The FTC should issue a rule banning “surveillance advertising” as an “unfair method of competition,” Accountable Tech said in a petition filed with the agency Monday. The FTC voted in September to allow the public to petition the agency to issue rulemakings (see 2109150061). Comments on the Accountable Tech petition are due Jan. 26. Accountable Tech cited what it called the anticompetitive practices of platforms like Google, Facebook and Amazon involving targeted advertising. These “giants” have grown “lucrative empires by tracking users” across platforms and third-parties and are “building comprehensive data profiles in order to micro-target audiences with more and more invasive ads,” the filing said. Dominant companies can “unfairly extract and monetize more user data, unfairly integrate that data across business lines and actively suppress competition,” the filing said. Digital ads are a major reason consumers are able to access free online content, emailed Hinch Newman's Richard Newman: “Overly broad restrictions on customized advertising could potentially act as a sledgehammer that both deprives consumers of meaningful choices as well as the ability to access a broad range of online content.” The companies didn’t comment. The agency declined to comment.

Eighty-seven percent of U.S. households get an internet service at home, 85% via broadband, reported the Leichtman Research Group Tuesday. Some 60% of broadband subscribers are very satisfied with their home internet service, 7% not satisfied; 68% of broadband subscribers say their internet service meets the household’s needs, 4% disagreed. Some 63% of broadband subscribers rate their internet speed very high, 7% poor. Six in 10 adults with home internet service watch video online daily, up from 50% in 2019, and 87% of households use at least one computer.

A stalkerware company that allegedly harvested and shared user data illegally is banned from doing spyware business, said an FTC nonmonetary order Tuesday. Commissioners voted 4-0. CEO Scott Zuckerman and his company Support King, which did business as SpyFone.com, are banned from conducting “surveillance business.” They must delete ill-gotten data and notify owners of the devices on which the app was installed.

A U.S. magistrate judge's recommendation that an alleged Russian streaming piracy operation pay music labels $83 million in statutory damages is "a major step forward to protect artists, songwriters, record labels, and consumers from one of the most pernicious forms of online piracy," said RIAA Chief Legal Officer Ken Doroshow Monday. In the U.S. District Court report and recommendation last week (docket 18-cv-00957), Judge Theresa Buchanan of Alexandria, Virginia, said the plaintiffs sufficiently argued that defendant Tofig Kurbanov and his "stream ripping" websites that convert YouTube URLs to MP3s of copyrighted music circumvent the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Doroshow said the lawsuit "sets out vital first principles that should chart a path for further enforcement against foreign stream-rippers and other forms of online piracy that undermine the legitimate market for music.” Kurbanov's lawyer didn't comment.

A bill meant to improve federal employees’ understanding of AI passed the Senate, announced Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich., and ranking member Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Monday. The AI Training for the Acquisition Workforce Act (S-2551) awaits House consideration. It would “help train federal employees who purchase and manage AI technology for government agencies to ensure it is being used for the betterment of all communities,” they said.

U.S. District Court in Burlington extended a freeze on net neutrality litigation until April 15 or when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resolves suits on California’s net neutrality law, whichever happens first. The court agreed Friday to a stipulation filed earlier that day by defendant Vermont and plaintiffs ACA Connects, CTIA, NCTA, USTelecom and the New England Cable & Telecommunications Association. Case 2:18-cv-167 would have resumed Jan. 3 (see 2111150060).

Cyber criminals customarily "infiltrate" a network before Christmas, then “lie in wait for the optimal time to launch an attack,” said a White House memo Thursday urging corporate executives and business leaders to protect against “malicious cyber activity” before the holidays. “It is therefore essential that you convene your leadership team now to make your organization a harder target for criminals,” it said. “Best practices” should be deployed immediately, including updating patching, changing passwords, mandating multifactor authentication and raising “employee awareness” of cyberthreats, it said. “Reinforce the imperative” among workers to report computers or phones “exhibiting any unusual behavior” to deny criminals “the initial entry into your systems that allows them to execute attacks over the holidays,” it said.

The Build Back Better Act would grant the FTC “unprecedented and unjustified” broad civil penalty authority under FTC Act Section 5, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some 85 organizations wrote the Senate Wednesday. The letter references HR-5376's sections 31501 and 31502, which would fund a new FTC data privacy and security bureau (see 2111190042). The new civil penalty authority would “constitute a major policy shift in FTC enforcement authority that erodes due process and will impose significant new costs on companies that are acting in good faith when serving consumers,” they wrote. Retail, advertising and business groups signed the letter. The Chamber has been critical of policy changes under FTC Chair Lina Khan (see 2112030042). The agency didn’t comment. Groups signing the letter are funded by some of the largest monopolies, including Amazon, Google and Facebook, said Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, in a statement: “Big Tech and giant corporations got used to being above the law and now they want to keep it that way. Democrats in the Senate must join Chair Lina Khan in standing up to these blatant efforts to undermine law enforcement.”

The FTC ordered an online advertising platform to pay $2 million to settle allegations the company “collected personal information from children under 13 without parental consent.” OpenX Technologies violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule when it knew it was reviewing hundreds of child-directed applications and collected personal information of children under 13, the agency said. Commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the order. Commissioner Noah Phillips highlighted some “areas of concern,” in a concurrence. There’s no “obvious reason” to require OpenX to provide notice to its clients about the data allegations other than to “perhaps further penalize OpenX,” he said. He noted the FTC sought $7.5 million from OpenX in its stipulated order but settled for $2 million due to its inability to pay. “OpenX secretly collected location data and opened the door to privacy violations on a massive scale, including against children,” said Consumer Protection Bureau Director Samuel Levine Wednesday. An attorney for the company didn’t comment Thursday.

A former Netflix tech executive was sentenced Monday to 30 months in federal prison for doling out lucrative contracts to nine Netflix tech vendors in exchange for bribes and kickbacks, said DOJ. A San Jose jury convicted Michael Kail, 52, in April on 28 of 29 counts of mail fraud, money laundering and other charges in connection with a pay-for-play scheme he ran until his three years as Netflix vice president-internet technology operations ended in July 2014, it said. Acting U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds said Kail used his “highly compensated Netflix position to siphon cash and valuable stock options from his tech vendors, the same vendors whose Netflix contracts he signed and whose technologies he pushed his teams to use.” Kail pocketed more than $500,000 in cash and stock options from the outside vendors, using his kickback payments to pay his personal expenses and to buy a home in Los Gatos, California, said DOJ. When personally questioned by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings about potential wrongdoing, Kail falsely denied he was receiving improper compensation from Netflix vendors, said Kail's April 2018 indictment. Hastings testified at Kali's trial as a prosecution witness. U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman ordered Kail to surrender March 8 to begin serving his sentence. Neither Kail's lawyers nor Netflix responded Wednesday to requests for comment.