The ICANN board voted to move its ICANN 57 meeting to Hyderabad, India, and reschedule it for Nov. 3-9, it said Tuesday in a blog post. ICANN said the board chose to move the meeting to Hyderabad from San Juan, Puerto Rico, in response to concerns about the Zika virus outbreak. ICANN rescheduled from the original meeting dates, Oct. 29-Nov. 4, because of limited space availability in Hyderabad on those dates. ICANN previously decided to move its June 27-30 policy forum from Panama City to Helsinki in response to the Zika outbreak (see 1602080015). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported 669 cases of Zika in Puerto Rico as of May 11 that the agency believes were caught within the U.S. territory. “This decision was based on available research and information and the fact that Puerto Rico has declared a state of emergency” related to the Zika outbreak, ICANN said. “We believe that the Zika virus poses a significant enough threat that we need to postpone going to Puerto Rico for the health and safety of our community and our ICANN team,” just as ICANN did when it relocated its ICANN 52 meeting in 2014 from Marrakech, Morocco, to Singapore due to concerns about that year's Ebola outbreak. ICANN 57 will be at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre, ICANN said.

FTC Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich said last week's federal court ruling upholding the commission's summary decision against John Fanning, who operated the now-defunct Jerk.com, made it clear his "misrepresentations in this case were harmful to consumers." Rich said in a Wednesday statement the FTC "will closely monitor the defendant’s compliance with the order, as we do in all our cases.” The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said May 9 it agreed with the commission's findings that the reputation website -- which passed off content as user-generated when it actually collected and misused content from Facebook -- misrepresented the source of its content and membership benefits (see 1404080080 and 1503250067). The FTC issued a summary decision in March 2015 against the site and Fanning, including barring him from making further deceptive statements, requiring him to keep advertising and marketing records and notifying the commission of any complaints about the misleading and deceptive statements. The federal court struck down parts of the remedial order's compliance monitoring provisions for Fanning, saying they were "overbroad." The court said the FTC order required Fanning to inform the commission of his future business affiliations and employment even if it's unrelated to the unlawful activity. The ruling said the commission acknowledged at oral argument that the "provision would ostensibly require Fanning to report if he was a waiter at a restaurant." Fanning, who is a Napster co-founder, did not comment in response to a direct message sent to his Twitter account.

NTIA is seeking input on what priorities the U.S. should pursue during the ITU's World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly this fall, Office of International Affairs Deputy Associate Administrator Venita Harris said Tuesday in a blog post. NTIA is working with the State Department to develop the U.S.'s formal positions for the quadrennial WTSA, which is to be Oct. 25-Nov. 3 in Yasmine Hammamet, Tunisia. NTIA also seeks input on “what role if any the ITU should play in setting technical standards related to such issues as cybersecurity, Internet governance, Internet of things, intellectual property, and over-the-top services,” Harris said. NTIA “wants to ensure that its contributions to the U.S. preparatory process result in proposals to the WTSA that accurately reflect the views and concerns of U.S. businesses and consumers about the Internet and the digital economy and ... We also want to ensure that the work plan agreed upon at the WTSA related to the upcoming ITU-T work does not duplicate the standards development processes of other bodies.” Comments are due June 16, NTIA said.

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s recent draft measures on China-based domain names “run contrary to China’s stated commitments toward global” multistakeholder Internet governance “as well as its stated goals for economic reform,” said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling and State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary-Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs Daniel Sepulveda in a joint blog post Monday. The draft measures, originally released in March, would require all China-based domain names to be registered through government-licensed service providers that have established a domestic presence and “would impose additional stringent regulations on the provision of domain name services,” Sepulveda and Strickling said. “Whether driven by a motivation to increase control over Internet content in China or a desire to increase the quantity of Chinese-registered domain names, these regulations would contravene policies that have been established already at the global level by all Internet stakeholders (including Chinese). If put into effect, these regulations would have potentially large and negative repercussions for everyone.” The U.S. and other pro-multistakeholder Internet governance stakeholders have raised formal concerns about the draft measures, particularly a provision that some have interpreted as meaning “all websites with domain names registered outside China will be blocked, thereby cutting off Chinese Internet users from the global Internet,” Sepulveda and Strickling said. “While Chinese authorities have clarified that the intent of the article would be to prohibit access to Chinese-registered domain names that are acquired from registries/registrars that are not in compliance with Chinese regulations, concerns remain that the language in its current form is vague and open to differing interpretations.” The U.S. is also concerned about provisions that would force data localization and real-name verification for domain name registration, Sepulveda and Strickling said. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and two other GOP senators skeptical of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority repeatedly have raised concerns in recent months about ICANN’s engagement with China given the country’s track record on Internet governance issues (see 1602040061, 1603030067 and 1604040056). ICANN Board Chairman Steve Crocker told the senators last month that ICANN’s engagement with China “does not suggest any level of support for the nation’s government or its policies” (see 1604070033).

Industry can and should self-regulate on cybersecurity matters, with government's role being to provide incentives in the form of tax breaks or liability limits, said Jamie Barnett, part of Venable's cybersecurity practice, on a cybersecurity panel at the FCBA annual seminar Saturday. Multiple speakers said industry trust of government is difficult when data breaches are often followed by rulemaking or enforcement actions. "The FBI shows up, Secret Service shows up, they want to help," Barnett said. "Then six months on, the Enforcement Bureau knocks on the door and they are not perceived as so helpful by the carrier. Is government going to be on the side of companies as they try to defend? Or is government going to be criticizing companies? As long as government wants to be on both ends, it becomes very difficult to work with them." Megan Brown, a leader of Wiley Rein's Cybersecurity, Data and Network Security practice, agreed existing constructs are too adversarial. The next FCC administration has to figure out a means of getting industry comfortable with government collaboration on cybersecurity issues, she said. Brown said government wants companies to be candid with it in talks about cybersecurity threats, but "it's treacherous" and there are big questions about where that information subsequently could end up. The New York Attorney General's Office floated the idea of immunity that would come from meeting certain standards that are signed off on by a third party, but regulatory minimums can create a compliance mindset of meeting that minimum and nothing beyond, Brown said. Barnett also advocated creating a federal Department of Communications and Cyberspace, combining NTIA and the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity directorate. "Most nations have a ministry of communications," he said, though he said it would likely take a major cybersecurity breach before that would happen. Edward McNicholas, co-head of Sidley Austin's Privacy, Data Security and Information Law practice, said the insurance market could play a vital role in cybersecurity, but there's no good reinsurance market yet. Unlike standard directors and officers liability policies, cybersecurity policies vary considerably and the insurance market needs to be able to compare cybersecurity practices across companies, he said.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition is on schedule to finish by year's end, though NTIA still is evaluating whether ICANN's bylaws changes are satisfactory, with its report on the transition likely coming in early June, NTIA head Larry Strickling said Saturday at the FCBA annual seminar. ICANN is making changes to its bylaws now, even before that report is issued, he said, and, assuming NTIA has no serious concerns, the U.S./ICANN contract could end in September. If that happens, he said, "for the most part no one will notice anything different," though it would be symbolically important. The Commerce Department this fall will put out a set of IoT-promoting policy recommendations and observations as the next step after the request for comment in which it's engaged (see 1604060030), said Angie Simpson, NTIA deputy assistant secretary. Simpson said numerous agencies outside Commerce will be looking at that report, and it might lead to a number of workshops or a multistakeholder process. "We're really trying to get our arms around what this means to folks," she said. While the NTIA's $4 billion broadband grant program is largely complete and no further funding is seen anytime soon, the agency could have a larger role in the future in working with localities on broadband matters, Strickling said. Through its Broadband USA program of technical assistance, publications and community connectivity efforts, NTIA has been trying to develop "digital skills" within communities lacking access to infrastructure or those skill sets, NTIA Chief of Staff Glenn Reynolds said. Meanwhile, its Broadband Opportunity Council is "a way ... to be scrappy and tenacious" and partner up with agencies that have resources NTIA doesn't and use those to leverage broadband connectivity, Simpson said. Individual Opportunity Council efforts, such as working with the Interior Department on improving tribal access to broadband, are "on the margins ... [but] combined they can have tremendous impact," Reynolds said. He also said the model cities public notice being worked on with the FCC is "very close" to completion.

U.S. census data shows Americans are increasingly limiting online activity due to security and privacy concerns such as identity theft, NTIA policy analyst Rafi Goldberg wrote in a blog post Friday. Analysis of the data collected in July by the Census Bureau showed people's negative personal experiences are undermining online trust, he said. "Nineteen percent of Internet-using households -- representing nearly 19 million households -- reported that they had been affected by an online security breach, identity theft, or similar malicious activity during the 12 months prior to the July 2015 survey" of more than 41,000 households, he wrote. Identity theft topped respondents' concerns (63 percent), followed by credit card or banking fraud (45 percent), data collection or tracking by online services (23 percent), loss of control over personal data (22 percent), government data collection or tracking (18 percent), and threats to personal safety (13 percent), he wrote. NTIA said 45 percent of online households say "these concerns stopped them from conducting financial transactions, buying goods or services, posting on social networks, or expressing opinions on controversial or political issues via the Internet, and 30 percent refrained from at least two of these activities." Goldberg said NTIA's initial analysis "only scratches the surface" and policymakers need to better grasp this mistrust "and the resulting chilling effects," which could affect economic activity and the free exchange of ideas online.

As Facebook faces congressional inquiries into allegations that one of its website features is biased against conservative content, Vice President-Global Operations Justin Osofsky in a Thursday blog post sought to shed more light on how the Trending Topics module works (see 1605100032 and 1605110048). He said an algorithm, not people, identifies popular topics, "ones that have a high volume of mentions and a sharp increase in mentions over a short period of time." The algorithm also uses an external RSS website crawler to spot breaking news, but it doesn't "consider perspective or politics" and has checks and balances regardless of a story's ideological slant, he said. Then there is a team of Facebook employees who review the algorithm's results, he said. The team confirms the topic is tied to a current real-world news event, writes a topic description, applies a category label such as sports or science, and checks whether it's a national or international breaking news story covered by most or all of 10 major media outlets, Osofsky said. The list of Trending Topics is then personalized for each user through an algorithm based on several criteria. "Not everyone sees the same topics at the same time," he wrote. The social network's guidelines don't "permit the suppression of political perspectives" nor prioritize one viewpoint over another, and the company hasn't directed any reviewers to suppress conservative news, he said, directly contradicting allegations in a recent Gizmodo story from ex-contractual employees. Osofsky said Facebook is taking the reports seriously and "found no evidence to date that Trending Topics was successfully manipulated, but will continue the review of all our practices."

Consumer electronics buying group ProSource formed a committee of vendors, members and a consultant company led by Savant founder Jim Carroll to explore how the buying group will participate in IoT, ProSource CEO David Workman told us at the group’s spring meeting here in Dana Point, California. It’s the first time ProSource has created a committee that involves vendor partners and select dealer members, Workman said. The group, meeting for the first time in Dana Point, will “try to decide and establish which direction this is all going,” Workman said of the IoT market. “It’s just a stew right now of a bunch of ideas for product and different versions of the truth. We want to progress but do so cautiously and carefully trying to understand how the market is going to develop,” he said. The intriguing unknown for ProSource and industry watchers is how Amazon’s Alexa voice engine and the Echo devices fit into the home automation picture. “The Echo has been a revelation and is generating a huge amount of ongoing interest,” NPD analyst Stephen Baker told us. At some point, that interest will accelerate into “lots of other kinds of individual products,” he said.

China appliance brand Midea Group joined the ZigBee Alliance at the promoter level and will have a seat on its board, the alliance said. Midea, which produces consumer appliances and air conditioners, has operations around the world with more than 126,000 employees. Participating in the alliance at the promoter and board levels allows Midea to “invest further in our goals by working with other major brand leaders and technologists to design and deliver around the promise of the Internet of Things,” said Midea Group Director-Product Strategy and Operations Ethan Xue. Other ZigBee Alliance board members are Comcast Cable, Itron, Kroger Co., Landis+Gyr, Legrand Group, NXP Semiconductors, Philips, Schneider Electric, Silicon Labs, SmartThings, Texas Instruments and Wulian.