The Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board plans an open meeting July 13-14 at the American Institute of Architects in Washington, says a National Institute of Standards and Technology notice for Tuesday’s Federal Register. The agenda is expected to include an NIST briefing on updates to its cybersecurity framework and formal introduction to the board of newly confirmed NIST Director Laurie Locascio, says the notice. The final agenda will be posted on the board’s website, it says.

Twitter must pay a $150 million fine for violating a 2011 FTC order and “deceptively using account security data for targeted advertising,” the agency said Wednesday. The commission voted 4-0 to refer the complaint and stipulated final order to DOJ. The company requested users’ phone numbers and email addresses to protect accounts but used the data to allow targeted advertising, the agency alleged. The behavior violated a 2011 order that “explicitly prohibited the company from misrepresenting its privacy and security practices,” the agency said. The settlement dates back to 2019, when some personal data “may have been inadvertently used for advertising,” said Twitter Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran. “This issue was addressed as of September 17, 2019, and today we want to reiterate the work we’ll continue to do to protect the privacy and security of the people who use Twitter.” The company “will continue to partner with our regulators to make sure they understand how security and privacy practices at Twitter are always evolving for the better,” Kieran tweeted. The $150 million fine ensures Twitter isn’t profiting from the alleged conduct, FTC Chair Lina Khan and Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter said in a statement. They highlighted that Twitter must notify affected parties and provide users with multifactor authentication tools that don’t require the sharing of their phone numbers. Commissioners Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson issued a statement saying: “We hope that the bipartisan approval of this order, one very much in line with prior orders, signals the beginning of a more constructive dialogue about how to continue refining our enforcement program.”

Comments are due June 21, replies by July 18, on a record refresh on proposed rules enabling people with disabilities to access and use videoconferencing platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Webex. The FCC’s Disability Advisory Committee approved a report on the item in February, seeking additional clarity (see 2202240064). In the notice, in Thursday’s Federal Register, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau seeks further comment on the kinds of services encompassed by the term ‘‘interoperable video conferencing service.’’

Comments are due June 27, replies July 27, in docket 22–137 on the receiver performance notice of inquiry that FCC commissioners approved 4-0 last month (see 2204210049), said a Friday Federal Register notice. “The Commission seeks to build upon the progress, including technological advances, in recent years that has enabled better receiver interference immunity performance, and the Commission seeks comment on where those efforts and advances have been most successful,” said the notice.

Google withdrew its UHD Alliance membership, as did human interface components supplier Synaptics and Chinese semiconductor maker Beijing Eswin Computing Technology, the association told DOJ and the FTC in simultaneous “written notifications” March 21, says a notice for Friday’s Federal Register. UHDA membership "remains open," and the association "intends to file additional written notifications disclosing all changes," said Suzanne Morris, chief-premerger and division statistics in DOJ’s Antitrust Division. The notifications are required to extend UHDA members antitrust protections under the 1993 National Cooperative Research and Production Act, said Morris.

The Open Markets Institute may be using its close relationship with FTC Chair Lina Khan to block Elon Musk’s Twitter buy (see 2204290074), House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote the agency Wednesday. Jordan asked the FTC if it played any role in OMI’s statement requesting that enforcers block the deal and whether the agency took any action in response to the statement. Khan was OMI’s legal director before joining the FTC. Jordan asked the agency to preserve any records on Musk’s pending deal. “OMI appears to believe that the FTC will be receptive to its cavalier effort to influence a federal agency that is run by its former employee,” Jordan wrote. OMI and the agency didn’t comment.

Motorola Solutions wrapped up a series of meetings with aides to the FCC commissioners on its concerns about the security risks posed by Chinese equipment suppliers, speaking with an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 21-232. The company previously met with aides to the other FCC members (see 2205020036).

NTIA is seeking comment through May 23 on the mobile app ecosystem as part of President Joe Biden’s July executive order on competition (see 2107090063). Biden “recognized America’s tech sector as an engine of innovation and growth, but he warned that dominant Internet platforms can ‘use their power to exclude market entrants, to extract monopoly profits, and to gather intimate personal information that they can exploit for their own advantage,’” NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson blogged Monday. The order directed the Commerce Department to “conduct a study of the mobile app ecosystem, and to use an open and transparent process to hear from the many stakeholders in the app economy, including consumers, app developers, businesses, and nonprofits,” he said: “NTIA is seeking public comment on the state of competition in the mobile app ecosystem, the factors affecting app development and distribution, and active ways to increase competition, through government or private sector action. We are interested in understanding what shapes the competitive marketplace of the apps we have on mobile phones and tablets, and how the dynamics are different from the market for apps for home computers or game consoles.” Comments should be filed through the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr condemned Apple for removing the Voice of America mobile app from the China version of the company’s App store. “I find Apple’s conduct in this regard deeply troubling,” Carr said in a letter to CEO Tim Cook Wednesday. “Voice of America operates by statute as an objective, independent voice when it comes to its reporting and content.” The VOA app provides access to news and includes “built-in support for circumvention technologies” to protect user privacy under authoritarian regimes, Carr said. He referenced a speech last week in which Cook said Apple is committed to promoting privacy and human rights. “It is past time to stand up for those values -- not just in words in Washington but through deeds in Beijing,” Carr wrote. “Will Apple allow access to the Voice of America mobile app through its App Store in China, consistent with the fundamental human rights that you articulated in your speech?” In the letter, Carr gave Apple until April 29 to answer. Apple didn’t comment by our deadline Thursday.

FTC Chair Lina Khan has unrealistic views about the agency’s authority, and her bold strategies to modernize antitrust policy are likely to fail, former agency officials told an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation event Thursday. Khan’s attempts to revamp the FTC’s antitrust policies through rulemakings tied to unfairness authority is a “dead end,” said ex-FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen, now at Baker Botts. Khan is basing her decisions on overly broad interpretations of the FTC statute, an approach that resulted in the Supreme Court’s decision against the agency in the AMG case (see 2104270086), said Ohlhausen. Pursuing many rulemakings will also mean far less staff for enforcement, she said. “This is a recipe for more political control, less public input” and “probably slower rulemakings,” said Howard Beales, a Consumer Protection Bureau director under President George W. Bush, now at George Washington University. The current administration is deploying a cleanup strategy in response to years of lax antitrust enforcement, said American Antitrust Institute President Diana Moss: There’s credible evidence antitrust enforcers should be paying close attention to the debate of whether there’s observable increases in market concentration. Enforcers largely have the tools they need to enforce merger control, she said, arguing the problem is that the consumer welfare standard’s broad standards have been underutilized. There isn’t a “single feature” of current antitrust law that Khan “doesn’t hate,” said George Washington University law professor Richard Pierce. He noted Khan’s attempts to streamline the FTC’s Magnuson-Moss rulemaking procedures because the average timeline for such a rule is about eight years. The agency is subject to Mag-Moss procedures, as opposed to processes under the Administrative Procedure Act, which take anywhere from one to three years. It would be “foolish to go down that road” because the Mag-Moss prospects are so “unpromising,” he said.