NTIA is awaiting ICANN's report on the status of its implementation​ of governance and technical work related to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition as the agency evaluates whether the transition can proceed as planned, NTIA said in a report to Congress released Thursday. ICANN's report, due Aug. 12, will help NTIA assess “whether ICANN can complete all of the transition-related planning work” prior to the current Sept. 30 end-date for NTIA's current contract with ICANN to administer the IANA functions, the agency said. NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling told Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and four other GOP senators in late June that the agency sees “no tangible benefit” to seeking a delay of the transition absent a request from ICANN (see 1606280062).

Harman joined the Automotive Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Auto-ISAC), it said in a Wednesday news release. The group collaborates to share, track and analyze intelligence about cyberthreats and potential vulnerabilities against connected cars, and Harman said members represent almost all makers of North American light-duty vehicles. Harman reinforced its commitment to protective cybersecurity measures, highlighting its automotive security frameworks and its acquisition of TowerSec in January.

The biometric market is shifting away from consumer electronics and toward banking technologies that appeal to millennials, but “significant challenges” loom, said an ABI report Wednesday. Startups and payment card players are integrating biometrics into mobile payment services, smart cards and ATMs to improve banking security and authentication through innovative form factors, and the market shift is occurring faster than expected, said analyst Dimitrios Pavlakis. Global revenue for biometric banking technology is forecast to pass $4 billion by 2021, he said.

Most native ads that appeared on the top 100 news websites failed to properly disclose advertising content that resembled editorial stories, said the Online Trust Alliance in a study released Wednesday. Of the sites, OTA said 69 percent had one or more native ads on their home pages. Of those sites with native ads, 71 percent failed to use words like "ad, paid or sponsored by" to disclose they were promotions, made the visibility and readability of those words difficult and/or didn't visually enough set the paid content apart from editorial content. OTA said 20 percent of the native ads needed improvement while only 9 percent met or exceeded transparency requirements. The group listed the websites that were analyzed but didn't indicate which ones failed, needed improvement and passed, though it cited a "noteworthy example" on the Wall Street Journal's home page of transparency. OTA Executive Director Craig Spiezle said in a news release that sites might gain financially in the short run by failing to disclose ads but risk their long-term reputations. “Consumers who experience annoyance, confusion and misinterpretation in native advertising, combined with increasing security and privacy issues will likely turn to using ad blockers. The result is nobody wins since sites and ad networks will lose revenue and consumers will miss out on content that is relevant to them," he said. OTA provided a checklist to help sites provide native ads without confusing readers. In December, the FTC released guidelines to protect consumers from intentionally misleading native online commercial content (see 1512290010).

TDK’s Munich-based Epcos made a public tender offer for all publicly held shares of Tronics, in a stock-based deal valued at about $54.3 million, it said in a news release Monday. Tronics’ portfolio includes MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technologies with multiple sensor functions in one device. Thales Avionics, which owns 20.9 percent of Tronics, said it wishes to remain a strategic shareholder.

The Future of Privacy Forum seeks papers that showcase leading privacy research and analytical work that could be used by U.S. and international policymakers and data protection authorities. Submissions are due Sept. 26 for the group's seventh annual edition of its Privacy Papers for Policymakers Digest (see 1601130075), FPF said. Papers will be evaluated on originality, applicability to policymaking and overall writing quality, the group said. Privacy experts on FPF's advisory board will select five winning papers, which will be presented Jan. 11, the day before the FTC features privacy research papers at its second annual PrivacyCon event (see 1601140062 and 1601140029).

Domain name registry Verisign said it funded Nu Dot Co's $135 million winning bid last week for the registry rights to the .web generic top-level domain (gTLD). That confirmed industry chatter that the longtime .com registry had been orchestrating Nu Dot Co's controversial involvement in ICANN's public .web auction (see 1607290058). Verisign said it “entered into an agreement” with Nu Dot Co in which Verisign “provided funds for Nu Dot Co’s bid for the .web TLD. We are pleased that the Nu Dot Co bid was successful.” Nu Dot Co will execute the .web registry agreement with ICANN before turning over the registry rights to Verisign “upon consent from ICANN,” Verisign said in a Monday news release: Verisign “is well-positioned to widely distribute .web. Our expertise, infrastructure, and partner relationships will enable us to quickly grow .web and establish it as an additional option for registrants worldwide in the growing TLD marketplace.” Rival .web bidder Donuts made Nu Dot Co's funding source an issue in the days before the .web auction, filing a lawsuit against ICANN in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on claims ICANN was negligent and in breach of contract for not thoroughly investigating the identities of then-speculated new parties in the control of Nu Dot Co. Judge Percy Anderson denied Donuts' application for a temporary restraining order to halt the .web auction amid the registry's suit and required Donuts to file an amended version of its complaint by Aug. 8 (see 1607250051 and 1607270027).

ICANN confirmed Thursday that domain registry Nu Dot Co made the $135 million winning bid (see 1607280057) for registry rights to the .web generic top-level domain (gTLD). Nu Dot Co beat domain registry Donuts, Google and five other bidders for .web through 23 rounds of bidding, ICANN said in a results report. Vistaprint Limited won rights to the .webs gTLD for $1, ICANN said. Nu Dot Co was the subject of controversy ahead of the .web auction, as Donuts claimed in a lawsuit that ICANN was negligent and in breach of contract for not sufficiently investigating whether Nu Dot Co was under partial control by a major entity along with stated parent company Straat Investments. The U.S. District Court in Los Angeles denied Donuts' request for a temporary restraining order to delay the .web auction but is still considering the underlying lawsuit (see 1607250051 and 1607270027). Nu Dot Co's winning bid for .web only deepens speculation about the registry's ownership status, with particular attention now focused on whether .com registry Verisign is involved with Nu Dot Co, a domain names industry executive told us. Verisign didn't directly mention .web in its Q2 earnings report Thursday or a conference call with investors, but the registry said in an SEC filing it had “incurred a commitment to pay approximately $130.0 million for the future assignment of contractual rights, which are subject to third-party consent.” Verisign didn't comment.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden and George W. Bush administration Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams are among 28 former officials from Republican presidential administrations who jointly urged congressional leaders Friday to formally investigate the hacking of Democratic National Committee servers. The attacks are “an assault on the integrity of the entire American political process” and “not a partisan issue,” the Republicans said in a letter. The DNC hack and Wikileaks' subsequent publication of emails stolen during the hack are viewed as possibly spurring a more serious discussion about foreign cyber espionage during the presidential campaign (see 1607270061). “Congress has a responsibility to get to the bottom of this extraordinary breach, not only to determine who was responsible but also to consider the appropriate response,” Abrams and the others said in the letter. “The hacking of a political party’s email system by Russian intelligence agencies would, if proven, constitute unprecedented foreign interference in an American presidential campaign.”

Correction: iPass is a global mobile connectivity provider (see 1607270061).