Washington, D.C., will appeal a D.C. Superior Court decision affirming its dismissal of the city’s antitrust case against Amazon (see 2208050015), D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said Thursday in case 2021 CA 001775 B. The Court of Appeals will set a briefing schedule for the appeal in the coming weeks, said Racine: “We’re appealing the lower court’s decision because District consumers deserve a fair marketplace that promotes competition, innovation, and choice. And we’re filing this appeal because the antitrust laws and the facts are on our side.”

DoubleVerify’s fraud lab detected a new variant of LeoTerra, the connected TV advertising fraud scheme, that impersonates IoT devices and hides fraudulent behavior, said the digital media measurement software platform on Wednesday. The three LeoTerra variants detected thus far have spoofed more than 92 million devices during 2022's first half and up to 3.5 million device signatures a day, it said. LeoTerra is a server-side ad insertion tool that fraudsters use to spoof large numbers of devices, it said. Bad actors use online device information sources, where they download lists of devices and incorporate the device information inside their falsified ad requests, it said: “This makes it appear as if their fraudulent traffic is coming from millions of different devices.”

The FTC agreed to drop Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg from its antitrust lawsuit against the company in exchange for Zuckerberg agreeing not to unilaterally purchase Within Unlimited and its virtual reality fitness app Supernatural (see 2207270059). The two sides agreed Tuesday to a joint stipulation dropping Zuckerberg as a defendant in 5:22-cv-04325 before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The FTC agreed to dismiss its claims against Zuckerberg as an individual, and the CEO agreed not to acquire Within Unlimited in his personal capacity or through any entity he controls.

DOJ requested permission to participate in oral argument in support of 48 state attorneys general leading an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook (see 2203150046). The AGs, led by New York AG Letitia James (D), agreed to grant DOJ 10 minutes of their 25 minutes allotted for argument Sept. 19, said the filing Tuesday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in docket 21-7078. DOJ noted Facebook parent Meta hasn’t taken a position on the motion and won’t file a response. The U.S. has a “significant interest” in the application of antitrust law, and the district court’s order dismissing the states’ antitrust claims raises “significant and unjustified barriers” to Sherman Act Section 2 enforcement by “incorrectly analyzing anticompetitive conditions to ongoing deals under the more onerous standards reserved for unconditional, unilateral refusals to deal,” DOJ said.

Public comments are due Nov. 18 on how “children are affected by digital advertising and marketing messages that may blur the line between ads and entertainment,” the FTC said Tuesday. The comment solicitation is part of an agency effort that includes an Oct. 19 event on online safety for children (see 2205190058). The FTC declined to extend the public comment period for a proposed rule “that would ban junk fees and bait-and-switch advertising tactics that can plague consumers throughout the car-buying experience.” The commission voted 5-0 to keep the Sept. 22 deadline, saying stakeholders argued in favor of both extending and declining the extension. The public will have had 80 days to review the proposed rule at deadline, the agency said.

Every school district-issued device should comply with internet safety policies that prevent students from accessing pornography and other obscene material, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee ranking member Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., wrote Monday in The Hill. Their opinion piece follows a joint letter Carr and Blackburn sent last week to the Universal Service Administrative Co., the organization that administers the FCC’s E-Rate and the Emergency Connectivity Fund programs and ensures school-issued devices comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act. “While some districts are exercising diligence with tech usage, others are taking a far too reckless approach to student safety,” they wrote in the opinion piece. Districts should be able to control access to harmful materials on platforms like Facebook and TikTok, they said.

Bill.com estimates 400,000 businesses, many of them single-proprietor enterprises, used its electronic payment services in fiscal 2022 ended June 30, a threefold increase year over year, said CEO Rene Lacerte on a fiscal Q4 earnings call Thursday. But toward the end of the fourth quarter, “we started to see signals of the macro environment impacting spend patterns, especially in discretionary categories like advertising,” he said. Bill.com began in June to see its total payment volume growth rates “moderate,” said Chief Financial Officer John Rettig. “This trend continued into July and early August,” he said. “While it appears that the macro environment is influencing business spend, we continue to see very strong customer acquisition, engagement and retention.” The current macro environment “presents numerous near-term uncertainties,” said Rettig. “Our fiscal 2023 outlook anticipates customers will continue to react to the external factors and temper spend throughout the year, similar to the trends we saw emerging in late Q4 and early this quarter.” Bill.com believes “there is a significant greenfield opportunity ahead of us to help millions of businesses manage their cash flows, and transform their financial operations,” said Rettig. Its total addressable market (TAM) includes more than 30 million small businesses in the U.S. and 70 million globally, the majority of which “still use manual paper-based processes,” said CEO Lacerte. “Our TAM is significant.”

The stay in the tech industry’s lawsuit against Florida’s social media law is extended until at least Sept. 21, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Friday in docket 21-12355 (see 2206240052. The stay will remain in force until “final disposition” by the Supreme Court, provided the case remains active, said a notice from the 11th Circuit.

Comments on the FTC’s potential privacy rulemaking (see 2208110068) are due Oct. 21, said a notice for Monday's Federal Register. The agency is seeking public comment "on the prevalence of commercial surveillance and data security practices that harm consumers," said the notice.

Comments are due Sept. 29 for the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s second draft of its AI risk management framework (see 2201270058), NIST announced Thursday. The framework provides voluntary guidance for addressing “risks in the design, development, use, and evaluation of AI products, services, and systems,” the agency said.