NTIA scheduled its next multistakeholder meeting on IoT security upgradeability and patching for Sept. 12 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., said a Federal Register Tuesday notice. Participants have been meeting since October to draft guidance on consumer outreach and communications and ways to incentivize companies to make IoT software upgrades (see 1610190051 and 1707180006). The meeting will be at the American Institute of Architects, 1735 New York Ave. NW.

TrustArc's proposed modifications to its safe harbor program under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act rule were approved 2-0, the FTC said in a Monday news release. COPPA bars companies that operate websites and provide online services from "knowingly" collecting personal data from children under 13 unless the companies get parental consent before collecting, using or disclosing such information. The statute also requires them to post comprehensive privacy policies. Under the safe harbor provision, organizations can get their self-regulatory guidelines approved by the FTC if they implement the same or greater protections as those in COPPA. Those organizations still will be subject to commission review and discipline in the safe harbor's guidelines "in lieu of formal FTC investigation and law enforcement," said the release. The agency received six comments in May on the modifications (see 1704190028), which include "a new requirement that participants conduct an annual internal assessment of third-parties’ collection of personal information from children on their websites or online services." TRUSTe changed its name to TrustArc in June.

Tech will consume a bigger share of back-to-school spending, projected at $19.9 billion for this season, said a Thursday CEA report saying 63 percent of Americans have technology on their school shopping lists, up 4 percentage points from last year. Six of the top 10 tech back-to-school shopping list items are accessories, said Steve Koenig, senior director-market research, citing high attachment rates for computing products. Leading tech on school shopping lists are portable memory, calculators, headphones, laptop PCs, software or subscriptions, carrying or protective cases, portable power, wireless mice and keyboards, tablets and smartphones, said CTA. Some 88 percent of back-to-school shoppers plan to buy at a brick-and-mortar mass merchant store, 56 percent at a physical office supply store and 44 percent online, it said. The report was based on June survey findings from 1,007 U.S. adults ages 18 or older.

Test miles of autonomous vehicles plus “quality of the miles" spells “validation,” said General Motors CEO Mary Barra on an earnings call. “To our knowledge, we're the only one testing our autonomous vehicles in downtown San Francisco, which is a pretty dense urban environment with a lot more, I'll say, opportunities to learn from different situations,” said Barra in Q&A Tuesday. “There's quite a bit of work we're doing, even with agencies or groups outside of the company, to put that together.” Under last fall's autonomous-driving report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (see 1609200039), “a big portion of the guidelines they've put out” is for automakers to “demonstrate how you're measuring” self-driving progress and performance, “and then share that” data with industry and government as NHTSA looks at “authorizing, pulling the driver out of the vehicle,” she said. “It's much more involved than just miles traveled.” Lyft's plans to start its own autonomous-driving research won’t affect their self-driving alliance (see 1601040068), Barra said. GM's efforts without Lyft are "quite far along,” she said. GM sees “opportunity to deploy” self-driving cars via ride hailing, she said. "That's in the early stages of sub-deployment."

The FTC under acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen "filed or settled 44 consumer protection matters in district court, reached 14 administrative consent agreements related to consumer protection, and distributed $86,519,000 in redress to over a million consumers," said a Tuesday news release touting agency achievements over the last six months. Ohlhausen became acting chairman in early February (see 1701250036), and the White House hasn't indicated if and when it will nominate a permanent chair and fill three commissioner vacancies (see 1705190023, 1702220046 and 1705090048).

Connected Nation seeks "improvements" to the FCC's Form 477 process of collecting broadband data, which it called "deficient." Accurate, granular broadband maps are critical to developing sound policy "to close the digital divide," said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 11-10 on a meeting CN officials had with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai. "Any future broadband mapping effort must prioritize the accuracy and granularity of broadband maps at the street address or parcel level of detail but must also prioritize the protection of providers’ proprietary and confidential information that may be used to derive more granular coverage footprints." The group also discussed possible legislation "to create a single, independent, third-party clearinghouse for broadband data collection and mapping." A tentative agenda for commissioners' Aug. 3 meeting includes a draft Further NPRM that would seek ways to improve Form 477 data collection while eliminating unnecessary filing burdens (see 1707130059).

"Is tech destroying jobs? Absolutely! And we should be glad," said Mark Jamison, American Enterprise Institute visiting fellow and former member of the Trump FCC transition team. When businesses adopt technologies that lower costs or improve service, they improve efficiency and give consumers "more bang for their buck ... by definition economic growth," he blogged Monday. Technological change creates churn as old jobs disappear, and some may struggle, but it doesn't increase unemployment as "new tech creates new jobs," he said, citing Silicon Valley employing more than 1.3 million people in 2016, a 23 percent increase since 2010.

Internet Brands will acquire WebMD Health in a $2.8 billion deal, they said in a Monday news release. The acquisition is expected to close 4Q. Internet Brands is owned by KKR.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling to suppress evidence the FBI collected against two Iowa residents charged with accessing child pornography in connection with the 2015 Playpen sting (see 1705020011, 1702100005 and 1610250049). Judges Lavenski Smith, Bobby Shepherd and Gary Fenner ruled in Monday's opinion (in Pacer) written by Smith that the FBI warrant authorizing the search of computers using a network investigative technique (NIT) violated Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which said a magistrate judge in one jurisdiction can't authorize a search of a computer in another jurisdiction. In Playpen, a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia issued the NIT warrant in February 2015 to track down defendants' IP addresses, along with hundreds of others implicated in the sting. (The rule was updated in December (see 1612140051) to permit a judge to issue a single warrant for multiple jurisdictions.) Defendants in the 8th Circuit case, Beau Croghan and Steven Horton, argued the warrant violated Rule 41 and the government was prohibited from doing extraterritorial searches and seizures. Last September, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa sided with their argument. But the 8th Circuit panel said even though the warrant violated Rule 41, an exception based on U.S. v. Leon can be applied here since there was no "bad faith" by FBI agents. "A reasonable reader [of the warrant] would have understood that the search would extend beyond the boundaries of the district because of the thorough explanation provided in the attached affidavit. This does not amount to a reckless disregard for the truth," the ruling said. It said suppression could affect other cases. It said the "marginal benefit" of deterring such warrants doesn't "outweigh" related costs of "'letting guilty and possibly dangerous defendants go free.'" Fenner concurred and dissented in part. He said he didn't think the NIT warrant violated Rule 41.

Overregulation in state licensing for certain professions could hamper online commerce, especially when it benefits incumbents or those "afraid of change," said acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen at an Internet Governance Forum USA event Monday. Ohlhausen said her Economic Liberty Task Force (see 1702170026 and 1703160032), which plans a public discussion Thursday, will talk about approaches for license portability and job mobility. Regulations are needed for some occupations, but there's "strong evidence" most occupational licenses are unnecessary, she said. In Texas, Ohlhausen said the FTC supported a telemedicine company's lawsuit against a state rule that required an in-person meeting between a patient and doctor, which the company said was anticompetitive. In May, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) signed a law removing the requirement, ending the lawsuit, but Ohlhausen said there are other examples, such as unnecessary regulation of ride-hailing. More regulation doesn't make consumers better off, she said: "If everyone has to have the Cadillac to drive on the internet road what about the people who can’t afford it, who are going to be walking, who’ll be worse off?"