Major technology companies are pushing Congress to keep any net neutrality-related measures out of an end-of-year spending bill lawmakers are seeking to wrap-up next week. More than a dozen companies and trade groups representing the largest players in the industry sent a letter to House and Senate leadership calling for a trio of provisions to be kept out of the “chaotic appropriations process.”
House and Senate negotiators announced that they have reached agreement on bipartisan legislation to make permanent a moratorium that prevents states from taxing access to the Internet. The moratorium was first enacted in 1998. State and local governments that already had Internet taxes were allowed to keep them under the current moratorium, but under the new agreement, jurisdictions with Internet taxes would be required to phase them out by mid-2020.
A new data transfer pact between the European Union and Washington will give the EU the right to pull the plug on the deal if it fears the United States is not safeguarding privacy enough, the EU Justice Commissioner said. A previous transatlantic data transfer framework, Safe Harbour, was struck down on Oct. 6 by the European Union's top court because of worries about mass U.S. surveillance practices.
The European Union is looking into whether services such as Google News and Yahoo News should pay to display snippets of news articles, wading into a bitter debate between the online industry and publishers. The European Commission, the EU's executive, said it will consider whether "any action specific to news aggregators is needed, including intervening on the definition of rights."
The Federal Trade Commission has settled a lawsuit accusing hotel group Wyndham Worldwide Corp. of failing to properly safeguard customer information, in a case arising from three data breaches affecting more than 619,000 customers. The consent order was filed with the federal court in Newark, New Jersey, 3-1/2 months after a federal appeals court in Philadelphia said the FTC had authority to regulate corporate cyber security.
Nearly one in four consumers has unknowingly bought a counterfeit product online, and the risk of falling into the trap is increased during the Christmas period, research has revealed. A survey commissioned by MarkMonitor, and carried out by market research company Opinium, analysed the habits of more than 3,000 online consumers in nine countries.
Police have raided the home of an Australian tech entrepreneur identified by two U.S. publications as one of the early developers of the digital currency bitcoin. Police gained entry to a home belonging to Craig Wright, who had hours earlier been identified in investigations by Gizmodo and Wired, based on leaked transcripts of legal interviews and files.
In an op-ed in The New York Times, Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt extolled the virtues of the Internet, saying it provides an opportunity for people around the globe to connect, and those in developing countries an opportunity to see all the world has to offer. But his piece quickly turned dark, saying the Internet has also become a place where oppression and harassment are all too common.
Markit Ltd.'s chief executive filed a lawsuit accusing unknown individuals of hacking into his computers, phone and emails to try to intimidate him and extort money. In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Lance Uggla, the CEO and founder of the financial information service provider, said hackers had been engaging in an "anonymous campaign of extortion."
Politicians and even some technologists say that 335 versions of a pro-Islamic State Twitter account, and hundreds just like it, show how Silicon Valley’s efforts to crack down on the use by terrorists of social media have been toothless.
The Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat could soon introduce legislation that would require social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to alert federal officials about online terrorist activity, according to a spokesman. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has been pushing for language that would address the growing use by extremist groups of social media to both spread propaganda and plot attacks around the world.
Violent extremists’ use of encryption to evade law enforcement in communicating online will be examined by a task force proposed by a Republican lawmaker, adding to pressures on Silicon Valley to do more in fighting militant groups. Citing concerns about violent extremists communicating in potentially undetectable "dark space" online, Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he wants to set up a commission of members from the technology business, law enforcement and other experts.
A French appeals court ordered Uber Technologies Inc. to pay a €150,000 fine, the latest flare-up in an ongoing conflict between the car-hailing company and the French government. The Paris Court of Appeals rejected Uber’s challenge to a 2014 criminal-court decision that had found the company guilty of deceptive commercial practices in its advertising for a now-shuttered service that used drivers without professional licenses.
The French police are reportedly proposing that new laws ban the use of free WiFi services and anonymous browsers such as Tor. The proposals, which are part of an internal document seen by French national newspaper Le Monde, could be enacted in two proposed bills – one on the State of Emergency and the other on combating counter-terrorism in general.
Facebook, Google and Twitter are stepping up efforts to combat online propaganda and recruiting by Islamic militants, but the Internet companies are doing it quietly to avoid the perception that they are helping the authorities police the Web. Facebook Inc. said it took down a profile that the company believed belonged to San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband is accused of killing 14 people in a mass shooting that the FBI is investigating as an "act of terrorism."
The FCC’s long effort to establish net neutrality rules came before a D.C. appeals court, as a three-judge panel raised questions over the agency’s robust regulatory move to reclassify the Internet as a common carrier. A collection of telecom and cable companies are challenging the rules, characterizing the FCC’s move last February as regulatory overreach.
More than two years after Ross Ulbricht was arrested in a San Francisco and accused of creating and running the Dark Web drug bazaar known as the Silk Road, a manhunt on the other side of the world has found the man believed to be Ulbricht’s closest adviser and mentor: Variety Jones. The Justice Department unsealed a criminal complaint against Roger Thomas Clark, a 54-year-old Canadian who has been arrested in Thailand through a joint operation of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Administration and local Thai police.
Microsoft said it aided law enforcement agencies in several regions to disrupt a four-year-old botnet called Dorkbot, which has infected one million computers worldwide. The Dorkbot malware aims to steal login credentials from services such as Gmail, Facebook, PayPal, Steam, eBay, Twitter and Netflix.
A company that was formed nearly two months ago has sued multinational business Apple for allegedly infringing a patent covering mobile phones. In a lawsuit filed at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Iris Connex claimed Apple’s iPhone 5 model and all models produced since then have infringed the patent.
Samsung fought until the bitter end to avoid paying Apple, but the company now says it will finally hand over the more than $548 million it owes for infringing the patents and designs of its biggest smartphone rival. In papers filed in federal court in San Jose, California, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. said it will make the payment by Dec. 14 if Apple Inc. sends an invoice on Dec. 4.
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