Global government requests to Facebook for user account data rose to 46,763 during the second half of 2015, up from 41,214 requests in the first half of last year, Chris Sonderby, the company deputy general counsel, said in a Thursday news release. He said that the number of items restricted for violating local law rose to 55,827 items during the second half of 2015, up from 20,568 during the first half of last year. "Restricted content in this [second] half is almost entirely due to one photo related to the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris," he said. "The photo was alleged to violate French laws related to protecting human dignity." Access was restricted to more than 32,000 copies of the photo in France alone in response to a legal request from the government there, he added. In the U.S., there were a total of 19,235 government requests -- including court orders, emergency disclosures, search warrants, subpoenas and others -- for 30,041 user accounts during the second half of 2015, Facebook's report said. The social media company had fewer than 500 total national security letter requests for fewer than 500 user accounts during this period -- same as the first-half period. By law, Facebook can provide national security data only in ranges and had to delay releasing data on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requests, the company said in the report. Sonderby wrote that the company doesn't provide "back doors" or direct access to users' data. Facebook reviews each request "for legal sufficiency" and if it "appears to be deficient or overly broad, we push back hard and will fight in court, if necessary," he added.

Google petitioned the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its ruling earlier this month that vacated a 2015 U.S. District Court ruling in Jackson, Mississippi, which granted the company a preliminary injunction against Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood barring him from enforcing his subpoena looking into Google’s search practices. Google argued in its petition (in Pacer), posted online Wednesday, that a rehearing is needed because Hood withdrew his subpoena Friday. Hood, a Democrat, told reporters after the 5th Circuit released its ruling that his office would “re-evaluate” how to proceed with enforcing the subpoena. The 5th Circuit ruled that Judge Henry Wingate’s injunction “covers a fuzzily defined range of enforcement actions that do not appear imminent” (see 1604110058). “The record establishes that Google faces a genuine threat of enforcement action, one that is not imaginary, speculative, or chimerical,” Google said in its petition. Although Hood had withdrawn his original subpoena, Google said he had also reminded the company that it was bound by a “litigation hold” to preserve evidence related to Google’s business practices. “No one can reasonably be expected to brush off a state attorney general’s specific allegations of unlawful conduct and repeated threats of enforcement action,” Google said. “The law does not require Google to either accede to Hood’s demands or call his bluff.” Hood’s office didn’t immediately comment Thursday.

Operators of Gigats.com settled FTC allegations that the company didn't, as it claimed, prescreen job applicants for hiring employers, but instead was generating consumer leads that were sold to educational and other institutions, the commission said Thursday in a news release. Commissioners voted 3-0 for authorizing staff to file the complaint and proposed court order with U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. The proposed order imposes a $90.2 million judgment on defendants Expand -- which also does business as Gigats, Education Match and SoftRock -- and Ayman Difrawi, who is also known as Alec Difrawi and Ayman El-Difrawi. But the judgment will be suspended upon payment of $360,000, unless the agency later discovers the defendants misrepresented their financial condition, the FTC said. The commission's complaint said Gigats collected and summarized online job announcements posted by companies, governments and other employers on the website. But the FTC alleged many of those job openings weren't current and employers hadn't authorized Gigats to collect applications or screen or interview applicants, and Gigats "never sent" the collected information to hiring employers. The FTC alleged that Gigats directed job seekers to enroll in education programs, which paid the defendants for consumer leads. Gigats also had "education advisors" who "falsely claimed to be independent" but recommended only schools and programs that agreed to pay the company typically $22 to $125 for each qualified lead. Gigats is barred from misrepresenting itself and from transferring people's personal information to third parties without disclosure and without revealing its relationship with those parties. The company didn't comment.

Amazon illegally charged parents for in-app purchases made by children without getting parents' informed consent, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, granting a summary judgment to the FTC, which filed a lawsuit against the company in July 2014. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle rejected Amazon's arguments that its customers were familiar with the company's procedures to avoid in-app purchases -- which are charges made inside an app typically downloaded for free -- or they could have pursued refunds. FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez in a statement Tuesday announcing the judgment said that "we look forward to making a case for full refunds to consumers as a result of Amazon's actions." The commission had pursued similar cases against Apple and Google (see 1409050102). The judgment, which was redacted heavily in certain areas, didn't list FTC's calculated consumer damages, which Amazon said were "untimely and/or speculative," but Coughenour asked from both parties information about how much the company owes consumers in relief. He said customers "were never aware that they had made an in-app purchase" given the App Store's design and procedures for in-app purchases. He said it was "unreasonable to expect customers to be familiar with the potential to accrue in-app purchases while using apps labeled as 'FREE.'" Amazon said customers could have avoided charges through parental controls, said the judgment. But Coughenour wrote that Amazon's "stated policy" wasn't to provide refunds for in-app purchases "so many customers would have reasonably believed such recourse was not available to them." The time they spend trying to get a refund also "constitutes additional injury," he said. Amazon started charging customers beginning November 2011 but started receiving numerous complaints from parents, the judgment said. Amazon didn't comment. However, TechFreedom President Berin Szoka said in a statement that "if this decision stands, the web's going to get a lot less user-friendly and a lot more ugly." The decision gives the FTC "sweeping powers as a nanny-state censor of interface design decisions," he said. The court ceded responsibility to check commission discretion, he added.

Congress “must ensure that the U.S. remains in a position to protect the stability and freedom” of the Internet after ICANN completes the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition, said American Enterprise Institute Global Internet Strategy Project National Advisory Board Chairman Mike Daniels, former Network Solutions CEO, Wednesday in The Hill. Congress will have a chance to assess NTIA as it completes its review of ICANN-submitted plans for the IANA transition in June (see 1603110075). Congress can ensure Internet freedom by “making sure that any institution taking over the stewardship of the [Internet's] core functions should be structured to keep the [Internet] decentralized, open and free,” Daniels said. ICANN's current IANA transition plan “leaves unclear who will play the limited but crucial role” that NTIA currently plays in “making sure that any changes to the root-zone domain name file executed by the IANA administrator are in accordance with ICANN policy,” he said. “Ultimate control of the IANA function must never pass to an international organization controlled by governments, whether the United Nations, the International Telecommunications Union, or ICANN recast with governments in control.”

Vivint Smart Home received $100 million in equity backing from Solamere Capital and tech investor/PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, it said Wednesday. Vivint has a customer base of more than a million and annual revenue topping $650 million, it said. The company’s Vivint Sky platform includes integrated smart door locks, a thermostat, cameras, doorbell camera, cloud storage and various sensors, and it integrates with the Nest Learning Thermostat and Amazon Echo, it said. Vivint CEO Todd Pedersen called the investment a “validation” of Vivint’s business and the smart home industry.

Revenue from using app- and Internet-driven shared-space providers such as Airbnb and WeWork is expected to grow globally from about $2.3 billion in 2015 to about $6.1 billion by 2019, Juniper Research said in a news release Tuesday. Those companies via cheaper rates are taking a proportion of reservation and booking fees, Juniper said. The research firm predicted ease of use and financial rewards for registered property owners will result in "a surge in both listings and bookings." Juniper also said app-driven ride sharing company Uber "has struggled to gain a significant foothold in China" due to competition from a dominant taxi service. But Uber is apparently spending $1 billion annually just to expand there, Juniper said.

IHS estimates the global display market for wearables could be worth $3.9 billion in 2020, the research firm said in a Tuesday infographic. It based the estimate on shipments of 150 million smartwatches and 13 million smart glasses, it said.

The announcement Tuesday that Google has joined with Ford, Uber and others to form the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets to promote the deployment of autonomous cars drew a predictably negative reaction from the consumer group that recently accused Google of trying to skirt an "open and accountable process" on driverless cars with an expedited one "that will favor the tech giant's business and marketing plans at the expense of consumers” (see 1604070013). Consumer Watchdog finds it “absolutely outrageous that this group would purport to be for safer streets, when some of its members just aren’t releasing the basic details about their testing activities on public roads,” John Simpson, the group’s privacy project director, told us Tuesday. “That’s very problematic.” He called the coalition “just a lobbying group that’s going to push their self-interests, using a catchy name to try to claim that they’re really for safety,” Simpson said. “They could do some real things to show that they’re really for safety,” such as releasing publicly the “technical data” they have compiled on the safety of driverless cars, he said. On the appointment of David Strickland, the former top official of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as the coalition's counsel and spokesman, Simpson said: “I’m also really troubled by the fact that the guy who’s going to be their spokesman is a former administrator. That’s just an outrageous situation. Business as usual now seems to be the revolving door in Washington.” Coalition representatives didn’t comment. NHTSA Wednesday in California plans to hold the second of two public meetings to gather input for the development of operational guidelines on driverless cars the agency has said it hopes to release this summer (see 1604080037).

The Campaign for Accountability launched the Google Transparency Project aimed at exposing what it called the search company's "undue corporate influence on government," the group said in a Tuesday news release. "Google is the most prominent, yet under-explored case of a deep-pocketed corporation that has forged successful and lucrative bonds with government officials and federal agencies." Researchers are releasing two datasets compiled through public sources -- more are planned -- and the group is encouraging a crowd-sourced review of the documents. One dataset provides information about White House visitor logs to document meetings between employees of Google and "related" companies with executive branch officials. The second dataset lists former Google employees working for the government and former government employees hired by the company. The company didn't comment. A spokesman for the nonprofit group said it doesn't disclose donors.