Trade groups whose members would pay foreign digital services taxes and those whose members would have to pay if tariffs are hiked up to 25% on products from the countries imposing DSTs agree the levies are wrong and government should use full persuasive power to convince countries like India, the U.K. and Spain not to impose these taxes. Tech groups split on whether tariffs are the right tool to convince countries to roll back or never pass DSTs. The Computer & Communications Industry Association gave the most direct support of levying tariffs on DST countries. In testimony at a virtual Office of the U.S. Trade Representative hearing Monday, CCIA Policy Counsel Rachael Stelly said USTR should work for a global international taxes solution and impose tariffs “to deter countries and send a strong message. CCIA "takes seriously the impact that tariffs can have," she said. "Tariffs should only be used in limited circumstances, in a targeted manner, and where there is a clear strategy in place designed to change the behavior of a trading partner. USTR’s proposed action appears to meet this standard.” Internet Association Director-Trade Policy Jordan Haas said IA has no position on the proposed retaliatory tariffs and hopes duties will never be levied because ideally, countries will roll back DST laws. He's concerned more countries are thinking of imposing such taxes. The App Association opposed tariffs, concerned targeted countries could retaliate and its small company members would be hurt. Representatives from the Retail Industry Leaders Association, National Retail Federation and others spoke against the tariffs.

Global Eagle will use Eutelsat Ku-band transponders to add capacity in North America for its aviation connectivity customers, Eutelsat said Monday, announcing the multi-year deal involving the Eutelsat 7A satellite. It said the satellite will be renamed Eutelsat 139WA.

Digital services taxes drove countries back to the negotiating table on international tax harmonization, and now it may be hard to roll back such DSTs, experts said. Many tech and other stakeholders oppose other countries' digital taxes. The U.S. was driven to talks again because so many countries were considering taxing revenue, rather than profit, of digital giants like Facebook and Google, Deloitte Managing Partner Bob Stack told a Washington International Trade Association webinar Thursday. "Countries need to commit to get rid of these DSTs. That's the deal to be had." Noting a U.S. proposal for Organization of Economic Coordination and Development member-countries to drop such levies, Miller & Chevalier's Loren Ponds said "it’s a matter of everybody dropping their weapons at the same time" and "nobody wants to go first." Georgetown Law professor Lilian Faulhaber reminded that most DSTs haven't actually been imposed. "Part of that is probably because USTR pushed back so hard," she said of the Office of U.S. Trade Representative. USTR didn't comment Friday.

Huawei, hit by U.S. and international export sanctions, on Wednesday said Q1 revenue fell 17% year on year to 152.2 billion Chinese yuan ($23.5 billion). It's the second consecutive quarterly drop. "2021 will be another challenging year for us, but it's also the year that our future development strategy will begin to take shape," said Eric Xu, the rotating chairman.

Eutelsat is buying an equity stake in OneWeb, with the geostationary orbit operator saying OneWeb's low earth orbit constellation will open the door to an addressable market beyond its current reach. Eutelsat said Tuesday it should close on its $550 million stake in the second half of the year. Eutelsat said it will use cash on hand and proceeds from the C-band auction for the investment. OneWeb "will become our main growth engine outside our broadcast and broadband applications," Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer said.

Online fraud will cost e-tailers more than $20 billion in losses globally this year, up from an estimated $17.5 billion in 2020, reported Juniper Research Monday. Bad actors are “exposing insecure fraud mitigation processes from merchants who are unfamiliar and unprepared for the continuing fraud challenges,” it said: Merchants should “do more to implement fraud prevention strategies” across e-commerce channels, or risk continuously bigger losses, it said. Though merchants “will be keen to reduce fraud rates from their current levels, they will be hesitant to introduce extra friction into the checkout process,” the research firm said. "Merchants will need to ensure that extra security checks are justified to the user, or they risk higher cart abandonment,” said analyst Susan Morrow. Juniper forecasts China will generate 40% of e-commerce fraud losses by 2025, due to “a relative lack of fraud detection and prevention.”

Unprecedented demand for semiconductors “stressed supply chains across the industry,” said new Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger on a Q1 call Thursday. “We have doubled our internal wafer capacity the last few years, but the industry is now challenged by a shortage of foundry capacity, substrates and components.” It will take “a couple of years for the ecosystem to make the significant investments to address these shortages,” said Gelsinger. The “integrated device manufacturing” plan he announced March 23 is designed to “provide the industry another source of foundry capacity,” he said. “We cannot do it alone,” said Gelsinger. “The investment needed at the scale required is immense, and it will require close industry and government partnership.” Intel is “encouraged” by President Joe Biden’s “recognition of semiconductor manufacturing as a critical component of our national infrastructure,” he said.

Arianespace is to launch 36 OneWeb low earth orbit broadband satellites Monday from Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome, OneWeb said Thursday. The launch will bring OneWeb's total in-orbit constellation to 182 satellites and is the fifth of its "Five to 50" program to deliver connectivity to regions north of 50 degrees latitude by June, it said. Global service will be available in 2022, it said.

The European Commission's "first-ever" draft rules for AI unveiled Wednesday prompted a mix of praise and criticism. "Trust is a must" for AI, and the rules will spearhead "the development of new global norms to make sure AI can be trusted," said Margrethe Vestager, EC vice president for a Europe fit for the digital age. The rules take a risk-based approach. AI systems deemed a clear threat to users' safety, livelihoods and rights would be banned, including AI that manipulates human behavior to circumvent users' free will and systems allowing government "social scoring." High-risk uses include those involved in critical infrastructure; those that could put people's lives at risk; safety components; and law enforcement. High-risk systems would be subject to strict obligations, including adequate risk assessment and mitigation; logging activities to ensure results are traceable; and giving users clear, adequate information. "All remote biometric identification systems are considered high risk and subject to strict requirements." Limited-risk AI systems such as chatbots would have specific transparency conditions, like notifying users they're interacting with a machine. Low-risk uses such as AI-enabled videogames or spam filters, which comprise the majority of AI systems, won't face the regulation. The EC proposed that national market surveillance authorities supervise the rules and that a European Artificial Intelligence Board be established. The plan foresees voluntary codes of conduct for non-high-risk AI. It needs the European Parliament's and EU governments' OKs. Parliament's Special Committee on Artificial Intelligence in a Digital Age welcomed the proposal. Lawmakers now "need to act on two fronts," said Chair Dragos Tudorache of Renew Europe and Romania: Reduce unnecessary burdens on startups, small and midsize businesses, and industry so "AI can be unleashed to its full economic potential" and boost citizens' rights. The Computer & Communications Industry Association applauded the risk-based approach, saying the proposal should be "clarified and targeted to avoid unnecessary red tape for developers and users. ... Regulation alone will not make the EU a leader in AI.” It's a "bold step towards pioneering regulation in this field," said the Information Technology Industry Council, urging the EC to focus on flexible rules targeted to the highest-risk applications. BSA|The Software Alliance urged the EC to engage with international partners, since building trust in AI is a shared responsibility. Others were less enthusiastic. The draft fails to prohibit "the full extent of unacceptable uses of AI," particularly biometric mass surveillance, and allows too much industry self-regulation, said European Digital Rights. The Center for Data Innovation accused the EC of striking "a damaging blow to the Commission’s goal of turning the EU into a global AI leader by creating a thicket of new rules." The recommendations overly focus on too limited a range of AI uses, said the European Consumer Organisation: It omits many uses that affect people's everyday lives, such as smart thermostats, and doesn't ensure consumers have enforceable rights.

EU efforts to quash dissemination of terrorist content online moved forward Tuesday as the European Parliament Civil Liberties Committee recommended approval of a measure on "the misuse of hosting services for terrorist purposes." European Council government ministers have greenlighted the regulation, which is expected to be approved by the full parliament later this month. Hosting service providers play a key role in the digital economy but are sometimes abused by third parties for carrying out illegal activities online, a March 18 EC memo said. Of particular concern is their misuse by terrorist groups and their supporters to spread content to radicalize and recruit followers, it said. In light of their central role and the technology and capabilities associated with the services they provide, hosting services "have particular societal responsibilities" to protect their services from misuse while preserving fundamental rights. The regulation shouldn't affect the application of directive 2000/31/EC, which grants intermediaries exemption from liability from illegal content, nor would it hamper national authorities and courts from imposing liability if hosting services violate the conditions, the memo said. The measure would apply to information society service providers that store and disseminate to the public information and material provided by a user of the service on request, regardless of whether the storing is "of a mere technical, automatic and passive nature." Providers of "mere conduit" or "caching" services -- along with other services in other layers of the internet infrastructure that don't involve storage, such as domain name registries and registrars and providers of domain name systems -- would be outside the scope. Terrorist content is often spread through services set up in third countries, so this would apply to "all providers of relevant services in the Union" that let people or entities in one or more EU countries use those services and that have a substantial connection to the countries. The legislation calls for harmonized rules on procedures for taking down terrorist content. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy & Technology, European Digital Rights and Internet Governance Project joined about 60 civil society groups in panning this. They argued it would incentivize online platforms to continue to use automated content moderation tools such as upload filters to the detriment of free speech, and that it lacks sufficient judicial oversight.