The ad-blocking Brave web browser startup has landed two blows on Google: It dumped the search engine for rival Qwant in France and Germany, and it lodged a formal complaint in Europe against Google’s ad privacy practices. Brave picked Qwant, which bills itself as “the search engine that respects your privacy,” as part of its …
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Facebook suspended 400 and banned one of the thousands of apps it’s investigated since the Cambridge Analytica data sharing scandal began in March, the company said Thursday. The company issued a full ban to myPersonality, one of the apps at the center of the scandal, on Wednesday after it didn’t agree to a request for audit. The social network suspended the …
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The US government has reportedly asked Facebook to help wiretap its Messenger chat app to listen to a suspect’s conversations in a criminal investigation, according to a report Friday by Reuters. That would involve breaking the encryption on the app, which is used by more than a billion people a month. The probe is related to the MS-13 gang in …
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Has the rise of fake news plunged democracy into crisis? Some UK politicians believe it has. Britain should have more powers to regulate and scrutinize the world’s largest tech companies, says a report published Sunday by Parliament’s committee investigating fake news. The report paints a picture in which people’s data is being manipulated and voters are being targeted without their …
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Expect another black eye for Facebook come Sunday. The world’s largest social network has been “disingenuous” with UK lawmakers investigating fake news and Russian propaganda on social media platforms, says a report set for release that day, according to a Saturday story from The New York Times. Prepared by a UK Parliament committee, with help from the US Senate’s Intelligence …
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The former chief executive of Cambridge Analytica Alexander Nix was accused on Wednesday of taking $8 million from the company ahead of its collapse. Investors backing a rebrand of the data consultancy firm are currently in a stand-off with Nix while trying to persuade him to return the money, according to the Financial Times. Nix reportedly took the money shortly …
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Former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix told British politicians on Wednesday that he’d been the victim of entrapment and that the media had misrepresented the work of his company. A Channel 4 documentary that aired in March showed Nix offering to entrap politicians in compromising positions in order to influence the outcome of elections. He even suggested he had previously …
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WhatsApp founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton reportedly left $1.3 billion behind by leaving Facebook. According to The Wall Street Journal, both men chose to depart after a number of long-standing disputes. The major divide was over monetizing the messaging app, which has 1.5 billion users. Koum and Acton had been resistant to adopting Facebook’s widely lucrative targeted advertising model, …
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Mark Zuckerberg and British MP Damian Collins have been stuck in a tug of war for two months now, and neither wants to give in. Collins, a Conservative member of Parliament representing Folkestone and Hythe since 2010, wants the Facebook CEO to answer questions on the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Zuckerberg? Well, he’s not so keen. Collins chairs Parliament’s Digital, …
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Mark Zuckerberg’s hearing at the European Parliament on Tuesday will be livestreamed for all the world to see, the Parliament’s president, Antonio Tajani, said in a tweet on Monday. The Facebook CEO last week agreed to talk with European lawmakers about potential impact of his mammoth social network on elections in Europe, as well as about personal data protection. The …
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