IoT platform revenue will increase 116 percent to $2 billion in 2017, MachNation predicted in a report rating 35 IoT vendors. IoT companies have been acquired for 20 times their annual revenue, a Thursday news release said. "The IoT application enablement space is the most rapidly developing piece of the IoT technology stack," MachNation Chief Technology Officer Dima Tokar said.

ComScore, Google and Omnicom Media Group are part of an initial group of companies to meet anti-fraud standards in a certification seal program for buyers, sellers, fraud detection vendors and intermediaries in the digital ad supply chain, said the Trustworthy Advertising Group in a Wednesday news release. "The initial recipients of the TAG 'Certified Against Fraud' Seal represent the connective tissue of digital advertising, including the world's largest publishers, ad agencies, and ad tech providers," said TAG CEO Mike Zaneis. A second group of certified companies will be announced early next year, the group said. Other companies certified under the program, which was first announced in May (see 1605230010), are Amobee, DoubleVerify, Dstillery, WPP's GroupM, Horizon Media, Integral Ad Science, Interpublic Group, Moat, OpenX Technologies, ProData Media, Rocket Fuel, Sovrn and White Ops. TAG was formed by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Association of National Advertisers and Interactive Advertising Bureau to eliminate fraudulent traffic, fight internet piracy and malware and promote transparency.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument Thursday in a case led by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the NSA's internet surveillance program. ACLU attorney Patrick Toomey will square off against DOJ attorneys before a three-panel judge at 9:30 a.m. in Richmond, Virginia, over the "upstream" program that targets non-U.S. individuals by acquiring their online communications via the internet backbone networks of U.S. service providers. The surveillance is done under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA was initially lodged in March 2015 (see 1503100036 and 1509040029), but was dismissed by a district court in October 2015 (see 1510270022). The ACLU-led group argues Section 702 allows the NSA to do warrantless surveillance of Americans who communicate with targeted non-U.S. persons located abroad, said the civil liberties group in a Tuesday news release. DOJ said in a filing the groups lack standing because their arguments aren't "supported by sufficient factual allegations to plausibly state a claim of concrete, imminent injury." ACLU said public disclosures and reports show the government "copying and reviewing virtually all text-based communications entering and leaving the country." Plaintiffs are ACLU, Wikimedia Foundation, Amnesty International USA, Global Fund for Women, Human Rights Watch, The Nation magazine, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, PEN America, Rutherford Institute and Washington Office on Latin America.

Internet-connected toys may spy on children, said consumer and privacy groups in an FTC complaint Monday against Genesis Toys and its voice-recognition vendor partner Nuance Communications. Dolls known as My Friend Cayla and i-Que Intelligent Robot collect and use personal information from children in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and FTC rules prohibiting unfair and deceptive practices, alleged the complaint by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Consumers Union, Center for Digital Democracy and Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. The companies "unfairly and deceptively collect, use, and disclose audio files of children’s voices without providing adequate notice or obtaining verified parental consent,” the complaint said. Genesis failed to take reasonable security measures to prevent unauthorized Bluetooth connections with the toys, opening the door for strangers to eavesdrop on kids, it said. The toy company didn’t adequately disclose privacy dangers on packaging or in terms of service, the complaint said. The groups filed the complaint as part of a coordinated, trans-Atlantic legal action with groups in Europe, said Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood in a Tuesday news release. Nuance hasn't received an inquiry from the FTC or other privacy authority, but when it does, it will respond appropriately, the company said in a blog post Tuesday. "Nuance takes data privacy seriously," it said. "Our policy is that we don’t use or sell voice data for marketing or advertising purposes." After learning about the concerns through media, the company said it "validated that we have adhered to our policy with respect to the voice data collected through the toys referred to in the complaint ... Nuance does not share voice data collected from or on behalf of any of our customers with any of our other customers." Genesis didn’t comment.

Tech industry collaboration to remove terrorist propaganda sets a “troubling precedent,” Center for Democracy and Technology said Tuesday. Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube pledged Monday to curb the spread of terrorist content. “CDT is deeply concerned that this joint project will create a precedent for cross-site censorship and will become a target for governments and private actors seeking to suppress speech across the web,” wrote CDT Free Expression Project Director Emma Llansó in a blog post. The companies buckled to pressure from governments in the U.S., EU and elsewhere, commencing “a dangerous slide down the slippery slope to centralized censorship of speech online,” she said. Google blogged Monday that the companies would create a shared industry database of hashes for violent terrorist imagery or terrorist recruitment videos and images they removed from services. “By sharing this information with each other, we may use the shared hashes to help identify potential terrorist content on our respective hosted consumer platforms,” Google said. The company didn’t comment Tuesday on the CDT post.

Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and the Internet Security Alliance praised the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity’s recommendations to the White House on actions the private and public sectors can take over the next decade to improve cyber defenses and raise awareness. The six main recommendation areas aim to provide a cybersecurity blueprint for the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, backing action on some items during Trump’s first 100 days in office (see 1612020050 and 1612050044). The CENC report “provides a path forward for government, the commercial sector, consumers, and educators to address the challenges before us,” Pritzker said in a statement. “The ideas highlighted in the report … transcend different Administrations, Congresses, and different political and economic cycles. These recommendations comprise an urgent action plan for our country to meet today’s cybersecurity crisis. Success will require that we all work together.” Pritzker is expected to speak about the CENC report during a Tuesday USTelecom event. The suggestions embrace most elements in ISA’s 12-step “social contract” on cybersecurity for the next administration, the group said. “Not only did our own study come to a remarkably similar conclusion, but this finding is consistent with the House GOP Task Force Report on cybersecurity” and President Barack Obama’s 2013 cybersecurity executive order, said ISA President Larry Clinton in a news release. “The degree of consensus on the direction for sound cyber policy across industry and partisan lines is remarkable and bodes well for the prospect to more aggressively fight the ever-greater cyber threat.”

U.S. District Court in San Francisco authorized the IRS Wednesday to serve a “John Doe” summons on Coinbase to request the identities of the virtual currency transaction firm's U.S.-based customers who transferred convertible virtual currency between Dec. 31, 2013, and Dec. 31, 2015. The IRS sought Coinbase's records after it found instances of tax evasion involving the firm's customers. Federal authorities aren't claiming the company had any knowledge tax evasion was taking place, the IRS said in its petition. Records sought in the summons include user profiles, user preferences, user security settings and history, user payment methods and other information about users' funding sources. A “John Doe” summons doesn't require the agency to identify a specific person but simply an ascertainable group or class of people, as in cases involving tax shelters. Based on the petition, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled (in Pacer) the IRS' summons of Coinbase “relates to the investigation of an ascertainable group or class of persons, that there is a reasonable basis for believing that such group or class of persons has failed or may have failed to comply with any provision of any internal revenue laws, and that the information sought to be obtained from the examination of the records or testimony (and the identities of the persons with respect to whose liability the summons is issued) are not readily available from other sources.” Given the rising use of virtual currencies, “some have raised questions about tax compliance,” said DOJ Tax Division head Caroline Ciraolo in a news release. “Tools like the John Doe summons authorized today send the clear message to U.S. taxpayers that whatever form of currency they use -- bitcoin or traditional dollars and cents -- we will work to ensure that they are fully reporting their income and paying their fair share of taxes.” Coinbase said in a statement it's “aware of, and expected, the Court’s ex parte order today. We look forward to opposing the DOJ’s request in court after Coinbase is served with a subpoena. As we previously stated, we remain concerned with our U.S. customers’ legitimate privacy rights in the face of the government’s sweeping request.”

Federal law enforcement agencies began aiding a multinational operation to dismantle the Avalanche cybercrime network, DOJ said Thursday. The Avalanche network has hosted more than two dozen types of “pernicious” malware and several money laundering schemes, Justice said. The enforcement operation resulted in the shutdown of more than 50 Avalanche servers and led to arrests and searches in five countries, DOJ said. The department's Computer Crime and IP Section and the FBI's Pittsburgh division are helping the operation, which also includes Europol, Eurojust and agencies in more than 40 other countries, it said. “The operation involves an unprecedented and ongoing effort to seize, block and sinkhole more than 800,000 malicious domains associated with the Avalanche network,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell and other officials in a news release.

The Internet Archive disclosed a national security letter (NSL) that included a legal error about how the archive that's amassed a vast historical web collection over 20 years could challenge a gag order, said the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented the nonprofit, in a Thursday news release. The FBI issues NSLs with accompanying gag orders that prohibit electronic communications providers from even revealing they received such a letter. The NSL letter sent to the archive in August said the organization had the right to make an annual challenge to the gag order, but Congress updated the law last year, permitting more than one request per year, said EFF. The archive told the FBI it didn't have information that the agency sought and also pointed out the error, which prompted the FBI to drop the gag order and allow the NSL to be disclosed, EFF said. As a result, EFF estimated the FBI will inform "potentially thousands of communications providers" that received NSLs over the past 18 months about the mistake. Archive founder Brewster Kahle said the gag orders with the error concealed that the agency was "giving all NSL recipients bad information about their rights." DOJ didn't comment. In 2007, the archive received an NSL, which it successfully challenged and disclosed. EFF has been helping organizations challenge NSLs (see 1611300069 and 1604210046). The archive houses a web collection called the "Wayback Machine" of more than 150 million web pages, 240,000 movies and 500,000 plus audio files, among other records. On Tuesday, Kahle said in a blog post the organization is creating a copy of its digital collections in Canada as a result of Donald Trump's election. "It means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions," he wrote.

The Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity is to publicly release a full version Friday of its recommendations to the White House on actions the private and public sectors can take over the next decade to improve cyber defenses and raise cyber awareness, the commission said Thursday. CENC officially delivered its recommendations to President Barack Obama Thursday as directed in the White House's February Cybersecurity National Action Plan (see 1602090068). CENC has “distilled all their findings into a series of recommendations to the new administration across six imperatives,” the commission said in a media advisory. “Each imperative addresses a different aspect of cybersecurity.” Obama is expected to release his response to the recommendations Friday at 2:30 p.m. CENC is to publish the recommendations at 3 p.m. Suggestions are expected to include a continued focus on the use of voluntary cybersecurity standards and instituting incentives to encourage private sector cybersecurity improvements. CENC also considered recommending the White House create a special assistant to the president on cybersecurity issues who would have the same rank as the national security adviser. The commission may recommend the White House set up a public-private “consortium” to advise the president on cybersecurity issues. The body also considered seeking creation of a labeling system for electronic devices along the lines of nutrition labels on packaged foods that would indicate how a particular device complies with cybersecurity standards (see 1611220065).