Years of discovery turned up no evidence Bright House Networks' objective in providing internet service to subscribers allegedly involved in online piracy was to cause copyright infringement, the Charter Communications subsidiary told the U.S. District Court in Tampa Wednesday in a docket 8:19-cv-710 motion to dismiss. Numerous music labels are suing Bright House (see 2108120002). It said it's also entitled to summary judgment on many of the alleged infringements since close to half of the notices were mistakenly sent to email addresses it doesn't maintain. "Bright House could not have had knowledge of alleged infringements identified in notices it did not receive," the ISP said. Bright House "received millions of infringement notices from copyright owners, but literally threw away the vast majority without even looking at them," the labels said in a motion for partial summary judgment seeking a finding that they had established the knowledge and material contribution elements necessary to hold it liable for contributory infringement. That would leave for trial proving that Bright House's subscribers distributed or reproduced the infringing files, which will establish direct infringement, the plaintiffs said.

Bitdefender debuted an identity theft protection service for U.S. consumers, reported the cybersecurity company Tuesday. The service, developed in collaboration with TransUnion subsidiary IdentityForce, is available as a stand-alone subscription offering or through the Bitdefender Ultimate Security suite of antivirus and password-protection solutions, it said. A recent Bitdefender survey of more than 10,000 consumers found many use “high-risk behavior” when shopping online, including half who admitted to using a single password for all online accounts, it said.

It’s a “fact” FTC staff is showing “low morale,” and hopefully it's a trend the full commission can reverse, FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips said Tuesday during The Media Institute's Communications Forum event. Commissioner Christine Wilson spoke at length about the topic earlier this month (see 2205060056). Phillips said he was “chilled” to see the decline in the agency survey about how staff views agency leadership’s integrity. He noted career staffers, including Democratic appointees, have been leaving the FTC, which he said doesn’t look good from the inside or outside. He repeated opposition to the FTC pursuing a privacy rulemaking, saying the agency should leave legislative policymaking to Congress. Commercial surveillance is a broad term, and privacy involves major trade-offs best left to Congress, he said. The agency didn't comment.

FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya was sworn in Monday for a term ending in September 2026, the agency announced. With Bedoya’s addition, Chair Lina Khan said she’s “confident we can vigorously advance our mission and fully serve the American people.” Commissioner Christine Wilson tweeted she looks forward to working with Bedoya "to promote competition and protect consumers." Khan will testify Wednesday at a House Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee hearing, and the FTC scheduled a meeting for Thursday (see 2205130058).

Stronger EU cybersecurity rules advanced Friday when government and European Parliament negotiators agreed provisionally to the revised network and information security directive (NIS2). If approved by European Council members and the full Parliament, the measure would set the baseline for cybersecurity risk management measures and reporting obligations across several sectors, the Council said. One is digital infrastructure: The directive would apply to providers of public electronic communications services, digital services and domain name system services (see 2103220038). NIS2 introduces a size-cap rule under which all medium and large entities within the relevant sectors would be subject to the rules. Negotiators agreed on other provisions to ensure proportionality, a higher level of risk management and "clear-cut criticality criteria" for determining which enterprises are covered. The provisional accord also streamlines reporting requirements. The European Commission welcomed the political agreement, saying its next move will be a cyber-resilience act to ensure that digital products are more secure.

Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to buy Twitter is “temporarily on hold” until he gets more detail supporting the estimate that spam and fake accounts make up less than 5% of users, the Tesla CEO tweeted Friday. “Still committed to acquisition,” he added about two hours later. Twitter shares closed 9.7% lower Friday at $40.72, recording their lowest mark since Musk announced plans to become the platform’s largest individual shareholder in April. Abandoning the deal carries the potential for a $1 billion break-up fee. Musk earlier in the week said he would reinstate former President Donald Trump, whose account was suspended in response to his activity related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot (see 2204120056). “I saw President Trump said he wasn’t interested” in rejoining the platform “so I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told us Thursday. “I’m opposed to the social media companies censoring free speech so good for” Musk. “This is such an uninteresting conversation,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said of the potential Trump reinstatement. The company didn't comment.

President Joe Biden extended for a year the national emergency declaration in then-President Donald Trump’s May 2019 executive order under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to protect U.S. information and communications technology supply chains against interference by foreign adversaries, says a notice for Friday’s Federal Register. The order was due to expire Sunday. Bad actors’ “unrestricted access” to ICT “augments the ability” of foreign adversaries to exploit “vulnerabilities” in the U.S. supply chain, “with potentially catastrophic effects,” said the notice. The “unusual and extraordinary threat” continues to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the U.S., it said. For this reason, the national emergency declaration “must continue,” it said.

Google will pay hundreds of European news publishers for their content as part of licensing agreements under the European Copyright Directive, the company said Wednesday. Google reached agreements with “more than 300 national, local and specialist news publications in Germany, Hungary, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland,” the company said. Google will launch a new tool to allow for potential agreements with “thousands more news publishers, starting in Germany and Hungary, and rolling out to other EU countries over the coming months,” said News and Publishing Partnerships Director Sulina Connal.

Google manipulated the app store market and abused its power by forcing Match Group to use the Google Play Store billing system, alleged Match Monday in an antitrust lawsuit against Google in U.S. District Court in San Jose. Google initially told Match the company would be able to use its own payment systems for its dating apps Tinder, Match, OkCupid and others. The platform pulled a “bait-and-switch” in requiring all apps selling digital goods to use Google Play billing, the company said. The “requirement will eliminate user choice on Match Group apps and increase costs to consumers by allowing Google to charge Match Group an arbitrary and discriminatory tax of 15% on all subscriptions and up to 30% on all other in-app purchases,” Match said. Google Vice President-Government Affairs and Public Policy Wilson White rejected Google’s “cynical campaign,” saying Match is trying to “freeload” on Google investments after years of reaping benefits from the Google Play store.

The Biden administration colluded with social media platforms to censor and suppress truthful information, Republican attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana alleged in a lawsuit Thursday. Filed by Missouri AG Eric Schmitt and Louisiana AG Jeff Landry, the lawsuit names President Joe Biden, Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, DHS Disinformation Governance Board Director Nina Jankowicz, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and others. The administration “pressured and colluded” with social media giants Meta, Twitter and YouTube to censor information on various topics, including COVID-19, the lawsuit claims. It cites several instances of truthful information it said was censored by platforms and later verified as credible: the efficacy of masks, the Wuhan, China, lab leak story and the Hunter Biden laptop story. The federal government violated the First Amendment by colluding with platforms in the censorship, the lawsuit said: Officials “coerced, threatened, and pressured social-media platforms to censor disfavored speakers and viewpoints by using threats of adverse government action.” The White House didn’t comment.