Alibaba agreed to pay $4.6 billion to buy 19.99 percent of Suning, one of the largest consumer electronics chains in China, the two companies said in a news release. The “alliance brings forth a new commerce model that fully integrates online and offline” sales, they said Monday. Alibaba and Suning “will be able to provide holistic and more convenient shopping experiences, as well as superior customer service to users looking to purchase online and through mobile devices,” they said. The deal includes plans for Suning to open a “flagship store” for CE goods and home appliances on Alibaba’s Tmall.com platform, they said.

Audi, BMW and Daimler agreed to acquire Nokia's mapping and location services business "Here," the automakers said in a joint announcement. Financial terms weren't disclosed, but the deal is expected to close in Q1 2016, they said. Here is the mapping system used on Nokia and Windows smartphones. Its big plus is the ability to pre-load maps before traveling and using them at the destination without the need for a wireless connection. The companies noted that mapping services will be key in the move toward self-driving vehicles.

The European Commission approved Nokia's pending acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, a Nokia news release said Friday. The transaction has been cleared by antitrust review boards in several countries, including Brazil, Canada, Colombia and Russia, and the antitrust review period in the U.S. has expired, it said. Nokia said it expects to close the deal in the first half of 2016.

World Trade Organization members cemented an agreement to expand the Information Technology Agreement, allowing implementation planning to begin, the WTO said in a news release Friday. The agreement, which was expected (see 1507200036), calls for the majority of tariffs to be eliminated on a number of products, including innovative semiconductors, within three years, the WTO said. The reductions are to begin in 2016, it said. The agreement also contains a commitment to keep the list of products covered under review to determine whether further expansion may be needed due to future technological developments, the WTO said: "By the end of October 2015, each of the participating members will submit to the other participants a draft schedule which spells out how the terms of the agreement would be met. Participants will spend the coming months preparing and verifying these schedules." The WTO hopes to finish the technical work in time for the Nairobi Ministerial Conference in December, it said. Tech groups continued backing ITA expansion, in statements Friday. The revised agreement eliminates tariffs on about $1 trillion in annual global sales of tech products, more than $100 billion worth of which are from U.S. companies, the Information Technology Industry Council said. The historic pact "is game changing for the technology sector," CEO Dean Garfield said. The group said ITA will phase out more than 200 tariffs on technology products, including GPS devices, videogame consoles and software. Forty-nine of 54 participating countries have signed the agreement and the other nations likely will soon, the Telecommunications Industry Association said. It's "a major victory for the tech sector," TIA CEO Scott Belcher said.

The Center for Democracy & Technology and Electronic Frontier Foundation were two of a coalition of pro-open-Internet groups that urged the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) earlier this week to reform the U.S. proposal for implementing changes to the multinational Wassenaar Arrangement on export controls related to cybersecurity and surveillance technology. CDT, EFF and the other groups jointly said that BIS should change the Wassenaar implementation proposal to clearly address human rights issues and to narrow what they view as overly broad rules that they believe could have a chilling effect on legitimate security research. More narrowly tailored rules would apply only to “transfers to government end users or for military or law enforcement purposes,” the groups said. The Wassenaar proposal should also provide “clear 'Know Your Customer' guidance,” the groups said. Cisco, BSA/The Software Alliance and Google have urged further revisions to the proposal.

The "first standardized IP-based network-to-network interconnection with consensus across North American Service providers" was completed, the Association for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and SIP Forum said Tuesday. "This accomplishment enables a major objective identified in the United States National Broadband Plan, to ensure that all service connections between providers occur at the Internet Protocol (IP) level," the groups said. "It also helps the industry advance a major business objective of achieving the interconnection needed to reliably deliver a range of exciting new IP-based services."

Google needs to take a consistent position on the International Trade Commission’s role in IP rights enforcement, said Free State Foundation President Randolph May in a blog post Tuesday. Google had said in 2014 comments on the Align Technology-ClearCorrect patent case that ITC authority to prevent infringing imports doesn’t extend beyond physical goods. The ITC voted 5-1 that digital goods like the digital scans of dental appliances at issue in ClearCorrect’s case constitute “articles” that are within the commission’s purview under Section 337 of the 1930 Tariff Act. Align’s appeal of the ITC ruling is set for oral arguments Aug. 4 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Google and allies claimed during the 2011-2012 debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that online infringement “should be treated as an international trade issue,” May said. “For well over 80 years, the independent International Trade Commission (ITC) has been the venue by which U.S. rightsholders have obtained relief from unfair imports, such as those that violate intellectual property rights. Under Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 -- which governs how the ITC investigates rightsholders' request for relief -- the agency already employs a transparent process that gives parties to the investigation, and third party interests, a chance to be heard,” Google and other SOPA opponents said in a fact sheet supporting the alternative Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act. “In light of these statements touting the efficacy of international trade remedies, and the fact that SOPA and the OPEN Act obviously were all about protecting digital data, not physical goods, it's hard to believe that Google is now arguing that the imported ‘articles’ over which the ITC possesses authority do not include digital content,” May said. Google didn’t immediately comment.

A major security breach may be beneficial to Hacking Team, said an ex-employee of the company, an Italian software provider used by governments to fight crime. Cybercriminals hacked into the company's system and posted its proprietary software on the Internet July 6, Hacking Team said in a statement last week. Monday, the former Hacking Team employee, Claudio Agosti, a self-described privacy activist, posted on Medium saying that the information exposed during the breach is more beneficial to the public than harmful to the company. Agosti, who now works at TacticalTech and co-founded the digital whistleblowing platform GlobaLeaks, said he wanted the public to focus on the most important fact gleaned from the breach: which digital weapons are being used and how they are being used. “Citizens, now aware, can pressure for proper regulation,” Agosti said. “Every state should ensure its citizens safety and not exploit technological weaknesses.” The "leak is not a weapon in the hands of criminals, because the only value of the weapon is secrecy,” Agosti said. “Hacking Team has invested high-paid expertise in finding ways to obscure their malware from antivirus software” and those investments are now “burned,” he said. Other software providers that use similar infection strategies are also “burned,” but Agosti said this is very good because many espionage attacks use the same strategy. Having this information publicly available increases awareness, Agosti said. “The only reasonable compromise is heavy regulation on when and where such powerful weapons can be used.” Hacking Team provided a “lawful surveillance system” to law enforcement for more than a decade that was critical to preventing and investigating crime and terrorism, CEO David Vincenzetti said in a statement Tuesday. “Because of the increasing encryption of data transmitted over mobile devices and the Internet, this work has never been more critical than it is today.” Due to the comprehensive and powerful surveillance capabilities of its software, the Hacking Team system was available only to government agencies, Vincenzetti said, and when circumstances changed, “we have ended relationships with clients such as Sudan, Ethiopia and Russia.” Vincenzetti said the hack was reported to Italian authorities who are investigating the breach along with authorities of other nations. Hacking Team is completely revising its system, Vincenzetti said.

Four individuals were arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, on charges they smuggled tens of thousands of counterfeit Apple and Sony products from China for sale in the U.S., the Justice Department said in a statement. Charged in a 31-page indictment with importing and trafficking illegal goods were Andreina Becerra, 30, a Venezuelan national; Roberto Volpe, 33, an Italian national; Jianhua Li, 40, a Chinese national; and Rosario La Marca, 52, an Italian national, DOJ said. They’re also accused of international money laundering to cover their tracks, DOJ said. The indictment estimates the defendants smuggled in more than 40,000 fake Apple and Sony goods between July 2009 and February 2014 that would have fetched more than $15 million in sales had they been the genuine articles. No information was available Thursday on whether the four defendants entered pleas, and attorneys for the four didn’t comment.

American Tower completed a deal with Bharti Airtel to acquire about 4,700 communications sites in Nigeria, it said in a news release Wednesday.