The Domain Name Association made recommendations Wednesday on online security abuse, child abuse mitigation, complaint handling from illegal online pharmacies and copyright infringement. The recommendations are part of DNA’s Healthy Domains Initiative, which is aimed at helping domain name registries and registrars maintain the domain name system’s security and stability, the industry group said. The guidance on copyright infringement includes support for creating a voluntary third-party mechanism akin to ICANN’s trademark-centric uniform dispute resolution policy that would address copyright infringement through the use of domain names, DNA said. The industry group recommended registries and registrars design a formalized system for handling imagery related to child abuse and establish “trusted notifier” relationships with child protection authorities. DNA’s best practices for addressing DNS abuse focus on risk minimization and mitigation.

President Donald Trump's constant tweeting to his more than 24 million Twitter followers is not only helping drive users to the social media platform, but consumers' real-time reactions are "driving engagement higher," BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield wrote investors Wednesday. He said the social media site's user growth and engagement -- through device downloads and daily usage -- has been due, in part, to the presidential election. Greenfield likened Trump's tweeting to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats on the radio. Whereas listeners then could only write a letter or offer views one-to-one, "Twitter creates a relatively frictionless way for people to share their views and create an on-going dialogue with other consumers around the globe," he said. Trump is "giving people a reason to be actively engaged" rather than passively using the site as an RSS news reader, he added. "What makes Trump’s use of Twitter different is the 'importance' of the content he is putting on Twitter," wrote the analyst. "Trump is paving the way for other public figures to be more forthcoming on Twitter and much more importantly, as a place for consumers to look and react to those messages." This and the company's efforts to curb trolling and hate speech (see 1702070037) might make Twitter more appealing for a takeover over the next year, said Greenfield.

Facebook is unveiling a feature that helps people provide assistance to and communicate with others immediately after a crisis, wrote Naomi Gleit, vice president-social good, in a Wednesday blog post. The "community help" function is an update to the company's "safety check" feature, which was launched in 2014 and lets users tell friends and family they're all right after a crisis, she said. Called Community Help, the feature is being launched in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. for the first couple of weeks for natural and accidental incidents before it's made more widely available and for more types of incidents, she said. In a separate blog post, Facebook said it updated policies, resources and tools to better enforce rules against discriminatory advertising on its site after the company was criticized last year for permitting advertisers to potentially discriminate against users by race. "We make it clear that advertisers may not discriminate against people based on personal attributes such as race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family status, disability, medical or genetic condition," it said. The company said it created a new section that provides more information on anti-discrimination policy and educational resources from agencies and civil rights groups that specialize in fighting such discrimination. Facebook is also testing machine learning technology to spot credit opportunity, employment and housing ads -- "the types of advertising stakeholders told us they were concerned about" -- by "disapproving" them and providing the updated policy.

A lack of racial diversity within technology companies could hurt their financial performance, Open MIC reported Wednesday. It said tech companies in the top 10 percent of racial and ethnic diversity are about two-thirds more likely to produce more revenue than those in the bottom 10 percent. "Similarly, companies that lack racial/ethnic diversity are about 20% more likely to fall short of median operating margins," said the nonprofit. “Given the growing social, political and economic influence of tech companies, the lack of diversity in the sector has implications that extend far beyond the industry itself,” said Executive Director Michael Connor in a news release. The report recommended tech companies measure their progress by collecting and disclosing data on race and gender, such as employees' functions, seniority, tenure, status, salary and other information. "Tech companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft have begun to disclose employee salaries, broken down by gender and sometimes but not always by race," the report said. Another recommendation is linking "time-bound goals" such as hiring and advancing women and minorities within organizations to leaders who are responsible for hitting those targets. Last year, Microsoft said it would tie executive bonuses to workforce diversity goals, and Pandora said it plans to increase percentage of U.S. employees of color to 45 percent by 2020, up from 35 percent, the report said. Open MIC said white executives, who hold a disproportionate power in tech companies, need to be fully committed to improving diversity and inclusion or those efforts will fall short.

Verisign lost its appeal Wednesday to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of District Judge Claude Hilton’s 2015 dismissal of the domain name registry’s false advertising lawsuit against registry XYZ. Verisign claimed XYZ violated the Lanham Act by claiming entities couldn't get desired .com domain names from Verisign, and that XYZ’s .xyz top-level domain was “the next .com.” Hilton dismissed the lawsuit in the Alexandria, Va., court, saying XYZ’s statements about its rising registration numbers were “verifiably true." When XYZ “stated they were a market leader in new TLD’s and that they had the most new registrations than any other TLD, they were basing that information off of an accurate zone file,” Hilton said in his ruling (in Pacer). A three-member 4th Circuit panel affirmed Hilton’s ruling Wednesday. Verisign’s analysis of XYZ’s claims “suffers from what we have identified as a ‘fatal flaw’ in calculating Lanham Act damages: It assumes rather than demonstrates that every .xyz registration during the relevant time period was the result of XYZ’s allegedly false statements,” said Judge Pamela Harris for the three-member panel. Judges Henry Floyd and James Wynn joined Harris in affirming the district court ruling. XYZ’s claims about the availability of .com domain names couldn’t be considered false or misleading under the Lanham Act, the 4th Circuit ruled. “XYZ’s statements concerning the availability of desirable .com names constitute opinion or puffery, not statements of fact on which reasonable consumers could rely,” the court said. “XYZ’s YouTube video claim that it is ‘impossible to find the domain name that you want’ … we conclude, cannot be interpreted as a verifiable statement of objective fact.” Verisign and XYZ didn’t immediately comment.

Total global spending on IoT “endpoints and services” will reach almost $2 trillion in 2017, Gartner reported Tuesday. It forecasts 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017, up 31 percent from 2016, and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. The consumer segment will be the largest user of connected things, with 5.2 billion units in 2017, or 63 percent of the overall number of applications in use, Gartner said. "Aside from automotive systems, the applications that will be most in use by consumers will be smart TVs and digital set-top boxes, while smart electric meters and commercial security cameras will be most in use by businesses."

Twitter said it's making changes aimed at stopping harassment and enhancing freedom of expression on the site, building on efforts started in November. A Tuesday blog post said Twitter will try to better identify and stop people who already have been permanently suspended from opening new accounts. It will provide safer search results that remove "potentially sensitive" tweets and those from blocked or muted accounts. "While this type of content will be discoverable if you want to find it, it won’t clutter search results any longer," the company said. Twitter will try to better identity and collapse potentially abusive and low-quality tweets so users can see more relevant conversations. It said such tweet replies will remain accessible to those who want to see them. Last week, the company said it gave a user the ability to report tweets that mention them even if an account has blocked that user.

Public Knowledge hailed the FTC on its settlement agreement with Vizio (see 1702060042) for “stepping in to protect consumers’ privacy in this clear case of deception,” Policy Fellow Dallas Harris said in a Monday statement. “Most importantly, the FTC has determined that information such as consumer viewing history is in fact sensitive information that should require a consumer’s affirmative express consent before being collected,” she said. “This places the FTC’s privacy framework squarely in line with the broadband privacy rules recently passed by the FCC.” Efforts to use the Congressional Review Act to repeal those FCC rules “would create a double standard,” where ISPs would be allowed to collect and use consumers’ personal information without their consent,” said the lawyer. “Congress should ensure that these privacy protections remain in place.”

CyrusOne agreed to buy two data centers from Sentinel Data Centers for $490 million, the acquirer said in a Monday news release. The data centers are in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and Somerset, New Jersey. CyrusOne said it expects to close the deal in 30-45 days subject to customary closing conditions. It’s a good deal that diversifies CyrusOne’s customer base by adding healthcare and financial services customers, Wells Fargo analyst Eric Luebchow wrote investors.

ICANN Ombudsman Herb Waye urged participants to consider whether they're being “respectful and constructive” in criticizing the leaders of the organization's various multistakeholder policy development processes. Those leaders are expected to be able “to handle critique, dissent, aggressive questioning of decisions, and many other challenges to their leadership,” but not “abusive criticism” or “counterproductive, irritating or frivolous comments,” Waye said in a Friday blog post. “I am not asking people to go easy on leadership. Hold them accountable for their decisions. Demand transparency. Enforce application of policy.” But that criticism should make leaders “feel you want to be part of a solution rather than merely an opponent,” Waye said. “By offering constructive criticism rather than simply criticizing, you are treating the leadership with respect. You are legitimately challenging them and at the same time demonstrating an interest in opening a conversation with them about improvement or change. Comments should focus on the problem not the people.”