The US Department of Justice has announced an antitrust review of how online platforms achieved market power, and whether they are reducing competition, stifling innovation and harming consumers. While the Justice Department hasn’t named specific companies, it’s targeting tech giants including Apple, Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook, according to The Wall Street Journal. Assistant Attorney General Makan …
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Equifax is reportedly close to reaching a $700 million settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission and other government agencies over its massive data breach in 2017. The money would also go towards resolving a consumer class-action lawsuit against the company, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday afternoon. The Equifax data breach allowed hackers to steal the personal information of …
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Google has reportedly reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission over alleged violations of children’s data privacy laws on YouTube. The settlement comes after an FTC investigation over whether the tech giant sufficiently protected the data of children using the platform, according to a Friday report from The Washington Post citing two people familiar with the matter. …
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Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has sent letters asking Facebook, Google and Twitter how they plan to deal with deepfakes ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Schiff’s concerns follow the disinformation campaigns that spread across social media during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a statement released Monday. Deepfakes are fake videos or audio recordings that make people …
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Oakland, California, has has become third city to ban the municipal use of facial recognition technology. Late Tuesday night, the Oakland City Council approved the ordinance, which requires a second and final vote that’s scheduled for Sept. 17. Oakland neighbor San Francisco in May became the first city to ban its police officers from using facial recognition technology, citing a breach of …
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A day after the Trump administration announced plans to investigate whether France’s planned digital tax amounts to unfair trade practices by discriminating against US companies, the French government has passed the laws. On July 11, the Senate passed the bill creating a 3% tax on big tech companies providing services to French users. It could affect US giants Apple, Facebook, …
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US companies will be able to sell equipment to Huawei, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross confirmed Tuesday, but only after they get licenses and when there’s no threat to national security. The declaration by Ross followed President Donald Trump’s promise last month to ease restrictions on the embattled Chinese telecom as he tried to revive trade talks. “Huawei itself remains on …
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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has proposed another set of robocall rules, this time to ban malicious calls that spoof caller IDs in text messages and international calls. The FCC will vote on the anti-spoofing rules on Aug. 1, and they already have the support of more than 40 state attorneys general, Pai said Monday. These new rules would …
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Amazon can’t turn a blind eye to third-party product defects anymore, a US court has ruled. After a plaintiff alleged that a dog collar brought from an outside vendor on the site recoiled and caused permanent vision loss to a Pennsylvania woman, the US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit deemed Amazon liable. The ruling, filed on July 3, …
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Wireless association CTIA has failed again to get the city of Berkeley, California, to stop warning people that using a cellphone could expose them to radiation. As part of the long-running debate over health concerns in using mobile phones, Berkeley’s “Right to Know” ordinance, which came into effect in 2016, was upheld by a court Tuesday. Berkeley had been enforcing …
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