Since the EU high court rejected the old safe harbor trans-Atlantic data sharing framework in October 2015, corporate legal concerns over cross-border data transfers have spiked, said BDO Consulting in a Thursday news release outlining its third annual e-discovery survey of more than 100 senior in-house counsel at "leading" U.S. firms. Sixty percent of corporate counsel -- up 9 percentage points from Q4 2015 -- said "their biggest challenge in cross-border e-discovery comes from numerous -- and often conflicting -- international privacy and security laws." That worry topped other issues including access to data, communication barriers and coordination with local resources. While BDO said safe harbor's successor, the EU-US Privacy Shield, harmonizes some privacy protections, individual country requirements still vary (see 1602290003). The general data protection regulation (GDPR) also provides more clarity on data protections, but also increases the EU's privacy scope and enforceability (see 1604140021), it said. BDO said 74 percent of respondents ranked data breaches as a top data-related legal risk, with 68 percent saying the legal department is more involved with cybersecurity now than a year ago. Mobile data management and under- or over-preservation of data also were listed as top legal risks. The company said independent research firm ALM conducted the survey but didn't indicate when.

Last week's confirmation hearings of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., raised more questions than answers about how President-elect Donald Trump's choice for attorney general would protect privacy and civil liberties, wrote Center for Democracy & Technology fellow Natasha Duarte in a Thursday blog post. She said Sessions opposed the USA Freedom Act, which ended NSA's bulk phone records collection program, though it never discovered or disrupted a terrorist plot. "However, at his confirmation hearing, Sessions would not admit that the USA Freedom Act bars the NSA from engaging in bulk collection of Americans’ phone records," she wrote. In Sessions' exchange with Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Pat Leahy, D-Vt., about the act (see 1701090038), Leahy was able to get Sessions to commit to upholding the law, she said, "but not a belief that the Act ends bulk collection, which was the overall purpose of the legislation." It left the door open for bulk collection, she noted. Duarte also said Sessions wouldn't commit to following DOJ standards for subpoenaing journalists, which raises a concern that the department "may conduct unnecessary or overly broad investigations of the news media."

The global blockchain technology market could be worth $20 billion by 2025, up from $315 million in 2015, predicted Transparency Market Research in a Wednesday news release. The research firm said it expects the market for blockchain, a type of authentication technology for online payments, to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 58.7 percent from 2016 to 2024. IBM, R3 and Chain Inc. lead the global market, with a combined 45.3 percent share in 2015, and will likely make acquisitions to widen their customer base and enhance their technologies, TMR said. Stringent regulations are one restraint on the market, it said: “It is imperative that [companies] adhere to privacy laws, which vary with each country.”

Hedge fund founder Ahmet Okumus agreed to pay $180,000 in civil penalties over "allegations that he violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act by failing to report his purchases of voting securities" in internet services company Web.com Group, said the FTC in a Tuesday news release. Commissioners voted 3-0 and DOJ filed the complaint and proposed order in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday. The FTC said Okumus violated the law "exceeding the filing threshold and failing to file as required when he bought shares of Web.com" through his Okumus Opportunistic Value Fund. The law requires companies and individuals to notify the FTC and DOJ of large purchases "above certain annually adjusted thresholds and ... then observe a waiting period before closing their transactions," the commission said. Okumus violated the law from June 27, when he bought the shares, until July 14, when he sold enough shares to stop exceeding the threshold. The commission said it found the violation "inadvertent" but sought penalties because it was his second violation of the law in two years regarding Web.com. A recording for a phone number listed for Okumus Fund Management said it was out of order.

The FTC will hold a FinTech forum March 9 at the University of California-Berkeley focused on consumer implications for artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies, said the commission in Friday news release. AI may be used to provide personalized financial services for consumers, while blockchain, which is a foundation for digital currency, may be used for payment systems, among other applications, said the FTC. The half-day free event will convene consumer groups, government representatives and researchers to study ways in which the technologies are used to offer consumer services, and their benefits and implications.

Hacker Guccifer 2.0 pushed back against U.S. intelligence agencies' assessment that the hacker executed the Russia-backed breaches of IT systems associated with the Democratic National Committee and the campaign of former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton aimed at influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. “These accusations are unfounded,” Guccifer 2.0 said in a Thursday blog post. “I have totally no relation to the Russian government.” An unclassified version of the U.S. intelligence agencies' report on the Russia-led hacks, released last week (see 1701060060), is a “crude fake” that “doesn't stand up to scrutiny,” Guccifer 2.0 said. “It’s obvious that the intelligence agencies are deliberately falsifying evidence. ... They’re playing into the hands of the Democrats who are trying to blame foreign actors for their failure.” Guccifer 2.0 suggested “we'll see more fakes” from President Barack Obama's administration before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated Friday. Trump now believes Russia ordered the election-related hacks. Several cabinet nominees echoed Trump in backing the intelligence report (see 1701110051).

NTIA should establish an interagency task force to study application redlining, the practice of discriminating against or racially profiling online minority users, in part through the collection and analysis of consumer data, said the Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council in a seven-page letter Friday directed to Administrator Larry Strickling. App redlining, wrote MMTC President Kim Keenan, is "a new method of institutionalizing online racial discrimination in commerce, housing, banking, employment, transportation, and public accommodations." She cited criticism against Google for alleged discriminatory ad practices through various applications like Gmail, Amazon's selective use of ZIP codes for one-day shopping that ended up "isolating places where minorities live," and the social networking site Nextdoor.com that has been used for online racial profiling. Since it's unclear which regulatory bodies have jurisdiction, she wrote that NTIA should discuss with the White House to create the task force. Both the FCC and FTC may have some regulatory overlap on internet commerce, but since the issue crosses other sectors, the departments of Commerce, Education, Housing and Urban Development, and Justice as well as Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. should have an interest, she said. MMTC recommended the task force consider the need for equal employment opportunity in across industries, a civil rights enforcement entity focused on consumer privacy and "creation of best practices on misleading language that should not be welcome in the online space."

Internet sector businesses now make up 6 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, meaning it's now “rivaling the auto industry in size,” the Internet Association reported Thursday. “The internet beats out powerhouse sectors like construction, the federal government, as well as many others, and it is growing at a far faster rate. It is now, indisputably, a discrete section of the American economy.” IA said it analyzed a range of economic studies and methodologies, which all point to the internet being a “major economic sector” and one that's “growing rapidly” as a contributor to GDP. IA said it estimates internet companies could become 7 percent of the U.S. GDP by 2020.

U.S. cybersecurity offense "is way ahead of our defense," Rudy Giuliani said Thursday in a conference call after the incoming Donald Trump administration announced that it would consult with the former New York City mayor on cybersecurity issues and that Giuliani would chair a committee on cybersecurity developments involving company heads. That committee also will hold a number of meetings with President-elect Donald Trump about cybersecurity, said a Trump transition team release. "It's kind of like cancer in the sense there are so many different things being done to cure cancer, you almost feel like if you could put all the people together in the same room, maybe we could cure it," Giuliani said, saying "a perfect defense" to cybersecurity threats is unlikely and improvement is the aim. The Trump transition team said the meetings are to get "experiential and anecdotal information" from the executives about cybersecurity issues and how they were handled. The Trump team also said it's not seeking consensus advice or recommendations. Giuliani is Greenberg Traurig chairman-global cybersecurity, and chairman-CEO of security consulting firm Giuliani Partners.

The federal government should take additional steps to encourage IoT growth, including creating a multistakeholder process to identify related policy challenges, NTIA said Thursday in a green paper. NTIA had been collecting stakeholders' feedback on IoT issues since April, though some critics suggested in comments the agency's investigation into those issues was a waste of time (see 1606060042). Stakeholders identified multiple challenges and barriers to IoT growth during a September event, suggesting the federal government employ only a light regulatory touch (see 1609010063). NTIA said it “heard a strong message from the submitted comments that coordination among U.S. government partners would be helpful, because of the complex, interdisciplinary, cross-sector nature of IoT. A federal coordination structure for these issues may also be helpful when working with international and private sector partners.” The Department of Commerce can promote IoT advancement through its own usage of the technology, and highlight its benefits to foreign partners, NTIA said. Commerce can encourage global development of technical standards on the IoT to ensure interoperability and advance tech development, NTIA said. The department should examine “removing barriers” to IoT innovation and promote norms that will protect the technology's users, NTIA said. Commerce also should enable the allocation of spectrum and other infrastructure developments to support IoT growth, NTIA said. The IoT “promises to revolutionize our world from increasing efficiency and convenience for industry, consumers, and government to improving safety,” said Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker in a news release. “Today’s report affirms the Department’s commitment to creating the conditions for emerging technologies to thrive, and it identifies future actions necessary to support the evolution and expansion of the IoT.” NTIA said it planned to publish a request for comment on the green paper in Friday's Federal Register. NTIA “has built a strong case for a proactive and coordinated effort throughout the federal government to support [IoT] on a national scale,” said Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Center for Data Innovation Director Daniel Castro in a statement: “Because of the unique characteristics of [IoT], including its potential scale and scope, the United States will not be able to capture the full social and economic benefits of the technology without a concerted effort from policymakers throughout government to promote the development of the technology. We hope this report builds further momentum for Congress to move forward with establishing a national strategy” for IoT.