The FTC and consumer protection agencies in 33 other countries that are part of the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network released an updated version of the ICPEN econsumer.gov website Tuesday, a commission news release said. The site is designed to help law enforcement authorities “gather and share cross border consumer complaints that can be used to investigate and take action against international scams,” it said.

MasterCard and Tata Communications partnered to financially empower 25,000 women in developing countries by giving them connected digital financial tools, Tata said in a news release Wednesday. The initiative, announced by both companies at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting, is part of a larger plan to reach 100 million women globally by 2020, said the release. The businesses, in coordination with a network of partners, will begin with pilot projects in India, Indonesia, Guatemala and Nigeria, said Tata.

Microsoft praised the U.S. State Department's Global Connect initiative, which seeks to connect 1.5 billion individuals across the globe to the Internet by 2020 (see 1509280046). In a company blog post Monday, Paul Mitchell, Microsoft tech policy senior director, called the new initiative an "ambitious effort" and "remarkable," especially against the backdrop of the U.N.'s newly announced sustainable development goals. Mitchell also said Microsoft plans to engage in the State Department's new program. "By working together as part of the Global Connect initiative, we can enable these benefits for those not yet connected," he said. Microsoft joins a bevy of industry groups and businesses that have vocalized support for Global Connect, with some observers calling it overly ambitious.

Sky has begun connecting its first customers to its new “ultrafast” fiber-to-the-home broadband network in York, U.K., the company said in a Monday announcement. Ultrafast customers will be able to receive broadband speeds of up to 940 Mbps, almost 500 times faster than Sky’s existing “service obligation,” making York the first U.K. city to test ultrafast broadband, it said. “The increased downloads speeds offered by ultrafast broadband mean that customers can download an HD movie in less than 30 seconds.” Sky is the U.K.’s first broadband service provider “to offer guaranteed broadband speeds,” said Lyssa McGowan, director of Sky Broadband, in a statement. “As Ofcom continues its review of the broadband market, we believe that trials like this are a valuable demonstration of the alternative technologies now available,” McGowan said of the U.K. regulator. “With the right conditions for investment and innovation, consumers and businesses could benefit from more ultrafast connections across the UK.”

The FCC proposal to remove filing requirements for imported devices is a “success story” within a multiagency effort to simplify international trade data filing within the U.S. government, said Cynthia Whittenburg, executive director, Trade Policy and Programs at Customs and Border Protection. Whittenburg mentioned the FCC proposal (see 1507210072) while speaking at a National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) conference Monday. The multiagency work, which is being overseen by CBP, included a request that the involved agencies review data filing requirements, and the FCC came to the conclusion that the device certification information of its Form 740 is no longer useful, she said. The FCC is still accepting comments on the proposal and the NCBFAA recently submitted comments in support of the NPRM, while asking for some language changes (see 1509240044).

The European Commission launched a public debate focused on geo-blocking and the role of platforms in the online economy, it said in a news release Thursday. The information gathered through the debate will aid the commission in assessing "the need for, or prepare initiatives as part of the Digital Single Market Strategy and the Internal Market Strategy for Goods and Services," the EC said. The debate on geo-blocking is designed to collect opinions on "unjustified commercial barriers which prevent from buying and selling products and services within the European Union," the commission said. The EC also said the consultation concerning online platforms, including search engines, social media, video sharing websites and others, will look at their economic role, explore the liability of intermediaries regarding illegal content hosted online, and discuss ways to improve the free flow of data in the EU and to build a "European Cloud." The debates will help the commission prepare legislative proposals in the first half of 2016 to "end unjustified geo-blocking" and could include targeted change to existing e-commerce rules, it said.

The 2,580-mile Hibernia Express cable is the first trans-Atlantic cable built in more than a decade, Hibernia Networks said in a news release Thursday. The cable has undergone testing on its power stability, spectral efficiency and latency over the past few weeks, it said. The cable has an actual tested latency of better than 58.95 milliseconds from New York to London, it said.

Negotiators from countries party to the Information Technology Agreement will convene in Geneva Monday to Oct. 2 to discuss duty reductions for the pact’s expansion rollout, dozens of industry associa­tions said in a recent statement. The World Trade Organization says the duty reductions will begin in 2016 (see 1507280062), and the industry associations urged a speedy elimination schedule. “While the standard phase-out (or staging) period for tariff elimination under ITA expansion is three years, we urge the negotia­tors to show as much ambition as possible,” said the statement, which was endorsed by CEA, the Chamber of Commerce, DigitalEurope, the Entertainment Software Association, the National Association of Manu­facturers, as well as a range of software and semiconductor groups. “We urge all negotiating parties to show restraint in seeking staging periods longer than three years, given the short innovation cycles for high-tech­nology products.” Each country must finalize its schedule by the December WTO ministerial in Nairobi, the statement said. In late July, the WTO said only 49 countries out of 81 total ITA parties had signed off on expansion, which was brokered in the days before.

An FCC proposal to remove radiofrequency device certification requirements for importers needs some language changes to avoid unintended regulatory issues, said the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 15-170. While NCBFAA generally favored proposed changes to eliminate the import declaration filing requirements on FCC Form 740, the association said some language tweaks are necessary to distinguish between the parties involved in import transactions. Although the FCC intends to remove requirements for commission-specific declaration or filing upon import, the proposed language "does not accurately capture this shift," the NCBFAA said. As proposed, it said that "no radio frequency device may be imported into the Customs territory of the United States unless the importer or ultimate consignee, or their designated customs broker, determines that the device meets one of the conditions of entry." But "without a declaration to affix responsibility in each instance, it will be unclear exactly who made the determination," the NCBFAA said. "If the responsible party for making the determination could be any of three entities (i.e., the importer, the ultimate consignee or the customs broker, as the proposed regulation suggests), there is no certainty for the FCC or the trade as to which party is responsible for documenting how the radio frequency device was determined to be in compliance. This leaves a potentially significant gap in affixing responsibility." Customs brokers shouldn't be among the entities considered able to make such a "determination," the group said. While fewer than 100 forms a month were filed when the form became a requirement, an estimated 2 million are filed annually today, the NCBFAA said. "By 2020, an estimated 26 billion devices may be subject to FCC jurisdiction as the Internet of Things expands, making the Form 740 filing a burdensome requirement that appears to us to yield few enforcement benefits for the FCC."

Public Knowledge said Wednesday it welcomes a State Department diplomatic initiative aimed at spreading broadband adoption worldwide, discussed last week by Phil Verveer, senior counsel to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (see 1509180042). “The initiative’s goals are based on the core understanding that the Internet should be Open and protected as a public interest infrastructure, and that’s a sentiment we share,” Carolina Rossini, PK vice president-international policy, said in a news release. “By working closely with other nations through the U.N., the World Bank and other stakeholders, the U.S. could jump-start critical investments and policy initiatives to make the Internet available and affordable to people all over the world.”