The Interactive Ad Bureau views this as a “watershed year” for virtual reality, which is “finally achieving mass scale,” as experiences “are expanding beyond the hardcore gaming community and into everyday mobile and desktop browsers via 360 video,” IAB reported Monday. The future of VR “is still very much unknown,” it said. “VR could scale faster than ever, or fade into flash-in-the-pan obscurity." There’s an “extraordinary level of hype” about VR that may unnecessarily raise consumers’ expectations, making it harder for companies to wow the public, said the report, based on interviews with industry executives.

Two conservative groups said they're continuing to push Congress to delay the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority switch, which is to occur Saturday. Senate Republicans last week introduced language for a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government after FY 2016 expires Friday that didn’t include proposed language that would delay the move beyond the expiration date (see 1609220067). The tech sector strongly backed the transition, with Intel CEO Brian Krzanich and others saying the transition will aid American innovation (see 1609260045). But it’s “troubling that the Senate has failed to include language prohibiting this transfer of power,” said Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint in an opinion piece Monday on Heritage news arm The Daily Signal: The transition “is quite simply reckless, but it will happen unless Congress intervenes. Absent specific instruction otherwise from Congress, the contractual relationship between the U.S. government and ICANN will cease” Saturday. Congress “must think long and hard about allowing Obama to give away the internet -- because right now, that’s what he’s on track to do,” DeMint said. “Congress has the power to stop this. Will it?” American Center for Law and Justice Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow separately said the group is still working with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and 10 other GOP senators to delay the transition. “The internet has continued to be free because of the United States’ continuing partnership with [ICANN], maintaining control and ensuring that cyberspace is free and secure, Sekulow said in a blog post Monday. “Unless we act this week, our Internet is in danger. In an era in which state-sponsored hackers in Iran, Russia, North Korea, and other authoritarian regimes are trying to target our elections, our financial information, and our national security, this fight matters.”

Updated draft industry standards for digital ads that can fit across any type of screen and incorporate encryption and privacy principles were released for comment, said the Interactive Advertising Bureau in a Monday news release. Comments on the updated IAB Standard Ad Unit Portfolio will be received through Nov. 28 and will be evaluated by an IAB working group, which will release a final version. “Its flexible ad units will allow for creative to scale to different sizes without losing any of its original messaging and impact," said IAB President Randall Rothenberg. "By incorporating the tenets of LEAN into the portfolio, consumer experience on ad-supported sites will greatly improve." Lean refers to a set of principles, including: light or limited file sizes; encrypted with HTTPS/SSL compliant ads; the Digital Advertising Alliance's AdChoices opt-out tool; and nondisruptive ads for all display, mobile, native and video formats. The revised standards also provide guidelines for virtual reality and 360-degree video ads and those that use emojis and stickers. Once the standards are finalized, IAB and IAB Tech Lab will provide webinars, visuals and additional guidance and tools to help with the transition from older standards. Adoption will be "supported by an updated file weight-sizing grid to better allow for ease-of-use and innovation," the release said.

Technology CEO Council Chairman Mark Durcan urged House and Senate leaders Monday “not to block” the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition on Saturday. Senate Republicans last week introduced language for a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government after FY 2016 expires this Friday that didn’t include proposed language that would delay the transition past Oct. 1. Some remain unsure Congress has fully abandoned efforts to postpone the handover (see 1609220067). Two conservative groups continued urging Congress Monday to seek the delay (see 1609260059). Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, a TCC member, and Google General Counsel Kent Walker are also backing the handover. The transition “is good policy, both for the United States and for the global Internet community,” Durcan wrote. “Placing stewardship of these technical but important functions beyond the control of any one government or group of governments will best secure the principles of Internet freedom and de-politicization of technology. America truly leads by example, walking its talk in support of apolitical Internet governance.” Krzanich backed the transition Saturday in a blog post. "This final stage of Internet privatization will help ensure that future American innovations benefit from a global, stable and interoperable Internet infrastructure,” Krzanich said. “American business relies on these principles and the growth they have provided.” Krzanich said previous steps in privatizing the internet “brought about exponential growth of the Internet -- growth that propelled Moore’s Law and breakthrough innovations in computing power. Because of these phenomena, American industry has led the world in technological transformation and innovation.” Google believes that post-transition, “you won’t notice anything different when you go online, but we are transitioning the IANA functions into good hands,” Walker said in a Monday blog post. “Although this is a change in how one technical function of the Internet is governed, it will give innovators and users a greater role in managing the global Internet. And that’s a very good thing.” Thinking “only governments should have a say in the Internet’s future is a dangerous proposition,” Walker said. “It incentivizes those who fear the Internet’s transformative power to impose burdensome restrictions online, and over time could even lead some repressive governments to try to build their own closed networks operating independently of ICANN, at the expense of a thriving Internet ecosystem.”

LeadClick, a now-defunct affiliate marketing network, is liable for deceptive advertising content it had no hand in producing and that was promoted on fake news websites, said the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding a lower court ruling that sided with the FTC and Connecticut. But Judge Denny Chin, who wrote Friday's 3-0 opinion (in Pacer), reversed, in part, the summary judgment by the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut in New Haven, which said then-parent CoreLogic should be liable as a relief defendant. The FTC and Connecticut sued LeanSpa in December 2011 for selling purported weight-loss products. That case was settled in January 2014. But the District Court ruled LeadClick and CoreLogic should turn over $11.9 million gained through their arrangement with LeanSpa. Consumers were lured to LeanSpa's website through fake news websites developed by LeadClick's affiliates, wrote Chin. LeadClick said a defendant can be held liable for deceptive acts or practices under Section 5 of the FTC Act only if it created the deceptive content. But Chin, citing cases in the 9th and 11th Circuits, said a defendant can be held liable "if, with knowledge of the deception, it either directly participates in a deceptive scheme or has the authority to control the deceptive content at issue." He also rejected LeadClick's argument the FTC Act doesn't "expressly provide" for aiding and abetting liability. Chin said LeadClick also isn't entitled to immunity, as the company had sought, under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which is designed to protect children from sexually explicit content. But he said the lower court erred in saying CoreLogic must disgorge $4.1 million it got from LeadClick, which closed shop in 2011, because CoreLogic had a "legitimate claim to repayment from its prior advances to LeadClick." CoreLogic declined to comment Monday.

Salesforce.com and Twitter didn't comment Friday about news reports that Salesforce.com is in the early stages of mounting a takeover bid for Twitter. A tweet from Salesforce Chief Digital Evangelist Vala Afshar posed reasons why Twitter is an attractive target for purchase. Afshar later clarified that his tweet reflected his personal views rather than Salesforce's official position. Twitter stock closed Friday up 21 percent to $22.62.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, cited Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's support for delaying the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition as one of six “vital” policy reasons Cruz decided to endorse Trump's candidacy Friday. The Trump campaign said Wednesday it backed a push by congressional Republicans to delay the transition through language in a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government when FY 2016 ends Sept. 30 (see 1609210070). Senate Republicans filed non-compromise CR language Thursday that didn't contain the transition delay language (see 1609220067), drawing some GOP criticism (see 1609230031). Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton supported the IANA transition in a tech policy agenda released in June (see 1606280071), which shows her commitment to “hand over control of the Internet to an international community of stakeholders, including Russia, China and Iran,” Cruz said in a Facebook post. Cruz's endorsement comes more than two months after he refused to back Trump during a speech at the Republican National Convention. Cruz said he chose to endorse Trump in part because he committed last year to “support the Republican nominee.” Cruz said he also chose to publicly back Trump because Clinton's support for the transition and her other policy positions are “wholly unacceptable.”

Neustar said it will auction 20 premium domain names on the .nyc top-level domain Oct. 24-27. The .nyc auction will be restricted to businesses, citizens and organizations with a physical address in New York City's five boroughs, Neustar said in a news release. The domains up for auction are associated with construction, gardening, home improvement, interior design and real estate, the domain name registry said. The auction is to begin at 2 p.m. Oct. 24.

Cybercriminals are taking advantage of “lax” IoT device security in home networks and consumer connected devices to spread malware and create “zombie” networks, or “botnets,” said a Symantec report Thursday. Cybercriminals are “hijacking” home networks and connected devices to help carry out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on more profitable targets, typically large companies, by “stitching together a large web of consumer devices that are easy to infect because they lack sophisticated security,” said Symantec. More than half of all IoT attacks originate from China and the U.S., based on the location of IP addresses used to launch malware attacks, it said. High numbers of attacks also are originating in Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine and Vietnam, though attackers may use proxy IP addresses to hide their true location, it said. Most IoT malware targets non-PC embedded devices such as web servers, routers, modems, network attached storage devices, closed-circuit television systems, and industrial control systems, said Symantec. Attackers are aware of insufficient IoT security, it said, and many program their malware with commonly used and default passwords, allowing them to easily hijack IoT devices. Poor security on many IoT devices makes them easy targets, and victims often don’t know they've been infected. Attackers tend to be less interested in the victim, hoping instead to hijack a device to add it to a botnet, most of which are used to perform DDoS attacks, it said. IoT devices are a prime target because they're designed to be plugged in and forgotten after basic set-up, Symantec said. The most common passwords IoT malware used to attempt to log into devices involved “root” and “admin,” an indication, said the company, “that default passwords are frequently never changed.”

A coalition of 17 consumer and privacy groups is supporting a complaint by the Center for Digital Democracy and Electronic Privacy Information Center urging the FTC to investigate -- and enjoin -- WhatsApp's privacy policy changes that would permit the sharing of some user information with parent Facebook (see 1609070022 and 1608250027). In a Thursday letter to Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, the groups, including CDD and EPIC, said WhatsApp's policy change would violate previous commitments not to use or disclose user phone numbers and other personal information for marketing purposes when Facebook acquired the messaging service in 2014. "WhatsApp's reversal on this promise is a material, retroactive change that will apply to previously collected data," the letter said. "Contrary to FTC policy, WhatsApp does not intend to provide clear notice or obtain customers' affirmative express consent -- i.e., opt-in consent -- before implementing these changes for previously collected information." The coalition said the changes are "buried" in WhatsApp's lengthy revised policy, giving consumers 30 days to opt-out. The groups -- including Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Watchdog, Demand Progress, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and U.S. Public Interest Research Group -- also said the EU is investigating the changes. An FTC spokesman declined to comment.