Legal and privacy experts at Hogan Lovells determined that Uber’s privacy program is “strong,” Uber said in a blog post Friday. The company hired the law firm to review the program in November. “Uber has dedicated significantly more resources to privacy than we have observed of other companies of its age, sector, and size,” the firm said in its report. Uber “has adopted and has implemented internal access control policies, including via technical access controls, that are reasonably designed to limit access to Consumer Data to authorized personnel,” it said. Hogan Lovells said it used several standards to measure Uber’s privacy practices, including fair information practice principles and FTC protocols. The law firm made several recommendations for Uber, including “streamlining” and “updating” its privacy policy to improve consumer awareness.

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.

The FCC should extend ESPN’s exclusion from the list of non-broadcast networks that are subject to video description rules, ESPN and parent Disney said in a request posted in docket 11-43 Thursday. The video description rules apply to the top five national non-broadcast networks as ranked by Nielsen, and ESPN is No. 2 behind USA, said a public notice released by the Media Bureau earlier this month (see 1501070038). ESPN was exempt from the video description requirement previously and should be again because it doesn’t show 50 hours of prime time programming that isn’t live or near-live and thus is ineligible for the requirement, ESPN and Disney said.

The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau granted a one-year extension Wednesday of the FCC waiver for advanced communications services (ACS) accessibility rules to a basic class of e-readers, in an order in docket 10-213. E-reader makers had sought a waiver extension for an ongoing period of time, while groups representing the blind and vision impaired had opposed any extension of the initial one-year waiver (see 1411120048). The e-readers in the narrow class are primarily designed for reading text-based digital works, even though they're capable of accessing ACS, the bureau said. It won’t require e-reader manufacturers covered by the waiver to comply with section 14.20, 14.21 or 14.31 of the commission’s rules until Jan. 28, 2016. The bureau urged manufacturers to consider accessible design early on in development stages in future generations of e-readers "to provide ACS as one of their primary functions." "We're disappointed to hear that, but we're glad they haven't granted a permanent waiver," said a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind. "We don't feel that e-readers should be exempt at all [from ACS rules]. The content of e-readers is 1s and 0s, so it's not inherently visual and can be rendered as pure Braille or other formats." The federation will submit further comments to the FCC, he said. A lawyer for the Coalition of e-Reader Manufacturers that had sought the waiver extension for Amazon, Kobo and Sony declined to comment.

PlayStation Network is partnering with Spotify to launch PlayStation Music, a streaming service, said a PSN blog post Wednesday. PSN will close its Music Unlimited service March 29, it said. The new service will launch in 41 global markets and be available on the PlayStation3 and PlayStation4 systems, plus Xperia smartphones and tablets, it said. Subscribers to PSN’s new service will have access to all existing Spotify users’ playlists and Spotify’s curated playlists, it said.

The FCC should stop requiring analog tuners in TVs, said Funai representatives in a meeting last week with staff from the Media Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology, according to an ex parte filing in docket 03-185. “The requirement has largely outlived its purpose because low power TV and TV translators have been moving to digital signals and the remaining stations that have not converted will soon be mandated to broadcast only in digital format,” said Funai. The requirement causes TV manufacturers to design products that “contain substantially more complexity than is required, consume more energy, and are heavier/larger” than digital-only versions would be, the filing said. “The Commission is not legally required to retain this requirement.” Consumers also are "burdened by having to pay the extra cost incurred from complying with this requirement which arises from added hardware, software and various licensing fees," Funai said.

Cablevision is launching an all Wi-Fi phone service with unlimited data, talk and text, the company said in a news release Monday. Called Freewheel, it’s the “first all-WiFi service to be introduced by a cable provider,” the operator said. Freewheel will use a Motorola Moto G smartphone that will work “exclusively” over Wi-Fi, and customers will have “automatic access” to Cablevision’s 1.1 million hot spot Wi-Fi network, it said. The service will be available starting in February, and cost $29.95 a month. The Moto G phone will cost Freewheel customers $99.95, and Cablevision Optimum Online customers will be able to get the Freewheel service for $9.95 monthly. Limited to Wi-Fi, the Freewheel service is unlikely to generate much revenue for Cablevision, said MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett in an email to investors. “The best Cablevision might hope for is to monetize the company’s WiFi footprint, even if only to a small degree, by lowering churn,” Moffett said. “Cablevision’s real game is almost certainly to use the new Freewheel service as a beta test for what will eventually be a WiFi-first, rather than WiFi-only, service.”

The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council is examining whether interference from LED and fluorescent lighting system ballasts are disrupting public safety radio systems, said a NPSTC news release. NPSTC asks public agencies to fill out an online questionnaire. In 2013, the FCC ordered one manufacturer to make changes to its LED lighting transformers after interference concerns emerged, NPSTC said. “More recently, some public safety agencies have reported interference from LED lights installed on agency radio towers, from fluorescent lighting installed at an incident command post, and from commercial buildings with large lighting systems.”

More than 60 million registered users have signed up for iHeartRadio, said a company news release Friday. The digital music streaming service said it has nearly 90 million unique visitors across its network. The company’s brand awareness hit 75 percent in December, up 5 percent from the same period last year, it said.

CEA is “disappointed” that President Barack Obama “missed the opportunity” in his State of the Union address “to push for strategic immigration reform,” said CEA President Gary Shapiro Wednesday in a statement. Immigration reform for the high-skilled is needed “to keep the world’s best and brightest here in the U.S. to build companies and create jobs, a key policy component necessary to maintain our leadership in innovation,” Shapiro said. “We also would have appreciated the recognition he provided in the 2014 State of the Union speech that patent trolls are hurting America's job creators.” Shapiro hailed Obama’s promise to “proactively seek bipartisan support” of trade promotion authority (TPA), “especially with the opportunity we have this year to pass trade agreements that help our manufacturing sector.” To compete in the global marketplace, “U.S. manufacturers have to be able to effectively supply the world with their products,” Shapiro said. “Passing TPA legislation that reflects the realities of the digital age would not only improve U.S. trade, but also strengthen job creation and bolster our economic recovery.” CEA agrees with the need to preserve an open Internet, Shapiro said. But “the best way to do so is through a measured and common-sense approach that encourages competition” among ISPs and investment in the Internet, he said. That’s “a solution that balances the desire for open access with the need to continue encouraging innovation,” he said. CEA also backs Obama’s call “to reform unfair and outdated tax laws that allow more than $2 trillion in U.S. corporate earnings to be held overseas, and use those funds to help upgrade our nation’s infrastructure,” Shapiro said.