Amazon launched a “self-service” program dubbed Amazon Video Direct (AVD) that allows video creators to make streaming content available to Amazon customers. Video providers can choose how to distribute their content: to Prime members for free; as an add-on subscription through Amazon’s Streaming Partners Program, as a one-time rental or purchase or advertising-supported from Amazon. To help video providers optimize the way they offer content under the program, Amazon supplies them with performance metrics, such as number of minutes a title was streamed, projected revenue, payment history or number of subscribers, Amazon said Tuesday. Under the AVD Stars program, which also launched Tuesday, video creators receive a share of $1 million per month based on customer engagement with their titles, said Amazon, which will distribute to creators a monthly bonus from a designated fund based on the top 100 AVD titles in Prime Video, plus other revenue earned. Video creators and providers who use AVD to make their titles available in Prime Video will be automatically enrolled, it said. The AVD Stars fund will make the first bonus distributions based on June 1-30 streaming activity, Amazon said. AVD launch partners are Baby Einstein, Business Insider, CJ Entertainment America, Conde Nast Entertainment, HowStuffWorks, Kin Community, Kinonation, Jash, Journeyman Pictures, Machinima, Mashable, Mattel, Pro Guitar Lessons, Samuel Goldwyn Films, StyleHaul, Synergetic Distribution, The Guardian, TYT Network and XiveTV.

The federal government has several educational, enforcement and legislative efforts to protect people from the use of "surreptitious" smartphone tracking apps, but the GAO said in a report Monday that some stakeholders "differed" over whether current laws against stalking should be strengthened in response to the use of such apps. In analyzing 40 tracking apps and their websites' marketing language, GAO said a majority of these apps are marketed to parents and employers to monitor their children and employees. But it said about one-third of the websites reviewed market their apps as surreptitious, meaning they track individuals without their knowledge or consent. In interviews with academics, domestic violence groups and privacy advocates, GAO said many were concerned about the applicability of current federal laws in the manufacture, sale and use of such apps, the limited enforcement of such laws, and the need for more education about the apps. But others differed. "Some industry stakeholders were concerned that legislative actions could be overly broad and harm legitimate uses of tracking apps," GAO said. "However, stakeholders generally agreed that location data can be highly personal information and are deserving of privacy protections." GAO didn't make any recommendations in the report.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood formally objected Monday to Google’s petition to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its April ruling that invalidated a 2015 preliminary injunction against Hood that barred him from enforcing his subpoena looking into Google’s search practices. The 5th Circuit said Judge Henry Wingate’s injunction “covers a fuzzily defined range of enforcement actions that do not appear imminent” (see 1604110058). Google had said a rehearing is needed because Hood subsequently withdrew his subpoena (see 1604280046). Google’s rehearing petition “is anything but narrow,” said Hood, a Democrat, in his objection (in Pacer). “In reality, Google’s requested relief would effectively transform the now-vacated injunction (which Google does not contest) into declaratory relief having virtually the same effect as the vacated injunction.” Google’s argument for rehearing “jettisons” the 5th Circuit’s ruling that at this stage “any claims [Hood] might bring in the future are ‘hypothetical situations,’” Hood said. “This rationale applies to claims for both injunctive and declaratory relief; possible future claims are no less hypothetical for one form of relief but not the other.” Whether Google’s claims are injunctive or declaratory, they “are not ripe and dismissal is correct,” Hood said.

British consumers are on pace this year for the first time to spend more on video streaming subscriptions and downloads than on buying and renting physical DVDs and Blu-rays, Strategy Analytics said in a Friday report. The research firm sees Britons spending 1.3 billion pounds ($1.9 billion) on streaming and downloading in 2016 (a 23.7 percent increase from 2015), compared with 956 million pounds ($1.4 billion) on DVDs and Blu-rays (down 16.3 percent from 2015), it said. Five years ago, physical media accounted for 86 percent of consumer spending on home video, but in five years it will be less than 14 percent, “with DVD/Blu-ray rental virtually extinct,” the company said. “As online provides increasing ways to access films and box-sets, physical simply can’t compete. Although many people will always prefer a physical disc, retailers will have to decide whether it’s even viable to offer that format in five years’ time.”

A federal judge in San Francisco rejected Facebook's request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Illinois users alleging the social media company “amassed users’ biometric data secretly and without consent.” U.S. District Judge James Donato in his Thursday ruling (in Pacer) also dismissed the company’s request for summary judgment, saying if California law is applied -- which Facebook wanted -- then Illinois' policy protecting its citizens' privacy interests in their biometric data "would be written out of existence." The ruling means the case will proceed under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. About a year ago, plaintiffs Carlo Licata, Nimesh Patel and Adam Pezen filed three separate suits, later consolidated and the case transferred to California. The three claim Facebook “automatically enrolled millions of Illinoisans” into its "Tag Suggestions" program, launched in 2010, which uses advanced facial recognition technology to identify people in users' uploaded photographs. Facebook argued the definition of “biometric identifier” and “biometric information” in the Illinois statute excludes photos and information derived from those photos. It said it gets all its biometric data “exclusively” from uploaded photographs. Donato has scheduled a case management conference for June 15. Facebook didn't comment Friday.

Seventy-three percent of surveyed organizations have had at least one data breach or other cyberincident in the past year, CompTIA said Wednesday in a report. About 60 percent of such breaches were categorized as serious, the group said. CompTIA surveyed more than 1,500 business and tech executives from the U.S., Canada and 10 other countries. Ninety-four percent of surveyed organizations from India said they had experienced a breach, while only 39 percent of organizations from Japan self-reported cyberincidents, CompTIA said. Seventy-six percent of all surveyed organizations reported at least one mobile-related security incident, including lost devices and mobile malware. Although 96 percent of organizations indicated testing after cybersecurity training is important, only 23 percent rated their cybersecurity education and training practices as extremely effective, CompTIA said.

The Digital Advertising Alliance's self-regulatory principles "are now in full force" for mobile companies, after compliance decisions involving apps published by Bearbit Studios, Spinrilla and Top Free Games, said the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council (ASRC) in a Wednesday news release. "Consumers can now count on receiving the same real-time notice and choice about interest-based advertising on their mobile devices that they have long enjoyed when browsing the web on their desktops." The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program reviewed several popular apps and found noncompliance with several such as Spinrilla, which allowed third parties to collect user data for interest-based advertising but didn't provide the required notice and enhanced notice. An inquiry letter was sent to Spinrilla company explaining the compliance gaps with the company's app and website, it said. Compliance is important as mobile is growing in popularity, with ad spending expected to reach 72 percent of all digital advertising in the next few years, it said. "We advise any company grappling with implementation questions in these early days of mobile compliance -- contact us for help, before we contact them with a formal inquiry. Our mission is to build trust between consumers and companies interacting on mobile devices, to the benefit of both," said Genie Barton, Council of Better Business Bureaus vice president and Accountability Program director.

The Donuts domain name registry said it invested in geofence management firm GeoFrenzy, launching its Donuts Labs investment initiative. Donuts didn't disclose how much it invested in GeoFrenzy but said its Donuts Labs initiative will target companies that may create new uses for domain names or otherwise complement Donuts' interests. Apps use the geofence technology that GeoFrenzy manages to define geographic areas and then direct drones, driverless cars and other technologies. “There are outstanding opportunities available to put Donuts' abilities to work in companies that are similar to ours, use DNS [domain name system] technology, or simply are adjacent to our industry,” Donuts CEO Paul Stahura said in a Tuesday news release. “The Donuts team intends to be active in these developing areas.”

Microsoft acquired Solair, an Italian company that has been delivering IoT services to customers “across a number of industries,” including manufacturing and retail, said Sam George, Microsoft partner director for its Azure-branded IoT platform, in a Tuesday blog post. Solair shares Microsoft’s “ambition” for helping customers “harness their untapped data and create new intelligence with IoT,” George said. The acquisition supports Microsoft’s strategy “to deliver the most complete IoT offering for enterprises,” he said. Integrating Solair’s technology into the Azure platform “will continue to enhance our complete IoT offering for the enterprise,” he said. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will be the focus of four public workshops over the next few months, said the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Tuesday. OSTP will be co-hosting the sessions with academic institutions, nonprofits and the National Economic Council. It said information gleaned from the discussions will be used to help develop a public report later this year. Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ed Felten wrote in a blog post the meetings will be May 24 in Seattle, June 7 in Washington, June 28 in Pittsburgh and July 7 in New York City. While AI is "confined to narrow, specific tasks," its influence is growing in areas such as education, healthcare, image- and voice-recognition, self-driving cars and drones, wrote Felten. But the technology also carries risks such as eliminating old jobs even as it creates new ones and predicting its behavior in certain scenarios, he said. Issues such as law, privacy, regulation, research and development and security also need to be taken into consideration, said Felten. Plus, he said the National Science and Technology Council's new Subcommittee on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will have its inaugural meeting next week. The group, he said, will monitor AI and machine learning advances and technology milestones within the federal government, private sector and internationally and help coordinate federal activity on this issue.