It’s time for browser startup Brave to see if this whole privacy-respecting ads business is really going to pay off. The startup, co-founded by former Firefox leader and Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich, got its start by releasing a browser in 2016 that blocks ads by default — a design the company’s studies say dramatically …
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Facebook’s long list of scandals has only grown longer this year. Those troubles finally hit the social network where it matters: earnings. The social network said Wednesday it’s set aside $3 billion to cover possible expenses for a possible fine related to an ongoing investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission. The yet-unannounced FTC fine, which Facebook said could be …
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It’s some of the most sensitive medical information a person could have. Records for potentially tens of thousands of patients seeking treatment at several addiction rehabilitation centers were exposed in an unsecured online database, an independent researcher revealed Friday. The 4.91 million records included patients’ names, as well as details of the treatments they received, according to Justin Paine, the …
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Porn sites serving UK users will soon be required to confirm the age of visitors before letting them access content, the British government said Wednesday. As of July 15, commercial providers of pornography will have to ensure that only those over the age of 18 are able to access adult content, to protect minors. It’ll be up to individual sites and services …
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It appears the flood of privacy and fake news scandals in recent years hasn’t deterred Americans from using social media. The percent of people who say they use social media platforms has remained relatively consistent compared with 2018, according to a Pew survey published Wednesday. Facebook is still one of the most popular social media platforms among US adults, with …
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Back in 1995, printing company Quad/Graphics didn’t let its employees in Saratoga, New York, access the internet. But that didn’t stop the workers from figuring out a way to get online during business hours. The employees dialed long distance — that was a thing back then — to a free dial-up internet service called Libraries Without Walls that was offered …
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Thinking about deepfakes tends to lead to philosophical head-scratchers. Here’s one: Should you worry about your face being grafted into hard-core pornography if deepfakes are bent on sabotaging global power? Deepfakes are video forgeries that make people appear to be doing or saying things they never did. Similar to the way Photoshop made doctoring images a breeze, deepfake software has …
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Tired of getting added to random WhatsApp groups from strangers? Good news. WhatsApp’s latest changes give you control over groups you engage with on the messaging app. Instead of being added to a group without your consent, the app now lets you decide who can add you to a group, WhatsApp said in a blog post Wednesday. Now you can …
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Border control officers violated an Apple employee’s rights as a US citizen when they detained him for an hour and demanded that he unlock his iPhone and Mac for their scrutiny, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a civil complaint filed Tuesday. Andreas Gal, who founded an AI startup Apple acquired after stepping down as CTO of Mozilla, flew back to …
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Tim Berners-Lee, who three decades ago invented the World Wide Web, has a utopian vision despite all the online dystopia. He’s backing open-source technology called Solid — and a startup called Inrupt that hopes to commercialize it — that’s designed to pry your data out of the hands of those who’d strip-mine it for targeted ads and political manipulation schemes. …
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