The Grand Rapids (Mich.) Police Department is warning Netflix's millions of subscribers of an email phishing scam that’s trying to gather their personal information. According to the post, the suspicious emails tell Netflix customers that their account has been deactivated because the company “could not validate billing information.”
Two senators are asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate a company that sells fake Twitter followers in the wake of a New York Times report that revealed that dozens of public figures purchased social media followings to inflate their prominence. Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of a Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection, argue in a letter to acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen that Devumi, the company at the center of the Times report, has been deceiving consumers and stealing identities.
Bitcoin’s popularity and the emergence of about 1,500 other digital coins or tokens have drawn more hackers into the red-hot cryptocurrency space, expanding opportunities for crime and fraud, cybersecurity firm Digital Shadows warned in a report. “Cybercriminals follow the money and right now they see in the unregulated and largely unsecure world of digital currencies a huge opportunity to target people, businesses and exchanges and make money quickly and easily,” said Rick Holland, vice president of strategy at Digital Shadows.
Twitter says the number of users who may have interacted with Russian content intended to influence the election is now 1.4 million. The company provided the updated figure, more than double the 650,000 users the company notified initially.
Two senior U.S. Democratic lawmakers asked Facebook and Twitter to answer questions about potential Russian involvement in social media campaigns that urged release of a Republican memorandum alleging surveillance abuses at the FBI, saying the companies had provided insufficient responses so far. The letter was the latest effort by Democrats, in the minority in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, to press social media companies on whether the Kremlin has used their platforms to meddle in U.S. politics.
A California appeals court has sided with Allan Candelore, a man suing Tinder over the pricing for its premium service, Tinder Plus. Specifically, Candelore and his lawyers argued that by charging $9.99 per month if a user is under 30, versus $19.99 per month if you’re 30 or older, Tinder is discriminating based on age, in violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the Unfair Competition Law (those are both California laws).
Facebook is banning all ads that promote cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, in an effort to prevent people from advertising what the company is calling “financial products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.” That means no advertiser — even those that operate legal, legitimate businesses — will be able to promote things like bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings — ICOs for short — or binary options, according to a Facebook blog post.
A group of child advocates are raising alarms about Facebook's Messenger Kids, saying young people should be shielded from these services until they're older. "Younger children are simply not ready to have social media accounts," Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a Boston-based nonprofit advocacy group, said in a letter.
Read the article: CNET
Federal regulators moved to halt an initial coin offering that allegedly raised $600 million in what amounts to the biggest U.S. intervention yet into the world of raising money by issuing digital tokens. The Securities and Exchange Commission said it obtained a court order that permits a receiver to seize cryptocurrencies held by Dallas-based AriseBank, which allegedly marketed and received the proceeds from the coin offering.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating whether Apple Inc. violated securities laws concerning its disclosures about a software update that slowed older iPhone models, according to people familiar with the matter. The government has requested information from the company, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the probe is private.
U.S. copyright authorities decided to increase over the next five years the royalty payments music streaming companies like Spotify and Apple must make to songwriters and music publishers, a trade association for music publishers said. The Copyright Royalty Board of the U.S. Library of Congress issued a written decision that altered the formulas used to determine how much of their revenue streaming companies must share with songwriters and the music publishing companies they typically hire to collect licensing fees on their behalf.
The theft of nearly $500 million in digital tokens, disclosed by Coincheck, has heightened calls for stricter oversight at a time when many governments are struggling to formulate a response to the digital-asset boom. Japanese finance ministry officials said that the country will conduct on-site inspections of exchanges and that cryptocurrencies would likely become an issue at the next G-20 meeting.
Facebook said it was publishing its privacy principles for the first time and rolling out educational videos to help users control who has access to their information, as it prepares for the start of a tough new EU data protection law. The announcement is a sign of Facebook's efforts to get ready before the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enters into force on May 25, marking the biggest overhaul of personal data privacy rules since the birth of the internet.
Emojis -- tiny pictures of facial expressions or objects used in text messages, emails and on social media -- are no longer a laughing matter for the legal profession. Increasingly, they are bones of contention in lawsuits ranging from business disputes to harassment to defamation.
The New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, opened an investigation into a company that sold millions of fake followers on social media platforms, some of them copying real users’ personal information. The company, Devumi, and its sale of automated followers to a swath of celebrities, sports stars, journalists and politicians, was detailed in a New York Times article.
A 17-year-old Oklahoma high school student is facing obscenity and child pornography charges after authorities say he posted nude photos of students on a Snapchat page then tried to blackmail administrators when they turned off the school’s Wi-Fi access. Midwest City Police Chief Brandon Clabes says the Carl Albert High School student faces 10 charges, including blackmail and transmitting obscenity and child pornography.
The Dutch intelligence service passed on “crucial evidence” to the FBI about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reported, citing the results of an investigation. Hackers from the Dutch intelligence service known as the AIVD gained access to the network of Russian hacking group “Cozy Bear” in the summer of 2014.
The Department of Justice's special counsel Robert Mueller and his office have interviewed at least one member of Facebook's team that was associated with President Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, according to a person familiar with the matter. The interview was part of Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and what role, if any, the Trump campaign played in that interference.
One of Japan's largest digital currency exchanges says it has lost some $534m (£380m) worth of virtual assets in a hacking attack on its network. Coincheck froze deposits and withdrawals for all crypto-currencies except Bitcoin as it assessed its losses in NEM, a lesser-known currency.
Facebook informed Congress in newly released documents that it could not prove or disprove collusion between President Trump's campaign and Russians who may have used the online platform to try to sway opinions during the 2016 election. In written questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee, Facebook representatives were asked whether metadata on their site could reveal possible collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russian government, a possibility raised by some researchers.
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