The new Libra digital currency hasn’t even launched yet, but barely two months after the Facebook Inc.-led association announced its plans, it’s already facing a number of stumbling blocks. In the latest example of rising regulatory scrutiny into Mark Zuckerberg’s cryptocurrency project, Bloomberg reported that the European Union’s antitrust watchdog is investigating Libra, raising questions about the prospects of success for the digital coin.
Read the article: Bloomberg
To satisfy regulators, YouTube officials are finalizing plans to end “targeted” advertisements on videos kids are likely to watch, according to three people familiar with the discussion. The move could immediately dent ad sales for the video giant -- though not nearly as much as other proposals on the table.
Read the article: Bloomberg
Facebook Inc. said it was tweaking its policies to allow users to see and control the data that other websites and apps share with the social network to improve targeted advertising. The company defines the data, for example when a clothing website shares information with Facebook on browsing activity of a user, as “Off-Facebook Activity”.
Read the article: Reuters
Sonoma Valley Hospital’s website was hacked earlier this month, forcing the change of its URL and email addresses, hospital officials announced. The hospital’s domain svh.com was “maliciously acquired,” said Celia Kruse de la Rosa, the hospital’s communications director.
Read the article: Sonoma Index-Tribune
An adult content-sharing website exposed user data and left them vulnerable to a range of attacks, researchers say. vpnMentor's research team, led by cybersecurity professionals Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, said that Luscious was subject to a data breach that gave the team access to 1.195 million user accounts.
Read the article: ZDNet
Google denied accusations made on Monday by President Donald Trump that the search giant "manipulated" millions of voters against him in the 2016 election. Google said Trump seemed to be referring to an old report claiming to prove that it generated at least 2.6 million votes for Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton, but said the report has been "debunked since it was made."
Read the article: CNET
A group of states is preparing to move forward with a joint antitrust investigation of big technology companies, according to people familiar with the situation, adding another layer of scrutiny to an industry already under a federal spotlight. The effort involving state attorneys general is expected to be formally launched as soon as next month, the people said.
Read the article: The Wall Street Journal
Major tech firms and U.S. tech industry groups said that France’s new digital services tax undermines the global tax regime and multilateral efforts to reform it. Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. and major trade associations testified against the tax at a hearing before the U.S. Trade Representative’s office and other government officials.
Read the article: Reuters
Apple has said upcoming changes to its iPhone operating system will better protect the privacy of users. But a group of app developers recently told Apple some of those changes will hurt their businesses, while accusing the company of anti-competitive behavior in the way it subjects its own software to the new rules.
Read the article: The Information
YouTube is going after an alleged copyright troll using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) provisions, alleging that Christopher Brady used false copyright strikes to extort YouTube creators, harming the company in the process. Now, YouTube is suing Brady, using the DMCA’s provisions against fraudulent takedown claims, seeking compensatory damages and an injunction against future fraudulent claims.
Read the article: The Verge
Twitter and Facebook have suspended numerous accounts that they say are tied to a Chinese disinformation campaign against pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. Twitter said the disinformation campaign was designed to “sow political discord in Hong Kong, including undermining the legitimacy and political protest movement on the ground.”
Read the article: CNBC
Some cryptocurrency investors are receiving a new round of letters from the Internal Revenue Service telling them that their federal tax returns don’t match the information received from virtual currency exchanges, a new front in the agency’s burgeoning scrutiny of the industry. The letters acknowledge that trading exchanges, not the taxpayers, may have made the errors.
Read the article: Bloomberg
Twenty-three local Texas governments have been infected with ransomware in what Texas officials have described as a coordinated attack. The attack took place on August 16, when several smaller local Texas governments reported problems with accessing their data to the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR).
Read the article: ZDNet
Facebook did not provide users with enough warning that their Facebook accounts could be compromised and their data stolen due to security flaws in its sign-on system, a new lawsuit has said. Facebook is being sued in the U.S. following last year's attack, which left around 29 million user accounts open to hackers.
Read the article: TechRadar
The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to extend a reprieve given to Huawei Technologies that permits the Chinese firm to buy supplies from U.S. companies so that it can service existing customers, two sources familiar with the situation said. The “temporary general license” will be extended for Huawei for 90 days, the sources said.
Read the article: Reuters
The IRS wrongly calculated taxes Amazon.com Inc. owed based on a cost-sharing arrangement that shifted assets from the U.S. to subsidiaries in Europe, a federal appeals court ruled Aug. 16. The IRS adjusted Amazon’s taxable income by $2.2 billion for 2005 and 2006, arguing the company undercharged for transferred assets.
Read the article: Bloomberg
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke released a sweeping gun violence prevention plan, proposing a set of changes that he said could "connect the dots" between online radicalization and real-world violence. O'Rourke's proposal makes him the first presidential candidate to officially lay out plans to hold tech companies accountable for the proliferation of hate speech on their platforms.
Read the article: The Hill
Ireland’s data privacy regulator is close to concluding its first probe into a multinational company under the EU’s new privacy laws, likely to involve Facebook’s WhatsApp subsidiary, although a formal decision could take months. The Irish Independent newspaper quoted Ireland’s Data Protection Commission as saying that her office’s first major GDPR decision relating to a multinational firm looked set to be one of two probes it opened into WhatsApp.
Read the article: Reuters
Networking and web security giant Cloudflare says the recent 8chan controversy may be an ongoing “risk factor” for its business on the back of its upcoming initial public offering. The San Francisco-based company and former Battlefield finalist, which filed its IPO paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, earlier this month took the rare step of pulling the plug on one of its customers, 8chan, an anonymous message board linked to recent domestic terrorist attacks in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, which killed 31 people.
Read the article: TechCrunch
The state of Georgia can't use its current electronic voting machines, election management software or servers after 2019, according to an order from a federal judge. It's the latest decision in a long-running legal fight over the security of voting tech in the state, and effectively requires Georgia to get a new system in place for the 2020 presidential primaries.
Read the article: CNET
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The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.