The market for Chromebooks is growing while the overall PC market shrinks, Gartner reported. Worldwide Chromebook shipments grew 38 percent in 2016, while the overall PC market declined 6 percent, it said. Chromebooks are not a PC replacement “as of now” but could be in the future based on improved connectivity and more offline capability, said analyst Mikako Kitagawa Tuesday. Chromebooks run on Google’s Chrome operating system, the company says.
Donuts, which owns internet domain extensions, is a step closer to acquiring domain registrar Rightside, with early termination of the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust review, they said. Donuts announced last month it would buy Rightside, which will become a wholly owned subsidiary, in a deal valued at $213 million.
Amazon updated its statement on Consumer Watchdog’s Thursday letter to the FTC and DOJ (see 1707070048), which claimed Amazon practiced "deceptive pricing," emailing us Tuesday that CW's study "is deeply flawed, based on incomplete data and improper assumptions." The conclusions "are flat out wrong," said an Amazon spokeswoman. "We validate the reference prices provided by manufacturers, vendors and sellers against actual prices recently found across Amazon and other retailers.” Meanwhile, as of late afternoon on Prime Day (see the July 11 issue of this publication for more details), Amazon customers were shopping at “record levels” around the world, she said. The Amazon Echo speaker is the top-selling item for Prime Day, followed by Echo Dot, 23andMe DNA Test and the Fire 7 tablet, she said.
More than 32,000 RadioShack IPv4 internet addresses will be up for sale when Hilco Streambank, an intellectual property disposition firm, sells the RadioShack assets owned by General Wireless in a stalking-horse auction July 20 (see 1706090051), Hilco subsidiary IPv4auctions.com said in a Monday announcement. The “internal and unused” RadioShack addresses will be offered in 20- to 24-bit “blocks,” it said. Though IPv4 addresses “remain a key component of growing networks,” the “free pool” of IPv4 addresses “reached exhaustion” in September 2015, it said: “Increasingly, organizations in need of IPv4 addresses are turning to private markets where brokerage firms have identified sellers among the thousands of address holders.” Bids for the July 20 auction are due July 18, it said.
An Amazon spokeswoman called a Thursday report by Consumer Watchdog alleging deceptive pricing (see 1707070048) "misleading." The company is "obsessed with maintaining customer trust, and work[s] hard to provide meaningful reference prices," the spokeswoman emailed us. Amazon uses "a variety of systems to validate reference prices provided by manufacturers, vendors and sellers against actual prices recently found across Amazon and other retailers.”
The National Hispanic Media Coalition wants the FCC to extend the comment and reply deadlines for the 2015 rules and reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service NPRM, it said in a Friday news release and motion. The comments deadline for docket 17-108 is July 17 and the reply deadline is Aug. 16. As of Friday, more than 5.1 million comments have been filed. NHMC said it filed several Freedom of Information Act requests to the FCC for "evidence critical to the proceeding." Its initial May 1 FOIA request sought open internet consumer complaints filed since the 2015 order became effective and documents on the open internet ombudsperson's interactions with internet users. NHMC Director-Legal Affairs Carmen Scurato said the FCC documents would provide "essential insight" into maintaining the 2015 order. "The FCC has confirmed that there is an overwhelming amount of responsive documents, therefore the disclosure of this information must be paired with sufficient time for members of the public to review and contribute meaningful input,” she said. NHMC said the more than 47,000 consumer complaints, plus the ombudsperson documents would help answer the NPRM's questions about consumer harm, safeguards and positive impact of reclassification. The FCC didn't comment.
Consumer Watchdog wants federal regulators to block Amazon’s $13.7 billion Whole Foods buy (see 1706160020) until “the online retailing giant” ends the “deceptive pricing practices that falsely lead consumers to believe they are getting deals with discounted prices,” the nonprofit told the FTC and DOJ in a Thursday letter. Amazon frequently displays a “reference price” for comparison with a “current sale price,” giving buyers the false impression they're saving money, said Consumer Watchdog. “Our research shows that these reference prices often have no basis in reality. Amazon is not competing on the basis of price in a way that would benefit consumers. Rather, it is competing deceptively by claiming a discount from an entirely bogus price.” Amazon representatives didn’t comment Friday.
The FCC, which has a public database of more than 5 million net neutrality comments with filers' names, addresses and email addresses, should collect only personally identifiable information (PII) it needs and de-identify data made public, wrote Technology Policy Institute research fellow Sarah Oh and research associate Brandon Silberstein in a RealClearPolicy commentary. "If there is one saving grace to the FCC’s public disclosure problem, it’s that its system is so bad that it’s hard to know which comments are real and which are machine-generated," they wrote. Bot-generated comments are also a problem and the FCC should use CAPTCHA technology or require users to create accounts to verify that humans are actually submitting comments, they wrote. Groups on both sides of the net neutrality issue are claiming hundreds of thousands of comments from either side are phony (see 1705310019). Oh and Silberstein wrote the FCC should follow FTC recommendations on data accuracy and security, collection limit and retention practices. The FCC's system has no privacy safeguards and may be collecting more PII than it needs, they said. "The highly publicized nature of the net neutrality-Title II proceedings simply serves to increase the exposure risk," they said.
Access Now said U.S. expansion and misuse of surveillance authorities is just one of several issues that could be a problem for the viability of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. The privacy organization sent a 16-page letter Wednesday to Bruno Gencarelli, head of the European Commission's Data Protection Unit, who's seeking feedback (see 1707050019) from nongovernmental groups ahead of the September review (see 1704200034). In a Thursday news release, Access Now U.S. Policy Manager Amie Stepanovich called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act "one of the most invasive" U.S. tools (see 1706070047) but said making substantive changes to it would show the U.S. is seriously committed to human rights. "Without this commitment, though, it’s hard to see how Privacy Shield can survive,” she added. Section 702, which permits U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on foreign targets overseas, will sunset Dec. 31 unless reauthorized. Access Now also cited other issues, including: "the absence of an operating" five-member Privacy Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which has four vacancies; an insufficiently independent ombudsperson, who lacks investigatory powers; inadequate redress mechanisms for individuals; repeal of FCC broadband privacy regulations (see 1705180029); and extreme vetting of travelers to the U.S., including access to social media accounts (see 1702210007).
Blue Global Media, which the FTC said "enticed" consumers to complete online loan applications, agreed to settle charges that the company sold sensitive information to other entities with "little regard to how it would be used," said the agency in a Wednesday news release. The commission voted 2-0 to file the complaint and proposed stipulated order in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. The complaint said the Arizona-based company and CEO Christopher Kay operated at least 38 websites that solicited loan applications and collected information including names, addresses, email addresses, birth dates, bank routing numbers, driver's license and state identification numbers, phone numbers and Social Security numbers. The FTC said the company then sold the consumer information "indiscriminately without consumers' knowledge or consent." When consumers complained, the company didn't investigate or take action, the agency said. The company is barred from misrepresenting that it can provide favorable loan rates and terms. It must also secure personal data, identify and verify the types of businesses with which it shares the data and must get consumers' consent for disclosures, the FTC said. The order includes a $104 million judgment, which is suspended because of defendants' inability to pay, said the agency. A company website didn't work Wednesday and a phone number rang several times before disconnecting.