Compliance with the EU general data protection regulation and what to do with proceeds of auctions on new generic top-level domain (gTLD) names will be among hot topics at the Saturday to Thursday meeting in Barcelona, the internet body said. There will be sessions devoted to ICANN efforts to amend its Whois registration database to comply with the EU law, including the status of an expedited policy development process on ICANN's temporary specification for Whois and issues surrounding the creation of a system to allow third-party access to nonpublic registrants' data (see 1810080002). A Cross-Community Working Group will present its preliminary report on auction proceeds. Auctions were used as a last resort in 16 of 218 contested new gTLD applications, with proceeds placed in a separate reserve pending a decision by the community on how they should be used, the report noted. Other likely topics, stakeholders said: (1) The continuing review of rights protections mechanisms, considering whether to keep, narrow or expand them. (2) The nonprofit's failure, more than two years after accountability bylaws were enacted, to establish independent review panels. (3) Whether the organization has a strategy for dealing with expected battles at the Oct. 29-Nov. 16 ITU Plenipotentiary over who controls the domain name system root zone.
Netflix in Q3 outperformed its subscription forecasts, said the company's quarterly shareholder letter Tuesday. The service had 6.96 million net subscriber additions, above the 5 million it forecast in July. It added 1.09 million U.S. subscribers compared with the 650,000 forecast. Globally, it added 5.87 million, vs. an expected 4.35 million. In Q2, Netflix missed targets (see 1807160066). “As internet entertainment grows, more companies see the large opportunity,” said Netflix. “Within linear TV, New Fox appears to have a great strategy, which is to focus on large simultaneous-viewing sports and news,” it said. “These content areas are not transformed by on-demand viewing and personalization in the way that TV series and movies are, so they are more resistant to the rise of the internet. Other linear networks are likely to follow this model.” After regular-hours U.S. trading, the stock rose 12 percent to $386.28 by our deadline.
The Copyright Office adopted a final rule to “streamline the administration of digital audio recording technology (DART) royalty accounts and electronic royalty payment processes,” the office said Monday. Effective Nov. 14, it “gives the Register discretion to close out royalty payments accounts for a calendar year four years after the close of that year.”
FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips will keynote the agency’s fifth competition policy hearing, an event rescheduled from Sept. 14 to Nov. 1, the agency said Friday. The Georgetown University Law Center event will cover “vertical merger analysis and the role of the consumer welfare standard in U.S. antitrust law.” The agency previously released agendas for the fourth and fifth hearings (see 1810110056).
About 30 million Facebook users had “access tokens” stolen in the latest privacy breach (see 1809280036), it announced Friday. Vice President-Product Management Guy Rosen said the platform is cooperating with the FBI, “which is actively investigating.” Cooperation will continue with the FTC, Data Protection Commission Ireland and others, he said. Hackers accessed names, phone numbers and/or email addresses for 15 million people, Rosen said. For another 14 million people, hackers accessed the same information and additional profile details, he said. Data Protection Commission Ireland tweeted that Facebook’s update was “significant now that it is confirmed that the data of millions of users was taken by the perpetrators of the attack. @DPCIreland’s investigation into the breach and Facebook’s compliance with its obligations under #GDPR continues.” While 30 million users had tokens stolen, about 50 million are believed to be affected, Rosen said. He said Facebook hasn't ruled out smaller-scale attacks. The hackers “exploited a vulnerability in Facebook’s code that existed between July 2017 and September 2018,” Rosen said.
The FTC banned a marketing group behind a “get-rich-with-Amazon” scheme from marketing and other business-related transactions, the agency announced in a $63.5 million settlement Thursday. The deal requires Jeffrey Gomez, Adams Consulting and Global Marketing Services to surrender $63.5 million, “which will be partially suspended when Gomez surrenders approximately $2.55 million in funds and assets.” Defendants falsely claimed their “Amazing Wealth System” would deliver profitable online business through Amazon sales, the agency said. Most customers “lost significant amounts of money” and many were suspended from the platform, the agency said. An attorney for the defendants didn’t comment.
The agenda for the FTC’s fourth round of consumer protection and competition policy hearings will focus on intellectual property, the agency said Thursday. Highlighting the Oct. 23-24 event at the Constitution Center are Office of Policy Planning Chief Counsel-Intellectual Property Suzanne Munck and Patent and Trademark Office Commissioner-Patents Drew Hirshfeld. The third round of hearings will be Monday through Wednesday, with a keynote from Commissioner Rohit Chopra (see 1810020061).
The Supreme Court will hold oral argument in Apple v. Robert Pepper, docket 17-204, on Nov. 26, the high court announced this week (see 1810020047). Apple appealed a class-action antitrust lawsuit alleging it monopolized distribution of App Store applications.
Kano Computing agreed to change privacy practices on its website, while AT&T plans to challenge advertising industry criticisms of its "More for Your Thing" campaign, arms of the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council said Wednesday. The Children's Advertising Review Unit recommended Kano bring practices into line with a self-regulatory program and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. It said the site didn't try to obtain verifiable parental consent and there was no FTC-approved method for securing parental consent before collection or disclosure of kids' personal information. It said Kano indicated it would make such changes. The National Advertising Division said AT&T indicated it will appeal to the National Advertising Review Board. NAD said T-Mobile challenged ad campaign claims, and that some claims were supported but others were "puffery." Kano and AT&T didn't comment.
NTIA extended the deadline for comments on the administration’s privacy principles process (see 1808060035) from Oct. 26 to Nov. 9, says a Federal Register notice prepared for Thursday. NTIA began soliciting comments in late September. The agency has been meeting privately with tech, telecom, retail and privacy groups individually throughout the process.