The U.S. is making progress on key issues at the World Radiocommunication Conference, almost two weeks into the monthlong conference in Geneva, said Decker Anstrom, U.S. ambassador to the WRC, on a call with reporters Thursday. But Anstrom conceded there's no agreement yet on a proposal that some TV spectrum outside the U.S. be set aside for mobile broadband on a nation-by-nation basis.
Russia export controls and sanctions
The use of export controls and sanctions on Russia has surged since the country's invasion of Crimea in 2014, and especially its invasion of Ukraine in in February 2022. Similar export controls and sanctions have been imposed by U.S. allies, including the EU, U.K. and Japan. The following is a listing of recent articles in Export Compliance Daily on export controls and sanctions imposed on Russia:
The Information Technology Industry Council told the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Wednesday that increasing data localization practices by foreign governments threaten U.S. and global economic growth. In ITI's comments on the National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE), the group said members have "experienced a significant increase" in the use of localization measures across the globe. Data localization is the practice of governments employing measures to favor local businesses and enterprises primarily in the information and communications technology space, which ITI said can be done "under the guise of promoting local industries and protecting privacy." These practices have "forced [ITI member companies and others] to make costly adjustments to their operations on the ground, regionally or globally, in order to comply with these measures," ITI said. It identified localization requirements in China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, Turkey and Vietnam, and warned it's possible more governments will consider or put in place similar requirements by the time the USTR's NTE is published. "ITI is greatly concerned about the impact of such digital protectionism on international trade and investment, innovation, and the ability of people and businesses all over the world to benefit from free and open flows of information and data through the Internet and Internet-based technologies," it said. ITI recently released a blog post citing Indonesia's need to address localization practices in order for it to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (see 1510280075). The public comment submission period for the USTR report ended Wednesday, but comments were only being made available by those who filed them, not the government. “As Internet services become a greater part of the global economy,” it will become “more important to monitor digital trade barriers,” the Computer & Communications Industry Association said in comments. CCIA detailed how recent moves "to restrict online information for alleged copyright reasons violates current trade agreements"; how Internet censorship has affected countries in Asia, the Middle East and Russia; and problems companies face following the European Court of Justice’s ruling earlier this month that declared the U.S.-EU safe harbor agreement invalid, in its comments. “As the economy evolves, the NTE will need to increasingly investigate and respond to barriers to digital trade if the Internet and Internet-enabled services are to continue to be export growth leaders,” said CCIA CEO Ed Black in a news release.
Experts agree the FTC antitrust investigation into Google’s alleged monopoly with its Android business is an easy case, but they differ on what the outcome should be. While some academics and antitrust attorneys argued Apple’s influence in the market should be considered and proves Android doesn’t dominate the smartphone operating system market, industry experts said antitrust law has already clearly defined what constitutes an operating system market. If so, that would mean Apple shouldn't be included, and that a lack of action against Android is evidence the relationship between Google and the FTC and Obama administration is too close.
Just three days into the launch, Apple has sold more than 13 million iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus smartphones, “a new record,” the company said in a Monday announcement. The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus will be available in more than 40 additional countries beginning Oct. 9, including Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Taiwan, Apple said. They'll be available in more than 130 countries by year-end, it said. “Sales for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have been phenomenal, blowing past any previous first weekend sales results in Apple’s history,” CEO Tim Cook said.
Congress should pass the Judicial Redress Act as soon as possible to ensure that European citizens have access to core privacy benefits that Americans have been granted on European soil, and that safe harbor and trade agreements are successfully agreed to, lawmakers and industry officials said Thursday during a Computer and Communications Industry Association luncheon at the U.S. Capitol. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said passage of the legislation he introduced with Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., is key for EU officials to ratify the "umbrella agreement" announced earlier this week (see 1509080053). The companion legislation was introduced in the House by Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and John Conyers, D-Mich.
Gilat Satellite Networks' SkyEdge II-c platform will replace an existing very-small-aperture terminal system used now in GeoTelecommunications' satellite broadband service in Russia, Gilat said in a Monday news release. GeoTelecom chose Gilat's SkyEdge after evaluating all the major VSAT competitors, Gilat said.
Rocky Ouprasith, the 23-year-old owner of the file-sharing websites RockDizMusic and RockDizFile, pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in Norfolk to one count of criminal copyright infringement, the Department of Justice said. Ouprasith admitted to operating RockDizMusic.com between May 2011 and October 2014 via servers in Canada and France. The Recording Industry Association of America ranked RockDizMusic as the No. 2 music piracy website in the U.S. in 2013. The website distributed digital copies of copyrighted songs obtained from “affiliates,” whom Ouprasith paid based on the number of times each file was downloaded from the site. Ouprasith admitted to operating the associated RockDizFile.com via servers in France, the Netherlands and Russia. He also admitted to ignoring complaints in 2013 and 2014 from copyright owners and their representatives and to pretending to take action in response to those complaints. The material on RockDizMusic.com and RockDizFile.com was worth more than $2.5 million, DOJ said. Federal law enforcement shut down the websites in October, while agencies in France and the Netherlands seized servers that hosted the sites’ material. Ouprasith is to be sentenced Nov. 17 and faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Companies like Diane von Furstenberg, Fossil and Tory Burch that partner with tech companies like Google, Intel and Fitbit to create products that allow consumers to enjoy the benefits of the IoT should pay attention to the FTC’s anticipated IoT privacy guidance, lawyers said in interviews. Amid the infancy of wearables, the agency has yet to issue specific privacy, security and transparency guidance.
GOP Presidential Candidates Criticize China, Russia During Debate for Purported Role in Cyberattacks
Several major Republican presidential candidates spent time during a Fox News debate Thursday criticizing recent Chinese and Russian cyberattacks against U.S. federal agencies, with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, blaming Russia for a July data breach that hit the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s email system. Reports on the breach began surfacing in the hours before the Fox News debate. The Department of Defense didn’t comment on the attack’s origin. Cruz also went after China, saying that nation’s government is “waging cyber warfare against America.” Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker referenced attacks attributed to Russia and China, saying the two nations’ governments “know more” about emails stored on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s private email server during her tenure as secretary of state “than does our U.S. Congress, and that’s put our national security at risk.”
In response to a letter to the FTC from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Friday asking the agency to “reject” Consumer Watchdog’s complaint that says Google’s failure to offer U.S. users the right to be forgotten as it does for Europeans is an “unfair and deceptive” practice (see 1507150047), Consumer Watchdog said in a news release Friday the ANA “misunderstands the Right To Be Forgotten" and goes on to say that "consumer privacy protections are not censorship.”