Amazon repeated as No. 1 brand in net favorability with a 78.7 rating, Morning Consult reported Tuesday. The brand most people told friends about was Netflix, with 74 percent “very likely” to recommend it. Of 18-21-year-olds and millennials, 77 percent would be “very likely” to recommend the streaming service vs. 75 percent of Gen Xers and baby boomers (69 percent). Of retailers, 69 percent of survey respondents across household income levels said they had bought or were very likely to buy something from Walmart. Survey questions were fielded with over 1.5 million U.S. adults Q1 to early Q4.

Verizon's Oath agreed to pay $4.95 million for advertisements targeting youngsters under 13, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood (D) announced Tuesday. Oath, formerly AOL, “conducted billions of auctions for ad space on hundreds of websites the company knew” were used to target underage users, the announcement said. The settlement requires Oath adopt “comprehensive reforms to protect children from improper tracking.” It's the largest penalty in Children's Online Privacy Protection Act enforcement history, Underwood’s office said. “We are pleased to see this matter resolved and remain wholly committed to protecting children’s privacy online,” an Oath spokesperson said.

The U.S. Postal Service should seize on e-commerce growth and charge market-based prices for mail and package items not deemed “essential postal services,” the Treasury Department said Tuesday. The long-awaited report was prompted by President Donald Trump’s criticism of Amazon (see 1804130059). Between 2010 and 2018, USPS package volume doubled from 3.1 billion pieces to 6.2 billion pieces, and revenue grew from $10.3 billion to $21.5 billion, said Treasury. The increase in package revenue hasn’t allowed the USPS to make up for dramatic declines in mail delivery. “Packages have not been priced with profitability in mind,” the report said. Charging market prices for package delivery will “allow the USPS to optimize its income in order to fund its operations, capital expenditures, and long-term liabilities,” the department said.

Google and DOJ agreed alleged victims don’t have the right to sue the company in a case involving its $8.5 million data privacy settlement (see 1811060054). The filings are in Frank v. Gaos (docket 17-961), a Supreme Court online privacy case where Google asks the high court to uphold the settlement directed to charitable and academic organizations instead of alleged victims. After oral argument (see 1810310043), the high court requested supplemental briefs on whether plaintiffs have the right to sue Google. Meanwhile, the petitioner and respondent agreed alleged victims have standing. Unauthorized sharing of user data warrants action in court, regardless of proof of further harm, consumers argued Friday. The opposing party, Competitive Enterprise Institute Litigation Director Ted Frank, agreed, arguing the “best view is that plaintiffs have sufficiently pled standing, because they allege a congressionally recognized injury consistent with those recognized in historical practice.” The alleged victims haven't established standing through required concrete injury, Google argued. The solicitor general argued, “Nothing in the common law suggests that disclosures of the kind forbidden by the [Stored Communications Act] categorically create concrete harms.”

Executives from Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Oracle will meet at the White House Thursday to discuss American leadership in tech and innovation, said a government official: Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Carnegie Mellon University President Farnam Jahanian and Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman will attend. The companies and organizations didn't comment.

Deploying autonomous and connected cars will lead to higher penetration of electric vehicles, an Edison Electric Institute event was told Friday. Representatives from automakers, including General Motors and Nissan, said goals include cutting traffic congestion and accidents, along with vehicle emissions. Launching autonomous vehicles will bring electric vehicles into higher-profile public view and "really pushes the EV forward," said Dan Turton, GM vice president-North American policy. Mentioning a semi-autonomous driving feature amid Nissan's goal of "intelligent mobility," Michael Arbuckle, senior manager-EV sales and marketing strategy, said the manufacturer is "also going to enhance" autonomy and connectivity in its vehicles. After saying to audience laughter that "frankly, I am happy to be talking about anything besides trade policy," Bryan Jacobs, BMW vice president-government and external affairs, said in Q&A that "open and free trade is a formula for success." Components that go into vehicles "have to be unencumbered as they move from one place to another," he added. "We are all in on this. We are unapologetically free traders. ... The trading regime that’s currently in place is really beneficial to companies like ours." An Energy Department official later sought to describe the outlook "to increase affordable mobility choices." There are "a wide range of futures due to autonomy and interconnectivity," Alex Fitzsimmons, the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office chief of staff, said of diverse forecasts related to energy usage: "We’re all striving toward the same goal of affordable mobility for all."

Facebook exempting media organizations from labeling and archiving of political advertising in the U.S. and the U.K. is a positive step in recognizing journalism’s role as society’s fourth estate, News Media Alliance CEO David Chavern said Thursday (see 1806110034).

Securing against botnets requires collective action from government, internet and communications stakeholders, industry officials said Thursday, releasing a report. The Council to Secure the Digital Economy cybersecurity coalition between tech and communications groups warns against “prescriptive, compliance-focused regulatory requirements.” Government’s role isn't regulation that stymies response to threats, Information Technology Industry Council CEO Dean Garfield said during a panel. The goal should be to cut back 90-95 percent of threats because no amount of collaboration will be able to eradicate all threats, CTA CEO Gary Shapiro said. There’s no higher cause than addressing threats to the digital economy, USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter argued, saying the cyber group plans to release an annual report: “This isn’t one and done.” Threats are increasing as the value of the tech sector grows, Garfield said. Shapiro called it a multi-factorial problem with multi-factorial solutions. Botnets can turn “everyday products into an army of devices capable of transmitting torrents of Internet traffic capable of knocking targeted networks offline,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said during a separate appearance Thursday. He encouraged the private sector to continue searching for “constructive solutions." The Commerce and Homeland Security departments released a road map highlighting focus areas for government and the private sector: the IoT, enterprise, internet infrastructure, technology development and awareness/education.

Eight people with ties to Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan were indicted for “causing tens of millions of dollars in losses in digital advertising fraud,” DOJ said Tuesday. Charges included wire fraud, computer intrusion, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Three defendants arrested abroad await extradition, and the others remain at large, DOJ said. The FBI was authorized to seize 31 internet domains and “information from 89 computer servers, that were all part of the infrastructure for botnets engaged in digital advertising fraud activity,” Justice said.

Artificial intelligence will benefit society enormously and doesn’t pose the humanity-threatening, science fiction-based scenarios Tesla CEO Elon Musk warned about, said Information Technology and Innovation Foundation President Robert Atkinson in a Fox Business opinion Tuesday. Atkinson dismissed Musk’s Terminator-like scenarios in which robotics control humans, while playing up the benefits of autonomous vehicles and smartphones. Tesla didn't comment.