About 15 percent of the tech industry regards security and data privacy as a risk factor, the Internet Association said Thursday, releasing a Q4 report. The report listed the top 5 risks cited by publicly-traded companies in their quarterly and annual filings. Security and data privacy ranked fourth in the top five most commonly cited risks to internet sector companies. Competition ranked third, with 10 percent reporting it as a risk. Product and services development was No. 1, with 49 percent. Economics and financial conditions were No. 2, at 23 percent. Market was fifth at 13 percent.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise agreed to buy supercomputer maker Cray in a deal worth roughly $1.3 billion. “Answers to some of society’s most pressing challenges are buried in massive amounts of data,” said HPE CEO Antonio Neri on Friday. High performance computing and "associated storage and services is expected to grow from approximately $28 billion in 2018 to approximately $35 billion in 2021," the buyer said Friday. Simon Leopold of Raymond James asked if the companies are what he called an odd couple, "given the differing business profiles of both companies with HPE focused primarily on commercial and enterprise markets, and Cray primarily focused on academic and industrial supercomputing applications." Artificial intelligence/machine learning and big data analytics "continue to see exponential growth, with businesses still scratching the surface of the different potential use cases," he wrote investors. "Management’s vision is sound." The deal is expected to close in fiscal Q1 ending Jan. 31, an HPE spokesperson emailed us. "The deal is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval." Cray closed up $1.52 higher than the deal's per-share price. It rose 23 percent to $36.52. The deal price excludes Cray's own cash.

Facebook, Google and Twitter have made progress combating disinformation through transparency reports, but more can be done to identify divisive ads, the European Commission said Friday. The three platforms signed the EU’s code of practice against disinformation, and Microsoft also intends to join. The agreement requires monthly reports. The three platforms “created publicly accessible political ad libraries and enabled searches through [application programming interfaces] APIs, which is a clear improvement,” the commission said. “We regret however that Google and Twitter were not able to develop and implement policies for the identification and public disclosure of issue-based ads, which can be sources of divisive public debate during elections.”

President Donald Trump’s new tool for publicly reporting instances of alleged political bias shows why the tech industry needs Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Trump’s website is a "right-wing effort" to pressure platforms to leave “vile content” online, Wyden said Thursday: Section 230 ensured “that private companies would be able to curate content online, without fear of bogus lawsuits or government interference.” Public Knowledge also blasted Trump’s tool. Senior Counsel John Bergmayer said that with claims of political bias, it “would welcome efforts from the Trump Administration to increase platform competition through the vigorous application of antitrust laws, interoperability initiatives, and similar endeavors.” Internet Association CEO Michael Beckerman disputed that any platforms have ideological bias: “It would make no business sense for companies to stifle the speech of half -- or any significant portion -- their customers.”

The FCC and its partner SamKnows seek ISP feedback by May 24 on a website relaunch for the agency’s Measuring Broadband America program. MBA monitors speeds on various tiers of consumer broadband packages sold by ISPs across the country. Providers are charged with contacting their subscribers starting June 5 to find volunteers to use a measuring device called a Whitebox that connects to an internet modem and measures broadband performance. If the partners don't see enough sign-ups across tiers and package speeds, they will look to adjust their consumer targeting strategy, said Stacie Djordjevic, government project manager-North America at SamKnows, on a call Thursday with the FCC and program client ISPs.

AT&T's artificial intelligence "guiding principles" are human oversight; open source "communities whenever appropriate"; and "ethics, safety, and values" including "our privacy principles and security safeguards." The ISP/MVPD uses "varied, validated datasets and diverse human input," it said Wednesday. "We use a transparent approach to algorithms that includes safeguards." The company monitors "outcomes to ensure accuracy and help minimize biases." When "outcomes are owned by people, no one should be able to claim, 'The machine did it,'" blogged Chief Privacy Officer Tom Moore. "No organization will be perfect, but that’s what humans must try to anticipate, catch and repair." Even as many organizations have advanced their own AI and privacy principles, some widely endorsed ones exist, noted Electronic Privacy Information Center President Marc Rotenberg. The "benchmark for AI policy" are the EPIC-established Public Voice coalition's universal guidelines for artificial intelligence, or UGAI, he said in an interview. Possibly later this month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development may announce its 38 member countries endorsed OECD guidelines, "which reflect many of the principles contained in the UGAI," said Rotenberg, who has worked on the issue. The U.S. would be among the signers. The White House didn't comment. All OECD members and Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica "are due to formally endorse a new set of AI Principles designed by the OECD, next Wednesday" at the group’s annual ministerial meeting, a spokesperson emailed. AT&T meanwhile actively participates "in discussions with industry organizations, such as Linux Foundation, IEEE and Future of Privacy Forum, on a variety of AI topics," a company spokesperson emailed. That includes "AI and ethics, responsible development and deployment of AI" and machine learning, he added.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will hold a forum on the USA Freedom Act and the Section 215 phone surveillance program at 10 a.m. May 31 in the Reagan Building. Panelists are National Security Institute Director Jamil Jaffer, Tufts University cybersecurity professor Susan Landau, Princeton University assistant professor of computer science Jonathan Mayer, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Julian Sanchez, Copper Hill Strategies founder Caroline Lynch and Eversheds Sutherland’s Global Cybersecurity and Privacy Practice partner Michael Bahar.

The Supreme Court made the right decision allowing consumers to sue Apple for using its alleged App Store monopoly to drive up app prices (see 1905130047), FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter argued in tweets Monday. She cited various points from the 5-4 decision. She noted that Illinois Brick is “not a get-out-of-court-free card for monopolistic retailers to play any time that a damages calculation might be complicated." The Clayton Act allows injured parties to sue under antitrust laws, she tweeted: "If a retailer has engaged in unlawful monopolistic conduct that has caused consumers to pay higher-than competitive prices, it does not matter how the retailer structured its relationship with an upstream manufacturer or supplier.”

Twitter “inadvertently” collected and shared user iOS location data with an advertising partner without user consent, the platform blogged Monday. If a user was operating more than one Twitter account on iOS, the platform might have accidentally collected location data for all accounts associated with the device, if the user opted into tracking on at least one account, the company said. The data was stored for a “short time” on the ad partners’ systems before deletion, the company said.

Consumers can sue Apple for using its alleged App Store monopoly to drive up app prices (see 1811260039), the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday. Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with four liberal justices, writing an opinion allowing a class action lawsuit to proceed in Apple v. Robert Pepper, docket 17-204. Protecting consumers from monopoly prices is “the central concern of antitrust,” under the Sherman Act, Kavanaugh wrote. “The consumers here purchased apps directly from Apple, and they allege that Apple used its monopoly power over the retail apps market to charge higher-than-competitive prices.” Apple, with the backing of the Trump administration and various industry groups, argued that pass-through harm can lead to duplicative damages in conflict with Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois. Apple suggested only app developers should have the right to sue. Illinois Brick “does not bar the consumers from suing Apple for Apple’s allegedly monopolistic conduct,” Kavanaugh wrote. Consumers bought apps from third-party app developers at prices set by developers, Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented. The issue is that the 30 percent commission Apple charges developers falls initially on the developers, Gorsuch wrote. “So if the commission is in fact a monopolistic overcharge, the developers are the parties who are directly injured by it.” This is the pass-on theory Illinois rejected, he continued. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined the dissent. Monday’s decision “puts multi-sided business models at risk of expensive, duplicate claims,” Computer & Communications Industry Association CEO Ed Black said.