Deutsche Telekom will launch an IoT unit, the “world's first open platform” for the IoT combining “connectivity, devices, cloud services and solutions for data analysis,” DT said Monday.
Authorities seized CityXGuide.com over sex trafficking allegations and charged its owner in a 28-count federal indictment, DOJ said Friday. The announcement described the website as a successor to Backpage.com (see 1909200052). Wilhan Martono, owner of CityXGuide.com, was indicted June 2 on various charges of facilitation of prostitution, sex trafficking, interstate transportation and money laundering. The website was seized by the Department of Homeland Security. “Like the owners of Backpage, this defendant made millions facilitating the online exploitation of women and children,” U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox said. Martono faces up to 25 years in federal prison. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, welcomed the announcement, saying the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers-Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking (SESTA-FOSTA) acts made the indictment possible “by clarifying that it is illegal to knowingly facilitate sex trafficking.” CityXGuide.com didn’t comment.
NTIA will hold a virtual meeting on the multistakeholder process for promoting software component transparency (see 1904010057) at noon EDT July 9, said Thursday’s Federal Register.
Facebook removed some of President Donald Trump’s campaign posts and ads for violating the company’s policy against organized hate, a campaign spokesperson confirmed Thursday: The antifa-related ad included an inverted red triangle, similar to one once used by Nazis to designate political prisoners. “Facebook still has an inverted red triangle emoji in use, which looks exactly the same, so it’s curious that they would target only this ad,” the spokesperson said. “It is ironic that it took a Trump ad to force the media to implicitly concede that antifa is a hate group.” The company didn’t comment.
Target CEO Brian Cornell said George Floyd could have been one of his retail employees, speaking on a Thursday National Retail Federation Leadership Series webinar. That was the executive's initial reaction to Floyd's death while under police arrest in Minneapolis, near the company's headquarters. The second reaction was to focus on safety as protests and rioting broke out after video of the killing spread on social media, Cornell said. Management reached out to African-American employees, an effort he began with a Zoom meeting with black officers, followed by another led by Target’s African-American business council that was attended by over 7,000. Cornell cited stories of store leaders that are pulled over by police routinely "for simply being black" as they're driving between stores, jogging or looking for a new home after relocating. The consensus was, "It’s enough. We have to drive change,” he said. The company set up a racial equality task force to determine "the right steps to take." Experts want more action: 2006160038. On business during COVID-19, Cornell said "millions and millions” of Americans learned to shop online during the pandemic. Target had 5 million new online users in Q1 and did $3 billion in sales. The five-year vision of retail’s future has been pulled forward “within a few months,” with new shopping methods accelerated in response to sheltering in place, said NRF CEO Matthew Shay.
Defund “police surveillance technology” used to “spy” on minorities and protesters, more than 100 advocacy groups wrote House leaders Wednesday. The American Civil Liberties Union, Color of Change, Free Press and Center for Democracy & Technology signed, urging barring federal funding of “unwarranted mass-surveillance programs” like those enabled by the Patriot Act: “Congress has failed to take sufficient action to prevent increased surveillance.”
The FTC’s July 21 PrivacyCon will be held online, the agency announced Tuesday, citing COVID-19.
The antitrust community has too strong a bias against enforcement, leaving unchallenged mergers and acquisitions that ought to be challenged, said former DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Bill Baer, now a Brookings Institution fellow. "We need to move that arrow back to a neutral position," he said on an American Antitrust Institute podcast Monday. Some courts are showing a "worrisome" level of skepticism in government cases and implicitly demanding a higher level of proof than the statute requires, he said.
The Supreme Court should review Enigma Software v. Malwarebytes because the tech industry’s content liability protections are critical, the Internet Association said Monday (see 2006120030). Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act “ensures all online platforms can create and enforce codes of conduct and protect their users without fear of liability,” IA interim CEO Jon Berroya said. “It’s a critical time for the Supreme Court to protect online platforms’ ability to give users the tools to control their own online experiences.” IA filed its brief Friday, joining TechFreedom, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group of cybersecurity experts and ESET in support of Malwarebytes, which is claiming Section 230 immunity in the case.
The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comments by July 13, replies July 27, to update the record on whether to include revenue from "one-way" VoIP services as part of USF contribution base or impose other regulatory fees, said a public notice for docket 06-122 in Friday's Daily Digest.