The FTC settled with a California online training services company over allegations it falsely claimed it was getting certified as EU-U.S. Privacy Shield compliant, said the agency Monday. The FTC said ReadyTech started a certification application with the Commerce Department in 2016 but didn’t complete “steps necessary to participate.” The company is prohibited from misrepresenting itself again, and for any future violations, faces penalties up to $41,484 for each infraction. “Today’s settlement demonstrates the FTC’s continuing commitment to vigorous enforcement of the Privacy Shield,” said FTC Chairman Joe Simons. “Privacy Shield is a critical tool for ensuring transatlantic data flows and protecting privacy that benefits both companies and consumers.” ReadyTech didn’t comment.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr will be at the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville Monday for discussions about broadband availability's effects on healthcare access and costs, particularly in rural areas, his office said Friday.
The FTC is offering merger review early termination notices through a web application programming interface endpoint, said the agency Thursday: The API endpoint lets developers "show real-time or historical data on websites, mobile apps, or other computer programs.”
A recently passed anti-sex-trafficking law is unconstitutional, censors speech protecting sex workers and forces general interest forums offline due to liability fears, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others argued in a lawsuit. The group, which includes two human rights organizations, a digital library, a sex worker activist and a massage therapist, asked U.S. District Court in Washington to block enforcement of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers-Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking (SESTA-FOSTA) package (see 1805020053). “FOSTA is the most comprehensive censorship of internet speech in America in the last 20 years,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director David Greene Thursday. “Despite good intentions, Congress wrote an awful and harmful law, and it must be struck down.” DOJ didn't comment.
Google acknowledged a problem with Google Home smart speakers, in a Thursday email to users, citing a “glitch” in a “backend system.” A fix rolled out to users Thursday, it said. Not giving a reason for the snafu, Google apologized to customers, saying it was “really sorry for the inconvenience" and "taking steps to prevent this issue from happening in the future.” The company didn’t respond to questions.
The federal government should maintain the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and do more to promote “international privacy and cybersecurity frameworks that facilitate digital trade and the seamless movement of data across borders,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce Vice President-Center for Global Regulatory Cooperation Sean Heather told the Congressional Joint Economic Committee Wednesday.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association’s estimation that fair use generates 16 percent of U.S. gross domestic product is a “comically-outsized effect,” said Phoenix Center Chief Economist George Ford Wednesday: CCIA improperly expects policymakers to “believe that entire industries like computer manufacturing, computer and printer repair, architectural and legal services, newspapers, the movie industry, among others, ‘would not exist’ without liberal fair use.” CCIA Vice President Matt Schruers said, "The choice of the WIPO methodology in 2007 was to enable cross-industry comparison with many years of content industry studies employing the same framework. If the Phoenix Center is claiming this overstates the size of the fair use economy, they're also claiming that years of content industry studies employing the same methodology are also overstated. That probably won't go over well with their funders."
The FTC should investigate “misleading and manipulative” practices by Google and Facebook that steer users toward “privacy-invasive default settings,” said the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Consumer Watchdog and six other consumer advocacy groups Wednesday. They cited an EU general data protection regulation-related study from the Norwegian Consumer Council claiming “users were deliberately pushed into less privacy friendly options.” The Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action and Public Citizen signed. “In the run up to GDPR we asked people to review key privacy information which was written in plain language, as well as make choices on three important topics,” a Facebook spokeswoman emailed. “Our approach complies with the law, follows recommendations from privacy and design experts, and is designed to help people understand how the technology works and their choices.” The FTC and Google didn’t comment.
Global distributed denial-of-service attacks rose 16 percent November-April, Akamai reported Tuesday. Reflection-based DDoS attacks rose 4 percent, and application-layer attacks like Structured Query Language injections or cross-site scripting gained 38 percent.
Adoption of voice assistants will be a key factor behind global smart home growth, with 275 million voice assistant devices projected to control smart homes by 2023, vs. 25 million this year, said Juniper Research. The introduction of scenes from Amazon and Google makes voice assistants the most convenient way to combine desired actions in the smart home, said Monday's report. Amazon’s “loss-leading strategy,” with hardware products tied to a product and service ecosystem, has established a lead, with Juniper predicting Google remaining a “distant second.”