The Telecommunications Industry Association sees the cybersecurity information sharing executive order that President Barack Obama signed last week (see 1502130048) as helping industry, TIA CEO Scott Belcher said. It will “enable the voluntary sharing of real-time bi-directional cybersecurity information amongst and between key government and industry partners (and their suppliers),” Belcher said in a written statement Tuesday. It "moves towards an improved ability for businesses to have more access to government information on threats and more open channels for greater information sharing between companies,” Belcher said. Congress must “provide adequate liability protections” and ensure that “an information-sharing regime appropriately addresses privacy and civil liberties concerns,” he said. “Information sharing should not be viewed as the end game,” but rather as a “tool to achieve timely, reliable, and actionable situational awareness through information sharing, analysis, and collaboration,” Belcher said. “It is important for the White House, Congress and other stakeholders to also work together towards other important improvements, such as cybersecurity R&D, workforce training and education, and public awareness.”

21st Century Fox completed its buy of video advertising company true[X], 21st Century Fox said in a news release Tuesday. True[X] ”specializes in consumer engagement and on-demand marketing campaigns,” the release said. The companies announced a preliminary agreement in December, the release said.

NTIA released its first quarterly report on the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition, as mandated by Congress’ December funding measure. The 12-page report covers IANA-related activities through Jan. 31. Released Wednesday, it highlighted several statements by companies and think tanks that support the goals of the transition, including AT&T, Microsoft and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It said the IANA Coordination Group “hopes” to have the transition proposals consolidated and submitted to NTIA by the end of July. Many in the ICANN community don’t believe the tentative Sept. 30 deadline provides enough time to have the IANA transition proposal finalized (see 1501230063). NTIA said it’s “absolutely critical” that it monitors the transition’s progress at ICANN meetings and by continuing to represent the U.S. on ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee.

“Now is the time to support comprehensive legislation to help protect personal and corporate data, promote security best practices and encourage the sharing of threat intelligence,” Online Trust Alliance Executive Director Craig Spiezle said in a statement on the release of OTA’s data protection and breach readiness guide Wednesday. The report includes a template with recommended language organizations should use when notifying the public of a data breach, details on why sharing information about breached data with law enforcement is important, security best practices, and reasons it’s important to complete security and privacy assessments and audits of vendors and cloud providers. “To maintain a competitive advantage over today’s cyber criminals, it is critical that the public and private sector continue to proactively leverage the power of task force partnerships,” said Robert Kierstead, Secret Service special agent in charge, Seattle Field Office. “Our continuing success in high-tech investigations is a result of the collaborative efforts of law enforcement and private sector partners." The OTA guide will be presented at a Friday national cybersecurity open house, co-sponsored by the Department of Justice, FBI and Secret Service. The report findings include that 90 percent of data breaches that occurred in the first half of 2014 “could have been easily prevented,” and 40 percent of data breaches were the “result of external intrusions,” an OTA release said. “The pillars of data security are digital literacy, up-to-date awareness of threats and active security protocols,” said Timothy Wallach, supervisory special agent over the FBI Seattle Cyber Task Force. “Anyone who wants to protect themselves online needs to start with educating themselves in those areas, not once but continually.”

NetGain, a new open Internet initiative, will launch Wednesday at a Ford Foundation event in New York City. NetGain has the backing of the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation and the Open Society Foundation, a news release said. Participants in Wednesday’s event, which will be webcast, include Gwen Ifill, Washington Week managing editor; Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web Foundation founder; filmmaker Laura Poitras; and Ethan Zuckerman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Civic Media director. NetGain's principles include protecting privacy, transparency and free speech online.

Most journalists responding to a survey believe ISPs can't protect their data, said an online survey done in December of 671 members of the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) association. The survey by the Pew Research Center, released Thursday, said 29 percent of respondents said their surveillance and data collection concerns changed the way they communicate with other reporters, editors or producers. Only 2 percent of IRE journalists said they're confident their ISP can protect their data from unauthorized parties. Seventy-one percent of investigative journalists have not much or no confidence in their ISPs' protecting their data, it said. About 64 percent said the U.S. government surveilled them, and collected data from their phone calls, emails or online communications. For every 10 IRE journalists, eight believe being a journalist increases the chance an individual’s data will be collected by the government. But 97 percent agree the benefits of digital communication outweigh the risks, the survey said. Investigative journalists covering national security, foreign affairs or the federal government believe they're targeted more often than other journalists, the survey said. Despite concerns about surveillance and hacking, “just” 14 percent of polled journalists said they have not pursued a story, reached out to a particular source or considered leaving journalism, the survey said. However, 49 percent of IRE journalists said the concerns have influenced the way they store or share sensitive documents. About half of the journalists surveyed who work for news organizations said their employer doesn’t do enough to protect journalists and sources from surveillance and hacking. About 47 percent said their news organization is doing enough.

“Big data will continue to contribute to and shape our society, and the Obama Administration will continue working to ensure that government and civil society strive to harness the power of these technologies while protecting privacy and preventing harmful outcomes,” wrote John Podesta, counselor to President Barack Obama, in a blog post Thursday announcing the White House’s release of an interim progress report on big data and privacy legislative efforts. The report’s release comes about a year after Podesta released a report on data collection in the U.S. “One novel finding of the working group report was the potential for big data technologies to circumvent longstanding civil rights protections and enable new forms of discrimination in housing, employment, and access to credit, among other areas,” Podesta said. The new report said the Obama administration has made progress on ensuring “student educational data is used only for educational purposes” and that “in the big-data era,” technologies aren't used “inadvertently or deliberately” to discriminate. The report includes six priority policy recommendations and “a host of smaller initiatives to further the conversation about big data and privacy,” such as creating a national standard for companies to notify customers in the event of a data breach, investing in big data research and technologies, and extending Privacy Act protections to non-U.S. persons. “Big data technologies raise serious concerns about how we protect personal privacy and our other values,” Podesta said. “As more data is collected, analyzed, and stored on both public and private systems, we must be vigilant in ensuring the balance of power is retained between government and citizens and between businesses and consumers.”

CEA hails the FCC "for recognizing the path forward involves a free, competitive and open Internet," President Gary Shapiro said Thursday in a statement. But the rules FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler outlined "don’t strike the right balance, failing to encourage the competition and investment needed to keep the Internet growing and thriving," he said. "There is a need for a reasonable and balanced approach, and reclassification to Title II isn’t it." Wheeler's proposal would reclassify broadband as a common carrier service and impose the same net neutrality rules on fixed and mobile broadband. CTIA President Meredith Baker was also critical of Wheeler's proposals. "The mobile innovation and investment -- $120 billion since 2010 alone -- that American consumers rely on will be placed at risk by the FCC applying intrusive regulatory restrictions on mobile broadband for the first time," Baker said.

Following a CES jam-packed with Internet of Things and smart home hopefuls, IHS in a post-show analysis identified opportunities and challenges for the fledgling market. Privacy and the need for standards are formidable challenges facing the IoT, but huge opportunities exist in an “increasingly tech-savvy consumer market” for the entire chain from semiconductor companies to appliance makers, IHS said. It predicted a potential connected universe of 30-90 billion devices within five years. Competing technologies and standards threaten growth within the IoT ecosystem, said IHS, citing Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Smart, 6LoPAN, ZigBee and cellular. At CES, groups such as the Open Interconnect Consortium, backed by Atmel, Broadcom, Dell, Intel and Samsung, were working to establish a connectivity protocol to enable interoperability among connected devices within a few years. The cost to connect within the IoT is “cheap” enough to make the IoT a reality this year, said IHS. Sensors will drive opportunities in consumer devices, and “cost-effective silicon” will drive shipments of nearly 12 billion sensors into consumer and mobile applications, up from 5.6 billion in 2012, it said. Data collected from the sensors have “vast implications” as the information becomes aggregated across many users in the cloud, said the industry researcher. The ability to analyze large amounts of data to track behavioral trends -- such as the way millions of consumers use devices -- can create “a level of predictive intelligence that is completely novel,” said IHS. The ubiquity of the smartphone and its ability to communicate via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular positions it well as the gateway to the IoT, IHS said, but the smartphone has to continue to learn more languages as the IoT expands. On smart homes, “a holistic approach to IoT problem solving is needed,” instead of the piecemeal approach now offered by disparate devices, IHS said. It envisioned a “package” approach combining hardware, firmware, middleware, application software, cloud services and other components delivered by solution providers as the “key to integration.” The smart home market is still a few years away from mainstream penetration due to the lack of interoperability among different systems, which is "causing confusion for the average consumer,” said IHS.

Pandora joined the Internet Association, becoming its 29th member, an IA news release said Wednesday. Other members include Amazon, Facebook and Google. IA asked Congress last week to renew Trade Promotion Authority and to consider limitations and exceptions for copyright (see 1501290054).