Acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen provided general information, tips and resources to help consumers prevent identity theft of their children's, medical and tax data, during a Wednesday Twitter chat with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Ohlhausen said unpaid medical debts could damage a person's credit or ruin credit "so your child may be denied credit and/or loans for school, car, or a job." She said people should check with credit agencies if they're an ID theft victim, including requesting a manual search of their children's Social Security numbers. "Kids don’t have credit reports -- unless someone is using their info for fraud," she tweeted. Ohlhausen said people should beware of Internal Revenue Service scammers claiming people owe taxes and threaten lawsuit, arrest or deportation as well as phishing emails seeking employee information from organizations. She said people should keep tax records forever and shred other records after seven years to prevent tax ID theft. When filing taxes, people should file early and use a secure connection, not public Wi-Fi, she added. The chat used hashtags #ChildIDTheft, #MedIDTheft, #TaxIDTheft and #VeteranIDTheftChat.

Updates to systems to allow universal acceptance of domain names that use non-Latin based scripts, such as Arabic, Chinese or Cyrillic, is a $9.8 billion opportunity for growth in online revenue, the Universal Acceptance Steering Group said Tuesday in a white paper based on the results of commissioned Analysys Mason study. ICANN's new generic top-level domain rollout resulted in the proliferation of domain names using gTLDs that are longer than the legacy three-character TLDs or internationalized domain names (IDNs) that use non-Latin scripts, UASG said. Wider technical support for IDNs would bring up to 17 million new users online who use non-Latin scripts, UASG said. Technical updates aimed at fixing bugs that cause rejection on IDNs would alone increase revenue by $3.6 billion yearly, UASG said. “To excel in the long run, organizations should seize the opportunity -- and responsibility -- to ensure that their systems work with the common infrastructure of the Internet -- the domain name system," said UASG Chairman Ram Mohan in a news release. Universal acceptance “unlocks a significant economic opportunity and provides a gateway to the next billion Internet users by ensuring a consistent and positive experience for Internet users globally," Mohan said: "Governments and NGOs will be better able to serve their citizens and constituencies if they adopt” universal acceptance.

E Ink and Sony Semiconductor Solutions formed a joint venture to develop, produce, sell and license products that use electronic paper displays, they announced Monday: "It will aim to create new electronic paper display products and systems, and grow the market of ePaper-based solutions.”

Seventy-nine percent of U.S. citizens are worried about the privacy and security of their digital data and 63 percent said they would feel more confident if government agencies and service providers had stronger policies, said Accenture in a Wednesday news release on a survey. The online poll of nearly 3,500 Americans, conducted in September and October, also found 74 percent didn't have confidence in government to keep data private and secure and 65 percent weren't assured law enforcement could investigate and prosecute cybercrimes. About 30 percent of respondents said they were a victim of cybercrime, the poll said. Sixty-six percent of respondents also said they would sacrifice convenience for better security. “This survey confirms that ‘cyber insecurity’ is pervasive, with citizens feeling concerned and vulnerable,” said Lalit Ahluwalia, who heads Accenture’s security work governments in North America. The poll, done by Market Strategy Group, had a margin of error of plus/minus 2 percent, with most respondents between 36 and 65 years old.

The New York Legislature passed a version of the FY 2018 budget Monday without the controversial marketplace sales tax. The proposed tax, included in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) original FY 2018 budget proposal, would have required “marketplace providers” to collect New York’s state and local sales taxes on any items shipped into the state from out-of-state sellers. TechNet and the Web Enabled Retailers Helping Expand Retail Employment (WE R HERE) Coalition campaigned against the proposed tax (see 1703070034). Cuomo agreed to jettison the marketplace sales tax proposal from the final budget and didn’t comment on the decision in a Monday statement lauding the budget’s passage. The online sales tax proposal’s removal “is a win for online shoppers, e-commerce businesses, and future startups that decide to locate in New York State,” said TechNet Executive Director-Northeast Region Matthew Mincieli in a statement. “This measure was bad policy that would have set a dangerous precedent across the country.”

Akamai completed its purchase of digital performance management company Soasta, Akamai said in a Friday news release. Akamai announced the all-cash deal last week (see 1703290069).

A U.S. Postal Service spokesman said our Tuesday story and subheadline spotlighting potential privacy implications of an electronic feature called "Informed Delivery" (see 1704030028) is "alarmist and misleading." He said the USPS feature's subscribers have their mailing addresses authenticated through a third party, payment transaction history or an in-person presentation of credentials. All such emails originate from a USPS address, and are branded with official agency graphics, images and logos, and also include an unsubscribe option, he said. Customers can use the feature via app on MyUSPS.com or dashboard on USPS.com, he added. "While there is always the possibility -- as there is with any email from any source -- that some phishers may attempt to take advantage, the Postal Service protects its brand and unbranded emails should be recognizable as spam." USPS, he said, takes the privacy of customers' mail "very seriously" as well as its cybersecurity responsibilities. It "adheres to the privacy requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974, which controls when and how the USPS shares personal information and limits the conditions in which that information can be disclosed externally to outside parties," he added.

Twitter dropped a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection after a summons seeking to unmask an account user critical of the government was withdrawn, the company said in a Friday filing. Twitter lodged the complaint the previous day with U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, citing constitutional free speech protections (see 1704060070) in protecting the identity of user @ALT_uscis. In the Friday filing (in Pacer), Twitter said DOJ informed the company that CBP withdrew the summons. DHS didn't comment. In a statement, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Esha Bhandari, who represents @ALT_uscis, said the "speed with which the government buckled shows just how blatantly unconstitutional its demand was in the first place." She said the anonymity the First Amendment guarantees is vital when people criticize government. In a tweet, @ALT_uscis thanked Twitter and the ACLU "for standing up for the right of free anonymous speech."

TRUSTe will pay a $100,000 settlement and will adopt steps to strengthen privacy assessments after failing to adequately prevent illegal tracking technology on popular children's websites, said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) in a Thursday news release. The AG's office said TRUSTe failed to assess its customers' websites, including those of Hasbro and Roblox, leaving children vulnerable to tracking, which is prohibited by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Though TRUSTe did electronic scans of customers' websites for third-party tracking technology, the organization "omitted most or all of its customers' children's webpages from its scans" and couldn't determine if such tracking was there, said the office. The AG also said TRUSTe didn't provide customers with relevant results from the scans and also accepted customers' representations that tracking tech found on their websites didn't violate COPPA rather than independently verifying it. Under the settlement, experienced TRUSTe employees must conduct and verify scans of a large part of customers' websites aimed at children, identify and disclose tracking technology to customers and obtain and review information about tracking tech provided by customers. CEO Chris Babel said in a blog post the settlement "relates solely to the operational practices of our Children's Certification program." He said it's also working with the FTC to update the program. In September, Schneiderman announced settlements with Hasbro, JumpStart Games, Mattel and Viacom for allowing illegal online tracking of children (see 1609130029).

The Online Trust Alliance will operate as an initiative within the Internet Society (ISOC) starting May 1, said OTA President Craig Spiezle in a Wednesday blog post. "Not unlike the threat of global warming we must collectively work together to help preserve the trust and resiliency of the Internet and embrace change today before we encounter a trust meltdown." Spiezle founded OTA 13 years ago and will be strategic executive adviser to ISOC. He said ISOC has more than 100 organizational members and more than 95,000 individual members in more than 120 chapters around the world.