Verizon’s new cookie opt-out plan is an “improvement” for consumer privacy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a blog post Tuesday. But the plan doesn’t “go nearly far enough to fix the problem,” it said. “The millions of Verizon customers who are unaware of the tracking header and their new ability to opt-out are still exposed to the risk of zombie cookies from firms less visible than Turn,” a digital marketing firm, EFF said. Such cookies allow previously deleted cookies to be uncovered and shared with other ad firms, EFF said in a January blog post. “Customers who assume their mobile OS' tracking opt-out or their browser's privacy modes will be respected by Verizon are also still vulnerable,” it said. EFF said Verizon made changes to its cookie program after pressure from Senate Commerce Committee leaders and an EFF petition to the FCC to investigate Verizon’s privacy practices. Verizon didn’t comment.

Legal research website Casetext raised $7 million in a Series A funding round, said a company news release Tuesday. The financing round was led by Union Square Ventures and included Formation 8 and former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, it said. Casetext lets lawyers comment on court cases and legal statutes for free, it said.

Intel said it agreed to buy German broadband access and networking solutions company Lantiq. By combining Intel’s cable gateway business and Lantiq’s broadband access technology, the companies hope to transform broadband customer premises equipment into a smart gateway that connects “an increasingly diverse roster of devices in the home,” Lantiq CEO Dan Artusi said Monday. The acquisition, for an undisclosed amount, will enable Intel to extend its offerings in the cable residential gateway market to other opportunities such as DSL, fiber, LTE, retail and Internet of Things smart routers, the companies said. By 2018, they predict there will be more than 800 million broadband households worldwide.

Google signed a new privacy agreement with the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office, an ICO news release said Friday. The ICO said Google’s privacy policy from March 2012 didn’t “include sufficient information for service users as to how and why their personal data was being collected." “This undertaking marks a significant step forward following a long investigation and extensive dialogue,” said Steve Eckersley, ICO enforcement head, in the release. “Google’s commitment today to make these necessary changes will improve the information UK consumers receive when using their online services and products. ... Ensuring that personal data is processed fairly and transparently is a key requirement of the Act.”

Google’s revenue in 2014 was $66 billion, up 19 percent year-over-year, the company said in a news release Thursday. Its Q4 revenue was $18.1 billion, a 15 percent increase from the same period in 2013, it said. The company’s net profit in Q4 was $4.76 billion, up $1.38 billion from Q4 2013. “Aggregate” paid clicks on Google sites and its network members were up 14 percent in Q4, and up 11 percent from Q3. The average cost per click on such sites decreased about 3 percent from Q3 and Q4 2013. Google had $64.4 billion in cash and market securities Dec. 31.

Three advertising associations urged their members to contribute to the Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative to “speed up the transformation and maturation of digital measurement,” a joint letter from the agencies said Thursday. The American Association of Advertising Agencies, Association of National Advertisers and Interactive Advertising Bureau said marketers, ad agencies and publishers need to provide the Media Rating Council with “specially structured data on viewability measurement results for their advertising campaigns.” The "most valuable data submissions would be those that illustrate significant vendor counting differences in systematic manners,” it said. “The next phase of 3MS, which has already begun, will focus on the creation of a common, audience-based GRP, followed by the development of common platforms for cross-media analytics.”

WikiLeaks’ lawyers sent a letter to Google and the U.S. Department of Justice Monday criticizing Google for violating the privacy and journalistic rights of its staff, after it was discovered that the company shared email content, subscriber information and other metadata for three WikiLeaks editors and journalists with the U.S. government in response to federal warrants. Investigations Editor Sarah Harrison, Section Editor Joseph Farrell and Senior Journalist and spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson were notified by Google in December that they were being investigated by the U.S. government on conspiracy and espionage charges, and for allegedly violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and that Google had handed over the information pursuant to the warrants two-and-a-half years ago. WikiLeaks lawyers said they were disappointed that “Google failed to notify the warrants’ targets immediately,” since as a result the three journalists were unable to “protect their interests including their rights to privacy, association and freedom from illegal searches.” Google said it was under a gag order from the U.S. government, but WikiLeaks said the company didn’t fight the gag order, as some other organizations, such as Twitter, have successfully done in the past. WikiLeaks lawyers asked that DOJ provide a list of all the information Google disclosed, copies of court orders requiring the company to share the information and all other communications regarding the related search warrants in the case.

CEA’s monthly index of consumer technology expectations jumped 0.3 points in January from December to reach 88.9, CEA said Tuesday in a report. The January index, which is a measure of consumer intentions on tech spending, is 5.2 points higher than in January 2014 and suggests “momentum from the holiday season is spilling into the new year,” CEA said. The association's separate index of consumer expectations, which measures consumer expectations about the “broader economy,” however, fell 2.2 points from December to 177.9, CEA said. But the January index is 10.6 points higher than that of January 2014, it said.

Zenbu Magazines filed four lawsuits seeking class-action certification against Apple, Google, Rdio and Sony, claiming the defendants failed to pay performance royalties on pre-1972 sound recordings, according to court documents filed last week. Zenbu, which owns the sound recordings of several songs by The Flying Burrito Brothers, Hot Tuna and New Riders of the Purple Sage, filed the suits in the U.S. District Court for Northern California. “Sony profits from its unauthorized reproduction, distribution, and public performance of pre-1972 recordings by charging subscription fees to its users, without paying royalties or licensing fees for pre-1972 recordings,” Zenbu’s complaint against Sony said. Zenbu said in each of the complaints that the value of the recordings in question exceeds $5 million but that an exact value hasn’t been determined. The defendants didn’t comment. California courts have recently ruled in favor of artists on the issue of a performance right for such sound recordings (see 1410160001). U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Judge Philip Gutierrez and Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mary Strobel ruled against SiriusXM on pre-1972 recordings in 2014 (see 1409240079 and 1410090092). The plaintiffs in the SiriusXM case, Flo & Eddie, are also seeking class-action certification in the U.S. District Court for New York on the performance right for pre-1972 sound recordings (see 1501160053). Public performance royalties are expected to play a key role in music licensing debates this Congress.

Former NSA analyst-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden said it's the bosses at his former employer and not rank-and-file employees who abused the public trust with widescale government surveillance. His remarks came via teleconference during a privacy symposium at Harvard University Friday. The Internet was designed to promote surveillance, said security specialist Bruce Schneier, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, sparking a conversation on whether it was possible to have an Internet and maintain privacy at all. Schneier said the public should not have been surprised they were being watched. John DeLong, director of commercial solutions at the NSA, who was director of compliance while Snowden worked there, made a rare public appearance for an employee of that agency. He said the NSA was authorized to collect the information that it had gathered from the American public. “Protecting privacy today is more an art than a science,” DeLong said. “The science and engineering of privacy [is] the key challenge of our time.” Snowden, who spoke via a live video feed from Moscow, said the "NSA is virtually unregulated." He said NSA employees are "not bad people" but "a culture for impunity develops.”