Internet display advertising increased by more than 32 percent in the first three quarters of 2013, compared with the same time period in 2012, said Nielsen in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1e2NlWl). TV had a 57.6 percent share of ad spending, compared with 4.5 percent for the Internet, it said. How TV and the Internet “can work together” is an “exciting development,” said Randall Beard, Nielsen’s global head of advertiser solutions, in the release.

Future 4K streams of Netflix content will be encoded at 15.6 Mbps, “well within reach of a significant minority of our members,” CEO Reed Hastings and Chief Financial Officer David Wells said Thursday in a quarterly letter to shareholders. “The reach of capable 20 Mbps broadband connections will continue to grow,” they said. However, “since the number of 4K displays sold in 2014 and the number of available hours of 4K content both will be relatively modest, the short-term impact of 4K is mainly on consumer perception of Netflix as a leader in Internet TV,” they said. Domestic U.S. growth at Netflix “is very strong,” and much of that can be credited “to the tailwind of Internet video growth in general,” they said. Hulu had three CEOs in 2013, “and yet grew paid subscribers an impressive 65 percent,” they said. “We think YouTube, Amazon Instant Video, iTunes video and BBC iPlayer are also growing fast.” And in the more “traditional” pay-TV sector, “there is lots of activity that may affect us on the margin,” they said. Within the pay-TV “ecosystem” looms some “potentially big shake ups,” including those that will be guided by the Supreme Court’s Aereo decision, they said. Depending on that decision, “Aereo will either have to pay for the broadcast content” like pay-TV operators, or pay-TV “will no longer be obliged to pay,” they said. “In contrast, we continue licensing and producing more exclusive content for our direct-to-consumer business, and are relatively unaffected by the big bundle questions.” Last April, Netflix introduced its four-concurrent-stream $11.99 a month option to begin its evaluation of “plan tiering,” the letter said. Since late 2013, it also has tested one- and three-stream “variants,” as well as SD/HD differentials “at various price points,” it said. “Eventually, we hope to be able to offer new members a selection of three simple options to fit everyone’s taste. If we do make pricing changes for new members, existing members would get generous grandfathering of their existing plans and prices, so there would be no material near-term revenue increase from moving to this potential broader set of options. We are in no rush to implement such new member plans and are still researching the best way to proceed.” Netflix finished 2013 with more than 44 million subscribers and expects to reach 48 million by the end of Q1 this year, the letter said.

Two-thirds of U.S. broadband households are interested in smart home service bundles including safety, security and management, said Parks Associates. Home management is the most appealing bundle combining safety alerts, remote home monitoring and remote thermostat management, Parks said. “Consumers, while interested in smart home services, are averse to long-term contracts, but there are other, alternate options for building revenues,” said Tom Kerber, Parks research director for home controls and energy. Consumers, for instance, are willing to let their service provider adjust their thermostat during peak hours to avoid monthly monitoring fees, he said. In-app purchasing and advertising also could be a source of incremental revenue for product manufacturers and service providers, Kerber said. According to a Q4 2013 survey of 2,500 households on energy conservation steps they had taken over the past year, 47 percent of respondents said they had switched to LED or CFL light bulbs, the third-most-cited activity behind turning off appliances when not in use (54 percent) and adjusting thermostats (48 percent). The trend showed an upswing in adoption of LED bulbs from 6 percent to 11 percent of households from Q4 2012 to Q4 2013, while CFL bulb adoption dropped from 54 to 50 percent for the period and incandescent usage slipped from 50 to 49 percent, it said. Only 5 percent of households had switched to a time-of-use electricity plan to reduce energy consumption, it said.

Europeans’ data security concerns “have reached the United States,” said EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding in a speech Sunday (http://bit.ly/1bd62Au). While pressing EU member states to stop “stalling” on enforcing the European Commission’s data security proposals -- which were passed by the European Parliament in October (CD Oct 22 p7) -- Reding praised President Barack Obama’s surveillance reform speech Friday (CD Jan 21 p1). The speech “shows that the awareness in the U.S. that there is a serious problem to tackle seems to go from diplomatic acknowledgement to concrete implementation,” she said. Reding oversaw the EU’s review of the U.S.-EU safe harbor agreement that called on the U.S. to strengthen its privacy protections if it wanted to maintain the agreement (CD Nov 29 p7). Sunday, Reding argued data security changes are “a building block of the digital single market,” she said: “A single set of rules in a crucial sector, consistently applied.” The U.S. and Europe need to ensure they share this set of rules, she said, and “data protection in Europe and the U.S. should be bolstered.” Reding also criticized Europe’s handling of investigations into Google’s privacy policies. “Google has been sanctioned in two countries, France and Spain, and is under investigation in another four, including Germany,” she said. But the fines have been “pocket money” to Google, she said: “Is it surprising to anyone that two whole years after the case emerged, it is still unclear whether Google will amend its privacy policy or not?"

Radionomy, a service for radio producers and broadcasters, acquired Winamp, a media player, and Shoutcast, an Internet radio platform, from AOL, said a Radionomy news release (http://bit.ly/1dCUhYh) Friday. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, it said.

A group of makers of consumer electronics and technology companies sought an FCC rulemaking on “opening the market for device competition in rendering programming and services” and on an Internet Protocol-based gateway between external and home networks. The AllVid Tech Company Alliance, which has sought for some time an FCC proceeding on an “AllVid” device, said it wants the agency to “recognize the importance of effectuating the mandate of Section 629” of the Telecom Act with “consumers having true choice” in accessing multichannel video programming distributor content. “It is not enough to point to proprietary technologies that work only for limited services and only with particular systems,” said the group that has included Google and Intel (CD Nov 19 p6). A lawyer for the group met with Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and aides, who heard that consumers shouldn’t “be limited to renting MVPD devices with little control or innovation in how they view MVPD video programming and services,” read a filing posted Friday in docket 97-80 (http://bit.ly/1dYZG8F).

Roughly half of U.S. broadband households own a programmable thermostat and 11 percent have a thermostat that can connect to the Internet, said research from Parks Associates. Roughly one in five U.S. broadband households has smart lighting or electronic door locks, Parks said, in an email promoting Parks’ Smart Energy Summit to be Feb. 17-19 in Austin, Texas. Keynotes at the smart energy conference will be by executives from Nest, which Google said Monday it was buying for $3.2 billion, Comcast’s Xfinity Home security service, Austin Energy and smart thermostat manufacturer ecobee. Parks said the summit will provide a forum to discuss growing consumer demand and business products for utilities, service providers, retailers and manufacturers.

Nearly 100,000 computers are equipped with software from the National Security Agency that allows the agency to do surveillance or launch cyberattacks, said a New York Times article (http://nyti.ms/1cpHGTM) Tuesday. Instead of Internet access, the NSA relies on a “covert channel of radio waves” that can be used by “tiny circuit boards and USB cards” hidden within the computers, said the article.

"Piecemeal commitment” to supporting U.S. research and development is harming “global competitiveness and, ultimately, costing U.S. tech companies and the country,” said a study (http://bit.ly/1dud8X9) released by TechAmerica and accounting firm Grant Thornton Wednesday, said TechAmerica in a statement. “The R&D tax credit is a catalyst for the creation and retention of higher-paying jobs and is imperative to the United States’ ability to remain front and center in technological and other advances,” said Mel Schwarz, partner in Grant Thornton’s Washington national tax office, in the release. Of the 23 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that use tax incentives to encourage research and development by businesses, the U.S. ranks 15th, said the release. “We created the R&D tax credit as a method to encourage forward thinking investment in the United States and now other countries are using our own innovation to beat us,” said Shawn Osborne, TechAmerica board chairman, in the release.

FTC commissioners Julie Brill, a Democrat, and Maureen Ohlhausen, a Republican, will meet with the House Privacy Working Group Tuesday, an agency spokesman confirmed. The House Privacy Working Group was formed in August and is chaired by Reps. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Peter Welch, D-Vt. (CD Oct 3 p10). Ohlhausen and Brill often focus their public speeches on various aspects of privacy. Brill has emphasized her “Reclaim Your Name” initiative, which encourages data brokers to give consumers the opportunity to view and correct data collected about them -- or opt out of data collection altogether (CD Dec 20 p6). Ohlhausen has repeatedly discussed her view of how government and the FTC should handle the privacy issues posed by the growing Internet of Things (CD Jan 9 p3). At Tuesday’s meeting, Ohlhausen will discuss the FTC’s statutory authority on privacy, as well as the commission’s enforcement history with privacy, said her aide. The aide said Ohlhausen will also discuss the data security legislation she supports. The meeting’s agenda will include the following questions, said a Blackburn spokesman: “What role does the FTC play when it comes to protecting individual’s privacy?”; “What are the main privacy issues currently being addressed by the FTC?”; “Are there any gaps in the FTC’s authority that Congress needs to review?”; and “Does the FTC foresee any issues coming down the pipeline that Congress should be aware of?”