American Tower agreed to buy Eaton Towers for $1.85 billion. Eaton owns and operates some 5,500 sites in five African markets. The buyer said Thursday it “expects to accelerate new build activity across the region due to expanded relationships with multiple key tenants.” American Tower already owns more than 170,000 communications sites, the company said. “This transaction will significantly augment our existing footprint in Africa and positions ATC to take even better advantage of the growth opportunity in the region as 4G mobile data technology is deployed to serve millions of Africans over the coming years,” said American Tower CEO Jim Taiclet. Eaton Towers says it's a “leading independent pan-African tower company” with tower sites in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Burkina Faso and Niger. The company was founded in 2009.

Best Buy will “actively” engage in helping the Trump administration “continue to minimize the impact of tariffs on U.S. consumers,” said CEO Hubert Joly on a fiscal Q1 earnings call Thursday. There’s “time” for U.S.-China trade talks “to progress before any decision gets made” on the fourth tranche of American tariffs on that country, he said. It's “premature” to speculate about the possible impact of the List 4 tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods because there are too many uncertainties about the threatened duties, he said on his final call as CEO before relinquishing the helm next month to Chief Financial Officer Corie Barry. “One thing is, of course, certain,” Joly said. “The impact of tariffs at 25 percent will result in price increases and will be felt by U.S. consumers.” As List 3 tariffs increased to 25 percent, “the discussion becomes quite different,” said Barry. "There’s a much lower likelihood you could absorb that as a vendor.” At 25 percent, “there will be higher prices for consumers,” she said. It’s “tricky” figuring out how the tariffs “will actually play into the back half” of calendar 2019, said Barry of tranche 3 tariff mitigation. “We did our very best to strategize it, but there’s still a lot of work.” Meanwhile, the retailer bought the Critical Signal Technologies health services company this month to “help scale” its connected-health business. “We’re excited about the prospects of combining CST’s services and relationships” with GreatCall, the connected-health and personal emergency response services business that Best Buy bought last year (see 1808150071), said Joly.

Hiking the third tranche of U.S. tariffs on Chinese products rejuvenated talk inside CTA for challenging the duties in court, said informed people. Days before the increase, the policy talk there was about strategies to lobby Congress for removing the tariffs once a U.S.-China trade deal was in the bag, they said. The List 4 proposal brought new urgency to the litigation chatter, we’re told. At least one holdout on the eight-member executive board opposes taking the administration to court until President Donald Trump has a chance to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit June 28-29 in Osaka, Japan, said a CTA member insider. The group hired Akin Gump last fall to draft a complaint challenging the Office of U.S. Trade Representative’s broad authority under the 1974 Trade Act to impose retaliatory tariffs against China without launching a new Section 301 investigation (see 1905170064). CTA tried shopping the complaint around to other trade associations for financial and legal backing, but got no takers, we’re told. The association didn’t comment Tuesday. The U.S.-China trade war caused a fivefold increase in tariffs on tech product imports from 2017 to 2018, said CompTIA Tuesday. “Should a 25-percent tariff rate apply to all tech product imports the costs could run into the tens of billions of dollars.” CompTIA encourages the U.S. and China to “reach a deal that protects American innovation and intellectual property.”

Domain name registries and registrars had until Monday to comply with a new policy for collecting registrants' data that aligns with the EU general data protection regulation (GDPR), ICANN said. Under the interim registration data policy approved May 15, "contracted parties" must continue to put adopt processes consistent with the temporary spec for gTLD registration data, which expired Monday. Once ICANN publishes a registration data policy and formally notifies the contracted parties, they will have the option of using the interim policy, the registration data policy or a mix of both as they prepare for the effective date of the registration data policy, which hasn't yet been set. In the final stage of the process, registries and registrars will have to comply with the registration data policy as of its effective date, which ICANN's expedited policy development process (EPDP) team recommended to be Feb. 29. The board approved most EPDP recommendations, sending two for more consultation with the Generic Names Supporting Organization. In a May 3 letter to ICANN President Goran Marby, the European Commission noted it has "constantly urged" ICANN to come up with a unified model for granting access to registrants' nonpublic personal data to those with a legitimate interest or other legal basis for having the information under the GDPR. Distinguishing between ICANN's purposes for processing personal data and the purposes pursued by third parties such as law enforcement agencies for accessing the data is key, it said.

Chinese online video giant iQiyi began collaborating with carrier China Unicom on rollout of 5G services, and opened a Beijing “innovation showroom” that showcases the “ample bandwidth and minimal latency of 5G to effectively ensure high frame rates,” said CEO Yu Gong on a fiscal Q1 earnings call Thursday evening. “In the future,” 5G will allow users “to enjoy a smoother experience when watching our extensive selection of high-quality video content,” he said. “We believe the Chinese online entertainment industry has entered a new growth space with enormous opportunities for the years to come,” said Gong. IQiyi parent Baidu hopes to expand its “platform reach” to DuerOS smart devices “in home and in auto and out-of-home digital screens,” said CEO Robin Li on a separate call. The artificial intelligence-based DuerOS platform is China’s leading voice assistant, with an installed base of 275 million devices at the end of Q1, a 279 percent increase from a year earlier, said Li. The Beijing internet-tech provider wants to “prepare our users to move from mobile-only to a cross-platform experience, seamlessly crisscrossing back and forth on mobile, in-home and in autos,” he said.

The Eurovision Song Contest is testing ground for Next Generation Audio (NGA) in the MPEG-H format, said the European Broadcasting Union Thursday. Content is being made available to broadcasters for testing via the Eurovision FINE network. NGA is said to deliver an immersive aural experience that can be personalized to any home or portable device. Audio mixers can adjust the relative volumes of the performers, commentary and background ambience or switch between different languages,. Headphone users will be able to experience 3D binaural sound, and those using NGA-enabled sound bars can experience audio “on all sides," it said. The three standardized solutions for NGA are MPEG-H, Dolby AC-4 and DTS-UHD. MPEG-H is the designated ATSC 3.0 audio codec for South Korea, while AC-4 occupies that role for 3.0 in North America.

DOJ is working to reach Cloud Act agreements with European and other foreign partners, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard Downing said in Munich Thursday. He noted the act advances privacy and law enforcement needs: “The imperatives of law enforcement and data protection are not inherently at odds; there is no zero-sum tradeoff between public safety and privacy.” A provider subject to U.S. jurisdiction should produce data for legitimate law enforcement purposes, wherever the data is “stored, within its possession, custody, or control,” he said in prepared remarks. He claimed overseas partners, like the U.K., France, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Canada and Australia “have each asserted that same domestic authority over providers in their jurisdictions.”

ICANN's human rights performance is good but could be even better, an internal assessment of its business operations found. Its first human rights impact assessment examined human resources, event planning, procurement and security operations from February to June 2018 through document reviews, interviews with managers, onsite visits and an online staff survey. Overall, the report said, ICANN's processes and policies "cover important human rights issues such as health and safety, non-discrimination, access to remedy, data privacy and working hours and leaves." The physical safety of staffers and event participants is ensured through professionally managed security operations; and public meetings contribute to local economies financially and by providing knowledge and expertise. But the internet body could improve in all four areas by, among other things, establishing better processes to ensure that employees are treated fairly and equally; creating better internal grievance mechanisms and complaint investigation processes; managing human rights risks in the supply chain; and ensuring effective management of human rights considerations in the running of ICANN public meetings. In the year since the review was conducted, ICANN has already made some of the recommended improvements and is working on others, while some weren't suitable to the organization, it said. Chief Operating Office Susanna Bennett will head a team tasked with evaluating and prioritizing relevant recommendations so they can be adopted into ICANN's business culture.

Some smartphones and TVs from China imported to the U.S. under the 8528.72.64 Harmonized Tariff Schedule are on the list of goods the U.S. will subject to 25 percent duties, as are a broad assortment of other consumer tech goods, said an Office of U.S. Trade Representative notice Monday. The $300 billion in goods on the list (see 1905130022) are the biggest tranche of the four so far and represent virtually all of the remaining Chinese imports not previously dutied. A single day of public hearings on the proposed duties is set for June 17. The notice appears to be flexible on scheduling additional days of hearings. Roughly 350 witnesses testified on the List 3 tariffs in hearings that spanned six days in late August. June 10 is the due date for filing requests in docket USTR-2019-0004 at regulations.gov to appear at the hearing and place in the record a summary of expected testimony at the public hearing. Written comments are due June 17. Smartphones are the largest of eight classifications of consumer tech products that would bear the biggest brunt of the penalties, CTA Vice President-International Trade Sage Chandler emailed us Tuesday. “The import values of the products that hit our members are massive.” The customs value of smartphones imported from China last year under the HTS 8517.12.00 subheading exceeded $44.8 billion, said Chandler. Laptops and tablets imported under HTS 8471.30.01 were the next biggest category germane to CTA members, she said, worth $38.7 billion. The broad assortment of goods imported under HTS 8517.62.00 was worth $23.9 billion in 2018 customs value, she said, with smart speakers, Bluetooth headphones, smartwatches and fitness trackers included. Current tariffs have “hurt consumers, rattled supply chains for U.S. manufacturers and businesses, and created uncertainty across economies,” said Naomi Wilson, Information Technology Industry Council senior policy director-Asia. “Additional tariffs threaten to needlessly escalate this conflict.” On the big hit smartphones stand to take should the tariffs go through, CTIA declined comment for now. It may have something to say “in coming days as we discuss further with members,” emailed a spokesperson. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon didn’t comment, nor did Apple or Samsung.

DOJ's Antitrust Division is among founding members of the Framework on Competition Agency Procedures agreement, which lays out norms of transparency and procedural fairness in antitrust enforcement. The agency said Monday the agreement was adopted in April by the International Competition Network, opening the framework up to national, supranational and territory-specific competition agencies. It said it takes effect May 15, and an inauguration ceremony in Colombia will involve funding members.