The FTC announced settlements Tuesday with four companies that “allegedly misrepresented” participation in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework. Click Labs, Incentive Services, Global Data Vault and TDARX falsely claimed participation, the agency alleged. Click Labs and Incentive Services also “claimed to participate in the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield framework,” the agency said. The companies face civil penalties of up to $42,530 per violation for future infractions and are barred from further misrepresentation. They didn’t comment.

The EU shouldn't ignore U.S. urgings that it create national standards on potential network-based threats to privacy, security and intellectual property when it discusses 5G safeguards this week in Brussels, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote Monday for Politico. China's Huawei has a troubling business track record of ties to the Chinese People's Liberation Army, bribery and IP theft, but securing 5G goes further than blocking any one company from building those networks, he wrote. Huawei didn't comment. Pompeo said such suppliers as Nokia, Samsung and Ericsson don't pose the same dangers as Chinese companies.

A U.S. foundation representing organizations in the semiconductor technology sector will move to Switzerland due to concerns over U.S. trade restrictions, according to a Nov. 25 Reuters report. RISC-V Foundation, a nonprofit, said it has not yet faced restrictions but is “concerned about possible geopolitical disruption,” according to Reuters. The move comes as the Commerce Department restricts sales to certain Chinese technology companies and prepares to release proposed restrictions on emerging and foundational technologies. A spokesperson for RISC-V declined to answer questions but referred to a message on the foundation’s website that says the move “has the effect of calming concerns of political disruption to the open collaboration model.” The company stressed that it does not have any commercial interest in the goods that may be restricted and there have “not been any export restrictions on the Foundation in the U.S.” A Commerce Department spokesperson said its export controls are designed to “ensure bad actors cannot acquire technology that harms U.S. citizens or interests, while promoting innovation to fuel continued American technological leadership.” Commerce “meets regularly” with industry members for input, the spokesperson said, including on “technological developments, market conditions and the effects of its regulations.”

DOJ “presently has no intention” to mount an antitrust challenge to the GSM Association’s newly “promulgated” Remote SIM Provisioning (RSP) specification for embedded SIMs (eSIMs), as long as they're based on revised and improved standard-setting procedures, it told GSMA in a business review letter Wednesday. GSMA requested the letter in July. GSMA's new standards practices, called AA.35, are "meant to allay competition concerns by yielding standards that limit the design of RSP and eSIMs only to the extent it would be beneficial to the diverse group of interested parties in the mobile wireless industry,” said DOJ. The department over a two-year investigation "developed significant concerns" that GSMA’s process for fashioning the previous RSP spec was “deeply flawed and enabled competitors to coordinate anticompetitively,” it said. GSMA practices gave its mobile network operator members “certain privileges not available to other members and participants, “allowing that single interest group to exercise undue influence in the standard-setting process,” said DOJ. Those practices amounted to “an agreement among competitors to limit options available in the market in such a way as to benefit the incumbent operator members by reducing their competitive pressures,” it said. The department believes AA.35 has “sufficient protections to minimize the chances of anticompetitive self-dealing inside the GSMA, it said. DOJ will “closely observe” how the new procedures are “applied,” and whether they succeed “in promoting interoperability without marginalizing non-operators’ ability to represent their interests in preserving the maximum freedom to respond to consumer demand for innovation,” it said. DOJ's letter "agreed" that AA.35 industry standards "benefit consumers by helping technologies work together at lower costs," said the association Wednesday. "GSMA standards are always voluntary and reflect an industry consensus." DOJ's investigation "reviewed millions of documents covering a multi-year and complex process to establish common standards for eSIM technologies," it said. Wednesday's letter is "conclusive that the agency found no violation of antitrust laws,” it said. GSMA will release the new eSIM standards "within months, it said.

The migration to 5G “isn't just about wireless,” said Analog Devices CEO Vincent Roche on a fiscal Q4 call Tuesday. It will also require “a complete re-architecting of the core and wireline network to meet the 5G vision of gigabit speeds, low latency and high reliability demanded by mission-critical applications,” he said. “This network expansion will require a significant upgrade of the backhaul system, opening a new revenue opportunity,” he said. The chipmaker's ambitions include supplying optical and "point-to-point microwave solutions" to 5G networks, he said. Its 5G infrastructure design wins “are moving to low-volume production in 2020, ahead of a more meaningful ramp in 2021,” he said. Analog Devices expects 5G demand to “remain modest” for the rest of calendar 2019, “with a positive inflection in demand to occur in the fiscal second quarter as the global 5G rollout ramps,” said Chief Financial Officer Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah.

The Commerce Department proposed new procedures for reviewing transactions, including imports, that involve information and communications technology and services seen as a potential national security threat, it said Tuesday. The proposed rules are aimed at implementing President Donald Trump's May executive order, which directed Commerce to issue regulations to bar some foreign companies' technology from U.S. networks. The order was seen potentially targeting Chinese's Huawei and ZTE (see 1905150066). Commerce proposes "a case-by-case, fact-specific approach to determine those transactions that meet the requirements" in the EO. Parties subject to it will be expected to "maintain records related to such transaction in a manner consistent with the recordkeeping practices used in their ordinary course of business for such a transaction," Commerce says in Wednesday's Federal Register. Transactions are "any acquisition, importation, transfer, installation, dealing in, or use of any information and communications technology or service." Transactions subject to the reviews are any that involve people or property under U.S. jurisdiction, plus "any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has an interest," it says. Transactions "initiated, pending, or completed" after May 15 would be subject to review. Comments are due Dec. 27 in docket DOC-2019-0005 via Regulations.gov. The Telecommunications Industry Association “has long maintained that supply chain risk management is best addressed by public-private partnerships and consensus-based, industry-driven standards, but there is a place for targeted and careful government intervention,” said CEO David Stehlin. “Today’s rules exemplify this approach and, through the invitation of comments from industry, represent a clear step forward towards a public-private effort." USTelecom is glad Commerce accepted “our recommendation to seek industry comment before establishing interim final rules, a process that should reduce the risk of unintended consequences,” said Senior Vice President-Cybersecurity Robert Mayer. “We are especially encouraged the Department has already adopted a process to determine whether a transaction meets the requirements.” The Information Technology Industry Council appreciates Commerce's “wise decision to issue proposed rather than final rules to maximize the ability of the Department to account for crucial industry feedback,” said CEO Jason Oxman. “The tech industry will continue to engage with the White House, Commerce, and other stakeholders to ensure this process furthers important national security imperatives while allowing U.S. innovation to thrive as it is finalized.”

The Council of Europe is exploring the need for global laws on artificial intelligence, it said. The human rights organization is taking part in an Internet Governance Forum event this week in Strasbourg during which representatives from governments, international organizations, business, civil society, academia and the IT sector will discuss internet policy issues such risks to human rights from advanced technologies. A CoE ad hoc committee on AI (CAHAI), which includes representatives from the organization's 47 members, met Nov. 18-20 to consider the feasibility of rules on developing, designing and using AI based on CoE standards on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The implications for human rights and democracy "are manifold and we need to be able to answer the challenges for individuals but also for the whole society," emailed Jan Kleijssen, CoE director-information society, action against crime. The meeting "clearly revealed the high level of interest paid by member States to CAHAI." Participants agreed to a feasibility study that will map work on AI already done within the CoE and other bodies, plus relevant legally binding and soft-law instruments. The exercise is expected to help identify the main risks and opportunities from the development and use of AI, Kleijssen said. Participants will look at what principles should be applied to creating and using AI, and consider what the most suitable legal framework is. They discussed the impact of AI on people and society, plus different AI policies, particularly those of the U.S., France, Germany and Russia. The panel will report to the CoE Committee of Ministers in May on its progress, and will launch a "comprehensive consultation to build a legal framework that answers to the need and expectations of the citizens." Asked whether, given numerous ongoing AI activities, it will be difficult to set any sort of global rules, Kleijssen noted EU common standards on respect for human rights, rule of law and democracy to which all CoE members are committed. The council is part of global efforts to address challenges of using digital technologies, including AI, and cooperates closely with other organizations such as the EU, UN and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Ericsson expects 5G will grow to 2.6 billion wireless subscriptions globally by the end of 2025, for 29 percent of wireless accounts: “With the continued momentum for 5G, we predict 13 million 5G subscriptions by the end of this year.” A “big share” will be in China, where all three main service providers launched commercial 5G services in Q4, the equipment vendor said Monday. “Sign-up of customers started even before launch, with more than 10 million 5G users registered in October.” LTE is expected to remain “the dominant mobile access technology” the next six years, peaking in 2022 at 5.4 billion subscriptions globally before declining to 4.8 billion by the end of 2025 “as LTE subscriptions migrate to 5G,” said Ericsson.

Fifteen senators asked the Commerce Department to reverse its decision to approve Huawei-related export licenses (see 1911210027) for U.S. companies to have their products included in the Chinese telecom maker's equipment. The senators, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wrote President Donald Trump Thursday they're “concerned that the approval of additional, more permanent licenses will allow Huawei to fully resume its engagement with certain U.S. firms without an adequate assessment of the risks to national security.” Though the legislators acknowledged license decisions will come under a review with presumption of denial, they fear several licenses will be granted after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the agency plans to grant “quite a few." Democratic presidential candidates Cory Booker, New Jersey, and Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts, were among the signers. Commerce "is issuing these narrow licenses to authorize limited and specific activities which do not pose a significant risk to the national security or foreign policy interests of the U.S.," a spokesperson emailed Friday. "These applications were approved through an interagency license review process." Huawei and its affiliates remain on the department's entity list subjecting it to restrictions, the representative noted.

The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security finalized some interagency reviews of Huawei license applications and will begin issuing approvals and denials on a “rolling basis,” said Matt Borman, Commerce deputy assistant secretary-export administration. Secretary Wilbur Ross said the department will "send out the 20-day intent-to-deny letters and some approvals” for U.S. companies to export some things to the Chinese telecom gearmaker. Ross said Commerce got about 290 “requests for specific licenses.” BIS plans to approve at least “several” licenses while denying others, a Commerce spokesperson told us after Borman spoke at the agency's Materials and Equipment Technical Advisory Committee meeting Wednesday. The Semiconductor Industry Association welcomes approvals for licenses that aren't national security threats. “Sales of these non-sensitive commercial products help ensure the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry, which is essential to national security,” said SIA President John Neuffer.