Lawmakers can't ignore cost to innovation when considering stringent privacy regulations, said the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Wednesday. Senior Policy Analyst Alan McQuinn and Vice President Daniel Castro said that if European digital advertising revenue grew at the same rate as in the U.S., the EU, where "strict privacy regulations reduce the revenue digital companies can earn from online ads," would have had an additional 11.7 billion euros flow through its digital ecosystem 2012-17. The report suggested a three-part test for adopting potential privacy regulations: Lawmakers should “target specific, substantial harms,” “directly limit those harms,” and “the costs of the regulations must be outweighed by their countervailing benefits.”

ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization plans to launch an “expedited policy development process” by the end of July for a proposed framework that would let third-parties access nonpublic domain registry data, said U.S. Council for International Business Vice President-ICT Policy Barbara Wanner in a newer blog post that was revised from Friday’s version (see 1807060026). She characterized this outcome from last week’s ICANN meeting as a positive development and described setting the “ambitious timeline” as “significant” progress.

Amazon continued its Prime marketing blitz Tuesday, widening its net to Whole Foods customers. Amazon said it's adding Echo and Fire TV products to Whole Foods shelves. Best Buy, meanwhile, blogged Monday that it added voice-only deals via Alexa. Retail marketing platform company Bluecore said that last year, 20 percent of products discounted by Amazon during Prime Day were available elsewhere for less. Prime Day “fuels non-Amazon purchases,” it said, saying consumers discovered products on Amazon and bought elsewhere. Electronics retailers saw the biggest spike, 26 percent, on orders averaging $50 or less, it said, with Statista saying 26.1 percent of 2017 Prime Day shoppers bought a device. Target announced Tuesday its Drive Up service, which it tested in hometown Minneapolis last year, expanded in big and midsize Midwest and other cities including Chicago; Indianapolis; Lansing; Louisville; Erie, Pennsylvania; and South Charleston, West Virginia. More than 800 stores offer the service. Customers order by app, and are notified when the order is ready -- “usually within one hour,” said the retailer.

The Communications Workers of America Monday joined Freedom From Facebook, a campaign urging the FTC to break up Facebook’s “monopoly” (see 1805210051). “It’s time for the FTC to hold Facebook accountable, impose strong privacy rules on the platform, and break up the monopoly,” said CWA Strategic Research Associate Brian Thorn. Facebook didn't comment.

ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization failed to agree on a proposed framework allowing third-party access to nonpublic domain registry data, said U.S. Council for International Business Vice President-ICT Policy Barbara Wanner Friday; the text was later revised by the council to focus on the meeting's progress. That’s despite ICANN’s policymaking body having spent the Panama ICANN policy meeting developing a charter for an “expedited policy development process,” she said. ICANN said “accreditation for third-party access to non-public domain registry data will be undertaken outside of ICANN, likely by entities/processes designated by EU member states,” she wrote.

Apple celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the App Store Thursday in a post on its newsroom page featuring commentary from executives and app developers. The store launched on July 10, 2008, with 500 apps, which the company said “ignited a cultural, social and economic phenomenon that changed how people work, play, meet, travel and so much more.” Today, customers in more than 155 countries visit the store, it said. Phil Schiller, senior vice president-worldwide marketing, said the store exceeded all expectations and it’s “just the beginning.” Marco Arment, developer of Overcast, said the store eliminated the friction and overhead of setting up distribution and payment systems. Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova, founders of Imangi Studios, noted the company's first game, Imangi, launched the day the App Store opened. Ten years later, the company has created more than 10 games, including Temple Run, which has been downloaded over a billion times, they said. Daniel Wu, president of Hero Entertainment, praised the store for bringing gaming mainstream and giving gamers “new ways to socialize.” HBO CEO Richard Plepler called the arrival of HBO NOW at the App Store “one of the most significant moments” in the company’s history. Asymco analyst Horace Dediu said more than 28,000 iOS apps now offer subscriptions, which are up 95 percent from last year. As of June, developers have earned more than $100 billion from the App Store, Dediu said.

A federal judge ordered Credit Bureau Center and owner Michael Brown to pay consumers $5.2 million on FTC charges that the company posted deceptive Craigslist ads for nonexistent rental properties that falsely promised “free” credit reports. The company enrolled victims in a credit monitoring service that cost about $30 a month without their knowledge, the FTC said Thursday. The agency claimed Brown and his company “impersonated property owners and offered property tours if consumers would first obtain credit reports and scores from their websites.” The defendants violated the FTC Act, the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Free Annual File Disclosures Rule, the FTC said. Brown and his company didn't comment.

Senior executives are “finally becoming aware that cybersecurity has a significant impact on the ability to achieve business goals and protect corporate reputation,” and that’s a top “security and risk management trends” to watch, said Gartner Tuesday. Cybersecurity “is a board-level topic and an essential part of any solid digital business strategy,” it said. Business leaders “have not always been receptive to this message,” but a recent string of “high-profile incidents,” including the Equifax data breach, changed all that, it said. “Business leaders and senior stakeholders at last appreciate security as much more than just tactical, technical stuff done by overly serious, unsmiling types in the company basement," said Gartner. “Security organizations must capitalize on this trend by working closer with business leadership and clearly linking security issues with business initiatives that could be affected.”

Yelp can't be forced to remove critical third-party reviews, the California Supreme Court ruled 4-3 Monday, reversing a prior Court of Appeals decision. The case stems from a 2014 lawsuit from attorney Dawn Hassell, who claimed her former client, Ava Bird, defamed her through two negative Yelp reviews. Because Bird didn't show up for court proceedings, Hassell won, and the company was ordered to remove the posts. The Court of Appeals agreed. The state high court said that court “adopted too narrow a construction of” Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and setting such a precedent “could interfere with and undermine the viability of an online platform.” The lower court improperly treated Yelp as “the publisher or speaker of . . . information provided by another information content provider,” the majority opinion said. Yelp Deputy General Counsel Aaron Schur wrote that the suit “threatened the rights of online platforms that allow people to freely share their thoughts and the billions of people that do" that. "We are disappointed in the Court’s plurality opinion, which construes the reach of the Communications Decency Act beyond its intended scope and stands as an invitation to spread falsehoods on the internet without consequence," Hassell's attorney Monique Olivier emailed, saying her client is considering all legal options, including review by the Supreme Court.

Smart home device ownership “continues to explode,” doubling to 20 percent of U.S. internet homes in April from November 2015, Stephen Baker, NPD vice president-industry analysis, told the ATSC 3.0 Midwest Next-Gen TV Summit in Columbus, Ohio. Voice-activated speakers are the “first intelligent product in many consumer homes,” said Baker, citing data from a Connected Intelligence survey, with ownership doubling to 20 percent of U.S. homes in Q2 from the same 2017 quarter. TVs are “dramatically more connected,” said Baker Thursday. NPD estimates 63 million U.S. homes owned 210 million smart TVs at the end of 2017, an increase of 21 million homes and 108 million devices in four years, he said. Sixty-three percent of U.S. homes owning at least one 4K TV have “enough bandwidth” to stream 4K video content, said Baker, due to “faster tier broadband plans.” NPD estimates 16.3 percent of internet homes in the U.S. were 4K streaming-capable in February, said Baker. Having passed from the early adopter to the early majority stage of new technology acceptance, 4K streaming-capable internet homes are poised to reach mainstream proportions, he said.