The FCC’s expected approval Thursday of petitions seeking pre-emption of anti-municipal broadband laws in North Carolina and Tennessee is likely to unleash a spate of additional pre-emption petitions from other municipalities seeking to build or expand networks, said Michael Santorelli, director of the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at New York Law School, during a webinar Wednesday. Multiple petitions “have probably already been drafted” by municipalities that are waiting for the FCC to vote on the existing petitions, Santorelli said during the Digital Policy Institute event. The FCC has made clear that its draft order applies only to the specific petitions from the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga and the city of Wilson, North Carolina, but it's likely to set a precedent for future petitions, he said. The FCC’s draft pre-emption order stands on very shaky legal ground and contains logic that also would allow state public utility regulators to pre-empt laws created by their own state legislatures, said Phoenix Center President Lawrence Spiwak. The order is nearly certain to face challenges in federal courts and the Supreme Court, which could send the commission’s entire legal view of its Telecom Act Section 706 authority “crashing down,” he said. FCC pre-emption can sometimes be legally justifiable, particularly if it clears barriers to private sector entry into state markets, Spiwak said.

Altair Semiconductor said it's sampling FourGee-1160 and FourGee-1150 Category-1 and Category-0 chipsets for Internet of Things applications with plans to deploy commercially later this year. The company said carriers, device makers and module vendors have “shifted gears” in recent months to prepare for an “aggressive introduction” of smart IoT applications when LTE CAT-1 and CAT-0 chipsets become available. CAT-1 and CAT-0 are lower speed/lower power versions of the LTE standard that expand the addressable market for carriers and chip makers, enabling targeted IoT features, extended battery life and a lower cost entry point for LTE connectivity, said Altair Wednesday.

The Digital Advertising Alliance released AppChoices and a consumer choice page for the mobile Web -- new tools for consumers to provide ad transparency to those not using desktop browsers, DAA said in a Wednesday news release. The change adapts consumer-friendly, independently enforceable privacy controls to the fast-growing mobile medium, it said. The apps will let consumers choose between individually named companies or all companies at once. It gives the user access to control mechanisms for mobile browsers and in-mobile apps. AppChoices is available as a free download from the Amazon Store, Apple App Store and Google Play, DAA said. "These new tools for transparency and choice will lead to greater trust and engagement between brands and consumers no matter which screen is being used to interact," said DAA General Counsel Stu Ingis.

Civis Analytics and Discovery Communications are forming a partnership to explore the implications of big data and predictive analytics to optimize performance in the current data-driven culture, Discovery said Wednesday in a news release. The partnership will focus on issues including predictive targeting and data infrastructure to ratings forecasting and marketing spending optimization using the Civis Media Optimizer platform, it said.

CEA’s index of consumer expectations, which measures consumer outlook about the U.S. economy as a whole, increased 3.3 points from January to reach 181.2, the association said Tuesday. This month’s index also is 13.6 points higher than that of February 2014, reaching its highest February level since CEA launched the index eight years ago, it said. “U.S. economic growth is poised to sustain a run of above-trend growth over the next few quarters,” said Shawn DuBravac, CEA chief economist. “Desirable financial conditions continue to develop with improved household net worth, strengthening income and consumer spending growth. Employment gains are also adding to the jump in consumer confidence.” CEA’s separate index of consumer technology expectations, which measures consumer intentions on tech spending, jumped 6 points in February from January to reach 94.9, CEA said. This month’s index is 10.7 points higher than in February 2014, also setting a record high for the month, it said. “While consumer sentiment is prone to seasonal variation during this time of the year, the February 2015 levels are extremely strong,” DuBravac said. Ultra HD TVs are among the “key tech categories” that continue to show “better-than-expected strength,” he said.

Windstream said it’s now offering managed Wi-Fi services to E-Rate-eligible public schools and libraries. The company said it created the E-rate-specific service “for those taking advantage” of expanded program funding included in the FCC E-rate modernization order. The commission adopted the order Dec. 11 (see 1412110049). The E-rate service “creates a secure and reliable network for K-12 schools and libraries as they adapt to the changing technology needs of today’s students,” said Windstream Enterprise Chief Marketing Officer Joseph Harding in a Monday news release. “Our expert E-Rate team has been in place since the program’s inception in 1997, helping our customers maximize funding and better understand the overall process.” Schools and libraries that want to get E-rate funding for the Windstream service need to file FCC Form 470 applications by Thursday and file Form 471 by March 26, Windstream said.

Blog writer Jessica Bennett alleges violations of California privacy laws and of federal wiretap statutes, in a complaint against Lenovo for installing Superfish software on a Lenovo Yoga 2 convertible laptop she bought late in 2014. The complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Diego, seeks class-action status and unspecified statutory damages against Lenovo and Superfish, which also was named as a defendant. Lenovo shipped products that included Superfish software between September and December, but the software has been disabled since January, the company said in a statement last week (see 1502190046). Superfish lets consumers view more advertisements, but some privacy advocates consider the software a security threat. Soon after buying the Lenovo product, Bennett "was writing a blog post for a client when she noticed spam advertisements involving scantily clad women appearing on her client’s website," the complaint said. "A few hours later, Plaintiff was doing research for a different client when she saw the same block of advertisements intruding on a different, very well known site. It was then that Plaintiff knew that her computer was infected with Spyware." Lenovo didn't comment.

Lenovo shipped tablets that included Superfish software between September and December, but the software has been disabled since January, Lenovo said in a news release Thursday. Superfish lets consumers view more advertisements, but some privacy advocates consider the software a security threat. Superfish “tampers with Windows' cryptographic security to perform man-in-the-middle attacks against the user's browsing,” an Electronic Frontier Foundation blog post said Thursday. “This is done in order to inject advertising into secure HTTPS pages, a feature most users don't want implemented in the most insecure possible way,” it said. “Superfish technology is purely based on contextual/image and not behavioral. It does not profile nor monitor user behavior,” Lenovo said. “It does not record user information. It does not know who the user is. Users are not tracked nor re-targeted. Every session is independent.” Lenovo said it won’t use the software again.

ICANN’s accountability proposal process started after the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition process, but the latter is making “considerable progress,” NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said in a blog post Thursday, referring to ICANN 52 in Singapore last week (see 1502180034). Strickling said it’s “important” the IANA transition and ICANN accountability work streams “remain in sync.” NTIA will “only consider a coordinated and complete transition plan,” he said. It’s “so important that we get this transition right,” Strickling said. “If it doesn’t take place, we will embolden authoritarian regimes to seek greater government control of the Internet or to threaten to fragment the Internet, which would result in a global patchwork of regulations and rules that stifle the free flow of information.”

The Telecommunications Industry Association sees the cybersecurity information sharing executive order that President Barack Obama signed last week (see 1502130048) as helping industry, TIA CEO Scott Belcher said. It will “enable the voluntary sharing of real-time bi-directional cybersecurity information amongst and between key government and industry partners (and their suppliers),” Belcher said in a written statement Tuesday. It "moves towards an improved ability for businesses to have more access to government information on threats and more open channels for greater information sharing between companies,” Belcher said. Congress must “provide adequate liability protections” and ensure that “an information-sharing regime appropriately addresses privacy and civil liberties concerns,” he said. “Information sharing should not be viewed as the end game,” but rather as a “tool to achieve timely, reliable, and actionable situational awareness through information sharing, analysis, and collaboration,” Belcher said. “It is important for the White House, Congress and other stakeholders to also work together towards other important improvements, such as cybersecurity R&D, workforce training and education, and public awareness.”