of an object’s position, not just on a map, but in three-dimensional space.[1] Many newer-model Apple and Android smartphones now come standard with inbuilt UWB capabilities, with the initial software-driven use cases allowing users to share files between compatible phones and to track UWB beacons which users attach to their personal items. Companies are also actively envisioning and researching a wide range of upcoming UWB applications, from devices that can unlock cars remotely without the use of a physical key[2] to devices that track the locations of patients within healthcare facilities.[3]

This report sets out privacy and anti-trust concerns concerning UWB beacons, the public-facing tip of the UWB iceberg. At least one current implementation of UWB’s powerful locating abilities has created a new avenue for stalking, as beacons can provide an incredibly easy method of tracking people while reducing the risk of detection. UWB beacons generate excruciatingly detailed location data and subsequently pass that data through neighboring devices, putting users at risk of hacking, not to mention unscrupulous commercial use of the data by the owners of said networks and by third parties who have gained access to UWB location data through apps in the mobile device ecosystem. Furthermore, Apple and Amazon have acted to shut out competitors in the UWB beacon space, demonstrating a clear linkage between the story of these beacons and the larger ongoing story of Big Tech anti-trust concerns.

II.            Overview of UWB Technology

UWB has a distinct advantage over other short-range wireless technologies: it can locate objects precisely, within a few centimeters, compared to a few meters for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi—the difference between saying one’s keys are in the drawer next to the refrigerator and that the keys are somewhere in the kitchen.[4] Unlike Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, UWB uses radio technology to send many short pulses of energy within nanoseconds, producing short-range, high-bandwidth communications over a wide portion of the radio spectrum. UWB is very power-efficient, allowing sensors a long operational period, even in low-power conditions. UWB also outperforms other wireless technologies with regard to accuracy, security, and hardiness. The FCC characterizes three broad applications for UWB technology: imaging systems such as Ground-Penetrating Radar, location, and data transmission.[5] UWB can act as a type of radar, continuously scanning rooms, penetrating walls, locating objects, and communicating data.

As it has become increasingly crucial for systems to estimate physical distance between devices, and because UWB operates within a frequency range that interferes little with other wireless technology, UWB finds uses in a range of fields.[6] In train and subway systems, UWB can play a role in providing position, speed, and acceleration data to train control systems: NYC signed a $14 million contract in July 2021 to track subway cars’ precise locations using UWB.[7] In medicine, where interference with medical equipment is a top concern, researchers have investigated UWB to monitor vital signs and as a safe alternative to X-ray imaging.[8] UWB also has a range of imaging applications, such as helping support certain types of specialized radar that scans roads, bridges, and other structures to check their integrity.[9] Emergency responders use UWB radar to find people buried in rubble.[10] Law enforcement uses the same “through-the-wall” radar as an ethically questionable surveillance tool: UWB can detect movement—even breathing—through most construction materials and can gauge the size and contents of rooms from outside their walls.[11] Military uses of UWB radar include foliage-penetrating radar[12] and ground-penetrating radar meant to detect buried hazards.[13],[14]

Now, new-model smartphones standardly include a version of the same technology, allowing them to locate UWB-equipped items and devices precisely. Apple offers UWB on the iPhone 11 and 12 with its U1 chip.[15] Samsung makes UWB available on the Android platform with its Galaxy S21+, S21 Ultra 5G, and Note20 Ultra devices.[16] Compatible UWB devices “range,” or determine their position and distance relative to one another.

As of August 2021, smartphones’ UWB capability supports just a few functions. UWB-equipped iPhones can connect and share files when one phone is pointed toward another.[17] Smartphone owners can also track their personal items with UWB. When paired with coin-sized UWB beacons (Apple AirTags or Amazon Tiles), a UWB-equipped smartphone can calculate precisely how far away and in what direction a beacon lies. Beacon users can locate their keys, laptops, or any other item or person to whom they have attached a beacon. And while UWB is limited to short-range communications (ten[18] or twenty[19] meters), Apple and Amazon extend beacon/smartphone connections with nearby Bluetooth and Wi-Fi networks. (Details follow in section four.)

This report lays out privacy concerns around currently available UWB consumer tech—that is, UWB beacons—while acknowledging that they are the tip of the UWB iceberg. Industry groups envision UWB applications to track objects and people in every conceivable public and private space. The FiRa Consortium, whose members include Cisco, Apple, Samsung, Google, Facebook, Sony, and Hyundai,[20] plans four expansive categories of UWB use. “Cities and Mobility” applications will identify individuals at building entrances and in crowds, control access to parking garages, unlock car doors, and validate train tickets.[21] “Building & Industrial” uses will control access to buildings and spaces, enforce social distancing, track the location of valuable assets, and, concerningly, track people, starting with patients in medical facilities.[22] In a similar vein, “Retail” uses of UWB will track customers from the moment they set foot in a store to checkout using “foot traffic” analysis (precise tracking of people’s movements in stores), targeted marketing (for the customer who picked up a particular product or brand), and touchless payment.[23] “Home and Consumer” applications of UWB will track whether people are at home via “presence-based device activation,” grant access to homes and devices, and locate objects and individuals (“find someone/something nearby”).[24] The FiRa Consortium’s partner, the UWB Alliance, supports these efforts with advertising and by promoting regulation friendly to this agenda in the U.S. and the E.U.[25] While this paper now turns to privacy concerns around UWB beacons, the same concerns apply to all location-tracking UWB applications.

III.          Privacy Concerns: Stalking

Apple markets the AirTag, a small, disc-shaped UWB beacon, as “a supereasy way to keep track of your stuff.”[26] After activating an AirTag, an iPhone user can track its location using Apple’s “Find My” app.[27] The AirTag connects with the Apple network by emitting a continuous Bluetooth signal that broadcasts the AirTag’s identity. When nearby Apple phones and mobile devices detect that signal (as they do by default), those devices broadcast their location and the beacon’s identifying information to Apple.[28] An iPhone user with UWB can track an AirTag to within centimeters of its location, while users of older iPhones can use Bluetooth to get a more approximate idea of where their AirTags are.

Unfortunately, tiny AirTags are not only “supereasy” ways to track belongings—they supply an easy way to track people.[29] AirTags’ design and shape make them easy to slip into someone’s pocket or bag. To prove the point, one journalist was tracked around San Francisco using an AirTag with “remarkable precision” by his colleagues.[30] As of August 2021, Apple has provided two inadequate fixes in response to stalking concerns. If an iPhone detects an AirTag nearby that is not connected to that phone, it provides a pop-up notification.[31] Android users (half of Americans[32]), older iPhone users (pre-iOS 14.5), and one in five Americans without a smartphone[33] are out of luck. These individuals may hear the seconds-long “beep” that AirTags now broadcast eight to fifteen hours after being separated from their owners.[34] Or they may not—the beep has been compared in volume to casual conversation and a dishwasher.[35]

This is a woefully inadequate response to the common threat of stalking. A 2015 report by the CDC indicates that about one in six women in the U.S. (over 19 million women) and 6.4 million men have been victims of stalking in their lives: they have “felt very fearful or believed that [they] or someone close to [them] would be harmed or killed.”[36] One in ten American women and one in fifty men report stalking by an intimate partner, figures that are regarded as understatements.[37] What’s more, these intimate partners are the very people who are frequently near their victims, “reset[ting] the clock” that would cause an AirTag’s warning beep to sound eight to fifteen hours after being separated from its owner.[38]

Apple should know better. The copious literature on tech-enabled abuse unequivocally shows that digital technologies aid spying and that abusers use phones, computers, email and social media accounts to track their victims’ locations and their activities.[39] UWB beacons make location-tracking devastatingly simpler and easier. With appropriate safeguards developed in conjunction with tech abuse experts and tech abuse survivors, AirTags could be a less dangerous location-tracking technology—but an innocent, “supereasy way to track your stuff” they are not.

IV.          Privacy Concerns: Location Data on the Loose

Tile, a 1-inch button or 1.5-inch square UWB beacon, shares AirTag’s potential for enabling stalking.[40] It also highlights another serious concern with UWB beacons: they broadcast potentially sensitive location data to every compatible device nearby, however insecure a device and its associated network is. Apple AirTags connect with nearby Apple devices. Tiles have the run of Amazon’s Sidewalk network: Amazon partnered with Tile in May 2021,[41] and Tiles now connect to any device on Amazon’s new “low-bandwidth wireless network,” which grabs a bit of Wi-Fi from every recent-generation Ring Security Cam, Ring Floodlight or Spotlight Cam, and Amazon Echo whose owner has not actively opted out of the Sidewalk network.[42] Amazon designed Sidewalk to support Tile tracking and to extend wireless connectivity to devices in areas where a homeowner’s Wi-Fi doesn’t reach—say, a finicky Ring Floodlight too far away from a homeowner’s Wi-Fi to maintain a steady connection. But when Tiles and other Sidewalk-compatible devices connect to the Sidewalk network, they link to unknown series of devices belonging to an unknown series of owners, sharing data with those devices over their owners’ networks. Amazon assures consumers that their data will be encrypted.[43] But a Tile owner can’t identify, much less control the security settings on the unknown devices and networks through which their personal data flows.[44]

Thus, thanks to Sidewalk, hackers need not hack a Tile to reveal a user’s location, though Tiles have been hacked.[45] Instead, they can access insecure devices on the Sidewalk network. Each link of the network is a possible attack point for malevolent actors. Hackers might also target Sidewalk-connected devices at sensitive locations to reveal exploitable location data: who visited a place of worship, a protest, a rehabilitation center, a court, and so on.

Worse yet, Sidewalk can’t be trusted with Tile users’ location data. Its parent company Amazon has repeatedly failed to secure the Bridge devices that are the backbone of the Sidewalk network. In 2019, hackers broke into Amazon Ring devices and used the devices to scare children,[46] leading to a class action lawsuit.[47] The suit claims that Amazon failed to keep its security measures up-to-date and highlights a previous leak of Ring data.[48] Amazon Echo devices are similarly insecure. Echo devices listen for users’ commands to Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant. But in 2017, Amazon’s poor security measures gave hackers access to Echo users’ voices: hackers could ask Alexa, in the user’s voice, for access to the user’s bank account or other personal data.[49] Amazon fixed the problem, but the same problem reemerged in 2020, when researchers again found that hackers could again access Echo users’ voices to give Alexa commands.[50] The Sidewalk network funnels Tile users’ location data through these perpetually insecure devices.

Tile users may not want to trust Amazon with their security data, either, given the company’s significant commercial uses for Tile users’ location data. Sidewalk can track a device across its network as it “seamlessly connects to and disconnects from all the various Sidewalk devices in your neighborhood, town, or city.”[51] The FiRa consortium already envisions targeted marketing using UWB devices.[52] What better tracker of an individual’s habits and preferences than their own UWB beacon? Sidewalk has aptly been described as a “monumental step in surveillance capitalism.”[53]

Meanwhile, AirTag maker Apple has made a show of its efforts to secure Apple users’ data, but that’s not the entire story: Airtags expose users to similar risks. AirTag location data—and all location data associated with the “FindMy” app—is stored on Apple’s iCloud cloud server.[54] Apple controversially retains the encryption keys for the iCloud server, something that it does not do for iPhones.[55] This means that Apple can and legally must yield AirTag location data to law enforcement or other government agencies with a warrant. And in August 2021, Apple opened a backdoor to iCloud data when it announced that it would scan iCloud-bound photos for child sexual abuse material.[56] While Apple insists that it will not scan for other materials, a coalition of 90 civil rights groups including S.T.O.P. vigorously protest Apple’s backdoor to user data, which lays “the foundation for censorship, surveillance and persecution on a global basis.”[57] Apple employees themselves protested Apple’s move, arguing that it enables governments to pressure Apple to hand over other content they deem objectionable.[58] Apple has already shared its Chinese users’ data with the Chinese government using an intermediary.[59] In the hands of a repressive state or a government agency bent on surveillance, AirTags’ location data could be used to target people who have visited a mosque, a meeting, the scene of a reported crime, or any other location of interest.

V.             No Incentive to do Better: Big Tech Monopolies

Competitors could do better than Apple and Amazon to secure beacon-generated location data and, more broadly speaking, to protect device users’ privacy. Competitors could do better to stop UWB beacons from enabling stalking. But competitors cannot compete on terms of equality with Apple and Amazon.

Like other Big Tech companies, Apple and Amazon systematically eliminate competition by creating platforms that disadvantage competitors. Apple limits third-party software on its platform and copies the most popular third-party apps in its app store.[60] Amazon undersells its retail competitors.[61] In 2020, U.S. Congressional Democrats issued a report filling in the sordid details.[62] Apple wields “its control of iOS [its operating platform] and the App Store to create and enforce barriers to competition and discriminate against and exclude rivals while preferencing its own offerings.”[63] Amazon uses fees and penalties to control third-party sellers on its platform, studies these sellers to boost its sales (a practice sellers cannot reciprocate) and prioritizes its own products in its search results.[64]

And these practices extend to the UWB beacon arena, where Apple and Amazon have taken steps to quash competition. When Tile executives testified before Congress in January 2020 (before the small company teamed with Amazon), they described Apple’s efforts to make Tiles unwieldy for Apple users to use and to make Apple’s new Find My app easier to use. As documented in the Congressional report, Apple “harmed Tile’s service and user experience… made it more difficult for Tile customers to set up the service… [introduced] confusing steps to grant Tile permission to track the phone’s location.”[65] These efforts appear to have worked: Tile reported “significant decreases in [iPhone] users and a steep drop-off in users enabling the proper settings on iOS devices” due to these changes.[66] Until recently, Apple also denied competitors including Tile access to its UWB network, limiting its market rivals to Bluetooth-based finding on iOS devices and making the AirTag more accurate in a way that rivals were structurally prevented from matching.[67] Apple took first steps to open its U1 UWB network to third-party developers in June 2021, but did so on its own strict terms,[68] extending third-party developers’ dependence on Apple to offer products to iPhone users.

Amazon engages in similar anti-competitive behavior through Sidewalk. Amazon plans to add products and functionalities to Sidewalk, its platform-like network. Right now, it can “help simplify new device setup, extend the low-bandwidth working range of devices, and help devices stay online even if they are outside the range of their home Wi-Fi.”[69] But Amazon promises future uses for Sidewalk from “help[ing] find pets or valuables, to smart security and lighting, to diagnostics for appliances and tools” and more.[70] Tile joined Sidewalk as the first third-party device on the network,[71] and Amazon has taken steps to eventually allow other third-party developers to introduce Sidewalk-connected devices.[72] Commentators believe it is likely that Amazon will offer a certification process for third-party developers that will require conformity to Amazon’s standards or fees for certification.[73] That certification process could keep competitors off Amazon’s UWB network or create obstacles to competitors that Amazon’s products would not face, akin to Apple’s anti-competitive behavior toward third-party developers. In the same vein, Amazon could certify a competitor’s new device to its Sidewalk network and then produce its own copycat competitor. A competitor could never match the compatibility and functionality of Amazon-made devices, and as such competitors’ devices would always be inferior to Amazon’s own.

Remedy via Anti-Trust Law

Though Apple and Amazon go to great lengths to strangle rival businesses, their anti-competitive practices pass through the sieve of U.S. anti-trust law as it is traditionally enforced. Core anti-trust legislation in the United States—the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, and the Federal Trade Commission Act—does not focus on the competitive processes that allow a firm to become a monopoly, but on “consumer welfare”: that is, whether consumers are directly harmed by higher prices.[74] Platform companies like Apple and Amazon can, in the short to medium run, actually provide consumers with greater “welfare” by keeping prices artificially low, knowing that the practice will establish their monopoly over their market in the very long run.

Court rulings raising the showing for standing in monopoly cases have also made it difficult to bring suit against Big Tech companies under traditional anti-trust laws. For example, for a company to be guilty of “monopoly leveraging,” or using their monopoly position in one market (e.g., online retail) to privilege their position in another (e.g., delivery services), they must “actually monopolize” that market. Under such an understanding, Amazon’s leveraging of its massive retail operation to privilege its in-house logistics and delivery services is not “actually monopolizing” because UPS, FedEx, and other delivery services compete vigorously with Amazon for delivery business.[75] Courts have also raised the standards of proof for bringing anti-competition claims in court. The “recoupment” requirement requires a showing that initial losses due to alleged monopolists’ predatory, below-cost pricing were made up through later sales[76]—a practice that a Big Tech company playing a very long game can avoid showing. Such rulings have made it harder to pursue anti-trust suits against both and Big Tech platforms and traditional companies.

U.S. anti-trust law did not anticipate that companies might rationally pursue scale without regard to returns on any reasonable timeline. However, scholarship in the last decade offers promising alternatives to regulating companies like Apple and Amazon. In 2017, now Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Lina Khan published Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox documenting how platforms manipulate markets to shut down competition. Khan used Amazon to illustrate how platform power represents a different form of monopoly—the “network effect”—that does not fit current models of anti-trust law. The network effect describes the phenomenon whereby a platform—Amazon, Facebook, or another Big Tech platform—becomes more useful the more users it has.[77] This makes battles over platform share “winner-take-all.” Once the first mover (or other winning platform) achieves the largest market share, it uses its network effect and the vast amount of data that comes with it to entrench itself and further drive out rivals.[78] Network effect dominance makes it extremely difficult for rival firms to enter into the market. It is so desirable that platform companies are willing to forgo short-term profits and operate at a loss for periods of years longer than envisioned by existing anti-competition recoupment doctrine, which supposes that a firm engaging in predatory pricing will make up its losses with profits derived from ‘starving out’ competition and capturing the market in perpetuity.[79]

The network effect cements Big Tech platforms’ “gatekeeper power”: as Khan describes it, their position as “infrastructure for digital markets… distribution channels… arteries of commerce”—in short, “technologies that other firms rely on to do business in the online economy.”[80] The network effect ensures that gatekeeper companies “generate too much business and attract too many eyeballs” for sellers to effectively market their wares without going through the gatekeeper platform.[81] In the UWB case at hand: Tile can’t reach enough Apple users without selling through Apple’s App store.

Khan has also written how legal doctrines that might have been used to conform platforms have been reduced to irrelevance. In The Separation of Platforms and Commerce Khan notes that “[a]s of 2004, the essential facilities doctrine [the doctrine by which it is determined if a monopolist is considered to own a facility essential to other competitors] lives in near extinction.”[82] That year, in Verizon Communications v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP., the Court ruled on whether a customer of a local phone monopolist could bring an antitrust class action challenging discrimination by a monopolist against a rival. Although the Court’s holding did not involve essential facilities, in dicta the Court all but rejected the viability of the doctrine.[83] Besides the essential facilities doctrine, Khan also notes how this case also effectively eliminated the discriminatory refusal to deal doctrine (a doctrine that determines when refusal to deal helps the monopolist maintain its monopoly or allows them to use monopoly in a market to attempt to monopolize another). She argues there is a need to bring back structural separation to improve system resiliency in the platform ecosystem.[84] A similar argument could be made for UWB. If a single network such as Amazon’s Sidewalk crowds out all other networks, there is a system resiliency problem, where a single platform’s technology alone will account for the majority of the UWB sector’s ecosystem.

Outside of academia, there are several ongoing competition-related lawsuits against platform companies: District of Columbia v. Amazon, FTC v. Facebook, and Epic Games v. Apple.[85] Epic Games v. Apple is most relevant of the three to UWB, given Apple’s deep involvement in the development and implementation of UWB technology and because the case is over platform power, namely Apple’s removal of Epic Games’s Fortnight title from the Apple App Store.[86] Epic claimed that Apple was violating anti-trust law by using its massive market share to force app vendors to not only use the App Store and give Apple a 30% share of all sales, but to also remove users’ ability to make in-app purchases using other platforms inside a given app, also known as an anti-steering policy.[87] As Fortnight offered users an alternative platform to make in-app purchases, Apple responded by removing the game from its App Store for violating the anti-steering policy in its terms.[88]

Finally, the European Commission’s ongoing investigation into anti-trust and competition law with regard to IoT devices adds an international dimension to the development of new anti-trust standards.[89] Though the inquiry is ongoing, the Commission has expressed concern that “[i]n particular, there are indications relating to restrictions of data access and interoperability, as well as certain forms of self-preferencing and practices linked to the use of proprietary standards. Internet of Things ecosystems are often characterized by strong network effects and economies of scale, which might lead to the fast emergence of dominant digital ecosystems and gatekeepers and might present tipping risks.”[90] While the European Commission has no direct bearing on US law, the size of the European market indicates any American platform company which desires to continue operating within the European Union must comply with competition law set by the Commission, as has been the case with previous platform regulation such as the GDPR.[91] The power of the EU to set regulations due to its market size is known as the “Brussels Effect.”

Conclusion

Absent regulatory intervention, UWB is poised to expand the power of incumbent tech giants in numerous ways. In the first instance, the technology will allow firms to expand the power of existing devices to scan our physical lives and track our movements. They will grab even more data in a world where nearly every aspect of our behavior is recorded and monetized. It will also give device owners new tools to track and target those around them, including survivors of stalking and intimate partner violence. And at the same time, the technology will amplify much larger, structural dangers. By creating a new physical layer of internet connectivity controlled by a handful of incumbent monopolists, UWB will further entrench the power of firms that have previously only dreamed of their ultimate anticompetitive tool: controlling the internet itself.

[1] “IEEE 802.15.4z-2020 - IEEE Standard for Low-Rate Wireless Networks--Amendment 1: Enhanced Ultra Wideband (UWB) Physical Layers (PHYs) and Associated Ranging Techniques,” IEEE SA Standards Association, accessed October 1, 2021, https://standards.ieee.org/standard/802_15_4z-2020.html.

[2] See, for example, “What’s the deal with Ultra Wideband?,” BMW, Mar. 11, 2021, https://www.bmw.com/en/innovation/bmw-digital-key-plus-ultra-wideband.html.

[3] “Smart Building and Industrial,” FiRa Consortium, accessed September 17, 2021, https://www.firaconsortium.org/discover/use-cases/smart-building-industrial.

[4] Ciaran Connell, “What’s The Difference Between Measuring Location By UWB, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth?,” Electronic Design, February 6, 2015, https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/communications/article/21800581/whats-the-difference-between-measuring-location-by-uwb-wifi-and-bluetooth

[5] Revision of Part 15 of the Commission’s Rules Regarding Ultra-Wideband Transmission Systems, 67 Fed. Reg. 34,852 (May 16, 2002), https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Orders/2002/fcc02048.pdf

[6] Eric Griffith, “How Do Apple AirTags Work? Ultra-Wideband Explained,” PCMag, April 29, 2021, https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/what-is-ultra-wideband-uwb.

[7] David Burroughs, “Humatics and Siemens to Develop Ultra Wideband Specification for MTA | International Railway Journal,” International Railway Journal, July 28, 2021, https://www.railjournal.com/news/humatics-and-siemens-to-develop-ultra-wideband-specification-for-mta/.

[8] See, for example, Jianli Pan, “Medical Applications of Ultra-WideBand (UWB)” (University of Missouri - St. Louis, January 1, 2007).

[9] Louise Frenzel, “Ultrawideband Wireless: Not-So-New Technology Comes Into Its Own,” Electronic Design, Nov. 10, 2002, https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/communications/article/21771915/ultrawideband-wireless-notsonew-technology-comes-into-its-own.

[10] Frenzel, “Ultrawideband Wireless.”

[11] Lars Huggman and Lars Ericson, “Through-the-Wall Sensors for Law Enforcement: Market Survey” (U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, October 2012), https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/nlectc/240729.pdf.

[12] John W. McCorkle, “Early Results from the Army Research Laboratory Ultrawide-Bandwidth Foliage Penetration SAR,” in Underground and Obscured Object Imaging and Detection, vol. 1942 (Underground and Obscured Object Imaging and Detection, SPIE, 1993), 88–95, https://doi.org/10.1117/12.160352.

[13] M.A. Ressler, “The Army Research Laboratory Ultra Wideband BoomSAR,” in IGARSS ’96. 1996 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, vol. 3, 1996, 1886–88 vol.3, https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS.1996.516828.

[14] Brian R. Phelan et al., “System Upgrades and Performance Evaluation of the Spectrally Agile, Frequency Incrementing Reconfigurable (SAFIRE) Radar System,” in Radar Sensor Technology XXI, vol. 10188 (Radar Sensor Technology XXI, SPIE, 2017), 397–406, https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2266217.

[15] “Ultra Wideband Availability,” Apple Support, accessed September 17, 2021, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212274.

[16] Mark Stone, “What is ultra-wideband, and how does it work?,” Insights, Jan. 25, 2021, https://insights.samsung.com/2021/01/25/what-is-ultra-wideband-and-how-does-it-work-2/. See also https://www.xda-developers.com/tsamsung-galaxy-note-20-ultra-features-nfc-esim-uwb-tech-single-nxp-chip/

[17] Lucas Mearian, “Ultra Wideband (UWB) Explained (and Why It’s in the IPhone 11),” Computerworld, December 31, 2019, https://www.computerworld.com/article/3490037/ultra-wideband-explained-and-why-its-in-the-iphone-11.html.

[18] Mearian, “Ultra Wideband (UWB) Explained.”

[19] Stephen Shankland, “Apple AirTags use UWB wireless tech. Here's how ultra wideband makes your life easier,” CNET, Apr. 30, 2021, https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-airtags-use-uwb-wireless-tech-heres-how-ultra-wideband-makes-your-life-easier/.

[19] Mark Stone, “What is ultra-wideband, and how does it work?,” Insights, Jan. 25, 2021, https://insights.samsung.com/2021/01/25/what-is-ultra-wideband-and-how-does-it-work-2/.

[20] “Our Members,” FiRa, last accessed Aug. 2, 2021, https://www.firaconsortium.org/about/members.

[21] “Smart Cities and Mobility,” FiRa Consortium, accessed September 17, 2021, https://www.firaconsortium.org/discover/use-cases/smart-cities-mobility.

[22] “Smart Building and Industrial,” FiRa Consortium.

[23] “Smart Retail,” FiRa Consortium, accessed September 17, 2021, https://www.firaconsortium.org/discover/use-cases/smart-retail.

[24] “Smart Home and Consumer,” FiRa Consortium, accessed September 17, 2021, https://www.firaconsortium.org/discover/use-cases/smart-home-consumer.

[25] “UWB Alliance and FiRa Consortium Announce a Formal Liaison to Accelerate the Development and Adoption of UWB Technology,” FiRa, Jun. 30, 2020, https://www.firaconsortium.org/news/press-releases/2020/06/uwb-alliance-and-fira-consortium-announce-a-formal-liaison-to-accelerate-the-development-and-adoption-of-uwb-technology.

[26] “AirTag: Lose Your Knack For Losing Things,” Apple, last accessed Aug. 2, 2021, https://www.apple.com/airtag/?afid=p238%7CsMrC1zQon-dc_mtid_1870765e38482_pcrid_518234306117_pgrid_120928559493_&cid=aos-us-kwgo-btb--slid---product-

[27] “AirTag: Lose Your Knack.”

[28] Paul Haskell-Dowland, “How Apple’s AirTag turns us into unwitting spies in a vast surveillance network,” The Guardian, May 16. 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/may/17/how-apples-airtag-turns-us-into-unwitting-spies-in-a-vast-surveillance-network.

[29] “Apple updates AirTags after stalking fears,” BBC, Jun. 4, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57351554.

[30] Geoffrey Fowler, “Apple’s AirTag trackers made it frighteningly easy to ‘stalk’ me in a test,” Washington Post, May 5, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/05/apple-airtags-stalking/.

[31] Michael Grothaus, “How Apple designed AirTags to be privacy-first and stalker-proof,” Fast Company, Apr. 22, 2021, https://www.fastcompany.com/90628073/apple-airtag-privacy-security.

[32] Fowler, “Apple’s AirTag trackers.”

[33] “Demographics of Mobile Device Ownership and Adoption in the United States,” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech (blog), April 7, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/.

[34] “Apple Updates AirTags after Stalking Fears,” BBC News, June 4, 2021, sec. Technology, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57351554.

[35] Albert Fox Cahn and Eva Galperin, “Apple’s AirTags Are a Gift to Stalkers,” Wired, May 13, 2021, https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-apples-air-tags-are-a-gift-to-stalkers/.

[36] Sharon Smith et al., “The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2015 Data Brief — Updated Release (2018)” (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 2018).

[37] Smith, “National Sexual Violence Survey.”

[38] Cahn and Galperin, “Airtags Gift to Stalkers.”

[39] “About Us,” CETA Clinic to End Tech Abuse, accessed September 17, 2021, https://www.ceta.tech.cornell.edu/aboutus.

[40] “Find Your Lost Phone, Keys, or Anything with Tile’s Bluetooth Tracker,” accessed September 17, 2021, https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/store/tiles/pro.

[41] Jon Fortt and Fahiemah Al-Ali, “Amazon Partners with Tile to Take on Apple AirTags,” CNBC, May 7, 2021, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/07/amazon-partners-with-tile-to-take-on-apple-airtags.html.

[42] “Welcome to Amazon Sidewalk,” Amazon, last accessed Aug. 2, 2021, https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?ie=UTF8&node=21328123011. See also, Fowler, “Amazon Sharing Your Internet.”

[43] Michael Franco, “What is Amazon Sidewalk, and Should You Disable it?,” How-to-Geek, Jun. 4, 2021, https://www.howtogeek.com/732351/what-is-amazon-sidewalk-and-should-you-disable-it/.

[44] Kevin Shalvey, “As Amazon Prepares Its Sidewalk Launch, Privacy Experts Are Raising Concerns. One Described the Tech Company's Plans as 'Another Monumental Step In Surveillance Capitalism.,'” Insider, Jun. 6, 2021, https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-sidewalk-raises-privacy-concerns-ahead-launch-experts-2021-6.

[45] A security researcher was able to successfully jailbreak the AirTag, highlighting possibilities for malware attacks. See Jim Salter, “Security Researcher Successfully Jailbreaks an Apple AirTag,” arsTechnica, May, 10, 2021, https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/05/security-researcher-successfully-jailbreaks-an-apple-airtag/.

[46] Poppy Noor, “Ring Hackers Are Reportedly Watching and Talking to Strangers Via In-Home Cameras,” The Guardian, Dec. 13, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/dec/13/ring-hackers-reportedly-watching-talking-strangers-in-home-cameras.

[47] Kari Paul, “Dozens Sue Amazon's Ring After Camera Hack Leads to Threats and Racial Slurs,” The Guardian, Dec. 23, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/23/amazon-ring-camera-hack-lawsuit-threats.

[48] Paul, “Dozens Sue Amazon’s Ring.”

[49] Tom Wiggins, “The Weird Ways Your Amazon Echo Can Be Hacked - and How to Stop Them,” The Ambient, August 23, 2021, https://www.the-ambient.com/features/weird-ways-echo-can-be-hacked-how-to-stop-it-231.

[50] Dikla Barda, Roman Zaikin, and Shriki Shriki, “Alexa Hacked” (Check Point Research, August 13, 2020), https://research.checkpoint.com/2020/amazons-alexa-hacked/.

[51] Jon Chase, “Amazon Sidewalk Will Share Your Internet With Strangers. It’s Not As Scary As It Sounds.,” WireCutter, Jun. 7, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/amazon-sidewalk-review/.

[52] “Smart Retail,” FiRa Consortium.

[53] Shalvey, “Amazon Prepares Sidewalk Launch.”

[54] Albert Fox Cahn and Evan Selinger, “Apple’s Privacy Mythology Doesn’t Match Reality,” Wired, accessed September 17, 2021, https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-apples-privacy-mythology-doesnt-match-reality/.

[55] Cahn and Selinger, “Apple’s Privacy Mythology.”

[56] “Child Safety,” Apple, accessed September 17, 2021, https://www.apple.com/child-safety/.

[57] “CDT Coalition Letter to Apple,” August 19, 2021, https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/CDT-Coalition-ltr-to-Apple-19-August-2021.pdf.

[58] Joseph Menn and Julia Love, “Apple’s Child Protection Features Spark Concern within Its Own Ranks,” Reuters, August 13, 2021, sec. Technology, https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-apples-child-protection-features-spark-concern-within-its-own-ranks-2021-08-12/.

[59] Greg Bensinger, “Opinion | Apple’s Illusion of Privacy Is Getting Harder to Sell,” The New York Times, August 19, 2021, sec. Opinion, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/opinion/apple-iphone-privacy.html.

[60] Reed Albergotti, “How Apple Uses Its App Store to Copy the Best Ideas,” Washington Post, September 5, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/05/how-apple-uses-its-app-store-copy-best-ideas/.

[61] Walter Loeb, “Amazon’s Pricing Strategy Makes Life Miserable For The Competition,” Forbes, November 20, 2014, https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2014/11/20/amazons-pricing-strategy-makes-life-miserable-for-the-competition/.

[62] “Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Investigation Reveals Digital Economy Highly Concentrated, Impacted By Monopoly Power” (U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, October 6, 2020), https://judiciary.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=3429.

[63] Majority Staff of H. Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, 116th Cong., Rep. on Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets, Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets: Majority Staff Report and Recommendations (2020).

[64] Shirin Ghaffary and Del Rey, “The Big Tech Antitrust Report Has One Big Conclusion: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Are Anti-Competitive,” Vox, October 6, 2020, https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/10/6/21505027/congress-big-tech-antitrust-report-facebook-google-amazon-apple-mark-zuckerberg-jeff-bezos-tim-cook.

[65] Majority Staff, “Investigation of Competition.”

[66] Majority Staff, “Investigation of Competition.”

[67] Reed Albergotti, “With AirTags, Apple Launches a New Product — and Invites Antitrust Scrutiny,” Washington Post, April 20, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/04/20/apple-airtags-tile-antitrust-competition/.

[68] Mike Peterson, “Apple Shares Nearby Interactions Resources for Third-Party U1 Chip Integration,” AppleInsider, June 8, 2021, https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/08/apple-shares-nearby-interactions-resources-for-third-party-u1-chip-integration.

[69]“Welcome to Amazon Sidewalk.”

[70] “Welcome to Amazon Sidewalk.”

[71] Zahra, “Tile Joins Amazon Sidewalk to Make It Easier to Find Your Things,” September 20, 2020, https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/blog/announcing-tile-joins-amazon-sidewalk-network.

[72] Enrique Dans, “Joining up the Dots: Amazon Sidewalk,” Medium, June 6, 2021, https://medium.com/enrique-dans/joining-up-the-dots-amazon-sidewalk-b9a1d2a10531.

[73] Kyle Wiggers, “Amazon Sidewalk’s Success is Anything But Assured,” VentureBeat, Sept. 26, 2019, https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/26/amazon-sidewalks-success-is-anything-but-assured/.

[74] Majority Staff, “Investigation of Competition.”

[75] Majority Staff, “Investigation of Competition.”

[76] Majority Staff, “Investigation of Competition.”

[77] Lina M. Khan, Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox, 126 Yale L.J. 564 (2017).

[78] Khan, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.”

[79] Khan, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.”

[80] Lina M. Khan, Sources of Tech Platform Power, 2 GEO. L. TECH. REV. 325 (2018).

[81] Khan, “Sources Tech Platform Power.”

[82] Lina M. Khan, The Separation of Platforms and Commerce, 119 Colum. L. Rev. 973 (2019).

[83] Lina M. Khan, “Separation Platforms and Commerce.”

[84] Lina M. Khan, “Separation Platforms and Commerce.”

[85] See FTC v. Facebook, No. 1:20-cv-03590 (D.D.C. Jan. 13, 2021); Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc., 493 F. Supp. 3d 817 (N.D. Cal. 2020); District of Columbia v. Amazon (D.C. Super. Ct. 2021)( https://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/Amazon-Complaint-.pdf ).

[86] Epic Games, 493 F. Supp 3d.

[87] Epic Games, 493 F. Supp 3d.

[88] Epic Games, 493 F. Supp 3d.

[89] European Commission Press Release IP/20/1326, Antitrust: Commission launches sector inquiry into the consumer Internet of Things (IoT) (July 16, 2020).

[90] European Commission Press Release.

[91] Dentons, European antitrust inquiry into the Internet of Things: A new digital battleground?, Dentons(July 28, 2020),https://www.dentons.com/en/insights/alerts/2020/july/28/european-antitrust-inquiry-into-the-internet-of-things.