The average internet connection speed globally increased 14 percent year-over-year to 6.1 Mbps in Q2, Akamai said in a news release Thursday. But the average speed decreased 2.3 percent compared with the previous quarter, the networking vendor reported. Global average peak speed increased 2.5 percent year-over-year to 36 Mbps, Akamai said. Adoption of above 10 Mbps speeds increased 0.7 percent to 35 percent quarter-over-quarter, but adoption of above 15 Mbps speeds dropped 0.8 percent to 21 percent and above 25 Mbps speeds dropped 2.1 percent to 8.3 percent, it said.

Domain name registry Donuts said its new enhanced Domains Protected Marks List (DPML) Plus trademark protection tool will allow brand owners to better protect their marks across the registry's 197 top-level domains. DPML Plus will allow users to block their trademark and three related terms from being registered for an initial 10-year period, Donuts said Wednesday. Users also will be able to block trademarks in premium second-level domains and can seek to block misspellings of their mark-related terms for an additional fee. DPML Plus registration begins Saturday and will be open through Dec. 31, said a blog post.

Special Assistant to the President-Economic and Tech Policy David Edelman Wednesday credited the White House’s 2009 global cyberspace policy strategy for setting the tone for President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity focus. Cyber has become “a priority for this administration,” with cybersecurity issues now playing a prominent role in “every bilateral agreement” the U.S. signs, Edelman said during a Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies event. The 2009 cyberspace strategy also guided the Obama administration’s approach to dealing with thorny privacy issues after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks about controversial surveillance programs, Edelman said. “Tremendous change domestically” on privacy issues, including passage of both the USA Freedom Act and the Judicial Redress Act, aided in development of the U.S.-EU Privacy Shield, Edelman said. “For all the political posturing that might exist on one side of the Atlantic or the other, the reality is that the U.S. did have a winning partner in the form of the European Commission” on the Privacy Shield, Edelman said.

About 33 million U.S. households, or more than a quarter of them, didn't use the Internet at home last year, with 26 million households, or a fifth all households, offline entirely, meaning no member used the Internet from any location, said NTIA in a Wednesday blog post based on the July 2015 Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey. Fifty-five percent of households -- up 8 percentage points from 2013 -- said they didn't use the internet at home because "they did not need it or had no interest in going online," wrote Maureen Lewis, director of NTIA minority telecommunications development. About 25 percent, down 4 percentage points from 2013, said internet service cost too much, and 7 percent, down 6 percentage points from two years ago, said they didn't have a functional computer, she said. Since 2001 when NTIA first started collecting such data, those have been the top reasons households don't use the internet at home, she said. Reducing cost could help narrow the digital divide, she said, but "overcoming the perception that home Internet access lacks relevance in households that have never used it could, however, prove to be a more difficult challenge." As NTIA had previously reported, non-Asian minorities, people with disabilities, lower-income and those with lower levels of educational attainment typically don't use the internet at home. Lewis noted the administration has a goal of connecting 20 million more Americans to high-speed internet service by 2020 (see 1603090082 and 1608310068).

The FTC cleared the way for Oracle’s $9.3 billion acquisition of NetSuite, and the $1.8 billion deal joining Citrix's GoTo product line with rival LogMeIn, said early termination notices ending the transactions’ Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting periods. Oracle/NetSuite “will proceed as planned assuming the minimum required number of shares are tendered,” the buyer said in a Monday news release.

The Interactive Ad Bureau views this as a “watershed year” for virtual reality, which is “finally achieving mass scale,” as experiences “are expanding beyond the hardcore gaming community and into everyday mobile and desktop browsers via 360 video,” IAB reported Monday. The future of VR “is still very much unknown,” it said. “VR could scale faster than ever, or fade into flash-in-the-pan obscurity." There’s an “extraordinary level of hype” about VR that may unnecessarily raise consumers’ expectations, making it harder for companies to wow the public, said the report, based on interviews with industry executives.

Two conservative groups said they're continuing to push Congress to delay the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority switch, which is to occur Saturday. Senate Republicans last week introduced language for a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government after FY 2016 expires Friday that didn’t include proposed language that would delay the move beyond the expiration date (see 1609220067). The tech sector strongly backed the transition, with Intel CEO Brian Krzanich and others saying the transition will aid American innovation (see 1609260045). But it’s “troubling that the Senate has failed to include language prohibiting this transfer of power,” said Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint in an opinion piece Monday on Heritage news arm The Daily Signal: The transition “is quite simply reckless, but it will happen unless Congress intervenes. Absent specific instruction otherwise from Congress, the contractual relationship between the U.S. government and ICANN will cease” Saturday. Congress “must think long and hard about allowing Obama to give away the internet -- because right now, that’s what he’s on track to do,” DeMint said. “Congress has the power to stop this. Will it?” American Center for Law and Justice Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow separately said the group is still working with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and 10 other GOP senators to delay the transition. “The internet has continued to be free because of the United States’ continuing partnership with [ICANN], maintaining control and ensuring that cyberspace is free and secure, Sekulow said in a blog post Monday. “Unless we act this week, our Internet is in danger. In an era in which state-sponsored hackers in Iran, Russia, North Korea, and other authoritarian regimes are trying to target our elections, our financial information, and our national security, this fight matters.”

Updated draft industry standards for digital ads that can fit across any type of screen and incorporate encryption and privacy principles were released for comment, said the Interactive Advertising Bureau in a Monday news release. Comments on the updated IAB Standard Ad Unit Portfolio will be received through Nov. 28 and will be evaluated by an IAB working group, which will release a final version. “Its flexible ad units will allow for creative to scale to different sizes without losing any of its original messaging and impact," said IAB President Randall Rothenberg. "By incorporating the tenets of LEAN into the portfolio, consumer experience on ad-supported sites will greatly improve." Lean refers to a set of principles, including: light or limited file sizes; encrypted with HTTPS/SSL compliant ads; the Digital Advertising Alliance's AdChoices opt-out tool; and nondisruptive ads for all display, mobile, native and video formats. The revised standards also provide guidelines for virtual reality and 360-degree video ads and those that use emojis and stickers. Once the standards are finalized, IAB and IAB Tech Lab will provide webinars, visuals and additional guidance and tools to help with the transition from older standards. Adoption will be "supported by an updated file weight-sizing grid to better allow for ease-of-use and innovation," the release said.

Technology CEO Council Chairman Mark Durcan urged House and Senate leaders Monday “not to block” the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition on Saturday. Senate Republicans last week introduced language for a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government after FY 2016 expires this Friday that didn’t include proposed language that would delay the transition past Oct. 1. Some remain unsure Congress has fully abandoned efforts to postpone the handover (see 1609220067). Two conservative groups continued urging Congress Monday to seek the delay (see 1609260059). Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, a TCC member, and Google General Counsel Kent Walker are also backing the handover. The transition “is good policy, both for the United States and for the global Internet community,” Durcan wrote. “Placing stewardship of these technical but important functions beyond the control of any one government or group of governments will best secure the principles of Internet freedom and de-politicization of technology. America truly leads by example, walking its talk in support of apolitical Internet governance.” Krzanich backed the transition Saturday in a blog post. "This final stage of Internet privatization will help ensure that future American innovations benefit from a global, stable and interoperable Internet infrastructure,” Krzanich said. “American business relies on these principles and the growth they have provided.” Krzanich said previous steps in privatizing the internet “brought about exponential growth of the Internet -- growth that propelled Moore’s Law and breakthrough innovations in computing power. Because of these phenomena, American industry has led the world in technological transformation and innovation.” Google believes that post-transition, “you won’t notice anything different when you go online, but we are transitioning the IANA functions into good hands,” Walker said in a Monday blog post. “Although this is a change in how one technical function of the Internet is governed, it will give innovators and users a greater role in managing the global Internet. And that’s a very good thing.” Thinking “only governments should have a say in the Internet’s future is a dangerous proposition,” Walker said. “It incentivizes those who fear the Internet’s transformative power to impose burdensome restrictions online, and over time could even lead some repressive governments to try to build their own closed networks operating independently of ICANN, at the expense of a thriving Internet ecosystem.”

LeadClick, a now-defunct affiliate marketing network, is liable for deceptive advertising content it had no hand in producing and that was promoted on fake news websites, said the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding a lower court ruling that sided with the FTC and Connecticut. But Judge Denny Chin, who wrote Friday's 3-0 opinion (in Pacer), reversed, in part, the summary judgment by the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut in New Haven, which said then-parent CoreLogic should be liable as a relief defendant. The FTC and Connecticut sued LeanSpa in December 2011 for selling purported weight-loss products. That case was settled in January 2014. But the District Court ruled LeadClick and CoreLogic should turn over $11.9 million gained through their arrangement with LeanSpa. Consumers were lured to LeanSpa's website through fake news websites developed by LeadClick's affiliates, wrote Chin. LeadClick said a defendant can be held liable for deceptive acts or practices under Section 5 of the FTC Act only if it created the deceptive content. But Chin, citing cases in the 9th and 11th Circuits, said a defendant can be held liable "if, with knowledge of the deception, it either directly participates in a deceptive scheme or has the authority to control the deceptive content at issue." He also rejected LeadClick's argument the FTC Act doesn't "expressly provide" for aiding and abetting liability. Chin said LeadClick also isn't entitled to immunity, as the company had sought, under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which is designed to protect children from sexually explicit content. But he said the lower court erred in saying CoreLogic must disgorge $4.1 million it got from LeadClick, which closed shop in 2011, because CoreLogic had a "legitimate claim to repayment from its prior advances to LeadClick." CoreLogic declined to comment Monday.