Netflix added Dolby Atmos support Wednesday and released its first Atmos-enabled series, the Netflix original Okja, Chief Product Officer Greg Peters blogged. Xbox customers can access Dolby Atmos immersive audio content by connecting an Xbox One or Xbox One S game console to a Dolby Atmos-enabled home theater system, TV, soundbar or via headphones, he said. For headphones to be Atmos compatible, users have to buy a $14.99 feature available via the Dolby Access app in the Xbox Store, said a Netflix product support page. Netflix plans to roll out support for Dolby technologies to additional devices over time. The companies said more titles are coming, including four more Atmos series this year.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce defended Google, which the European Commission fined $2.72 billion Tuesday for abusing its market position as a search engine (see 1706270001). Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the FTC should consider the "mounting evidence that Google is manipulating search results in anticompetitive ways and possibly running afoul of our antitrust laws." He said the FTC should investigate the company's actions that may hurt competitors and limit consumer choice. Myron Brilliant, head of Chamber international affairs, said no company should face a "tortured process" as did Google, which was investigated for seven years, culminating in an "eye-popping" fine. It's unclear "how far Google must go to satisfy the Commission’s order," he said.

Some 87 percent of Amazon Echo owners plan to upgrade to the Echo Show when it begins shipping Wednesday, said an Asurion survey of 600 consumers released Monday. The extended warranty and tech support company expects an uptick in calls from consumers, mirroring the 400 percent jump for Echo after the winter holidays, it said. “Customers are excited about the screen and ability to make video and internet phone calls and our experience tells us customers will most likely experience issues with basic set up, pairing and connecting to their home Wi-Fi setup,” said Todd Chretien, Asurion senior vice president-customer solutions.

GTT Communications agreed to acquire Global Capacity, GTT said in a Monday news release, for $100 million cash and 1.85 million shares of GTT common stock to be issued to the sellers at closing. Following GTT’s $37.6 million acquisition of Perseus (see 1706200080), the deal adds customers in the healthcare, application service provider, retail and carrier markets; enhances GTT’s managed SD-WAN service with Ethernet over copper infrastructure; and expands GTT’s network to 8.6 million U.S. commercial addresses, the buyer said. The companies expect to close by the end of Q3, including subject to regulatory approvals, GTT said.

Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Alphabet/Google's YouTube formed the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism to boost their collaboration in curbing online terrorist and violent extremist content, said Facebook in a Monday news release. The forum builds on the companies' initiative with the EU (see 1606030037 and 1605310051), creation of a shared industry hashtag database (see 1612060053 and 1612090049) and other efforts. The forum "will formalize and structure existing and future areas of collaboration between our companies and foster cooperation with smaller tech companies, civil society groups and academics, governments and supra-national bodies such as the EU and the UN." Initially, the forum will focus on technological solutions, research on counter-speech efforts and more collaboration with counterterrorism experts to develop best practices and other initiatives.

Influencers and marketers aren't heeding FTC warnings about disclosing their relationships to brands when promoting products on Instagram, said Public Citizen and other organizations in a Monday news release, prompting the groups to again complain to the agency. More than two months ago, the FTC sent out more than 90 letters to influencers and marketers as reminders they should reveal material connections between themselves and advertisers unless it's already clear from the context of the communication (see 1704190031). Public Citizen said that from May 1 to June 12 it tracked 46 Instagram influencers who received the FTC letter and found that "only one fully and consistently complied" with agency policy. "In total, 327 (79 percent) of the 412 advertisements posted by the 46 influencers did not comply with FTC standards," said Public Citizen. The group, along with Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Center for Digital Democracy, sent a letter to the FTC asking it to enforce the guidelines and seek penalties. "The FTC must demonstrate that there will be consequences for failure to follow the FTC’s guidelines," said the letter. It said the commission should work with Instagram to create a system "to denote paid posts consistent with" those guidelines. An FTC spokesman emailed that the agency is reviewing the groups' letter.

Facebook launched an initiative to help journalists protect their accounts, blogged Catherine Cole with the company's Journalism Partnerships and Head-Global Safety Antigone Davis Friday. They said the company introduced a Facebook page to provide journalists with information on "online safety, such as how to turn on two-factor authentication, manage privacy settings, moderate comments, block harassment, control location sharing, help protect communications, report abusive content and impersonation, and respond to being hacked." Cole and Davis hinted at more to come with the initiative, which is part of the Facebook Journalism Project (see 1701110064) and developed in consultation with the Committee to Protect Journalists, ConnectSafely, European Journalism Centre and others.

Google later this year will stop scanning contents of users Gmail content to deliver targeted ads, blogged Diane Greene, senior vice president-Google Cloud, Friday. She wrote G Suite's Gmail isn't used for ad personalization and the company will follow suit with the free consumer Gmail service. "Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization," she wrote. "This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products." She said ads are shown based on user settings and users can disable ad customization. She said there are more than 1.2 billion Gmail users.

The FTC wants to hear from consumers whether the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (Can-Spam) has benefited them or if it should be modified due to technological and economic changes. The commission said in a Thursday news release it voted 2-0 to approve a systemic review "about the efficiency, costs, benefits, and regulatory impact" of the rule. The FTC published in the Federal Register a notice Thursday, seeking comment by >Aug. 31.

Intel joined Team8, the Israeli cybersecurity “syndicate” with members including AT&T, Cisco, Microsoft, Nokia and Qualcomm, Team8 said in a Wednesday announcement. Intel will work with Team8 to secure future computing, IoT, mobile, automotive and cloud technologies, it said: “Intel and Team8 will collaborate to identify security gaps in future networks, technologies and infrastructures with a view to developing new cyber paradigms to address these challenges.”