The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative seeks comment by Oct. 28 to help prepare its annual National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, including on telecom issues, USTR said in Wednesday's Federal Register. The report spells out the “most important” foreign trade barriers affecting U.S. goods trade, foreign direct investment and intellectual property rights protections. USTR aims to use the report to dismantle those barriers in future trade negotiations, said the agency. The office said it will review trade deals on U.S. telecom products and services to see if any trade laws, policies or practices with countries with which America has trade or telecom deals deny this country's firms "mutually advantageous market opportunities for telecommunications products and services." Comment via www.regulations.gov, docket number USTR 2015-0014. USTR released the last National Trade Estimate Report in March.

FTC Commissioner Julie Brill wants U.S. policy to embrace more of a privacy rights philosophy akin to Europe's, she said at a Technology Policy Institute conference in Aspen, Colorado, this week. Europe sees privacy as a “fundamental right,” not just connected with protection from the government, as the U.S.’s Fourth Amendment speaks to, she said. The U.S. has fundamentally a “harm-based approach” to privacy enforcement, she said. “Frankly, I would like to see more emphasis on the rights side,” Brill said. “There’s more that we can do, whether it’s enacting a consumer privacy bill of rights or whether it’s implementing some more protections around, for instance, data brokers or student privacy.” Andrea Glorioso, counselor for the digital economy at the delegation of the EU to the U.S., is “not convinced” of such “deep-rooted differences” between the U.S. and Europe and cited a bigger gap between them and other “large” countries. “It’s very important that we keep the channels of communication open,” he said. Brill agreed that there is more in common ultimately and said “openings” exist across the Atlantic. “I see a ... new European Commission, that is trying to deal with some legacy issues, particularly around safe harbor, and they’re working very hard to get over the end line,” she said, anticipating there are consumer protection issues where the EU can cooperate with U.S. down the road. Brill cited the governments of countries in Europe, including in Germany, where there’s “an effort to really gain much more of a nuanced perspective when it comes to things like the Internet of Things, when it comes to big data, when it comes to privacy.” Google Public Policy Director Adam Kovacevich “would suggest there is a global playbook” on these issues emerging, he said on the same panel. But there is “global creep of ideas that are not in that playbook” in areas such as Latin America and Asia Pacific, he said. “'Right to be forgotten’ I think we’d put in that category,” he said, referring to discussion of it within Mexico and worries of the possibility there that it could be “abused by elites trying to withhold information from ordinary citizens.” Brill cited encouraging signs on data interoperability. “The Europeans really do want to solve the safe harbor problem,” she said, citing other interoperability mechanisms under development. “I’m not sure I’ll see the trans-Atlantic interoperable mechanism converging with the APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Corp.] one, the one governing the Asian and Pacific economic areas. I think they’ll be different but I do think there will be flows that will be able to occur as a result of both mechanisms. And binding corporate rules may actually end up being one of the lynchpins between the two.”

The Chinese government has “increasingly pursued policies” to obstruct U.S. industry access to the Chinese information and communications technology (ICT) sector over the past nine months, said 19 associations in a recent letter to President Barack Obama. BSA | The Software Alliance, CEA, Computer & Communications Industry Association, Information Technology Industry Council, Semiconductor Industry Association, Telecommunications Industry Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others urged Obama to pressure Chinese President Xi Jinping to ease those barriers during a bilateral September summit in Washington. Chinese national security policy, as well as other motivations, have led to “a new program to acquire or indigenize U.S. semiconductor technology,” “new restrictions on cross-border data flows” and several other restrictive measures, said the Aug. 11 letter. “The United States and China should reaffirm their commitment to open markets, particularly in the ICT sector, recognizing the significant benefits that both countries enjoy from integration into global ICT industry value chains.” The groups want other ways to strengthen cooperation among the two countries. The letter said China adopted the restrictive measures since Jinping's last visit to Washington in November 2014.

Alibaba agreed to pay $4.6 billion to buy 19.99 percent of Suning, one of the largest consumer electronics chains in China, the two companies said in a news release. The “alliance brings forth a new commerce model that fully integrates online and offline” sales, they said Monday. Alibaba and Suning “will be able to provide holistic and more convenient shopping experiences, as well as superior customer service to users looking to purchase online and through mobile devices,” they said. The deal includes plans for Suning to open a “flagship store” for CE goods and home appliances on Alibaba’s Tmall.com platform, they said.

The smartphone overtook the laptop in the U.K. as the most popular device for getting Internet access, regulator Ofcom said in a report. Two-thirds of British consumers own a smartphone, using it on average for nearly two hours a day to browse the Internet, access social media and bank and shop online, it said. Ofcom found that a third of Internet users canvassed see their smartphone as the most important device for going online, compared with 30 percent who are sticking with their laptop. The rise in smartphones for Internet use “marks a clear shift” since 2014, when 22 percent turned to their phones first, and 40 percent preferred laptops, it said. “Smartphones have become the hub of our daily lives,” and are now owned by two-thirds of U.K. adults, up from 39 percent three years ago, it said. Though 90 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds own a smartphone, ownership since 2012 also has doubled to 50 percent among those ages 55-64, it said. “The surge is being driven by the increasing take-up of 4G mobile broadband, providing faster online access.”

Videotron is Canada’s first telecom provider to release an Ultra HD set-top box across its entire service area, the company said in a Tuesday announcement. Videotron plans to launch an Ultra HD content service by the end of the summer, it said. Videotron hopes its move into Ultra HD will serve as a “catalyst” for the development of an Ultra HD “ecosystem” in Canada “and spur all the players in the distribution chain to follow suit, from the movie studios and post-production facilities to the broadcasters," it said.

Audi, BMW and Daimler agreed to acquire Nokia's mapping and location services business "Here," the automakers said in a joint announcement. Financial terms weren't disclosed, but the deal is expected to close in Q1 2016, they said. Here is the mapping system used on Nokia and Windows smartphones. Its big plus is the ability to pre-load maps before traveling and using them at the destination without the need for a wireless connection. The companies noted that mapping services will be key in the move toward self-driving vehicles.

The European Commission approved Nokia's pending acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, a Nokia news release said Friday. The transaction has been cleared by antitrust review boards in several countries, including Brazil, Canada, Colombia and Russia, and the antitrust review period in the U.S. has expired, it said. Nokia said it expects to close the deal in the first half of 2016.

World Trade Organization members cemented an agreement to expand the Information Technology Agreement, allowing implementation planning to begin, the WTO said in a news release Friday. The agreement, which was expected (see 1507200036), calls for the majority of tariffs to be eliminated on a number of products, including innovative semiconductors, within three years, the WTO said. The reductions are to begin in 2016, it said. The agreement also contains a commitment to keep the list of products covered under review to determine whether further expansion may be needed due to future technological developments, the WTO said: "By the end of October 2015, each of the participating members will submit to the other participants a draft schedule which spells out how the terms of the agreement would be met. Participants will spend the coming months preparing and verifying these schedules." The WTO hopes to finish the technical work in time for the Nairobi Ministerial Conference in December, it said. Tech groups continued backing ITA expansion, in statements Friday. The revised agreement eliminates tariffs on about $1 trillion in annual global sales of tech products, more than $100 billion worth of which are from U.S. companies, the Information Technology Industry Council said. The historic pact "is game changing for the technology sector," CEO Dean Garfield said. The group said ITA will phase out more than 200 tariffs on technology products, including GPS devices, videogame consoles and software. Forty-nine of 54 participating countries have signed the agreement and the other nations likely will soon, the Telecommunications Industry Association said. It's "a major victory for the tech sector," TIA CEO Scott Belcher said.

The Center for Democracy & Technology and Electronic Frontier Foundation were two of a coalition of pro-open-Internet groups that urged the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) earlier this week to reform the U.S. proposal for implementing changes to the multinational Wassenaar Arrangement on export controls related to cybersecurity and surveillance technology. CDT, EFF and the other groups jointly said that BIS should change the Wassenaar implementation proposal to clearly address human rights issues and to narrow what they view as overly broad rules that they believe could have a chilling effect on legitimate security research. More narrowly tailored rules would apply only to “transfers to government end users or for military or law enforcement purposes,” the groups said. The Wassenaar proposal should also provide “clear 'Know Your Customer' guidance,” the groups said. Cisco, BSA/The Software Alliance and Google have urged further revisions to the proposal.