Online advertising company Adzerk is the latest company to agree to comply with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's new “Do Not Track” standard for Web browsing (see 1508100071), an EFF news release said Wednesday. Adzerk serves billions of ad impressions per month for customers including BitTorrent, reddit and Stack Overflow, EFF said. The company’s participation in the EFF DNT program significantly strengthens the coalition of companies using the policy standard to better protect people from sites that try to secretly follow and record users’ Internet activity, it said.

Apple removed two apps from the iTunes store that tracked drone strikes, app creator Josh Begley reported on Twitter. Begley was first notified that his app Metadata+, which launched in early 2014 and used data from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism to report targeted killings by U.S. drones, was removed on Sunday because it contains “excessively crude or objectionable content.” Begley shared the news on the Twitter account @Dronestream, which performs the same role as the app. Begley’s other app Ephemeral+, which records drone strikes, was removed from the app store on Wednesday for the same reason as Metadata+. Apple didn’t comment.

Advocacy groups and tech companies have partnered to create a petition on WhiteHouse.gov encouraging the Obama administration to affirm its support publicly for strong encryption and to reject any law, policy or mandate that undermines an individual’s security. “Weakening encryption weakens the entire Internet,” it says. The American Civil Liberties Union, Computer & Communications Industry Association, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Open Technology Institute, Tech Freedom and Twitter are among those backing the petition. At our deadline, more than 6,516 individuals had signed the petition in its first two days. For the White House to respond, 100,000 signatures are needed. The group is hoping to make this the most popular WhiteHouse.gov petition and is asking for at least 370,000 signatures.

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden joined Twitter Tuesday. Snowden’s Twitter bio says he “used to work for the government,” but now "I work for the public.” Snowden was following only one account on Twitter -- the NSA’s account, and he had 605,000 followers at our deadline.

Chinese ISP Baidu certified Pioneer China as the first contract developer and manufacturer of on-board equipment supporting the Baidu CarLife telematics service in China, Pioneer said in a Tuesday announcement. Pioneer will start shipping the “on-board equipment” needed for the service to car manufacturers in China in November, the company said. “Today in China, with the rapid spread of smartphones, it is possible to establish a constant connection to the Internet, and a boost in the telematics service in the car to connect to the network is expected,” it said. “Our on-board equipment to start shipping this autumn is able to provide an easy-to-use, high quality service” for Baidu CarLife, using “the hardware technology and know-how of Pioneer’s Car OEM business,” Pioneer said. “Pioneer will investigate further cooperation with Baidu in a variety of sectors, including the connected vehicles and automated driving society of the future to combine the hardware technology of Pioneer and the abundant content and applications of Baidu.”

The ICANN community should consider requiring registrants to input WHOIS registration data only in the languages and scripts they are skilled at, and require that data elements be tagged with languages and scripts in use, the Expert Working Group on Internationalized Registration Data (IRD) said Friday in a report. ICANN had asked the IRD working group to determine submission and display requirements for IRD and to produce an IRD data model that would match those requirements. Internationalizing registration data should focus on the capabilities of the data-submitting user and use of existing standards, and should be able to be easily extended to “tailor to the evolution of data elements displayed by directory services for various TLD registries and registrars,” the IRD working group said. ICANN should now ask the Generic Names Supporting Organization to follow up on the IRD report, the working group said.

The FTC sued the marketers of a line of weight-loss supplements who threatened to enforce “gag clause” provisions against consumers who posted negative reviews and testimonials online, citing a violation of the terms and conditions, an FTC news release said Monday. In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida last week, the FTC alleged Roca Labs, Roca Labs Nutraceutical USA and their principals caused harm to consumers by “unfairly barring purchasers from sharing truthful negative comments about the defendants and their products,” as well as for deceptive advertising practices, the release said. The defendants would pay 50 percent of the product's price for those who posted positive reviews and threatened those who posted negative reviews that they would have to pay full price -- hundreds of dollars more than advertised -- if they violated the gag clause provisions, it said. The vote to issue the complaint was unanimous. Roca Labs agreed last week to a temporary restraining order regarding its deceptive marketing practices and gag clause. Its website is temporarily down, and the company’s Facebook page is no longer available. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, applauded the FTC’s action. “Consumers should have the right to share their experiences and honest opinions of any business,” he said in a statement Monday. Attempts by companies to suppress that right through non-disparagement clauses and threats of litigation are unfair, Schatz said. The action "sends a strong signal to business owners that tactics to intimidate consumers will not go unchallenged,” he said. Earlier this year, Schatz introduced the Consumer Review Freedom Act (S-2044), with Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., which protects consumers from unfair non-disparagement clauses that are appearing in a growing number of non-negotiable form contracts.

The U.S. Mission to the European Union issued a statement criticizing the European Commission’s Advocate General’s recent opinion in Maximillian Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner (see 1509230001) Monday, citing “numerous inaccurate assertions about intelligence practices of the United States.” The U.S. “does not and has not engaged in indiscriminate surveillance of anyone, including ordinary European citizens,” the statement said. The Prism program (Planning Tool for Resource Integration, Synchronization and Management) discussed in the opinion is “targeted against particular valid foreign intelligence targets, is duly authorized by law, and strictly complies with a number of publicly disclosed controls and limitations,” it said. The opinion fails to take into account that President Barack Obama “has taken unprecedented steps to enhance transparency and public accountability regarding U.S. intelligence practices, and to strengthen policies to ensure that all persons are treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their nationality or place of residence,” it said. The Safe Harbor Framework is a living document that can be improved, it said. The Advocate General’s reasoning in his opinion “undercuts the abilities of other countries, businesses and citizens to rely upon negotiated agreements with the European Commission,” it said. Citing the importance of privacy and trade benefits, the U.S. Mission said it would work closely with the European Commission to improve the Safe Harbor Framework and asked the European Court of Justice to note the inaccuracies in the opinion and consider the “significant harm” that would occur if the free flow of information would end. The Electronic Privacy Information Center released a statement Monday siding with the opinion, saying the U.S. engages in routine and mass surveillance of persons outside the U.S., including ordinary European citizens. The routine collection of Internet activity gathered by Internet companies and shared with U.S. intelligence agencies has continued despite “extensive public opposition,” EPIC said. Congress ended the bulk collection of domestic telephone records by passing the USA Freedom Act, but failed to reform foreign intelligence collection under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or surveillance authorized by Executive Order 12333, EPIC said.

China and the U.S. reached a “common understanding” that neither nation will “conduct or knowingly support cybertheft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information for commercial advantage,” President Barack Obama said Friday during a news conference. Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Washington for a state visit, told reporters that China and the U.S. will “step up crime cases, investigation assistance and information sharing” on cyber issues. China has been under fire for engaging in cyberespionage against the U.S. but has denied engaging in attacks like the recent Office of Personnel Management data breach. Obama said during the news conference that he has raised the U.S.'s “very serious concerns” about cyberespionage and “indicated that it has to stop.” China and the U.S. will “explore the formulation of appropriate state behavior norms of cyberspace,” Xi said. There’s "a difference between an agreement on paper and having the Chinese government, including the People’s Liberation Army, actually stop conducting and supporting cyber attacks on U.S. companies," said Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in a statement. Senate Intelligence "will be paying very close attention to how faithfully this agreement is implemented." The Information Technology Industry Council praised the China-U.S. agreement. The agreement “finally starts a sustained dialogue where there was very little communication," ITI President Dean Garfield said in a statement. "It illustrates a spirit of cooperation on a sensitive issue, which is a positive signal to technology companies.”

Sixty-two percent of U.S. consumers and 77 percent of millennials go online via computer or mobile device to research tech accessories before deciding which to buy, said a CEA retail accessories report. Despite the online research, fewer consumers -- 30 percent via computer and 7 percent on mobile devices -- are making their final purchases online, said CEA. Consumers' top reasons for shopping online via a computer or mobile device are price, convenience and ease of browsing, but only 7 percent use "click to purchase" via mobile, it said. “Consumers want to ask questions and get demonstrations during the purchasing process," said Steve Koenig, CEA senior director, market research. Online retailers and manufacturers need to look for "innovative ways to accommodate this dynamic,” said Koenig. Features including live chats, short video demos or online tutorials can help retailers increase the likelihood of winning the sale, he said. Revenue for the accessory category (excluding headphones) will reach roughly $9.6 billion this year, up 4 percent from last year, said CEA. Unit and revenue growth for smartphone cases, chargers and portable chargers are expected to see double-digit growth in 2015, it said. Accessories make up 5 percent of consumer tech industry revenue, said CEA.