Facebook discovered a discrepancy between the counts of its "Like" and "Share" buttons on the Graph API (application program interface) and the counts when a user enters a URL in the mobile app's search bar, said the social media network in a Friday blog post. "We are looking into why inputting the URL as a search query in Facebook’s mobile app might have corresponding numbers that can be higher or lower in certain cases." The company said it's trying to fix the problem. The post said the metrics count the number of likes of a URL off the site, the number of shares of a link from Facebook and the number of likes and comments on stories about a URL. Also in the post, Facebook said it's updating a tool to help advertisers better calculate how many people they can expect to reach with ads when they're creating ad campaigns; it's improving the "methodology for sampling and extrapolating potential audience sizes ... to provide a more accurate estimate for a given target audience and to better account for audiences across multiple platforms." The company said advertisers should see less than a 10 percent change in sizes in the tool. Plus, the company said it fixed an error that will count streaming reactions to live broadcasts on a post instead of counting them on shares of a post. Facebook said the total counts were right, but the metric was captured in the wrong place. The fix will be applied starting in mid-December for newly created live videos, increasing "Reactions to Post" by 500 percent on average and decreasing "Reactions from Shares of Post" by 25 percent on average (see 1609300034).

Australia-based Moose Toys, which makes "SelfieMic," should stop advertising claims that "imply" children under 13 also can use the app StarMaker, which is promoted with the product, but is age-restricted -- a recommendation accepted by the toymaker, said the Children's Advertising Review Unit in a Friday news release. CARU, which is the ad industry's investigative unit, administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus, said it found Moose's TV ad that portrayed the use of the product and app for children under 13 through routine monitoring. "However, users seeking to save videos, share them with friends, redeem bonus tokens for popular songs and purchase songs with the app, are required to share personally identifiable information [PII] as part of a registration process," said the release. "To prevent children under the age of 13 from sharing such information, the app contains an age gate." StarMaker Interactive's privacy policy said its StarMaker app isn't directed to children under 13, "and we do not knowingly collect PII from children under 13." CARU said it wanted Moose Toys to remove the TV ad or modify it to accurately depict how children under 13 could "realistically use the product." In its advertiser's statement, the toymaker said it accepts the recommendations, according to CARU. Moose didn't comment.

Social media aggregator Power Ventures, which was found to have violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after it received a cease and desist letter from Facebook not to access users' accounts even with their permission, was denied a panel rehearing and rehearing en banc in an amended opinion issued Friday by a three-judge panel for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 1609290027 and 1609130012). "The full court has been advised of the petition for rehearing en banc, and no judge of the court has requested a vote on it," said the order. Its July 12 opinion (in Pacer) was amended to include the order. "No further petitions for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc shall be entertained." George Washington University Law School professor Orin Kerr, one of the lawyers representing Power Ventures CEO Steven Vachani, previously told us he was hopeful the petition for rehearing would be granted. "We are disappointed, but we're evaluating our options," emailed Kerr. Facebook didn't comment.

Parents "strongly support, and desire, the benefits of student data collection and use" the closer that such data use is tied to individual classrooms and to a child, found a Future of Privacy Forum survey released Thursday. FPF Policy Counsel Amelia Vance said in a post that the findings parallel last year's study. She said parents increasingly are seeing value that school districts get from use of personal data such as grades, attendance, disciplinary records and participation in school lunch programs, plus traditionally sensitive data. Vance wrote, there's support for the collection and use of parents' marital status, family income, Social Security numbers and race and ethnicity, which is "critical for research that identifies potentially discriminatory policies and practices." She said the survey also found nearly all parents of school-age children want to be "informed with whom and for what purpose their child's record is being shared." One area that needs more awareness, she said, is helping parents better understand current laws and practices that protect student data, since "slightly fewer parents" this year than last felt confident about such requirements. Rates of technology use by students and parents in schools went up by 20 percent since last year.

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.”