A coalition of 65 civil liberties, legal, privacy and tech organizations and experts urged state election officials not to turn over voters' personal data to the presidential commission that's investigating President Donald Trump's unsupported claim of massive voter fraud. In a Monday letter to the National Association of State Secretaries (NASS), the coalition led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center said it "strongly" opposes the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity's request, which some officials like Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) said last week is an effort to "commit large-scale voter suppression." The commission is seeking names, addresses, dates of birth, party affiliation and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. "This is sensitive, personal information that individuals are often required to provide to be eligible to vote. There is no indication how the information will be used, who will have access to it, or what safeguards will be established," the letter said. The coalition said the commission also failed to conduct and publish a privacy impact assessment as required by law before collecting personal data. Last week, the Congressional Black Caucus in a letter also urged NASS members not to comply. Media reports say more than half the states are refusing to comply.

The FTC said Broadcom agreed to create a firewall to remedy agency concerns that the company's proposed $5.9 billion buy of Brocade Communications Systems, a networking products maker, would otherwise be anti-competitive. The concerns arose "because of Broadcom’s current access to the confidential business information of Brocade’s major competitor, Cisco Systems, Inc., that could be used to restrain competition or slow innovation in the worldwide market for fibre channel switches," said an FTC release Monday. It said Brocade and Cisco are the only two competitors in the global market for fiber channel switches, and Broadcom supplies both companies with application specific integrated circuits to make them. Such switches are part of networks that transfer data between servers and storage arrays in data centers, the release said. By owning Brocade, Broadcom could use Cisco's competitively sensitive confidential information "to unilaterally exercise market power or to coordinate action among Brocade and Cisco, increasing the likelihood that customers would pay higher prices for fibre channel switches, or that innovation would be lessened," said the FTC. Commissioners voted 2-0 to issue a complaint and accept the proposed consent decree subject to public comment through Aug. 2, and final action thereafter.

An international network of consumer protection agencies in more than 60 countries, including the FTC in the U.S., unveiled an updated website to help identify and respond to cross-border consumer issues, said the commission in a Friday news release. The International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network's updated site, which includes a mobile version, provides information to help consumers avoid scams, safely shop online and file a complaint in cross-border disputes. ICPEN's update also helps member agencies securely share intelligence on emerging fraudulent, deceptive and unfair commercial practices, the release said. More updates are expected over the next year, it added.

Eighty-three individuals and international organizations, including Access Now, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, R Street Institute and TechFreedom, are urging the "Five Eyes" -- an intelligence alliance comprised of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. -- to facilitate strong encryption development and usage. The alliance's ministers and attorneys general met earlier last week, and issued a joint communique saying "encryption can severely undermine public safety efforts by impeding lawful access to the content of communications during investigations into serious crimes, including terrorism." They wanted to discuss "shared solutions" with communications and technology companies "while upholding cybersecurity and individual rights and freedoms," the communique said. But, in a Friday letter to officials, including U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, the coalition favoring strong encryption said the alliance's proposal threatened such communications tools. The letter said engineering back doors or other "deliberate weaknesses into commercially available encryption software ... [is] both shortsighted and counterproductive." The coalition said "encryption does far more good than harm."

In response to the WannaCry ransomware that affected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide last month (see 1705180032 and 1705160038), House and Senate lawmakers proposed bipartisan legislation that would establish baseline, voluntary cyber hygiene best practices that would be publicly accessible online. In a joint news release, Reps. Susan Brooks, R-Ind., and Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Ed Markey, D-Mass., said the Promoting Good Cyber Hygiene Act would direct the Department of Homeland Security, the FTC and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create those standards and consider measures such as multifactor authentication and data loss prevention. Eshoo said experts suggested 90 percent of successful cyberattacks are due to system administrators "overlooking" cyber hygiene and security management. She said the attacks cost the U.S. economy "half a trillion dollars annually" in identity theft, exposed financial data and other things.

French data protection authority CNIL said Microsoft is complying with the country's data protection law, after the DPA lodged a formal notice last year that the company excessively collected personal data, tracked users' web browsing without their consent and failed to provide security and confidentiality of the collected user data. In a Thursday news release, CNIL said Microsoft's "response led [it] to consider that violations had ceased" and the company has implemented several measures to comply with the July 2016 notice, which said more than 10 million users of Windows 10 were affected. The DPA said Microsoft "has nearly reduced by half the volume of collected data within the 'basic' level of its telemetry service which is capable of identifying the system’s functional issues and solving them." Microsoft informs users about how it tracks them for customized advertising and gives them a choice of whether to activate or deactivate this service, CNIL said. The company also strengthened user authentication to access online services, the agency said. CNIL said it gave Microsoft until January to comply with the French Data Protection Act. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company is "committed to protecting our customers’ privacy and putting them in control of their information." Microsoft appreciates the DPA's "decision and will continue to provide clear privacy choices and easy-to-use tools in Windows 10,” she said.

Netflix added Dolby Atmos support Wednesday and released its first Atmos-enabled series, the Netflix original Okja, Chief Product Officer Greg Peters blogged. Xbox customers can access Dolby Atmos immersive audio content by connecting an Xbox One or Xbox One S game console to a Dolby Atmos-enabled home theater system, TV, soundbar or via headphones, he said. For headphones to be Atmos compatible, users have to buy a $14.99 feature available via the Dolby Access app in the Xbox Store, said a Netflix product support page. Netflix plans to roll out support for Dolby technologies to additional devices over time. The companies said more titles are coming, including four more Atmos series this year.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce defended Google, which the European Commission fined $2.72 billion Tuesday for abusing its market position as a search engine (see 1706270001). Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the FTC should consider the "mounting evidence that Google is manipulating search results in anticompetitive ways and possibly running afoul of our antitrust laws." He said the FTC should investigate the company's actions that may hurt competitors and limit consumer choice. Myron Brilliant, head of Chamber international affairs, said no company should face a "tortured process" as did Google, which was investigated for seven years, culminating in an "eye-popping" fine. It's unclear "how far Google must go to satisfy the Commission’s order," he said.

Some 87 percent of Amazon Echo owners plan to upgrade to the Echo Show when it begins shipping Wednesday, said an Asurion survey of 600 consumers released Monday. The extended warranty and tech support company expects an uptick in calls from consumers, mirroring the 400 percent jump for Echo after the winter holidays, it said. “Customers are excited about the screen and ability to make video and internet phone calls and our experience tells us customers will most likely experience issues with basic set up, pairing and connecting to their home Wi-Fi setup,” said Todd Chretien, Asurion senior vice president-customer solutions.

GTT Communications agreed to acquire Global Capacity, GTT said in a Monday news release, for $100 million cash and 1.85 million shares of GTT common stock to be issued to the sellers at closing. Following GTT’s $37.6 million acquisition of Perseus (see 1706200080), the deal adds customers in the healthcare, application service provider, retail and carrier markets; enhances GTT’s managed SD-WAN service with Ethernet over copper infrastructure; and expands GTT’s network to 8.6 million U.S. commercial addresses, the buyer said. The companies expect to close by the end of Q3, including subject to regulatory approvals, GTT said.