Avast misrepresented itself and sold user data without consent, the FTC alleged in a $16.5 million settlement announced with the U.K.-based software company Thursday. Since at least 2014, Avast has collected consumer browsing data through its browser extensions and antivirus software, according to the FTC complaint. Until 2020, Avast’s subsidiary Jumpshot sold the browsing information to more than 100 third parties, including “advertising, marketing and data analytics companies and data brokers,” the agency said. The company claimed it used an algorithm that removed identifying information but failed to “sufficiently anonymize consumers’ browsing information that it sold in non-aggregate form through various products,” the agency said. Chair Lina Khan said in a joint statement with Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya: “Exposing people’s detailed browsing data in ways that can be traced back to them marks an invasion of privacy and is likely to cause substantial injury. ... Businesses that sell or share browser history data without affirmatively obtaining people’s permission may be in violation of the law.” An attorney for Avast didn't comment.
DOJ hired Princeton computer science assistant professor Jonathan Mayer as its first chief science and technology adviser and first chief AI officer, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday. DOJ “must keep pace with rapidly evolving scientific and technological developments in order to fulfill our mission to uphold the rule of law,” said Garland. Mayer's hiring follows the direction of President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI.
NTIA on Wednesday requested comment on the benefits and risks of open and closed AI models. At the direction of President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI, NTIA is exploring how widely available AI models can influence society and national security, said Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo. NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson said, “These models can help unleash innovation across communities by making powerful tools accessible, but that same accessibility also poses serious risks.” NTIA is seeking input on varying degrees of AI model openness and the government’s role in “guiding, supporting, or restricting the availability of AI model weights.” Comments will be due 30 days after the request for comment is published in the Federal Register.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the FCC’s motion suspending the briefing schedule on Maurine and Matthew Molak's petition for review to vacate the commission’s Oct. 25 declaratory ruling that authorizes E-rate program funding for Wi-Fi on school buses until the court resolves the FCC’s motion to dismiss the Molaks’ petition (see 2402070002), said a clerk’s order Thursday (docket 23-60641). But the 5th Circuit, in a separate clerk’s order Thursday, denied the FCC’s unopposed motion for extra time to reply to the Molaks’ opposition to the motion to dismiss (see 2402120064).
The FTC is seeking public comment on changes to its impersonation rules to address growing complaints about AI-driven impersonation, the agency announced Thursday. The FTC issued a supplemental NPRM that would prohibit such impersonation. It would extend protections of a new rule on government and business impersonation the commission expected to finalize Thursday. The FTC said it issued the supplemental notice in response to “surging complaints around impersonation fraud, as well as public outcry about the harms caused to consumers and to impersonated individuals.” AI-generated deepfakes could “turbocharge this scourge, and the FTC is committed to using all of its tools to detect, deter, and halt impersonation fraud,” the agency added. The new rule allows the FTC to seek monetary relief from scammers in federal court. The public comment period will open for 60 days once the supplemental rule is published in the Federal Register. Meanwhile, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) on Thursday proposed legislation that would establish new penalties for AI-created deepfakes. The bill is included in her fiscal 2025 executive budget. It would create misdemeanor charges for “unauthorized uses of a person’s voice” and establish a private right of action to seek damages for harms associated with digitally manipulated images. The bill would “require disclosures on digitized political communications published within 60 days of an election.”
Policy experts disagreed Monday about whether common carrier regulation should be applied to social media companies, as has been proposed in certain states. “I don’t think common carriage regulation makes sense for internet companies,” said Chamber of Progress Senior Counsel Jess Miers during a State of the Net session Monday. She noted the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1990s recognized the internet as a “wholly new medium of worldwide human communication.” It’s “different from the telephone companies and” traditional common carriages, she said. Traditional common carriers like ISPs provide one avenue to access the internet, so any restrictions can have a significant impact on a user, she said: That’s different from social media platforms because users have many options, even if they get restricted on one service. Fordham University law professor Olivier Sylvain said he wouldn’t elevate social platforms to common carriers like phone companies, which provide “essential” infrastructure. “They’re very different services that are being offered,” said Gus Rossi, Omidyar Network director-responsible technology. But it’s “not completely out of bounds to say, ‘Well, we want to look at carriage of speech in some context.’” Rossi argued the concept could be applied to social media companies, but carefully, which he said states like Florida and Texas have failed to do.
The FCC and DOJ seek a six-day extension, to Feb. 22, to reply to Maurine and Matthew Molaks’ Friday opposition to the commission’s motion to dismiss their petition for review to vacate the agency’s declaratory ruling authorizing E-rate funding for Wi-Fi on school buses (see 2402090048), said the government’s motion Monday (docket 23-60641) at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The extension is necessary "to allow coordination of the reply between the agencies," it said. Counsel for the Molaks have “represented” that they won’t oppose the extension, it said. The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, an intervenor on behalf of the FCC, supports the extension, it said.
The D.C. government will prioritize values like safety, equity, accountability, transparency and privacy when using AI technology, Mayor Muriel Bowser said Thursday during a Microsoft-hosted event. Bowser signed an order outlining the city’s AI guidelines: societal benefit, "safety and equity, accountability, transparency, sustainability, and privacy & cybersecurity.” Her office highlighted the government's use of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft’s Azure AI Government Cloud. Microsoft hosted Bowser’s announcement at its Innovation & Policy Center in Washington. Her “commitment to embracing innovative solutions, such as AI, demonstrates her dedication to creating a more responsive and citizen-centric government,” said Fred Humphries, Microsoft corporate vice president-U.S. governmental affairs.
The FTC won’t postpone its informal hearing on an NPRM on online consumer reviews and testimonials, despite a request from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the agency said Wednesday. The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. IAB requested a 30-day extension, also asking the agency to reconsider its conclusion that “there are no disputed issues of material fact necessary to be resolved at the informal hearing." Agencies generally must provide 15 days’ notice in advance of such a hearing, the FTC said, and it published notice of this informal hearing on Jan. 16, 28 days in advance. In the agency’s NPRM, announced in June 2023, the agency concluded there are no "disputed issues of material fact that need to be resolved at an informal hearing.” The FTC has been “very clear” it wants to avoid exposing issues with the new rules that would block “honest opinion and violate the First Amendment,” said IAB Executive Vice President Lartease Tiffith in a statement Thursday. Just as in an informal hearing on the agency’s negative option rule, an administration judge will decide if the agency has met its burden in this case, said Tiffith: The agency is “underestimating the effects of changes to consumer reviews, and the public should have an opportunity to question its assumptions in front of an administrative judge with decision-making power.”
The Commerce Department should add ByteDance to its foreign trade restriction list to safeguard American data, Reps. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., wrote Thursday. Commerce should add the TikTok parent company to the Bureau of Industry and Security’s entity list: “This step would be instrumental in applying licensing restrictions to the export of software from the U.S. to ByteDance for its applications. If American users aren't able to upgrade their app with software updates, which involves the export of U.S. software, then the operability of the applications of concern will be weakened.” They noted the department took similar action against Huawei and non-U.S. affiliates in 2019. The department didn’t comment.