Noncommercial stakeholders are "waiting for a consultation regarding the sale of .ORG" (see 2001310015), wrote Milton Mueller, a founder of the Georgia Institute of Technology's Internet Governance Project. The professor said his Saturday post notified ICANN and its board of the pending request: "Such a consultation is not a courtesy to be offered at ICANN’s discretion, but is a requirement based on ICANN’s own Registry Agreement (RA) contract and its Registry Transition Process (RTP) policies." On Dec. 9, the Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group asked ICANN to consult "impacted registrants and the global non-commercial Internet community" on the Internet Society selling the Public Interest Registry to Ethos Capital. ICANN Chair Maarten Botterman's Jan. 7 response assured the stakeholders group that “ICANN org team and the Board are working together to evaluate the proposed acquisition to ensure that the registry remains secure, reliable, and stable.” Botterman didn't address the request for consultation, Mueller recalled. Mueller, at Georgia Tech's public policy school, has blogged (see 2001150013) that the sale need not be alarming; he didn't comment Monday. ICANN declined to comment.

ICANN seeks to extend to April 20 from Feb. 17 review of the Public Interest Registry's sale by the Internet Society to Ethos Capital, after the California Attorney General's Office sought the delay and asked for more information. ICANN previously extended by a month review of the deal said to be worth $1 billion-plus (see 2001210034). The AG office asked questions to "analyze the impact to the nonprofit community, including to ICANN," which as a California nonprofit is regulated by that office. ICANN asked PIR for the additional time "to conclude both the CA-AGO and ICANN reviews," the domain names overseer announced Thursday. "ICANN will continue to conduct thorough due diligence in its consideration of the proposed change of control and related conversion of PIR from a nonprofit to a for-profit. PIR is currently a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation. As part of the proposed sale, PIR proposed to the Pennsylvania Attorney General that it be turned into a for-profit entity." A PIR spokesperson emailed that it got the letter, is reviewing it "and will work with ICANN to address the questions." Other parties to the deal involving .org domain name registrar PIR didn't comment Friday, and ICANN didn't answer questions.

Governments should quicken their pace to increase tech regulation, Microsoft President Brad Smith said during an interview with C-SPAN's The Communicators, to have been televised this weekend. A strong federal privacy law is vital, but a global solution is best, he said, noting Microsoft is “pretty enthusiastic” about EU’s general data protection regulation. “Digital technology has gone longer with less regulation than almost any technology since the middle of the 1800s,” he said. “The market, consumers and even the industry itself would be better served for the long term with a different balance.” He noted the importance of data centers and Ireland, which he said is to data what Switzerland is to money. Ireland is a safe place with mild temperatures for data centers and a network of laws for protecting privacy and moving data, he said, noting about 35 percent of European data is stored in Ireland. Microsoft has more than 100 data centers in 20 countries, he said. It’s becoming the largest consumer of electricity in the world, the executive said. The weaponization of data starts with hacking by political states waging disinformation campaigns, Smith said, noting Microsoft spends $1 billion yearly on security.

Apple emphasized privacy Thursday in the U.S. launch of redesigned Maps. The app is “deeply integrated” into apps customers use daily, said the company, and with the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. No sign-in is required and it’s not connected to an Apple ID, said the company. Personalized features, such as suggesting departure time to make the next appointment, use on-device intelligence, it said. Data collected are associated with random identifiers that continually reset. Through “fuzzing,” Maps obscures a user’s location on Apple servers. Flight and transit details are among many features.

It’s “anybody’s guess” how the coronavirus outbreak will affect the Chinese supply chain after production workers are due to return from the Lunar New Year holiday, said Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle on a Q4 call Wednesday. “We’re reading the news just like everybody else,” said Tuttle. “Our forecast and guidance takes a normal return from Chinese New Year into account. Things just shut down, and we’re going to see if things start back up on a normal pace. Our hope is that that’s the case.” The stock closed 13 percent lower Wednesday at $102.76 after Silicon Labs reported a 30 percent operating-profit decline for the year that it blamed on "a challenging macro environment." Silicon Labs had been looking at “opening up” the Z-Wave standard “for quite some time” before doing so last month (see 1912200003), said Tuttle. “We are big believers in open standards, and to be able to drive broad adoption.” Z-Wave “performed very well in 2019,” he said. “We saw an opening,” he said of the timing to widen Z-Wave. A “number of customers” were looking toward Z-Wave as “the right solution for a sub-gigahertz standard,” he said. “It’s a very robust standard and it’s widely deployed. You’ve got 100-plus million units of devices deployed out in the market. As companies are looking for a sub-gigahertz standard, it was our belief that we have an opportunity to make sub-gigahertz the wireless standard for IoT.” Q4 sales fell slightly from the year-ago quarter to $219.4 million. They're expected to fall sequentially in Q1, to $209 million to $219 million, with "Infrastructure up, Broadcast flat, and declines in IoT and Access." The company said it may have a loss. "Despite a challenging macro environment, we are pleased to have outperformed the market with secular growth drivers in IoT and Infrastructure providing some offset to macro weakness," said Tuttle.

The transaction threshold for “reporting proposed mergers and acquisitions” under Section 7A of the Clayton Act will increase from $90 million to $94 million in 2020, the FTC said Tuesday. The revised thresholds, effective 30 days after Federal Register publication, are based on gross national product fluctuation.

The FTC unanimously finalized a settlement with a background check security company over allegations it falsely claimed certification under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework (see 1909030063), the agency said Thursday. The FTC alleged T&M Protection Resources didn’t have PS certification, as claimed. The company is prohibited from misrepresenting itself and faces monetary penalties for future infractions. The company didn’t comment.

MyDevices announced technology designed to improve panic buttons used in hotels by eliminating dead zones, it said Tuesday. Its No Dead Zone panic button technology combines cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LoRaWAN protocols to provide full coverage across a property “no matter how challenging the physical environment,” it said. The company cited a workplace safety initiative announced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association two years ago designed to provide emergency communications and location-based services for employees in the hospitality industry. “While 4G LTE signals from all carriers freely propagate in open areas, inside buildings, it’s severely limited by heavy building material that blocks, absorbs, reflects, and degrades cell and Wi-Fi signals,” said the company. That limits coverage and creates dead zones, which can “lead to catastrophic outcomes if a panic button fails to connect.” Integrating LoRaWAN technology into a panic button makes it possible to send long-range, low-power and low-data bandwidth transmissions from hard-to-reach locations like underground, in concrete or dense urban environments, it said. MyDevices’ said its technology is highly secure, affordable and installs in less than a day. It provides floor- and room-level accuracy plus outdoor GPS tracking on the property, and doesn’t require the use of a mobile phone to request assistance in an emergency, it said. It wasn't clear whether a consumer version would be made available. The company didn't respond to questions.

“We did not get this right from the start,” Sonos CEO Patrick Spence wrote customers Thursday. That's after two days of rebukes from customers who were told their systems would no longer receive software updates as of May (see 2001230058). Thanking customers for their loyalty, Spence said: "I hope that you’ll forgive our misstep, and let us earn back your trust." In the email apology, also on a blog, Spence sought to “personally assure” customers of the path forward for legacy products, including original Zone Players, Connect, Connect:Amp, first-generation Play:5, CR200 and Bridge products. When Sonos ends new software updates for legacy products in May, “they will continue to work just as they do today,” said the executive: “We are not bricking them, we are not forcing them into obsolescence, and we are not taking anything away.” It wasn’t clear Friday how legacy and modern Sonos products would work together after May. Addressing the customers whose Sonos systems include both, Spence said: “We are working on a way to split your system so that modern products work together and get the latest features, while legacy products work together and remain in their current state.”

A sex worker advocate and a massage therapist demonstrated standing to challenge (see 1909200052) a 2018 anti-sex-trafficking law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled (in Pacer) Friday. Alex Andrews and Eric Koszyk demonstrated Article III standing to bring a pre-enforcement challenge to the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers-Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking acts. The court remanded the case to the district court. The conduct of Andrews, who operates a website that allows sex workers to share information, is “arguably affected with a constitutional interest,” the D.C. Circuit said, citing speech issues. Koszyk established standing FOSTA resulted in his advertisements being shut down on Craigslist. Judge Judith Rogers wrote the opinion. DOJ didn’t comment.