Facebook Fails to Remove Terrorism, Porn Content in U.K.

Facebook is at risk of a criminal prosecution in Britain for refusing to remove potentially illegal terrorist and child pornography content despite being told it was on the site, The Times can reveal. The social media company failed to take down dozens of images and videos that were “flagged” to its moderators, including one showing an Islamic State beheading, several violent paedophilic cartoons, a video of an apparent sexual assault on a child and propaganda posters glorifying recent terrorist attacks in London and Egypt.

Facebook Takes Action Against Fake Accounts in France

Facebook said it is taking action against tens of thousands of fake accounts in France as the social network giant seeks to demonstrate it is doing more to halt the spread of spam as well as fake news, hoaxes and misinformation. The Silicon Valley-based company is under intense pressure as governments across Europe threaten new laws unless Facebook moves quickly to remove extremist propaganda or other content illegal under existing regulation.

Study Outlines Companies' Losses from Cyber Breaches

Cyber security breaches erode companies' share prices permanently, with financials the worst hit, a study issued by IT consultant CGI and Oxford Economics has found. Severe cyber security breaches, such as those having legal or regulatory consequences, involve the loss of hundreds of thousands of records and hurt the firm's brand, caused share prices to fall on average 1.8 percent on a permanent basis, the analysis of 65 companies affected since 2013 globally has found.

Ex-Chinese Dissidents Sue Yahoo Over Humanitarian Vows

Yahoo! Inc. failed to keep financial and humanitarian commitments made a decade ago after it admitted helping the Chinese government find dissidents who were later jailed, according to a lawsuit against the web company. The suit brought by seven previously imprisoned Chinese dissidents and the wife of an eighth seeks to enforce promises made when the Sunnyvale, California-based company settled a 2007 lawsuit in San Francisco federal court.

FTC Stops Man from Lying to Consumers About Tech Support

The Federal Trade Commission announced that it has successfully obtained a preliminary injunction that forbids a Florida man from telling unsuspecting consumers that the FTC hired him to conduct tech support. Daniel Croft made up a bogus FTC press release in hopes of convincing people that another company had been shut down by the agency for installing malicious software on PCs, and that his own nonsense companies — PC Guru Tech Support and Elite Tech Support — had been hired to help fix the situation.

FCC Chair Faces Fight Over Dropping Net Neutrality Rules

A federal regulator’s plan to roll back Obama-era net-neutrality rules is sparking another battle that is expected to rival or exceed the epic political clashes over internet regulation in recent years. The dispute intensified when Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai held a closed-door meeting with telecommunications groups to sketch out his ideas for rolling back the 2015 net-neutrality rules, one of the Obama administration’s signature regulatory changes.

Facebook Close to Deal on Using WhatsApp Data in Europe

Facebook's European regulator said it hoped to reach a deal in the coming months with the U.S. company to allow it to use data gleaned from the WhatsApp messaging service it acquired in 2014. The European Union's 28 data protection authorities last year requested that WhatsApp stop sharing users' data with Facebook due to questions over the validity of users' consent.

Yahoo's European Regulator to Issue Report on Data Breach

Yahoo's European regulator said it is preparing to give the U.S. Internet firm the results of an investigation into the 2014 theft of data from 500 million users, including possible remedial action to avoid a repeat of the breach. Yahoo said in September last year that hackers had stolen the data in 2014, prompting criticism from U.S. politicians into the delay in notifying customers.

German Official Wants Right to Attack Foreign Hackers

Germany is trying to beef up its cyber defense, after the interior minister called for rules that allow nations to attack foreign hackers targeting critical infrastructure. Europe’s biggest economy is currently evaluating whether it needs to draft new legislation to ensure its security forces are legally cleared to defend the country against cyber attacks that target, for example, its electricity infrastructure, according to Thomas de Maiziere.

U.S. Withdraws Demand for Twitter to Disclose Critic

Customs and Border Protection withdrew its demand that Twitter unmask the anonymous account, a day after the social media company sued the government to block the summons. The person or people behind the account, @ALT_USCIS, had claimed to be a current employee of Citizenship and Immigration Services and had regularly posted messages at odds with White House policy.

Tech Licensing Firm Files Patent Suit Against Oculus

Facebook Inc.'s virtual reality unit Oculus VR is facing a lawsuit alleging it incorporated without authorization a smaller competitor's patented technology into its Rift headset. Techno View IP Inc., a Newport Beach, California-based technology licensing firm, sued Facebook and Oculus for infringing a 3D imaging patent owned by the VR headset maker ImmersiON-VRelia.

Australian Regulator Sues Apple Over Faulty iPhone Updates

An Australian regulator is suing Apple Inc. over software which disabled iPhones and iPads that had been serviced outside Apple stores after users downloaded updates. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleges Apple violated Australia’s consumer law by shutting down or “bricking” the devices, and then telling customers the company wouldn’t fix the problem at no cost because their devices had been previously serviced by third-party providers.

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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.