Twitter said it fixed its advertising platform that allowed prospective marketers to target millions of users interested in derogatory words such as “n**ger” and “wetback.” The Daily Beast reported Friday that Twitter Ads returned 26.3 million users who may respond to the term “wetback,” 18.6 million to “Nazi,” and 14.5 million to “n**ger.”
Google, the world's biggest advertising platform, allows advertisers to specifically target ads to people typing racist and bigoted terms into its search bar, BuzzFeed News has discovered. Not only that, Google will suggest additional racist and bigoted terms once you type some into its ad-buying tool.
Special counsel Robert Mueller and his team are now in possession of Russian-linked ads run on Facebook during the presidential election, after they obtained a search warrant for the information. Facebook gave Mueller and his team copies of ads and related information it discovered on its site linked to a Russian troll farm, as well as detailed information about the accounts that bought the ads and the way the ads were targeted at American Facebook users, a source with knowledge of the matter told CNN.
The social media site Gab.ai is accusing Google of violating federal antitrust laws when the tech giant booted Gab from the Google Play Store, according to a lawsuit. The legal action is the latest salvo in an escalating battle between right-leaning technologists and leaders against Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Google.
South Dakota’s highest court ruled that companies selling wares over the Internet can’t be forced to collect the state’s 4.5 percent tax on purchases, laying the groundwork for a U.S. Supreme Court appeal that could change law across the country. A decision forcing online retailers to collect such taxes could be worth billions in revenue to state and local governments.
Read the article: Bloomberg
Google came up on the losing end of a previously-undisclosed third showdown with the federal government over demands for data stored overseas, a federal court in Washington has revealed. The disclosure of yet another court fight over the issue comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to decide as soon as next month whether to weigh in on the question of whether U.S. law permits authorities to use U.S. courts to obtain electronic records kept outside of the country.
Facebook allowed advertisements targeted at people who have expressed interest in anti-Semitic topics such as "jew hater," "how to burn jews" or "History of 'why jews ruin the world,'" Pro Publica reported. After the news organization contacted the giant social network, Facebook removed the anti-Semitic categories.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it was investigating Equifax Inc.’s massive data breach, a rare public confirmation, as a top Democrat suggested the credit-monitoring company’s corporate leaders might need to resign. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer also compared Equifax to Enron, a U.S. energy company that was consumed in scandal after revealing in 2001 that it engaged in widespread accounting fraud.
The Trump administration told U.S. government agencies to remove Kaspersky Lab products from their information systems, saying it was concerned the Moscow-based cyber security firm was vulnerable to Kremlin influence. The Department of Homeland Security issued a directive to agencies ordering them to identify Kaspersky products on their information systems within 30 days, develop plans to remove and discontinue the products within 60 days, and begin discontinuing their use within 90 days.
Facebook established formal rules for what kinds of content can’t be monetized with Branded Content, Instant Articles, and mid-roll video Ad Breaks. These include depictions of death or incendiary social issues even as part of news or an awareness campaign.
European Union states could have lost 5.4 billion euros in tax revenues from Google and Facebook between 2013 and 2015, according to a report of the EU lawmaker responsible for a corporate tax reform that could raise online giants’ tax bill. The document, seen by Reuters, will be published the day before EU finance ministers begin a two-day meeting in the Estonian capital Tallinn, in which they will discuss how to increase taxes on large online businesses accused of paying too little in Europe.
Moscow-based cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab said it is considering making changes to its subsidiary that sells products to the U.S. government, at a time when the company is facing allegations that it may be vulnerable to Russian influence. The U.S. Senate is voting on a defense policy spending bill that includes language that would ban Kaspersky Lab products from being used by U.S. government agencies.
Online-reviews firm Yelp Inc. alleged that Google is breaking a promise it made as part of a 2012 regulatory settlement to not scrape content from certain third-party sites including Yelp, escalating its yearslong battle against the search giant. Yelp said in a letter to Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Maureen Ohlhausen that Google is using Yelp photos for local-business listings in its search results, despite Yelp’s formal request that Google not pull such content from its site.
Over the past several months, threat actors believed to have ties with North Korea have been targeting crypto-currency exchanges to obtain hard currencies for the Pyongyang regime, FireEye says. The attacks, which FireEye has observed since May 2017, are said to be part of a campaign that started in 2016, when banks and the global financial system were hit.
Equifax's site used to set up credit account monitoring in the wake of last week's security breach is also vulnerable to hackers, ZDNet has learned. Equifax's site used to set up alerts on individual's credit rating history can be easily spoofed, security researcher Martin Hall told ZDNet.
Spanish regulators slapped Facebook with a $1.4 million fine over how it collects personal information on its users. The Spanish Data Protection Agency said that it found three cases of Facebook collecting information on ideology, sex, religious beliefs, personal tastes and browser history without properly notifying users what the data was being obtained for.
Chinese authorities are ordering domestic bitcoin exchanges to shut down, delivering a heavy blow to once-thriving trading hubs that helped popularize the virtual currency pushing it to recent record highs. China’s central bank, working with other regulators, has drafted instructions banning Chinese platforms from providing virtual currency trading services, according to people familiar with the matter.
Startups hoping to sell health tracking devices and software to corporate customers are worried European regulators will torpedo their business model. Employers should be banned from issuing workers with wearable fitness monitors, such as Fitbit, or other health tracking devices, even with the employees’ permission, a European Union advisory panel said in June.
Google appealed against a record 2.4-billion-euro ($2.9 billion) EU antitrust fine, with its chances of success boosted by Intel’s partial victory last week against another EU sanction. The world’s most popular Internet search engine, a unit of the U.S. firm Alphabet, launched its appeal two months after it was fined by the European Commission for abusing its dominance in Europe by giving prominent placement in searches to its comparison shopping service and demoting rival offerings.
An investigation by The New York Times, and new research from the cybersecurity firm FireEye, reveals some of the mechanisms by which suspected Russian operators used Twitter and Facebook to spread anti-Clinton messages and promote the hacked material they had leaked. On Twitter, as on Facebook, Russian fingerprints are on hundreds or thousands of fake accounts that regularly posted anti-Clinton messages.
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