ICANN’s Competition, Consumer Trust & Consumer Choice Review Team (CCT-RT) is aiming to issue a draft report by the end of 2016 on its ongoing review of consumers’ opinions on the new generic top-level domains (gTLD) program, said ACT | The App Association President Jonathan Zuck, a member of the review group, in a blog post. CCT-RT decided during a meeting last month in Vienna “there is a need to help applicants understand underlying business models” of the new gTLD program, he said Friday. The review team reached that conclusion after reviewing initial survey results, Zuck said. An Analysis Group initial report said registrations of new gTLDs account for 50 percent of overall growth in the gTLD space and that average and median registration process have continued to decline. A Nielsen initial report said the new gTLD program hasn’t eroded consumer trust and consumers are interested in seeing the Domain Name System evolve to make it easier to find businesses by category. Nielsen said about half of surveyed consumers and registrants believe use of new gTLDs that may have an implied meaning should be restricted to certain entities, such as only banks using .bank domain names. CCT-RT plans to seek community input on interim recommendations during ICANN’s Nov. 3-9 meeting in Hyderabad, India, Zuck said.

EvanTube's YouTube channels that provide content to families and children will now include an audio disclosure before new sponsored videos to let viewers, especially children, understand they're about to see advertising, said the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU), the ad industry's investigative unit administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus, in a Monday news release. EvanTube channels, including EvanTubeHD, EvanTubeRAW and EvanTubeGaming, feature videos of a young boy named Evan and his family involved in art projects, field trips, games and other activities. EvanTube generates 85 percent of revenue from pre-roll ads, which run before the family-produced content, said CARU, while 15 percent comes from sponsored product deals made directly with children's marketers. The investigative unit said it determined that sponsored content is both national advertising defined by the Self-Regulatory Program for Children’s Advertising guidelines and native advertising, which means ads look like the editorial content of the channels. In examining 132 sponsored videos on EvanTube, the investigative unit said 84 provided some text disclosure and only 36 included an audio disclosure. Citing FTC guidelines on native ads (see 1512220031), CARU said it didn't agree with EvanTube's arguments that children understand "brought to you by [brand]" or "sponsored by [brand]" nor did EvanTube provide evidence how children understand or interpret such terms. CARU concluded sponsored videos are ads and should be labeled as such with a "prominent audio disclosure" before the sponsored content begins. EvanTube didn't comment, but CARU said EvanTube said it appreciated the review and agreed with the recommendation.

CenturyLink lags behind other U.S. ISPs in Netflix streaming speeds during prime time, but it’s improved slightly, Netflix said in a blog post Monday about its August ISP speed index. CenturyLink’s average monthly speed increased to 1.88 Mbps in August from 1.69 Mbps in July, but remained in last place among U.S. ISPs, Netflix said. Verizon Fios and Bright House led ISPs with 3.62 Mbps in August each, followed closely by Optimum (3.58 Mbps), Cox (3.57 Mbps) and Charter (3.51 Mbps). CenturyLink disputed the methodology of using average speeds and claimed other ISPs have an advantageous relationship with Netflix. "This average does not differentiate between 1.5 Mbps and 1 Gig customers, which factors into our overall ranking," a company spokeswoman said. "This ranking also does not address bandwidth constraints caused indirectly by Netflix due to Netflix’s unwillingness to treat CenturyLink like other large national Internet Service Providers in the United States." CenturyLink hopes to establish negotiate a commercial deal with Netflix to enhance its customer experience on the streaming service, she said.

The Consumer Federation of America and its ID theft working group created a checklist to help organizations that suffered a data breach choose a service provider to mitigate and recover from any potential damage. CFA said in a Tuesday news release the checklist includes asking whether ID theft service providers will provide ways for victims to reduce damage, if services are available round the clock, if monitoring is provided and how quickly alerts are sent. The consumer group said organizations should ask providers if they can handle multiple languages, if personnel are specially trained to help victims and whether they will continue helping victims even after a contract ends. The list also covers state and federal laws that require breach disclosure and whether such recovery services should be acquired in advance or after a breach has been detected. The Identify Theft Resource Center recently reported a total of 638 breaches affecting more than 28.5 million records.

Autonomous cars are "no longer a thing of the distant future,” Pam Fletcher, General Motors executive chief engineer, told a Citigroup technology conference in New York. Not everyone “can operate a car, so autonomous vehicles provide them with an option,” she said Tuesday. “The most important benefit we see is absolutely safety.” More than 35,000 people die yearly on U.S. roads, and more than 90 percent “of those deaths are caused by human error," she said. GM’s $581 million acquisition of Cruise Automation in March (see 1607220003) “provides us with a team of talented software engineers who are creating the algorithms and the code to bring full autonomy to life and deliver autonomous technology in an on-demand ride-sharing service,” Fletcher said. What really attracted GM to Cruise was not only its autonomous-driving capabilities, but also that it was developing them “literally on the downtown streets of San Francisco,” she said. As an autonomous-driving test bed, San Francisco is “one of the most complex environments to try to build and deploy new technology,” she said. “The right answer for deployment of autonomous vehicles is in a ride-shared network." GM invested in Lyft (see 1601040068).

The National Institute of Standards and Technology and Department of Transportation plan a Thursday workshop on the effectiveness and challenges of applying current privacy controls in NIST Special Publication 800-53, Revision 4, which is aimed at providing baseline privacy and security controls that strengthen federal information systems and organizations against cyberattacks. The revised publication was released more than three years ago. The 9 a.m.-3 p.m. event, which won't be webcast, will discuss privacy risk management, the role of privacy controls in develop better programs and whether additional guidance is needed. The event is at DOT, 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE.

Microsoft got support from dozens of civil society, law professors, media, technology and other business organizations in its fight against DOJ's use of gag orders to keep the company from informing customers about government warrants to access their emails and other records (see 1604140041 and 1604180039). Amazon, Apple, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Electronic Frontier Foundation, Google, Mozilla, The New York Times, Twitter and Yahoo filed several amici briefs Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Microsoft filed a lawsuit in April against DOJ, which has been imposing gag orders through the Stored Communications Act, which is part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. DOJ filed a motion to dismiss the suit July 22; Microsoft filed a response Aug. 26 and the government's response is due Sept. 23. Microsoft and various organizations said DOJ is violating the Constitution and continued use of gag orders would deter use of cloud computing. In one filing (in Pacer), 30 media organizations -- including The Associated Press, Fox News, Media Institute, Newspaper Association of America, Radio Television Digital News Association, Society of Professional Journalists and Washington Post -- said the gag orders violate the First Amendment and their reporting would be "impeded or curtailed completely" when companies are prevented from disclosing information about government searches. "That harm is even greater when those gag orders are indefinite," the filing said. Another filing (in Pacer) from a coalition of 15 diverse organizations -- including CDT, the Information Coalition, National Association of Manufacturers and U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- also said the government's use of gag orders "significantly" curtails privacy protections. They said if the government's view of gag order authority prevails, people and businesses will be "reluctant to take advantage" of cloud computing due to reduced privacy protection, "and society may lose the substantial cost-saving and efficiency gains." Another filing from major tech companies said DOJ's use of gag orders could invade Fourth Amendment privacy rights of customers, among other reasons. "There may well be some circumstances in which a narrowly tailored and time-limited gag order is justified, but the [Stored Communication] Act's authorization of gag orders sweeps far too broadly," it said. A Justice spokesman declined to comment Tuesday.

The FCC should extend suspension of the E-rate amortization policy for two more years and increase the discount rate for nonrecurring broadband constructions costs where states provide matching funds, said New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) in an Aug. 10 letter posted Friday. In 2014, the FCC suspended Universal Service Administrative Co.’s policy requiring E-rate applicants to amortize upfront special construction charges over multiple years. Also, the commission increased an applicant’s discount rate up to an additional 10 percent to match state funding. The actions “spurred school districts and states, in partnership with service providers, to invest in fiber build projects that almost certainly would not have been completed in the absence of the Commission’s efforts,” Martinez said. But the upfront, nonrecurring costs of fiber networks are still too high for most school districts, she said. She proposed the FCC provide a 90 percent discount when states provide 10 percent of construction costs: “The proposed changes will provide the time and resources for states and school districts to work with service providers to extend fiber optic networks to schools that need them.”

Acxiom sold its email business to Zeta Interactive, a marketing technology company, said the data broker in a Thursday news release. Acxiom said the transaction will "sharpen [its] focus on providing the data foundation for the world’s best marketers and opens the door to deeper partnerships with the marketing ecosystem." Sale proceeds will help the company fund its expanded share repurchase program, which was increased to $400 million.

The FTC released a detailed agenda of its Sept. 16 conference on marketing and consumer protection that will feature discussions by agency staff and representatives from a number of universities, said a Thursday news release. Topics of talks will include privacy policies and online display advertising, assessing native advertising in mobile search, algorithmic bias in serving ads in social media and value of mobile ad targeting. Ginger Jin, director of the FTC Economics Bureau, will open the conference. The 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. event will be in the FTC fifth-floor conference room at the Constitution Center, 400 7th St., SW. Preregistration is necessary, the commission said.