Shopping from mobile devices over Black Friday weekend jumped to 62.9 percent from 57.5 percent last year, blogged Tara Bartley, Akamai senior manager-global industry marketing. Bartley attributed the higher rate of mobile shopping to ubiquity of devices, loyalty programs and an overall simplified buying process. Performance of an online retailer’s website or app must be “exceptional” and quick, she said Wednesday, and key is optimizing images and videos: “I want to see that sweater in every angle, in every color, and I want to see that lipstick on a curly-headed brunette.” Expectations of online consumers are "very high," she said.

Verizon is using Amazon Web Services for a 5G pilot where developers can deploy applications requiring ultra-low latency to 5G mobile devices, they said Tuesday. Developers could deliver latency-sensitive uses like machine learning inference, autonomous industrial equipment, smart cars and cities, IoT and augmented and virtual reality. Placing AWS compute and storage services at the edge of Verizon’s 5G network with AWS Wavelength brings processing power and storage physically closer to users and their devices. Customers in the Chicago trial include Bethesda Softworks and the NFL. Additional deployments are planned across the U.S. in 2020.

Many consumers “are familiar with the most blatant privacy-invasive potential of their devices,” reported the Electronic Frontier Foundation Monday. “Every smartphone is a pocket-sized GPS tracker, constantly broadcasting its location to parties unknown.” But these better known “surveillance channels” aren't “the most threatening to our privacy,” said EFF. “The unsettling truth is that although Facebook doesn’t listen to you through your phone, that’s just because it doesn’t need to. The most prevalent threat to our privacy is the slow, steady, relentless accumulation of relatively mundane data points about how we live our lives.” Trackers can “assemble data about our clicks, impressions, taps, and movement” and convert them “into sprawling behavioral profiles,” said EFF.

Ad-tech companies must obtain opt-in consent for use of sensor data for tailored ads, the Network Advertising Initiative said Monday in 2020 privacy guidance. NAI, a self-regulatory body, issued prior opt-in mandates for the use of precise location data, sensitive data and personal directory data for internet-based ads. The 2020 code expands the mandate to include sensor data, which refers to data gathered from a physical environment.

U.S. importers sourcing smart speakers, Bluetooth devices, smartwatches and fitness trackers from China filed the most List 4A U.S. tariff exclusion requests of any consumer tech category since the Office of U.S. Trade Representative began accepting requests Oct. 31, the docket shows. The goods had the widest tariff exposure of any consumer tech product on List 4A, found our review of International Trade Commission data. Importers of such goods from China likely paid about $221 million in the duties in the first month after the 15 percent duties took effect Sept. 1. Of six exemptions sought, three were from Apple and one each from Bose, Fitbit and Tile.

Though viewing on mobile devices of “short, snackable” videos under five minutes long is prevalent among two-thirds of U.S. consumers, watching “longer-form content” on smartphones is on the rise, reported Opensignal Wednesday. The mobile analytics firm canvassed 1,000 U.S. consumers and found 39 percent watch TV programs on their smartphones and 38 percent watch movies, it said. Longer-form content viewing on smartphones “increases substantially” for younger audiences, it said. Of consumers who say they watch movies or TV shows on a smartphone, 46 percent said they do so at home on a wireless connection, it said. Though consumers have grown accustomed to watching mobile video on wireless connections, frustrations run high, with 44 percent claiming to have experienced persistent “stuttering” or freezing when streaming content, it said. An additional 30 percent said they often give up trying to watch, it said.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will issue its Section 301 investigation report and “any proposed action in the investigation” Monday on France’s digital service tax (DST), said the agency Wednesday. Tech firms and trade associations blasted the DST during the summer as a radical departure from international norm that discriminates against U.S. companies and undermines efforts to reach global, multilateral consensus on the digital economy (see 1908190043). France’s DST “invites other trading partners to similarly disregard their international commitments and move forward with their own proposed taxes,” said the Computer & Communications Industry Association Wednesday. “A timely, proportionate and impactful response is needed by the U.S. to send a message that our trading partners may not single out American enterprises for discriminatory treatment.”

DOJ will do annual privacy reviews of unmanned aircraft system (UAS) programs and assessments, the department said Wednesday in its updated policy on UAS use. Requirements include new DOJ limits on data retention, “generally requiring privacy sensitive data to be deleted within 180 days, unless certain exceptions are met.” New policies also require “components to evaluate UAS acquisitions for cybersecurity risks, guarding against potential threats to the supply chain and DOJ’s networks.”

The FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology approved environmental sensing capability sensor deployment and coverage plans from three ESC operators for the 3.5 GHz band: CommScope, Federated Wireless and Google. So said a public notice Tuesday for docket 15-319.

A quarter of U.S. online shoppers plan to use a smartphone for holiday shopping this year, reported NPD Monday. “Smaller mobile screens have been taking on more of the shopping workload in recent years.” Consumers increasingly are embracing “smartphone conveniences” that can benefit physical retailers, it said. It estimates 22 percent of consumers used a smartphone app to pay for in-store holiday purchases last year, and 39 percent of those plan to use apps more often this year.