Chinese online video giant iQiyi began collaborating with carrier China Unicom on rollout of 5G services, and opened a Beijing “innovation showroom” that showcases the “ample bandwidth and minimal latency of 5G to effectively ensure high frame rates,” said CEO Yu Gong on a fiscal Q1 earnings call Thursday evening. “In the future,” 5G will allow users “to enjoy a smoother experience when watching our extensive selection of high-quality video content,” he said. “We believe the Chinese online entertainment industry has entered a new growth space with enormous opportunities for the years to come,” said Gong. IQiyi parent Baidu hopes to expand its “platform reach” to DuerOS smart devices “in home and in auto and out-of-home digital screens,” said CEO Robin Li on a separate call. The artificial intelligence-based DuerOS platform is China’s leading voice assistant, with an installed base of 275 million devices at the end of Q1, a 279 percent increase from a year earlier, said Li. The Beijing internet-tech provider wants to “prepare our users to move from mobile-only to a cross-platform experience, seamlessly crisscrossing back and forth on mobile, in-home and in autos,” he said.

ICANN's human rights performance is good but could be even better, an internal assessment of its business operations found. Its first human rights impact assessment examined human resources, event planning, procurement and security operations from February to June 2018 through document reviews, interviews with managers, onsite visits and an online staff survey. Overall, the report said, ICANN's processes and policies "cover important human rights issues such as health and safety, non-discrimination, access to remedy, data privacy and working hours and leaves." The physical safety of staffers and event participants is ensured through professionally managed security operations; and public meetings contribute to local economies financially and by providing knowledge and expertise. But the internet body could improve in all four areas by, among other things, establishing better processes to ensure that employees are treated fairly and equally; creating better internal grievance mechanisms and complaint investigation processes; managing human rights risks in the supply chain; and ensuring effective management of human rights considerations in the running of ICANN public meetings. In the year since the review was conducted, ICANN has already made some of the recommended improvements and is working on others, while some weren't suitable to the organization, it said. Chief Operating Office Susanna Bennett will head a team tasked with evaluating and prioritizing relevant recommendations so they can be adopted into ICANN's business culture.

DOJ is working to reach Cloud Act agreements with European and other foreign partners, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard Downing said in Munich Thursday. He noted the act advances privacy and law enforcement needs: “The imperatives of law enforcement and data protection are not inherently at odds; there is no zero-sum tradeoff between public safety and privacy.” A provider subject to U.S. jurisdiction should produce data for legitimate law enforcement purposes, wherever the data is “stored, within its possession, custody, or control,” he said in prepared remarks. He claimed overseas partners, like the U.K., France, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Canada and Australia “have each asserted that same domestic authority over providers in their jurisdictions.”

Some smartphones and TVs from China imported to the U.S. under the 8528.72.64 Harmonized Tariff Schedule are on the list of goods the U.S. will subject to 25 percent duties, as are a broad assortment of other consumer tech goods, said an Office of U.S. Trade Representative notice Monday. The $300 billion in goods on the list (see 1905130022) are the biggest tranche of the four so far and represent virtually all of the remaining Chinese imports not previously dutied. A single day of public hearings on the proposed duties is set for June 17. The notice appears to be flexible on scheduling additional days of hearings. Roughly 350 witnesses testified on the List 3 tariffs in hearings that spanned six days in late August. June 10 is the due date for filing requests in docket USTR-2019-0004 at regulations.gov to appear at the hearing and place in the record a summary of expected testimony at the public hearing. Written comments are due June 17. Smartphones are the largest of eight classifications of consumer tech products that would bear the biggest brunt of the penalties, CTA Vice President-International Trade Sage Chandler emailed us Tuesday. “The import values of the products that hit our members are massive.” The customs value of smartphones imported from China last year under the HTS 8517.12.00 subheading exceeded $44.8 billion, said Chandler. Laptops and tablets imported under HTS 8471.30.01 were the next biggest category germane to CTA members, she said, worth $38.7 billion. The broad assortment of goods imported under HTS 8517.62.00 was worth $23.9 billion in 2018 customs value, she said, with smart speakers, Bluetooth headphones, smartwatches and fitness trackers included. Current tariffs have “hurt consumers, rattled supply chains for U.S. manufacturers and businesses, and created uncertainty across economies,” said Naomi Wilson, Information Technology Industry Council senior policy director-Asia. “Additional tariffs threaten to needlessly escalate this conflict.” On the big hit smartphones stand to take should the tariffs go through, CTIA declined comment for now. It may have something to say “in coming days as we discuss further with members,” emailed a spokesperson. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon didn’t comment, nor did Apple or Samsung.

DOJ's Antitrust Division is among founding members of the Framework on Competition Agency Procedures agreement, which lays out norms of transparency and procedural fairness in antitrust enforcement. The agency said Monday the agreement was adopted in April by the International Competition Network, opening the framework up to national, supranational and territory-specific competition agencies. It said it takes effect May 15, and an inauguration ceremony in Colombia will involve funding members.

China will raise tariff rates June 1 on 5,140 tariff lines of U.S. goods in retaliation for the Trump administration’s hike Friday of the List 3 tariffs to 25 percent (see 1905090069), announced the Foreign Affairs Ministry Monday. China isn't increasing tariffs on U.S. imports that haven't yet been part of retaliation. It's hiking the previously imposed punitive tariffs from 10 percent to 20 percent or 25 percent, and increasing other tariffs from 5 percent to 10 percent. The largest number of products, 2,493, are going from 10 percent to 25 percent; another 1,078 are going from 10 percent to 20 percent, and for 974 tariff lines, the retaliatory tariff will increase from 5 percent to 10 percent. China is also holding fast at 5 percent on 595 tariff lines.

U.S. importers whose Chinese goods were on the water when the List 3 Section 301 tariffs went up to 25 percent early Friday can assign their goods a special new 9903.88.09 heading on the Harmonized Tariff Schedule to enter at the old 10 percent duty rate, said the U.S. Trade Representative Thursday night. This obviates importers needing to pay the 25 percent duty at ports of entry and then seek refunds, under Customs and Border Protection's “in the meantime” guidance earlier Thursday (see report in the May 10 issue). Goods bearing the special HTS heading need to enter the U.S. on or before June 1 to qualify, said USTR. CBP will issue “instructions on entry guidance and implementation,” it said.

Of 86 countries asking Twitter for legal information, the U.S. made the most requests, with 2,092 for data on 3,860 accounts July-December, the social-media platform reported Thursday. Seventy-three percent of the time, the company gave the U.S. government some information, it said. Globally, Twitter received nearly 7,000 requests for data on more than 11,000 accounts, falling 34 percent from January-June 2018, and turned over information 56 percent of the time. It suspended 166,513 accounts for violations related to promotion of terrorism, down 19 percent, and 456,989 related to child sexual exploitation, down 6 percent. The company uploads legal requests into Lumen database, a partnership with Harvard's Berkman Klein Center, it said. "We encourage the public to explore this site to get a sense of the day-to-day queries we receive from governments and other entities."

Tech and other groups are concerned that President Donald Trump’s threat to hike by 150 percent -- to 25 percent -- tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese products is set to take effect Friday. An Office of U.S. Trade Representative notice set for publication in Thursday’s Federal Register mandates that the rate hike will take effect 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday, turning Trump’s tweet (see 1905060028) into the force of law. USTR Robert Lighthizer ordered the rate hike at Trump’s direction, “in light of the lack of progress” in negotiations with the Chinese on a trade deal since March, said the notice. “In the most recent negotiations” last week in Beijing, “China has chosen to retreat from specific commitments agreed to in earlier rounds” of talks, it said. Details of a newly created exclusion process will be spelled out in a separate notice, said the document. The Telecommunications Industry Association is “greatly concerned” the administration “announced the imposition of an additional tax on imports to take effect with little advance notice,” said Cinnamon Rogers, senior vice president-government affairs. “The 25 percent duty as described will impact products essential to the functioning of our country's telecommunications networks, ultimately resulting in significant new costs for American consumers.”

Mexico and the Netherlands, will host the 2021 ICANN public meetings, the organization said Monday. ICANN's 70th conference is March 20-25 at the Cancun International Convention Center and No. 71 June 14-17 at the World Forum in The Hague. The Hyatt Regency Seattle previously was announced as site for No. 72 (see 1902010027).