EU Regulatory Guidelines Aim to Boost Net Neutrality

Europe's telecoms operators will have to justify giving priority to certain services on their network, according to new EU regulatory guidelines in a move likely to disappoint an industry hoping for more leeway so they can boost revenues. The European Union last year adopted its first ever net neutrality rules which require telecoms operators such as Orange, Deutsche Telekom and Telecom Italia to treat all Internet traffic equally.

'Irongate' Malware Can Disrupt Energy, Chemical Plants

A group of researchers discovered a rare instance of malicious computer software cleverly designed to mask the disruption of an industrial machine that's being used, for instance, at an energy or chemical plant. The team from FireEye, a cybersecurity firm, stumbled across the malware last year while researching viruses that attack industrial control systems. They dubbed it Irongate.

Amazon Sues Three Sellers Over Fake Product Reviews

As part of its effort to combat fake reviews on its platform, Amazon sued three of its sellers for using sock puppet accounts to post fake reviews about their products. Amazon has been aggressively pursuing reviewers it does not consider genuine over the last year, often using lawsuits to discourage the buying and selling of reviews, but this is the first time it has sued the sellers themselves.

Newspaper Association Asks FTC to Investigate Ad Blockers

The Newspaper Association of America, the industry association representing 2,000 newspapers, filed a federal complaint against the ad-blocking industry, alleging that software companies which enable users to block ads are misleading the public. The complaint asks the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the government agency that oversees trade practices, to investigate ad blockers that offer “paid whitelisting,” – a service which charges advertisers to bypass ad-blocking software – along with services that substitute ad blockers’ own advertising for blocked ads or get around publishers’ subscription pages.

EU Urges Governments Against Banning 'Sharing Economy' Services

European Union governments should not ban services like home-rental site Airbnb or ride-hailing app Uber except as a last resort, the EU says in new guidelines, seeking to rein in a crackdown on the "sharing economy." In guidelines seen by Reuters, the European Commission said any restrictions by EU member states on these new online services should be justified and proportionate to the public interest at stake.

Big Tech Firms Agree to Work with EU to Fight Hate Speech

Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft have agreed to work with European officials to crack down on hateful speech published on their respective platforms. Each company has agreed to review potentially problematic posts and remove offending content within 24 hours. “The recent terror attacks have reminded us of the urgent need to address illegal online hate speech,” Vĕra Jourová, EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, said in a joint statement from the European Commission and the participating companies.

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Iran Requires Messaging Apps to Store User Data in Country

Iran has given foreign messaging apps a year to move data they hold about Iranian users onto servers inside the country, prompting privacy and security concerns on social media. Iran has some of the strictest controls on internet access in the world and blocks access to social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, although many users are able to access them through widely available software.

Malware from Bangladesh Bank Attack Linked to Philippines Attack

The malware that was used to steal $81 million from Bangladesh's central bank has been linked to another cyber attack, this time on a bank in the Philippines, cyber security company Symantec Corp said in a blog post. The company said it had identified three pieces of malware that were used in limited targeted attacks against financial institutions in South-East Asia.