Instacart, the online grocery delivery service and one of the rising stars of Silicon Valley's on-demand economy, is converting a large part of its contractor workforce into part-time employees. The shift comes amid an increasing debate over how technology companies such as Uber, Lyft, and the delivery service Postmates designate American workers who make a living using their services.
A leading privacy rights group wants the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit Uber from instituting changes to its privacy policy that it says will allow the ride-hailing app to collect more detailed data about customers’ whereabouts and use their contact lists to send their friends promotional pitches. The move by the nonprofit research group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is likely to garner the attention of Washington regulators and privacy watchdogs in the coming weeks, as Uber’s changes are scheduled to take effect July 15.
Google Inc. will have to defend claims that its Street View mapping software violates patents held by Vederi LLC after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the company's appeal. The high court's decision not to hear the case leaves intact a March 2014 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which threw out a district judge's finding that Google had not infringed on four different patents.
Europe’s antitrust authorities have threatened to impose significant fines on Google’s operations on the Continent if the company does not give rivals greater prominence in some search results across the 28-member bloc. The move -- outlined in a so-called statement of objections that was sent to Google in April and now to a number of companies that have balked at Google’s activities in London -- is the latest step in the five-year antitrust case brought by European officials.
A House committee passed a bill that would give Congress more oversight of the plan to give up America’s control of the Internet domain name system. The Energy and Commerce Committee passed the DOTCOM Act by a voice vote after a brief hearing.
The lawyer for convicted Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht said an ex-Secret Service agent's expected guilty plea to stealing more than $800,000 of bitcoins during a probe of the black market website shows the investigation was corrupt. Shaun Bridges, the former agent, has agreed to plead guilty to money laundering and obstruction of justice, according to papers filed in San Francisco federal court.
The Chinese hacking group suspected of stealing sensitive information about millions of current and former U.S. government employees has a different mission and organizational structure than the military hackers who have been accused of other U.S. data breaches, according to people familiar with the matter. While the Chinese People's Liberation Army typically goes after defense and trade secrets, this hacking group has repeatedly accessed data that could be useful to Chinese counter-intelligence and internal stability, said two people close to the U.S. investigation.
EBay Inc. sold its 28.4 percent stake in Craigslist Inc. back to the online classified advertising company, ending years of litigation between the technology pioneers as the Web marketplace prepares to restructure. All litigation between the companies will be dismissed, EBay said in a statement.
In a significant step to combat "revenge porn," Google will honor requests to remove from search results nude or sexually explicit images posted on the Internet without consent. Google says it will remove the search results the same way it does other sorts of highly sensitive personal information such as bank account numbers and Social Security numbers.
The Federal Communications Commission’s new net-neutrality rules are already having an effect. Sprint, the third-largest U.S. wireless carrier, had been intermittently choking off data speeds for its heaviest wireless Internet users when its network was clogged. But it stopped when the government’s new net-neutrality rules went into effect.
European antitrust regulators have sent copies of their charges against Google to critics of the U.S. tech giant and given them a month to comment, one of the complainants said. The move by the European Union competition watchdog may boost its case against the search engine, which it accuses of abusing its market power and cheating consumers and rivals by distorting search results to favor its shopping service.
Digital rights organization the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has published its fifth annual Who has your back? report into online service providers’ transparency and privacy practices when it comes to government requests for accessing user data. The organization notes a general transformation among major Internet players to be more transparent with users about data requests over the past four years.
Canada’s federal government has been hit by a cyberattack, a senior government minister said, in an attack that appeared to have slowed or closed down several government websites. Websites that may have been affected include the Department of Finance and Treasury Board, the department responsible for the day-to-day administrative duties of the federal public service.
U.S. Senator Bill Nelson sent a letter to Google CEO Larry Page asking the company to detail how it selects content for the YouTube Kids application, and what steps Google is taking to ensure children are not being exposed to unsuitable content. The letter comes a couple of months after a number of consumer advocacy groups filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding the way the app mixes ads and entertainment, as well as a more serious charge filed in May.
The government's new net neutrality rules have only been active for a few days, but one company is wasting no time invoking them in a federal complaint against Time Warner Cable -- the first one to be filed since the rules went into effect. The company behind the complaint says it'll submit the paperwork "in the next couple days, tops" and that it plans to accuse Time Warner Cable of charging the San Diego-based firm, Commercial Network Services, unreasonable rates to deliver its streaming videos to Time Warner’s customers.
A driver who filed a complaint against Uber Technologies was an employee of the ride-hailing company, not an independent contractor, the California Labor Commission ruled. The technology giant is appealing the ruling because it could significantly increase the $40 billion startup's costs.
Federal Communications Commission officials announced plans to fine AT&T $100 million for misleading subscribers about unlimited data plans. It’s the largest such fine the agency has ever proposed under rules that require broadband providers to clearly disclose information about their services to consumers.
An Office of Personnel Management investigative official said the agency entrusted with millions of personnel records has a history of failing to meet basic computer network security requirements. Michael Esser, assistant inspector general for audit, said in testimony prepared for delivery that for years many of the people running the agency's information technology had no IT background.
The Supreme Court declined to review a pair of antitrust cases involving an international price-fixing cartel, despite the urging of some legal experts, economists and the National Association of Manufacturers. In one of the cases, a judge concluded that Motorola Mobility, a corporate victim of a price-fixing scheme, could not sue because America’s antitrust laws did not apply to Motorola’s overseas subsidiaries, even though 42 percent of the phones they assembled were shipped to the United States.
Russian parliament gave initial approval to a law that would require Internet search sites to remove outdated or irrelevant personal information from search results on request from users. The bill, passed by the State Duma lower house in its first reading, seeks to emulate European Union rules on the "right to be forgotten", under which search engines must take down certain results that appear under a search of a person's name.
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