The EU Court of Justice should uphold standard contractual clauses and maintain the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, Information Technology Industry Council Senior Manager-Policy Alexa Lee said Thursday. A decision in the so-called Schrems II case is expected July 16 (see 1912190001). Any other scenario would “erode trust” in the EU’s general data protection regulation, which “codified several different mechanisms for the predictable outbound transfer of data,” Lee wrote. She outlined four other potential scenarios: the court maintains SCCs as valid but strikes down the PS; invalidates certain SCCs transfers to the U.S. and maintains the PS; invalidates some SCCs transfers to the U.S. and strikes the PS; or invalidates global SCCs transfers and strikes the PS.
The FCC Wireline Bureau approved its final 25 funding applications for the COVID-19 telehealth program, it said Wednesday, after announcing last month it was closing the application window because demand exceeded the $200 million allocated by Congress in March (see 2006250070). "I expect that the momentum for delivering care directly to patients outside the confines of brick-and-mortar facilities will continue to build well after this pandemic," Commissioner Brendan Carr said, adding the FCC will take applications later this year for its $100 million Connected Care pilot.
Mozilla and others let pass a July 6 deadline to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a lower court's decision to mostly uphold an FCC repeal of its earlier net neutrality order, the company blogged Monday and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit docket showed Tuesday. Mozilla petitioned the D.C. Circuit for rehearing on Mozilla vs. FCC, case no. 18-1051 (see 1910010018), which the court turned down in February (see 2002180054). "The D.C. Circuit decision positions the net neutrality movement to continue on many fronts, starting with a defense of California’s strong new law to protect consumers online -- a law that was on hold pending resolution of this case," wrote Mozilla Vice President-Global Policy, Trust and Security Alan Davidson and Chief Legal Officer Amy Keating. They expect other states to follow, and will "look to a future Congress or future FCC to take up the issue." The FCC is "pleased that the opponents of the Restoring Internet Freedom Order have decided not to appeal their loss in the D.C. Circuit," a spokesperson emailed Tuesday.
A Swiss digital game maker "falsely claimed" participation in a Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) program, the FTC alleged in a settlement Monday. Miniclip said it was a member of the Children’s Advertising Review Unit’s COPPA safe harbor program 2015-2019, but the FTC said the membership was terminated in 2015. Miniclip is barred from misrepresenting itself again. An attorney for the company didn’t comment.
E-commerce experts say COVID-19 boosts e-commerce, often for the big players (see 2007010054). The winners are well-known retail brands Amazon, Target and Walmart that gained new customers who didn’t shop online before the pandemic or had limited experience, said Kaitlyn Glancy, Flexport general manager-Northeast. “The big names are continuing to get bigger.” Electronics are a beneficiary of pandemic stay-at-home trends, said Glancy, citing spending on TVs and gaming devices. Consumers are also upgrading, she said on her freight transportation company's webcast Wednesday. Consumers are responding to “click and collect” options, where they can choose to have products delivered or picked up in store, said Glancy: Some 87% hope, and expect, the model to exist beyond the pandemic.
The FTC got more than 34,000 online shopping complaints from consumers in April and May, the agency reported Wednesday. “More than 18,000 of those complaints related to items that were ordered but never delivered,” the FTC said. “The most common item reported not delivered was facemasks, with other reports including sanitizer, toilet paper, thermometers, and gloves as not received.” Reports of unreceived items in May were near double those of December, which is peak holiday shopping season. The agency sent warning letters in June to marketing companies to remove and address online and social media posts claiming their products can treat or prevent COVID-19 (see 2006050059).
The pandemic “accelerated” consumer e-commerce adoption, said Brie Carere, FedEx executive vice president-chief marketing and communications officer, on a fiscal Q4 call Tuesday. E-commerce increased to 27% of U.S. retail in April, from 16% in calendar 2019, partly because “total retail contracted” during coronavirus lockdowns, she said. FedEx expects e-commerce as a percentage of retail will stay “elevated,” said Carere. “This shift has left an indelible mark on the retail industry, causing the bankruptcy of some chains that have been around for decades.” E-commerce helped retailers “with a strong omnichannel strategy flourish,” she said. “Surging” e-commerce sales from large retail customers drove a “sizable mix shift” to direct-to-consumer residential volume from commercial business-to-business transactions in Q4 ended May 31, said Carere. U.S. residential volume was 72% of revenue in the quarter compared with 56% a year earlier, she said. Carere thinks the strong shift to e-commerce was “structural,” not temporary: “We have seen a huge uptick in the categories that people are willing to purchase online.” FedEx saw that trend develop pre-COVID, “but it has accelerated when you think about things like furniture, large packages, high-value electronics,” she said. COVID-19 brought a “huge change in who is buying online,” especially 65-and-older consumers, she said. “I do not anticipate that these buying behaviors will revert back.” Wednesday, the stock closed up 12% at $156.66.
RagingWire Data Centers' EU-U.S. Privacy Shield certification lapsed and the company misled consumers about participation and failed program requirements, the FTC alleged in a 3-1-1 settlement Tuesday. Now known as NTT Global Data Centers, the company allegedly violated the program January 2017-October 2018. The company is prohibited from misrepresenting itself again and could face civil penalties up to $43,280 for each future violation. Commissioner Rohit Chopra voted no, and Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter didn’t participate. The settlement wasn’t appropriate, Chopra said, calling for “redress for customers, forfeiture of the company’s gains from any deceptive sales practices, or a specific admission of liability that would allow its customers to pursue claims in private litigation.” Chairman Joe Simons and Commissioners Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson rejected Chopra’s call for litigation: “There is no need and doing so would unnecessarily divert resources from other important matters.” An attorney for the company didn’t comment.
COVID-19 shows no one solution will fully address the U.S. digital divide, and wireless will play a bigger role worldwide, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said at the virtual European Spectrum Management Conference. He and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel agreed there are lessons to be learned. Earlier last week, Facebook and other executives spoke at the event (see 2006250072). “Some policymakers would love to have fiber to everybody’s home,” O’Rielly said Friday. “I don’t think that’s sustainable. We have a very scattered population. In some of the more rural parts of America, it’s just not economical.” The FCC shouldn’t “put its finger on the scale” in favor of any technology, he said. If fixed wireless or satellite is the best solution in an area, O’Rielly said he would accept lower connection speeds. “Give me a Chevy over a Lamborghini,” he said: “I need to get more Chevys out there so everyone is connected.” O’Rielly said the pandemic is an FCC challenge: “How do we expand in a short timeframe broadband access as quickly as possible, in some instances patchwork networks, to get up and running for those people who don’t have” broadband, while “making sure that for those that do, the network is sustainable and doing fairly well?” And "we just moved into the future very fast,” Rosenworcel said. “Our bandwidth demands are real and they’re big.” We’re starting to “realize with total and complete clarity who has access, who doesn’t, what bandwidth is necessary to accomplish all of these things at home and what’s not, and how outages affect our networks.” The novel coronavirus is “really telling us a lot of what the future of communications needs to look like,” she said. Before, “I didn’t know there were so many screens in my house until everyone was home and now they’re all often operational" at once, said Jayne Stancavage, Intel global executive director-digital infrastructure policy, who interviewed the commissioners. The U.S. has hit a turning point, she said. “People actually understand how important our digital infrastructure is now and how much it is a part of our lives.”
Children worldwide are increasingly growing up viewing TV programming online and on-demand, said S&P Global Friday. In about half of homes with children that were surveyed, parents let their kids choose what they watch, and 66% of parents report using some form of parental controls. Most parents canvassed impose rules to limit their children’s daily TV viewing. In the U.S., U.K. and Sweden, the portion of households with children viewing subscription VOD content is about equal to that of live TV, it said.