Florida’s social media law violates the First Amendment despite the state’s common-carrier arguments, groups argued Monday in supporting the tech industry’s lawsuit (see 2109220064) in case 21-12355 in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. SB-7072 makes it unlawful for sites to deplatform political candidates and requires sites be transparent about policing, unless the site owns a Florida theme park. Groups filing in support of the Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice included tech and telecom interests, consumer advocates, publishers and media representatives. Filers included CTA, Engine, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, Chamber of Progress, TechNet, American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Democracy & Technology, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Cato Institute, TechFreedom and Authors Guild. The law is “a direct threat to healthy and safe online communities by restricting and penalizing online providers’ efforts to exercise their First Amendment rights to moderate content on their private platforms,” CTA argued with 10 other groups, including ITIF, TechNet and the Progressive Policy Institute. The law would open the door to “direct content regulation,” in service of government policing bias, “on the platforms that millions of Americans now use to get their news,” publisher and news associations wrote. The First Amendment “protects the exercise of editorial discretion, including by speakers that host others’ speech,” said CDT. Slapping the label “common carrier” on something doesn’t make it a reality, said TechFreedom: “Even if it did, common carriers retain their First Amendment rights, and they have much broader discretion to refuse service than SB 7072 allows for.”

Tech companies opposed AT&T’s pursuit from the Office and Engineering Technology of a knowledge database document identifying parameters automated frequency coordination system operators must use within the propagation models required by the FCC. The 6 GHz order didn't "delegate to OET authority to adopt ex ante the AFC system parameters AT&T discusses,” said Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Qualcomm in docket 18-295: “Rather, it expressly left such implementation details to industry. AT&T’s assertion that Commission action is needed now, before the November 30, 2021 submission date for AFC system operator proposals, is doubly wrong. AFC system operator proposals do not depend on the parameters AT&T highlights. These parameters will become relevant at a later stage.”

Privacy groups urged Massachusetts legislators to dismiss industry concerns about a possible state privacy law. In response to industry warning about high compliance costs at a hearing last month (see 2110130060), AccessNow, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union Massachusetts and other bill supporters wrote Wednesday to the Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity. The measure applies to “large-scale, for-profit corporations,” they said. The law would contain several exceptions and fines would be scaled by company size, they added. Voluntary commitments to privacy are insufficient, the consumer privacy groups said. Don’t wait for federal law, which doesn’t seem likely anyhow, they said. “Any potential future federal law should be the floor and not the ceiling of privacy legislation ... The U.S. is a vast country with many significant variations in state-level consumer protection laws, and companies can and do comply.”

Maryland’s digital ad revenue tax is unconstitutional and will be a costly burden to small businesses, the Association of National Advertisers said in comments in response to the state’s proposal to adopt new regulations (see 2110140032). The Office of the Comptroller of Maryland is providing guidance for the state's digital advertising gross revenue tax. The American Advertising Federation, Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance, the Motion Picture Association and Maryland Retailers Association signed. The tax violates the Internet Tax Freedom Act, the commerce and due process clauses and the First Amendment, the groups said.

Amazon is teaming with Weber to crack down on the “unlawful and expressly prohibited sale” of fake grill covers that “illegally bear” the Weber trademark, said a complaint Tuesday (in Pacer, 2:21-cv-01512) in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Amazon spent more than $700 million and hired more than 10,000 employees last year alone “to protect its store from fraud and abuse,” stopping more than 6 million “suspected bad-actor selling accounts before they published a single listing for sale,” and blocking more than 10 billion “suspected bad listings before they were published,” it said. At least 11 of the accused third-party sellers are based in China, said the complaint. Another “falsely represented its location as Pompano Beach, Florida, and has deliberately registered additional false information with Amazon as part of a scheme to mislead” the company, it said. Amazon supports “expanded government authority” for federal agencies to share “pre-seizure enforcement information with the private sector” to help reverse the explosive growth in e-commerce trafficking of counterfeit goods, the company’s public policy point person told a Center for Data Innovation webinar last month (see 2110140054). A National Defense Authorization Act amendment introduced Thursday in the Senate would require online marketplaces like Amazon to verify third-party sellers in an effort to combat the sale of fake and stolen goods (see 2111040070).

A 22-year-old Ukrainian national was arrested and charged with the ransomware attack on Kaseya (see 2109210055), DOJ announced Monday. Authorities seized $6.1 million linked to alleged ransomware attackers, the department said. An indictment unsealed Monday charged Yaroslav Vasinskyi with “conducting ransomware attacks against multiple victims, including the July 2021 attack against Kaseya.” Officials traced the alleged payments to Yevgeniy Polyanin, a 28-year-old Russian national, who was “charged with conducting Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware attacks against multiple victims” in Texas in 2019, DOJ said. The department credited Ukrainian authorities for assisting with the efforts.

An investor group of six venture capitalists will buy McAfee for more than $14 billion and take it private, said the cybersecurity vendor Monday. The $26 a share purchase price is a 22.6% premium over McAfee’s $21.21 closing share price Thursday, the last trading day before media reports surfaced about a potential sale, it said. McAfee went public last year as a pure-play consumer cybersecurity company, with Intel and TPG among its key shareholders. The McAfee board approved the transaction, which is expected to close in 2022's first half. McAfee canceled its Tuesday Q3 earnings call. Revenue in the quarter ended Sept. 25 grew 24% to $491 million, said McAfee.

Bosch representatives spoke with staff in the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology about possible conditions on a waiver the company seeks of FCC ultra-wideband rules for its Wallscanner D-Tect 200 wall imaging system (see 2008200030). “Bosch reviewed the procedural history of the waiver request, including prior meetings with both the Commission” and the NTIA, said a filing posted Friday in docket 20-268: “In response to questions from OET staff, the Bosch representatives described the technical and operating parameters and the use cases.”

Mobile device and wearables are having a “massive uptake” of ultra-wideband technology, said ABI Research Thursday, forecasting UWB shipments of 1.3 billion by 2026, from 143 million last year. Apple was one of the first to adopt UWB in the iPhone 11 and Watch 6, and it's now in products from Samsung, Xiaomi and Honor, with “many more” vendors set to follow, said analyst Filomena Iovino. ABI forecasts 14% of smartphones will have UWB by year-end, expanding to 40% by 2026: Challenges include the large antenna.

The Bureau of Industry and Security will add four companies in Israel, Russia and Singapore to the entity list for "malicious cyber activities" contrary to U.S. foreign policy and national security, BIS said; see also a State Department announcement. The two Israeli companies that include NSO Group supply malicious spyware to foreign governments, and the companies in Russia and Singapore “traffic in cyber exploits” that threaten the “privacy and security of individuals and organizations worldwide.” BIS' parent agency the Commerce Department said these additions -- which take effect Thursday, when they're to be published in the Federal Register -- reflect a government-wide effort to "stem the proliferation of digital tools used for repression." Adding NSO and others is "long overdue," Access Now said. It said the EU and other governments "should implement similar restrictions on surveillance tech companies who facilitate human rights violations. The privacy advocacy group wants the U.S. government to sanction owners and affiliates of NSO Group and Candiru, another company that's being added to the BIS list. NSO "is dismayed by" BIS' decision because "our technologies support US national security interests and policies by preventing terrorism and crime," emailed a company spokesperson. "We will advocate for this decision to be reversed.”