Amazon said it’s bumping its minimum wage to $15 an hour for all U.S. employees and will lobby for a hike in the federal minimum wage from $7.25. It has come under fire from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who last month co-wrote with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act to require compensation to the federal government from companies whose employees rely on federal assistance. “We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do, and decided we want to lead,” CEO Jeff Bezos said Tuesday. He nudged "competitors and other large employers to join us.” "This is exactly the response Sen. Sanders and I hoped for when we introduced our bill," Khanna said. "Hopefully more companies will follow Amazon’s lead.” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) urged "other businesses and other states to follow suit and show the same respect to their workers."

WineAmerica is the formal name of the National Association of American Wineries (see 1810010031).

Commissioner Rohit Chopra will keynote the FTC's third round of policy hearings on competition and consumer protection (see 1809210056). The event will run Oct. 15-17 at George Mason University and will cover “collusive, exclusionary, and predatory conduct in multi-sided, technology-based platform industries,” the agency said.

DOJ can appear during oral argument in Apple’s appeal of a class-action antitrust lawsuit alleging it monopolized distribution of App Store applications (see 1806180053), the Supreme Court decided Monday in Apple v. Robert Pepper, et al., docket 17-204. The solicitor general in May asked the court to grant Apple's petition, arguing the 9th Circuit misapplied Illinois Brick preventing indirect purchasers from seeking certain antitrust damages passed on by third parties (see 1805090051). States have “allowed indirect purchasers to sue under state antitrust law, leading to decades of experience that contradict the predictions and policy judgments underlying Illinois Brick,” 31 states argued in favor of Pepper. Computer & Communications Industry Association argued in favor of Apple, saying pass-through harm leads to duplicative damages claims in conflict with the high court’s precedents. Illinois Brick “preserves standing for a direct purchaser to recover damages for overcharges, whether or not those charges are passed along to downstream customers,” BSA|The Software Alliance argued. Open Markets Institute argued “Apple falsely implies its app store is a neutral and open marketplace. … Through contractual and technical restrictions, the company compels owners of iPhones and developers of iPhone apps to conduct business solely on its App Store and on its terms.”

A U.S. District Court, Louisville, law clerk granted Tempur Sealy’s request Monday to serve a Digital Millennium Copyright Act subpoena on Amazon for information leading to the identity of a third-party merchant that the bedding manufacturer alleges is selling counterfeit goods on the e-commerce site, court records show. The subpoena (in Pacer) gives Amazon three weeks to turn over to Tempur Sealy's attorneys any documents it has on the merchant, Astonishing Goods, that identify the operator’s name and physical and email addresses. Tempur Sealy wants the information “only for the purpose” of protecting its intellectual property, said the attorneys (in Pacer). The lawyers also asked Amazon (in Pacer) to "immediately take steps" to disable access to the "infringing materials" and notify anyone who participated in the distribution of the goods that "their conduct was illegal and could be subject to enforcement." Tempur Sealy holds Amazon as "the party responsible for hosting the user's storefront," they said. They didn't explicitly accuse Amazon of contributory infringement but said Tempur Sealy is "not waiving its right to engage in other enforcement activities, and reserves all rights to do so at any time." Amazon didn’t comment. Under DMCA provisions, copyright holders can request federal subpoenas to stop alleged online infringement without filing an actual lawsuit and without requiring a judge's signature.

An ICANN policy panel made "important progress" toward revising the Whois system to comply with the EU general data protection regulation, Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy professor Milton Mueller blogged. Meeting in Los Angeles Sept. 24-26, the expedited policy development group (ePDP) pushed past the "same old conflicts of interest" to strike a tentative approach, he said Friday. Stakeholder groups need to approve the proposals, and the ePDP must submit an initial report for review at the Oct. 20-26 ICANN meeting in Barcelona. The ePDP "finally recognized a clear distinction" between the purposes for data collection and third-party legitimate interests in gaining access to that information, said Mueller, an ICANN participant. The panel identified the purposes of the database, the data required for them, and which GDPR rules apply to the data processed, he said: "Progress almost broke down" over "Purpose B" on enabling third-party access to nonpublic registrant data. The group compromised for lawful access for legitimate third-party interests to registration data already collected and identified, and to classify Purpose B as a registry/registrar, rather than ICANN, purpose. Other proposals include establishing rights of a registered name holder in a registered name and coordinating development and implementation of policies for resolving disputes over registration of domain names.

Facebook discovered Tuesday that hackers stole access to as many as 90 million user accounts, it announced Friday. “While I'm glad we found this, fixed the vulnerability, and secured the accounts that may be at risk, the reality is we need to continue developing new tools to prevent this,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. The vulnerability, which allowed exploitation of the “view as” feature, was patched Thursday, and law enforcement notified, said Vice President-Product Management Guy Rosen said. The feature lets users see what their profiles look like from another's perspective. The vulnerability let hackers steal “access tokens” and take control of accounts. “Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook so they don’t need to re-enter their password every time they use the app,” Rosen said. Facebook reset access to almost 50 million accounts “we know were affected,” and as a “precautionary measure,” reset access tokens for another 40 million “that have been subject to a ‘View As’ look-up in the last year.” The feature is disabled until the security review is completed. The vulnerability “stemmed from a change we made to our video uploading feature in July 2017,” Rosen said. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said a swift investigation should be made public: “Congress needs to step up and take action to protect the privacy and security of social media users. ... The era of the Wild West in social media is over.”

The White House wants an update to the national artificial intelligence strategy on research and development, and opened the process to public comment, an AI advisory board announced Wednesday. The Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (see 1805100065), which is under the National Science and Technology Council, “began updating” the National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan Wednesday. “By updating our strategic plan for AI R&D, we help ensure that the United States continues to lead in cutting edge AI innovations that address the most pressing AI challenges of today,” said Deputy Assistant to the President-Technology Policy Michael Kratsios. BSA|The Software Alliance Vice President-Global Policy Aaron Cooper said: “Ensuring that the federal government’s funding is used efficiently and effectively -- both on basic research and in addressing workforce shifts -- is a key pillar of a national AI strategy.” Comments are due Oct. 26.

Four companies settled with the FTC over allegations they “falsely claimed certification under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework,” the agency said Thursday. The settlement establishes a consent agreement with the companies that carries a $41,484 civil penalty for future infractions. The defendants were IDmission, mResource, SmartStart Employment Screening and VenPath. FTC alleged VenPath and SmartStart also failed to follow Privacy Shield requirement that companies ending participation in the program “affirm to the Department of Commerce that they will continue to apply the Privacy Shield protections to personal information collected while participating in the program.”

Uber reached a $148 million settlement with all 50 states and the District of Columbia on the company’s yearlong delay in reporting a data breach affecting some 600,000 drivers and riders (see 1804120056), Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley (R) announced Wednesday. Uber learned about the breach in November 2016 but didn’t report it until November 2017, said Hawley. “Even though some of that information triggered Missouri law requiring Uber to notify affected Missouri residents, Uber failed to report the breach in a timely manner,” Hawley’s office said. Affected Missouri drivers are eligible for $100 in compensation, Hawley said. “Instead of notifying impacted consumers of the breach within a reasonable amount of time, Uber hid the incident for over a year – and actually paid the hackers to delete the data and keep quiet,” Pennsylvania AG Josh Shapiro (D) said. “That is outrageous corporate misconduct.” Uber will "continue to invest in protections to keep our customers and their data safe and secure, and we’re committed to maintaining a constructive and collaborative relationship with governments around the world," Uber Chief Legal Officer Tony West said Wednesday.