The FTC under acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen "filed or settled 44 consumer protection matters in district court, reached 14 administrative consent agreements related to consumer protection, and distributed $86,519,000 in redress to over a million consumers," said a Tuesday news release touting agency achievements over the last six months. Ohlhausen became acting chairman in early February (see 1701250036), and the White House hasn't indicated if and when it will nominate a permanent chair and fill three commissioner vacancies (see 1705190023, 1702220046 and 1705090048).

Connected Nation seeks "improvements" to the FCC's Form 477 process of collecting broadband data, which it called "deficient." Accurate, granular broadband maps are critical to developing sound policy "to close the digital divide," said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 11-10 on a meeting CN officials had with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai. "Any future broadband mapping effort must prioritize the accuracy and granularity of broadband maps at the street address or parcel level of detail but must also prioritize the protection of providers’ proprietary and confidential information that may be used to derive more granular coverage footprints." The group also discussed possible legislation "to create a single, independent, third-party clearinghouse for broadband data collection and mapping." A tentative agenda for commissioners' Aug. 3 meeting includes a draft Further NPRM that would seek ways to improve Form 477 data collection while eliminating unnecessary filing burdens (see 1707130059).

"Is tech destroying jobs? Absolutely! And we should be glad," said Mark Jamison, American Enterprise Institute visiting fellow and former member of the Trump FCC transition team. When businesses adopt technologies that lower costs or improve service, they improve efficiency and give consumers "more bang for their buck ... by definition economic growth," he blogged Monday. Technological change creates churn as old jobs disappear, and some may struggle, but it doesn't increase unemployment as "new tech creates new jobs," he said, citing Silicon Valley employing more than 1.3 million people in 2016, a 23 percent increase since 2010.

Internet Brands will acquire WebMD Health in a $2.8 billion deal, they said in a Monday news release. The acquisition is expected to close 4Q. Internet Brands is owned by KKR.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling to suppress evidence the FBI collected against two Iowa residents charged with accessing child pornography in connection with the 2015 Playpen sting (see 1705020011, 1702100005 and 1610250049). Judges Lavenski Smith, Bobby Shepherd and Gary Fenner ruled in Monday's opinion (in Pacer) written by Smith that the FBI warrant authorizing the search of computers using a network investigative technique (NIT) violated Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which said a magistrate judge in one jurisdiction can't authorize a search of a computer in another jurisdiction. In Playpen, a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia issued the NIT warrant in February 2015 to track down defendants' IP addresses, along with hundreds of others implicated in the sting. (The rule was updated in December (see 1612140051) to permit a judge to issue a single warrant for multiple jurisdictions.) Defendants in the 8th Circuit case, Beau Croghan and Steven Horton, argued the warrant violated Rule 41 and the government was prohibited from doing extraterritorial searches and seizures. Last September, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa sided with their argument. But the 8th Circuit panel said even though the warrant violated Rule 41, an exception based on U.S. v. Leon can be applied here since there was no "bad faith" by FBI agents. "A reasonable reader [of the warrant] would have understood that the search would extend beyond the boundaries of the district because of the thorough explanation provided in the attached affidavit. This does not amount to a reckless disregard for the truth," the ruling said. It said suppression could affect other cases. It said the "marginal benefit" of deterring such warrants doesn't "outweigh" related costs of "'letting guilty and possibly dangerous defendants go free.'" Fenner concurred and dissented in part. He said he didn't think the NIT warrant violated Rule 41.

Overregulation in state licensing for certain professions could hamper online commerce, especially when it benefits incumbents or those "afraid of change," said acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen at an Internet Governance Forum USA event Monday. Ohlhausen said her Economic Liberty Task Force (see 1702170026 and 1703160032), which plans a public discussion Thursday, will talk about approaches for license portability and job mobility. Regulations are needed for some occupations, but there's "strong evidence" most occupational licenses are unnecessary, she said. In Texas, Ohlhausen said the FTC supported a telemedicine company's lawsuit against a state rule that required an in-person meeting between a patient and doctor, which the company said was anticompetitive. In May, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) signed a law removing the requirement, ending the lawsuit, but Ohlhausen said there are other examples, such as unnecessary regulation of ride-hailing. More regulation doesn't make consumers better off, she said: "If everyone has to have the Cadillac to drive on the internet road what about the people who can’t afford it, who are going to be walking, who’ll be worse off?"

The FTC started providing hypothetical examples of security practices based on closed investigations to help businesses improve, said a Friday news release. Through its "Stick with Security" effort, the agency will blog every Friday about lessons learned. The agency has held workshops and issued a guide to help businesses with security (see 1606150016).

Privacy Shield still has "deficiencies" that must be "urgently resolved" so the trans-Atlantic data sharing arrangement "doesn't suffer from critical weaknesses," said the head of the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee, in a Friday news release. The assessment by the committee, which previously has been critical of the agreement (see 1703290015), comes ahead of a required review in September to ensure Privacy Shield is functioning adequately. LIBE Chair Claude Moraes, who last week led an eight-member delegation to Washington to meet with various U.S. government officials (see 1707140018), pointed to problems with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and the State Department's ombudsperson position. Since January, the five-member PCLOB, which has four vacancies, has lacked a quorum (see 1612270051), while the ombudsperson role to handle Europeans' complaints about U.S. government access to their personal data has been filled by a State Department official in an acting capacity. The delegation also focused on the ongoing review of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Presidential Policy Directive 28 and other law enforcement elements, the release said. Moraes said Privacy Shield will need to comply with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the general data protection regulation that is going into effect in May. U.S.-based privacy groups have told the EU that the agreement has problems (see 1707050019 and 1707060006).

To steer people from violent extremist propaganda, YouTube rolled out a feature wherein searches for certain keywords will display a playlist of videos aimed at debunking violent extremist recruiting narratives, it blogged Thursday. It said the feature comes from the joint Jigsaw/Moonshot CVE Redirect Method, which redirects people from violent extremist propaganda and toward video content confronting those messages. YouTube said it hopes in coming weeks to expand the new functionality with more search queries in other languages, use machine learning to update the search query terms dynamically, expand the Redirect Method in Europe and work with nongovernmental organizations to develop video content aimed at countering violent extremist messaging.

The FTC will host roundtables with small business owners on cybersecurity across the country. In a Thursday news release, the agency said the first event will be held Tuesday in Portland, Oregon, in partnership with the National Cyber Security Alliance, the Small Business Administration and others. That will be followed by a Sept. 6 discussion in Cleveland and another that month in Des Moines, Iowa, the FTC added. The discussions are part of FTC acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen's initiative, which includes a website, to help small businesses protect themselves from cyberattacks and avoid scams. The SBA estimates there are 28 million small businesses employing nearly 57 million people, the release said.