Troubled over potential privacy implications with the popular new smartphone game Pokémon Go, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., Tuesday asked game creator Niantic to provide details about the data it's collecting from users. Franken, ranking member on the Senate Judiciary's Privacy and Technology Subcommittee, called the game's popularity “impressive” -- with 7.5 million downloads in the U.S. since its July 6 launch -- but added in a news release that "Niantic may be unnecessarily collecting, using, and sharing a wide range of users’ personal information without their appropriate consent." Pokémon Go is an "augmented reality app" that uses a mobile device to introduce animated creatures and activities into views of the real world, including a user's exact location, email and IP addresses, last website visited and/or Google accounts, said the release. Franken sent a letter to the San Francisco-based company asking several questions about the data collected by the app, whether it would support an opt-in option, user information shared with third parties and how it ensures that parents provide meaningful consent for their child's use. A phone message left with Niantic was not immediately returned.

ICANN sought comment by Aug. 7 on three documents on governance of the post-transition Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (PTI). The documents include PTI's code of conduct, conflict of interest policy and expected standard of behavior. All three governance documents are “modeled off the versions already in force” at ICANN, it said in a Friday notice.

A federal court temporarily shut down an international tech support operation last week, froze its assets and appointed a receiver after the FTC and the state of Florida alleged the business duped consumers "into spending hundreds of dollars for dubious computer 'repairs' and antivirus software," said the commission in a Friday news release. The FTC voted 3-0 to file the complaint in U.S. District Court in Chicago, which issued a temporary restraining order June 28 against the defendants, based in Florida, Iowa, Nevada and Canada. Named in the June 24 complaint were Big Dog Solutions, doing business as Help Desk National and Help Desk Global; PC Help Desk US, doing business as Help Desk National and Help Desk Global; and BlackOptek, among other companies. Named individual defendants include Christopher Costanza, Suzanne Harris, Muzaffar Abbas, Gary Oberman, Donald Dolphin and Justin Powers. They allegedly violated the FTC Act, telemarketing sales rule and a similar Florida statute, the commission said. The complaint alleged defendants caused "pop-up messages ... to be displayed on consumers' computers instructing them to immediately call a toll free number for technical assistance," which connected them to telemarketers in Boynton Beach, Florida. Essentially the pop-ups, which resembled messages from Apple and Microsoft, rendered the consumers' browsers "unusable," the complaint said. After consumers called, the telemarketers supposedly ran "diagnostic tests" on the computers and then would offer a $200 to $400 charge to fix the problems, and also push an ongoing technical support plan that could cost up to $19.99 per month, the complaint said. Boca Raton, Florida-based attorney Joe Grant, who represents only Big Dog, Costanza and Harris, emailed that his clients' business had closed down before the complaint was filed and a receiver has been appointed. "We are working with the FTC and the State of FL on an agreement relating to the injunction issues and asset freeze," he wrote. "We dispute the allegations in the complaint, which we deal with at a later stage in this action." Abbas, who is CEO of BlackOptek, didn't comment.

DOJ’s Tax Division went to federal court Wednesday seeking an order forcing Facebook to comply with six IRS summonses for documents in the agency’s investigation of the company’s tax liabilities for the 2010 tax year, two years before Facebook went public. Facebook has refused to turn over “the books, records, papers, and other data demanded in the summonses” about the company’s September 2010 transfer to Facebook Ireland of rights for its businesses outside the U.S. and Canada, said the DOJ petition (in Pacer) filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Facebook’s 2010 tax return “reported royalty income that I learned came from transfers of intangible property” to Facebook Ireland, said a signed declaration (in Pacer) from Nina Wu Stone, the IRS agent in charge of the investigation. The “preliminary” findings of an IRS “examination team” of outside tax experts “suggested” that Facebook’s “valuations of the transferred intangibles” may have been “understated by billions of dollars,” her declaration said. “Facebook complies with all applicable rules and regulations in the countries where we operate,” a company spokeswoman emailed us Thursday. Facebook acknowledged in recent SEC filing disclosures that it was “under examination” by the IRS for the 2008-2010 tax years. “We believe that adequate amounts have been reserved for any adjustments that may ultimately result from these examinations, and we do not anticipate a significant impact to our gross unrecognized tax benefits within the next 12 months related to these years,” Facebook said in January in its most recent 10-K filing at the SEC.

The Society for Information Display is soliciting “original contributed papers” on the subject of vehicle displays for publication in a special section of its Journal of the SID during Q1, SID said in a “call for papers” notice emailed Wednesday to SID members and to attendees of its recent Display Week conference in San Francisco (see 1605230032). “Papers can deal with technological aspects of manufacturing, image quality and reliability issues, form factors, deformability, power consumption, human factors related to the use of vehicle displays.” Deadline is Sept. 15, it said.

More than two dozen civil liberties groups want President Barack Obama to quickly nominate a qualified individual to replace Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board Chairman David Medine, who resigned July 1 (see 1603290010). In a Wednesday letter addressed to Obama, the 29 organizations urged him to appoint someone with a background in privacy and civil liberties to the post on the five-member independent agency. "It is vital that all members of the board, but particularly its chair, come equipped with both a deep understanding and significant practical experience in this area," wrote the coalition, including the American Civil Liberties Union, New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice, Center for Democracy & Technology, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Free Press, Sunlight Foundation and TechFreedom. "Appointing a chair who lacks this background would risk undermining the board’s mission. Moreover, a board chaired by an individual without the appropriate qualifications would risk losing the support of the civil liberties community -- support that we believe has been integral to the board’s actual and perceived effectiveness." It doesn't always agree with the board's conclusions and recommendations in its reports, the coalition said, but PCLOB provides a "tremendous service" by getting declassified information on government programs "and by calling public attention to some of the civil liberties issues they raise." The White House didn't comment.

The FTC has enforced laws protecting children's privacy but should work with Congress to better protect children's personal information as mobile apps and internet-connected "smart toys" proliferate, urged Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in a Wednesday letter to Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. "Over the past few years, security researchers have uncovered some startling vulnerabilities in a wide variety of connected toys," he wrote in the letter. "For instance, researchers have been able to gain control of dolls that respond to children’s questions and alter the doll’s responses. Security analysts have also shown that conversations recorded by toys and uploaded to the cloud are easily accessible to hackers." Warner cited last year's VTech data breach that exposed data on millions of children (see 1512010041). In the letter and news release, Warner said the FTC should work with Congress to identify ways to improve children's privacy, and asked the agency to answer questions about current policies and enforcement of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

The CEDIA Technology Council on Tuesday released the first 10 of 100 smart home predictions for 2020, including a residential social robot and “the end of the copper wire.” Mixed reality rooms -- comprising augmented and virtual reality experiences -- will begin to replace home theater, said Dave Pedigo, CEDIA senior director-emerging technologies. As the need for data bandwidth expands, fiber will replace copper wire in the home, he said: Video will be decoded and rendered in the same device.

The EU should rethink its e-privacy directive since it duplicates existing and new laws such as the general data protection regulation and "creates a fragmented privacy regime," said the Internet Association in Tuesday news release. In a filing to the EU, the group, which represents almost 40 internet companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter, said the directive has been "superseded" by several new legal instruments (see 1512160001) and creates "ambiguous implications." Internet Association General Counsel Abigail Slater said in the release the EU should assess the directive’s "continued relevance.” She said data protection policies also should include encryption and other mechanisms to safeguard people's electronic communications without back doors that weaken such protections.

Lawyers for a U.S. citizen convicted of attempting to bomb a ceremony in Portland, Oregon, plan to argue Wednesday that warrantless surveillance of his international communications violated his constitutional rights. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed amicus briefs in U.S. v. Mohamud, were given time by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Portland to argue at the hearing -- which will be live-streamed at 2 p.m. EDT -- on broader privacy implications. It's the first time a federal appeals court will hear oral argument on a challenge of NSA warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international communications, the ACLU and EFF said. They will argue the government's use of Section 702 under the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, which authorizes spying only on the electronic communications of foreigners abroad, is being used to monitor any international communications, wrote the ACLU in its June 3 brief. "It also violates the reasonableness requirement. The Supreme Court has emphasized that a surveillance statute is reasonable only if it is precise and discriminate. The [FISA Amendments Act] is neither." All sides declined comment Tuesday. ACLU Staff Attorney Patrick Toomey, who will argue before the three-judge panel, said in a news release the case has privacy implications for all U.S. citizens and residents because the government has "virtually unfettered access" to all their international phone calls and emails. “It has become increasingly apparent that the NSA and FBI have implemented the law in the broadest possible way, and that the rules that supposedly protect the privacy of innocent people in fact do the opposite," he said last week. The government said evidence obtained through Section 702 "did nothing to undermine the fairness of the pretrial rulings, trial, or sentencing hearing." In targeting non-U.S. persons, the collection of communications of U.S. persons is incidental, it said. Mohamed Osman Mohamud sought a new trial because the government notified him after the trial it got evidence through Section 702 surveillance without a warrant, his lawyers argued February. They said the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies don't permit the government from retaining, querying and accessing Americans' communications gotten by targeting foreigners.