More than 2 million U.S. broadband households will have a self-monitored security system this year, blogged Parks Associates Wednesday. Among the 27 percent of broadband households with security, 23 percent, or 23.9 million, have professional monitoring.

Netflix exceeded its Q3 paid net subscriber addition target internationally but fell short of its mark in the U.S., reported the company Wednesday. The company had 6.26 million paid net adds overseas, slightly above its July target of 6.2 million. The 520,000 paid net adds in the U.S. were 35 percent below the targeted 800,000. Internationally, Q3 was a rebound for Netflix, which significantly underperformed in Q2 against its paid net subscriber addition targets (see 1907170070). “As we’ve improved the variety, diversity and quality of our content slate, member engagement has grown, revenue has increased, and we’re able to further fund our content investment,” said Netflix. Total paid net adds of increased 12 percent year over year “and was an all-time Q3 record,” it said. Paid net adds in the U.S. were down 48 percent from the same 2018 quarter. The launch of new competitive streaming services will be “noisy,” said Netflix. “There may be some modest headwind to our near-term growth, and we have tried to factor that into our guidance. In the long-term, though, we expect we’ll continue to grow nicely given the strength of our service and the large market opportunity.” The company is forecasting 600,000 paid net adds for Q4 in the U.S., 7 million internationally. Total paid net adds of 7.6 million would be a 14 percent decline from the 2018, including a 4 percent decline internationally. The stock rose 8.4 percent after regular trading to $310.20.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed seven privacy bills Friday to tweak the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Newsom vetoed some other bills on California LifeLine and broadband. Separately, in a decision issued Monday, the Public Utilities Commission denied rehearing, sought by Lifeline providers (see 1810030005), of a decision to shorten the LifeLine benefit portability freeze for transferring voices services to 24 hours from 60 days. The bills that are now law made minor revisions, with neither businesses nor consumer privacy groups getting everything they wanted, though businesses particularly applauded AB-25 and AB-1355 to exempt employer-employee and business-to-business relationships for one year (see 1910100042). Newsom also signed AB-874 to exclude publicly available information from the definition of personal information; AB-1130 on data breach notification requirements; AB-1146 to exempt vehicle data such as ownership information shared between a dealer and automobile manufacturer in anticipation of a repair; AB-1202 to require data brokers to register with the California attorney general; and AB-1564 to remove a requirement that companies list a phone number for opt-out requests. CCPA takes effect Jan. 1, with enforcement to begin July 1 following a rulemaking by the attorney general that opened last week (see 1910100042). The governor vetoed SB-704, which would have revamped state LifeLine rules (see 1907110008). The bill is premature because LifeLine was recently expanded by two new pilot programs, Newsom wrote Sunday. “While this bill may increase access to the LifeLine program, this bill has the potential to more than double the size and cost of the program and should be addressed through the budget.” Newsom last week vetoed AB-1212 to include telecom as a type of infrastructure in funding priority lists at state transportation and water resources departments; and AB-417 to add rural economic development, including expanding broadband, to California Department of Food and Agriculture responsibilities.

Reports on the demise of Netflix are “greatly exaggerated,” if the volume of social media “mentions” about the streaming service is a reliable indicator, reported data aggregator Eagle Alpha Friday. Netflix “is in a stronger position than investors have given it credit for as Apple TV Plus loses ground and Hulu maintains its position,” it said. Its analysis of 32 million Twitter transactions shows that Netflix “continues to dominate conversation” with a better than 80 percent share of all mentions, while Apple TV Plus, Roku and Amazon Prime “continue to languish” with less than 5 percent each, it said. “Social media commentary volume is a proxy for consumer preferences and end demand.” Netflix reports Q3 earnings Wednesday, and investors will watch to see if it rebounds from the huge miss in Q2 net subscriber adds that sent the stock tumbling in July (see 1907170070).

Millennials welcome in-store interactions with sales staff (56 percent) more than Generation X and baby boomers, stemming from millennials being used to searching on their smartphones to find “exactly what they’re looking for,” the National Retail Federation reported. When that younger cohort can’t, “that’s when they seek out in-store help, expecting the sales associate to solve their issue quickly,” NRF said Thursday. Personalization appears to be important to consumers, but technology used to improve personalization has made shoppers uncomfortable, it said. Tech such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence “may not be the magic bullet retailers hoped for,” said the association.

FTC Competition Bureau Director Bruce Hoffman will leave the agency in November, Chairman Joe Simons announced Friday. Deputy Director Ian Conner is expected to succeed Hoffman, who joined in July 2017. Hoffman departs months after the agency confirmed it's investigating Facebook on antitrust grounds. He led the creation of the agency’s Technology Task Force, which is now the bureau’s Technology Enforcement Division. Hoffman’s exit was a planned departure, a spokesperson said. “Bruce has done an outstanding job leading the FTC’s vigorous antitrust enforcement efforts for the last two years,” Simons said. Simons listed the FTC’s victory against Qualcomm at the district court level in an antitrust lawsuit as one highlight of Hoffman's tenure.

Mastercard and eBay followed PayPal Friday in abandoning membership in Facebook’s Libra Association. Visa and Stripe also reportedly declined to join the association. The companies are five of the 28 founding members that Facebook expected to sign the association’s charter. Their exits came days after Sens. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, sent letters to Visa, Mastercard and Stripe expressing concerns about the project. “We highly respect the vision of the Libra Association; however, eBay has made the decision to not move forward as a founding member,” a spokesperson emailed. “At this time, we are focused on rolling out eBay’s managed payments experience for our customers.” Mastercard remains “focused on our strategy and our own significant efforts to enable financial inclusion around the world,” a spokesperson emailed. “We believe there are potential benefits in such initiatives and will continue to monitor the Libra effort.” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to testify Oct. 23 before House lawmakers on Libra (see 1910090038). Facebook, Visa and Stripe didn't comment.

Broadcom bowed a 3x3 Wi-Fi 6 chip for WLAN applications including Wi-Fi routers, residential gateways, wireless range extenders and set-top boxes. The BCM6710 has integrated RF power amplifiers, giving OEMs a cost-effective, high-performance chip for mass-market products, said the company Thursday, and it’s the first 3x3 Wi-Fi 6 solution supporting three transmit and three receive streams in 2.4-GHz, 5-GHz and future 6-GHz bands. The 6-GHz Wi-Fi capability paves the way for high-bandwidth, low-latency applications such as 4K video streaming, real-time immersive gaming, and augmented reality, it said.

European Commission principles for developing responsible artificial intelligence don’t address the promotion of innovation, BSA | The Software Alliance reported Wednesday. BSA compared framework principles from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the EU, Australia and Japan. OECD and Japan satisfactorily addressed promoting innovation, but the EU and Singapore left that category unaddressed, BSA said: Australia partially addressed that category. All but Australia and Singapore reportedly satisfactorily addressed privacy and security.

ICANN has generally adopted earlier recommended changes to its Whois system, but more are needed, said its registration directory service-Whois2 (RDS-Whois2) review team Tuesday in a final report. Assessment of the system for collecting data on domain name registrants is required by ICANN's contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce and under its bylaws. A second review examined whether recommendations in the 2010-12 assessment were met. It found eight of the 16 were fully implemented, seven partly implemented and one not put in place. The report made 22 new recommendations on which ICANN is seeking input. The review team "specifically did not focus on ICANN's actions" in response to the EU general data protection regulation (GDPR) because the actions are ongoing, it said. The panel "recognized the issue is of significant importance and that it would probably impact several policies related to registrant data." Recommendations included: (1) Ensuring that RDS/Whois is given strategic priority by creating a mechanism to monitor possible impacts on it from legislative and policy developments worldwide. (2) Updating all information on RDS and any other information about registration of second-level generic top-level domains, and making the content readily accessible and understandable. (3) Ensuring ICANN's contractual compliance department is adequately resourced to deal with increased workload and any additional responsibilities due to compliance with the GDPR or other rules. The board must act on the final recommendations by March 3. Comments are due Nov. 25.