Seventy-plus civil liberties and privacy advocates and industry representatives wrote President Barack Obama asking him to support an update to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) without a government agency exception (http://bit.ly/1kpgN80). Similar bills in the House and Senate would update ECPA to require a warrant to access remotely stored electronic communications such as email or Google Docs. “Seemingly, the only major impediment to passage is an objection by administrative agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, which would like to gut the legislation as a way to expand their investigative authorities,” wrote the groups Monday. “Such an agency carve out would be a major blow to reform efforts, allowing increased government access to our communications during the many civil investigations conducted by federal and state agencies.” It’s expected the White House will support an ECPA update in its big data report -- likely due out Thursday -- that includes an exception for some federal agencies (CD April 30 p14). “Support from the Administration for strong ECPA legislation without an administrative loophole would be an important step toward removing this roadblock,” the groups said.

Tablet usage is prompting more older adults in the U.K. to go online, the Office of Communications said Tuesday in a report on adults’ media use and attitudes (http://bit.ly/1m6wEJR). The survey, for which 2,674 people aged 16 and over were interviewed, found that 83 percent now go online using any kind of device in any location, with those 65 and over showing a 9 percent increase over the 2012 survey figure, it said. The number of adults using tablets to access the Internet rose from 16 percent in 2012 to 30 percent last year; use by people 35-64 doubled, while use by 65-74-year-olds trebled from 5 percent to 17 percent, the report said. Older adults are also more likely now to play games on mobile phones or the Internet, it said. Younger users tend to have a more liberal approach to regulation and moderation, and to use a range of strategies to manage their online experience proactively, while older people seem to prefer a more moderated and regulated experience, it said. The survey also found that compared to 2012 there are fewer non-users of the Internet now, with 12 percent saying they don’t have or want access at home, down from 15 percent two years ago.

Cyber Europe 2014, a cybersecurity exercise, kicked off Monday under the aegis of the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA). In this first of three phases of ENISA’s biannual cyber-exercise, participants -- including 29 EU and European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA) countries, computer security incident response teams, cybersecurity agencies, EU bodies, public entities, telecom operators and information and communication technology (ICT) vendors -- will try to resolve several large-scale technical cyberincidents similar to real-life cases, ENISA said in a Q&A document (http://bit.ly/S1fjJq). The next two stages will check the resilience of IT systems and response capacity at the operational and political levels, it said. This is a two-day exercise, ENISA said. Aggregated results “will be announced in overarching terms” at year’s end, ENISA Executive Director Udo Helmbrecht told us by email. The scenarios are “based on realistic potential incidents,” he said. The exercise goals are to: (1) Test how governments and industry work together on resilience of IT systems and response capacity in cases of serious cross-border security threats. (2) Check standard cooperation procedures in the EU. (3) Train and test national-level capabilities and see how effectively private-public and private-private players collaborate. (4) Analyze how events escalate and de-escalate; and understand those processes at all technical, operational and strategic levels as well as related public affairs issues linked to cyberthreats. The exercise wasn’t influenced by events in Russia and Ukraine, ENISA said in news release.

Microsoft will launch a slate of nongame content under the Xbox Originals banner for its Xbox game consoles and other devices, starting in June, it said Monday. The content will include dramas, comedies, documentaries, animation, unscripted shows and live events, it said on the Xbox Wire website. Each Xbox Originals show will have interactive capabilities, “customized on a per-show basis,” it said. Projects confirmed so far include a live-action TV series executive produced by Steven Spielberg based on the game series Halo, and Extraordinary Believers (working title), a stop-motion show being developed by Xbox Entertainment Studios and Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, creators of the animated TV show Robot Chicken, said Microsoft. Microsoft is hoping that Xbox Originals will provide a further “incentive” for consumers to make their Xbox consoles their “all-in-one entertainment” device, it said. The new Xbox One can already be used to control all TV viewing by connecting the console to a cable or satellite set-top box. Microsoft has been in the content business for a long time with games and creating original TV content is a “logical next step in our evolution,” said Jordan Levin, executive vice president-Xbox Entertainment Studios. “Many” of the new projects are already in production and have set release dates, but some are still in the early development stages, said Microsoft. Other programs will include Signal to Noise (working title), a six-film documentary series on technology that will include, as its first installment, Atari: Game Over about the excavation of a New Mexico landfill that Atari allegedly used to bury millions of unsold E.T. videogame cartridges, said Microsoft. Scott Free Productions and Microsoft’s 343 Industries game studio are also creating a digital feature film based on the Halo game series that will be released later this year, said Microsoft. That project will be executive produced by filmmaker Ridley Scott and Scott Free TV President David Zucker, said Microsoft.

Pandora’s number of active users grew 8 percent in Q1 over the year-ago quarter to 75.3 million, while listener hours grew at a 12 percent rate to 4.8 billion, said CEO Brian McAndrews on an earnings call Thursday. McAndrews cited platform upgrades including alarm clock, sleep timer and station recommendations. Android app users are listening to Pandora significantly more than before the features were available, he said. Subscription revenue rose to $53.7 million from $18.4 million, according to an 8-K SEC filing. Advertising revenue jumped to $140.6 million from $96.7 million. Chief Financial Officer Mike Herring Herring told investors last spring “there’s a much, much bigger market opportunity in the free side” where far more people are willing to listen to ads in exchange for free music. On the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan last week against Pandora on charges of unlawful use of pre-1972 recordings that aren’t covered under federal copyright law, McAndrews said he’s limited in what he can say about the suit, but thinks the “significant value” Pandora brings to artists is “beyond just royalties.” He cited access to more than 75 million monthly active users and exposure to a large breadth of catalogs “that go largely unheard” on terrestrial radio. In many cases, that exposure helps “extend the longevity of an artist’s career,” he said. McAndrews called the landscape of content licensing “a complex topic.” He cited recent rulings that were favorable to the company, including a court judgment last fall upholding the company’s right to perform all compositions in the ASCAP catalog. For the quarter, Pandora revenue grew to $194 million from $115 million in the year-ago quarter, and its loss narrowed to $28.9 million from $38.6 million. Its shares plunged 16.6 percent Friday to $23.51 on what analysts called declining faith among investors about Pandora’s growth story.

AOL signed a video distribution deal with Microsoft, said a joint release (http://bit.ly/1fzT3vc) Friday. AOL brands such as HuffPost Live and Moviefone, as well as partner sites like ESPN and TMZ, will be available on The Microsoft Network and Bing Apps for Windows and Windows Phone beginning this summer, it said. “Relevant videos from AOL’s library of nearly 900,000 will be distributed on Microsoft video platforms,” it said. AOL hired William Pence, formerly of WebMD, as its global chief technology officer earlier this month.

NTIA’s oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions “had the benefit of two things: lightweight and simple,” said Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf at NETmundial Thursday afternoon in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which was webcast. If the transition becomes “too complicated, you will make it really hard for the Internet to grow and serve its users” the way it has for the “last 30 years,” he said: “Don’t screw this up.” Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ accountability review and the IANA transition are “interrelated” and should be put on the same “timeline,” said CEO Fadi Chehade. ICANN’s accountability review (http://bit.ly/1nsuCaK) begins next week, said an ICANN spokesman, saying no official announcement of the review has been released. ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) “has not formed a particular view on the suggested modalities” of the transition and it may not reach a “consensus view,” but that won’t keep it from being involved, said GAC Chair Heather Dryden. “We are well-equipped to work with the NTIA in their transition,” said Jonathan Robinson, ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization chair. Country-code top-level domain operators don’t have a “contractual relationship” with ICANN and IANA, said CEO Byron Holland of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, which manages the .ca domain. The lack of a binding contract makes the transition “relatively unique” for country-code operators because of “issues of sovereignty,” said Holland. “Governments have a particular interest in country-code matters” and they should “be resolved at the national level,” said Dryden.

Updated FTC guidelines on student data sharing are “helpful” but don’t eliminate the need for “an enforceable framework to protect students,” Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Student Privacy Project Director Khaliah Barnes told us. On Monday, the FTC released a revised FAQ on compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (http://1.usa.gov/1nm8eQj). The altered and added language was meant to more explicitly address consent and notice guidelines for the sharing of student data. The new FAQs, while clearer about parents’ rights to access data collected about their children, “do not create an enforceable private right of action for students and parents,” Barnes said. “Nevertheless, schools that disclose student information to companies using the data for commercial purposes contravene the FAQs,” as do those companies, Barnes said. “The FTC should use its enforcement powers against companies for their unfair and deceptive commercial practices affecting students.”

Major technology companies are starting a joint initiative to fund open source projects essential to Internet infrastructure, said the companies -- including Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft -- in a Thursday news release (http://bit.ly/1k8So7W). The project, dubbed the Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII), will be housed at the Linux Foundation, they said. The group was “inspired” to action because of the Heartbleed bug, which crippled OpenSSL, built on Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), an open-source cryptographic software library used to secure websites using HTTPS encryption to protect data (CD April 11p13). “Members of CII will evaluate open source projects that are essential to global computing infrastructure and are experiencing under-investment,” said the group. “Support from the initiative can include funding for fellowships for key developers to work full time on the open source project, security audits, computing and test infrastructure, travel, face-to-face meeting coordination and other support."

The FTC won’t challenge Facebook’s acquisition of virtual reality company Oculus VR, said a pre-merger notification Tuesday from the commission (http://1.usa.gov/1jVKNbs). After the $2 billion deal was disclosed, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts he saw the move as a “long-term bet” that might not pay dividends for 5-10 years. Analysts were divided on the wisdom of the purchase, but some said it would place Facebook at the forefront of the virtual reality applications market.