Google will have to face the bulk of a multistate antitrust lawsuit that accuses the tech giant of reaching an illegal deal with online ad rival Facebook. The lawsuit, filed in 2020 by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and 16 states or territories, alleges that Google entered into a secret agreement, codenamed Jedi Blue, with Facebook in …
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Disney Plus’ Cheaper Tier With Ads Set to Guard Its Family
Disney Plus cheaper, ad-supported tier is being designed to safeguard the service’s family-friendly image. The company said Tuesday that the service won’t run any advertising related to politics or alcohol and will keep ads out of sight of preschoolers when it launches in the US late this year. At the tier’s launch, profiles sets up for preschool-age viewers won’t have any …
Read More »Stop iPhone Apps From Tracking You With This Settings Change
Have you ever had that creepy experience where a brief moment of online shoe shopping turns into weeks of being followed around by ads for the same pair of shoes on every site you visit? If so, your iPhone has a feature to help boost your online privacy and give you the option to disable ad tracking within the apps …
Read More »Twitter Settings Changes That’ll Help Keep Your Data Private
It’s official: Billionaire Elon Musk and Twitter have reached a deal. Since the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has already floated ideas about potential changes, you may be moved to clean up your profile by deleting your old tweets or untagging yourself from past conversations. You may even consider quitting the social media service entirely. But before you delete (or archive) …
Read More »Android to Introduce Privacy Sandbox to Reduce Ad Tracking of Users
A Privacy Sandbox will be coming to Android devices, Google said Wednesday. The effort is designed to offer more privacy protection by limiting the user data shared with third parties for advertising. This follows Apple’s move last year that requires apps to ask for your permission before tracking your activity across apps and the web. That move was fought by some companies …
Read More »Chrome tries new ad
Google unveiled on Tuesday a new technology called Topics that’s designed to protect user privacy without putting an end to web advertising. The approach, which Google plans to start testing in coming weeks, replaces an earlier project that riled up privacy advocates. The Topics interface uses software built into Google’s Chrome browser to monitor your browsing behavior and assemble a list …
Read More »Everything you need to know about VPN trackers
Public concern over web tracking is higher than ever. That concern has been mounting for well over a decade, but we’re not much better off now than we were then — pervasive tracking and rampant data collection is still the lay of the land all these years later. Websites and apps deploy trackers that follow us all over the internet …
Read More »Meta’s Giphy acquisition expected to be blocked by regulators, report says
The UK Competition and Markets Authority is expected to block Meta’s $315 million acquisition of Giphy in the near future, the Financial Times reported Monday. Meta, previously known as Facebook, moved to buy the online GIF platform in May 2020. However, the UK regulator expressed concern with the deal and provisionally ruled in August that Meta should be forced to sell Giphy. The …
Read More »Zoom is testing ads on its free plan
People using Zoom’s free basic service to video chat with family or co-workers may start seeing ads once their meeting has ended. Zoom is launching a pilot advertising program that will show ads on “the browser page users see once they end their meeting,” Janine Pelosi, the company’s chief marketing officer, said Monday in a blog post. People using the …
Read More »Google’s new Pixel 5A ad spoofs Apple with humorous ode to the headphone jack
Google has shared a video promoting its new Pixel 5A smartphone that parodies Apple while also announcing the phone has a headphone jack — a feature most phones on the market now lack. The Google video starts with a picture of a circle and a Jony Ive-alike announcer saying: “Perfect. Simple. Some might say simply perfect.” It’s only 40 seconds …
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