Websites, privacy advocates and tech companies participated Tuesday in a “day of activism in opposition to” the NSA’s “mass spying regime,” according to an event release (http://bit.ly/1iIWEdk). To coincide with “The Day We Fight Back,” Google Vice President-Public Policy Susan Molinari released a blog post calling for changes to government surveillance laws (http://bit.ly/1bJfCLT). Google urged Congress to pass the USA Freedom Act, which would put an end to the government’s bulk collection of telephone metadata. “But there’s more that can be done as we consider appropriate reforms to government surveillance laws,” Molinari said. “Congress should update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to require governmental entities to obtain a warrant before they can compel online companies to disclose the content of users’ communications.” Molinari pointed to Senate legislation from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and committee member Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and House legislation from Reps. Tom Graves, R-Ga., and Jared Polis, D-Colo., that would accomplish this goal. The Center for Democracy & Technology backed similar reforms in a Tuesday blog post from CDT Fellow on Privacy, Surveillance and Security Jake Laperruque (http://bit.ly/1fe9e00). CDT also urged opposition to the FISA Improvements Act, sponsored by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., which would “codify existing surveillance practices into law,” Laperruque said.

The Internet Association warned of “threats to Internet freedom” in the form of “governments seeking to regulate the Internet or gatekeepers desiring to control access to the Internet,” an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1faq93C). In a meeting Wednesday with FCC Acting General Counsel Jonathan Sallet, the association said Verizon’s recent challenge to the FCC’s net neutrality rules “underscores” its point. “The Internet Association supports enforceable rules that preclude Internet access providers from using their gatekeeper positions to block or degrade access to content,” it said. “Transparency rules” should require ISPs to provide information on their network management practices, it said. Though many sections of the FCC’s net neutrality rules were overturned, the transparency rules were upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Also last week, Dish Network spoke with agency officials about the “possible need for rules applicable to broadband access providers who choose to hold themselves out as common carriers or in fact do so,” an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1faqu6q). “These rules can complement any rules that the Commission may consider promulgating under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act ... for broadband access providers that do not in fact hold themselves out as common carriers,” Dish said.

Yelp joined the Internet Association, said an IA news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1dsYOZb). Yelp’s “advocating for issues like anti-SLAPP and protecting free speech online” will contribute to the group’s mission, said Michael Beckerman, IA president, referring to strategic lawsuits against public participation. Yelp hired Laurent Crenshaw, former legislative director for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., as its first lobbyist in the fall and filed a statement of PAC organization with the Federal Election Commission in December.

Twitter Q4 revenue more than doubled to $243 million, from the year-ago quarter, said the company in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1fIpRoe). The net loss for Q4 was $511 million, compared to a $8.7 million loss in Q4 of 2012, it said. Monthly active users averaged 241 million, a 30 percent increase. Advertising revenue per thousand “timeline” views was $1.49 in Q4, a 76 percent increase, said the company. The stock closed down 24 percent to $50.03 Thursday.

Amazon Studios announced Thursday 10 new pilot shows available on Prime Instant Video in the U.S. and LOVEFiLM in the U.K. Amazon will use viewer feedback as one factor in deciding which series move on to full-season production for exclusive viewing by Amazon Prime members, it said. Drama pilots include hourlong shows from creators Chris Carter (The X-Files), Eric Overmyer (The Wire, Treme) and Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch). Half-hour comedy pilots were created by writer and producer Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom), actor and musician Jason Schwartzman (Saving Mr. Banks), writer and director Alex Timbers, filmmaker Paul Weitz, writer Jill Soloway (Six Feet Under) and executive producers Ice Cube and Michael Strahan, Amazon said. Kids shows on the pilot list come from creators Duane Capizzi (Transformers Prime), Josh Selig (Wonder Pets), Angela Santomero (Blue’s Clues), Arland DiGirolamo (Sketchy) and Geoff Barbanell (Kickin’ It), it said. With previous pilots, Amazon customers submitted “thousands” of reviews within the first few days of launch, and more than 80 percent of reviews received 4 and 5 stars, said Roy Price, director-Amazon Studios.

The FCC and Chairman Tom Wheeler need to do nothing immediately in the wake of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s Jan. 14 decision rejecting the agency’s 2010 net neutrality rules, said Institute for Policy Innovation President Tom Giovanetti Thursday in a blog post. “Putting innovation at risk should be reason enough to stay the FCC’s hand, but there’s a more basic reason why the FCC should forebear from setting network neutrality policy for the nation: The FCC was never charged with setting broad policy goals -- those come from Congress in the form of legislation, and there is no network neutrality directive from Congress,” Giovanetti said (http://bit.ly/NagG6e). “The FCC was designed to be an administrative and technical agency that manages public spectrum and distributes licenses. It was never intended to specialize in consumer protection."

Standard operational procedures (SOPs) for managing multinational cybercrises were finalized by European Union and European Free Trade Association countries, working with the European Network and Information Security Agency, ENISA said Wednesday. The SOPs give guidance on how to deal with major cyberincidents that could escalate into crises, it said. In particular, they stress that successful management of such incidents requires direct links to decisionmakers and political leaders, it said. The SOPs help increase understanding of the causes and impacts of multinational cyberevents and speed mitigation efforts, ENISA said. The combination of contact points, guidelines, workflows, templates, tools and good practices will give crisis managers the ability to use internationally shared technical and non-technical information to come up with integrated operational pictures and effective action plans, it said. The SOPs are a “handbook for predefined, commonly agreed upon and exercised operational contacts, procedures and processes,” said ENISA Executive Director Udo Helmbrecht.

Legislation allowing cross-border licensing of music for online uses won enthusiastic backing (640-18 votes) from the European Parliament Tuesday, and now moves to formal approval by EU governments. The directive on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses in the internal market (FAQ here: http://bit.ly/1nMP44F) is a “cornerstone for the digital single market,” said Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier during the European Parliament’s plenary debate. It will make it easier for smaller, innovative services to offer music-streaming services, he said. Parliament’s response to the European Commission-proposed measure was supported across party lines, said its author, Marielle Gallo, of the European People’s Party and France. The measure also sets EU-wide rules on collective management societies (CMOs), some of which have been accused of non-transparent accounting, embezzlement, failure to pay royalties within a reasonable time and other “unfortunate lacks in efficiency,” said Gallo and other Parliament members (MEPs). CMOs will now play a role in the single digital market by requiring online music providers and platforms to deal with only a limited number of rights organizations, Gallo said. Debate on the draft was “lively” but everyone from the U.K Conservative Party to Sweden’s Pirate Party agreed on it, she said. All MEPs who spoke at the plenary debate praised the Gallo report, and only a few raised concerns. One issue is that the legislation leaves it up to EU governments to decide whether large American music platforms and providers are covered, said MEP Helmut Scholz, of the Confederal Group of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left and Germany. If U.S. companies don’t have to follow the same rules as European firms, music services could end up being offshored, he said. The EC is taking additional steps to modernize European copyright, Barnier said. There’s an ongoing dialogue on “licensing Europe,” and the EC is making an in-depth study of EU copyright law. Its extensive consultation has sparked so much interest from all stakeholders that the comment period was extended to March 5, said Barnier. The outcome of the inquiry will feed into a potential revamp of EU copyright law, with a discussion paper possible in June, he said. The issue of modernizing copyright will be for the next European Parliament and commission to move forward, he said. The next commission may also delve into notice and take-down of pirated content, he said. Such content must be removed, but there must be a transparent, balanced procedure for doing so, he said. It’s a “sensitive subject matter” that has to do with fundamental rights, so it’s important that Parliament is on board, he said. Separately, the Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA) Tuesday urged the “whole music sector to speak up on copyright in Europe.” With four weeks to go on the EC consultation on copyright reform in the digital age, Europe must “reinforce creators’ fundamental freedoms, instead of seeking to unpick copyright as requested by powerful lobby groups,” IMPALA said. U.K. collecting society PRS for Music said it supported the principles and objectives of the directive all along, because it will deliver high standards for governance and transparency, along with a voluntary framework for aggregation of repertoire for online multi-territory licensing underpinned by agreed-upon standards. It said this will help CMOs “play a role in a more integrated, efficient and valuable single market in Europe.”

Sunday’s Denver-Seattle Super Bowl match wasn’t just the most watched linear TV show (CD Feb 4 p17), said the owner of the broadcast network that aired it. It also was the U.S.’s most-viewed live stream of a single sports event, with the 528,000 average viewers a minute spending an average of 47.8 minutes watching online, said 21st Century Fox’s Fox Sports. The peak audience was 1.1 million concurrent users, at 9:11 p.m. Eastern, during the third quarter, said the company in a news release Monday (http://foxs.pt/1enQXSR).

Facebook Monday disclosed more detailed data on national security requests it received from the government (http://bit.ly/1dYVxkt). “With last week’s announcement that the U.S. government has relaxed its limitations on what we are allowed to disclose, we are now permitted to provide important new information that we believe will help foster an informed public debate about the government’s efforts to keep the public safe,” said Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch in a blog post. The company received between zero and 999 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) content requests from January to June of 2013, the same range it had received in the six previous months. Those requests identified between 5,000 and 5,999 accounts during the first six months of 2013, up from the 4,000 to 4,999 accounts identified in those requests during the last six months of 2012. Facebook has also received between zero and 999 national security letters in both the first and last half of 2013, and the last half of 2012.