The European Commission has signed an agreement with four major online retailers to combat the listing of dangerous products on Europe’s online shopping sites. Dangerous content, as defined by the Commission, includes anything from incitement to hatred and violence to child sexual abuse material, unsafe products and products infringing copyright.
As word spread that President Donald Trump’s administration was separating immigrant children from their asylum-seeking parents, Atlanta attorney Loren Collins decided the policy should become the president’s “well-deserved legacy.” TrumpHotels.org displays a banner photo of immigrants detained in chain-link cages. It includes “thoughts from our manager”—Trump’s own words about what the website bills as “our services and our clientele.”
In an attempt to spot vulnerabilities in its system before bad actors exploit them, Facebook has hired a team of ex-intelligence officers, researchers, and media buyers, and set them loose on its products. Facebook calls this group the "Investigative Operations Team" and has directed its members to find the worst possible things that can be done using Facebook, and to help the company prevent them.
Tumblr has agreed to better monitor the spread of illegal adult content on the South Korean version of its website, the local Internet content watchdog has said. The Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) said the U.S. company has promised to actively cooperate with the commission.
Internet-connected locks, speakers, thermostats, lights and cameras that have been marketed as the newest conveniences are now also being used as a means for harassment, monitoring, revenge and control. In more than 30 interviews with The New York Times, domestic abuse victims, their lawyers, shelter workers and emergency responders described how the technology was becoming an alarming new tool.
Amazon is utilizing its knowledge of its powerful marketplace machine -- from optimizing word-search algorithms to analyzing competitors’ sales data to using its customer-review networks -- to steer shoppers toward its in-house brands and away from its competitors, say analysts. As Amazon uses its powerful platform to bolster its private-label business, there is also debate in legal circles whether some of its activities could be viewed as monopolistic in nature.
The Supreme Court put new restraints on law enforcement’s access to the ever-increasing amount of private information about Americans available in the digital age. In the specific case before the court, the justices ruled that authorities generally must obtain a warrant to gain access to cell-tower records that can provide a virtual timeline and map of a person’s whereabouts.
The ACLU released its guide to developers on how to respond to government demands when the requests require companies to compromise their own security. The ACLU anticipates a new threat from government requests: potentially forcing developers to install software updates with hidden surveillance tools, whether for tracking a phone's location or bypassing encryption and passcodes.
Google rolled out new Google Account features for Android users designed to bolster security and make it easier for users to manage their privacy settings. The new settings build on the “Security Checkup” introduced last fall by offering personalized recommendations designed to help users improve the security of their accounts; for example, users could be reminded to remove unverified applications allowed to access their account data.
A divided Supreme Court ruled that states may require online retailers to collect billions of dollars of sales tax revenue owed to them. More than 40 states and the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn its 1992 decision in Quill v. North Dakota that restricts states from collecting sales tax from retailers without a physical presence in those states, saying that a decision in a case involving mail-order catalogs is obsolete in an era of e-commerce.
Tesla Inc. has sued a former employee claiming that he hacked the electric carmaker’s trade secrets and transferred large amounts of company data to third parties, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Nevada. In its lawsuit Tesla claimed that Martin Tripp, who formerly worked at the Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada, had admitted to writing software that hacked the carmaker’s manufacturing operating system, transferring several gigabytes of its data to third parties and making false claims to the media.
The White House is in the early stages of determining what a federal approach to online data privacy should look like, Axios has learned. The preliminary conversations show that the White House wants a voice in the contentious domestic and global debate about how to protect consumer privacy online.
Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other tech giants could face more curbs on their market power after a European Parliament committee voted in favor of tougher copyright rules. The copyright rules, proposed by the European Commission two years ago, are designed to take account of the growing role of online platforms, forcing them to share revenues with publishers and bear liability for copyright infringement on the Internet.
California will not be the poster child for the nation's strongest set of net neutrality protections, as lawmakers in the state Assembly voted to cut many of the bill's most powerful provisions. The vote in a California Assembly committee hearing advanced a bill that implements some net neutrality protections, but it scaled back all the measures of the bill that had gone beyond the rules outlined in the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 regulation, which was officially taken off the books by the Trump Administration's commission.
A sophisticated hacking campaign launched from computers in China burrowed deeply into satellite operators, defense contractors and telecommunications companies in the United States and southeast Asia, security researchers at Symantec Corp. said. Symantec said the effort appeared to be driven by national espionage goals, such as the interception of military and civilian communications.
Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, said he’s unaware of any tariff exemption for Apple Inc.’s iPhone in the growing trade spat with China.The New York Times reported that Trump told Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer, that the U.S. would not place tariffs on iPhones.
Europe’s attempts to force Google, Microsoft and other tech giants to share revenues with publishers and bear liability for internet content have triggered criticism from Internet pioneers ahead of a key vote. Two years after the European Commission presented plans to reform rules to take into account the growing role of online platforms, a key committee at the European Parliament will vote on the issue.
Apple has been fined $9 million by the Federal Court for telling some Australian iPad and iPhone owners they could not have devices fixed as they had been previously repaired by a third party. The court action was started by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) after it received complaints about 'error 53', which disabled some Apple devices after an operating system update was downloaded.
It is too early to judge Google’s reforms in response to an antitrust case over online shopping, though there are signs some rivals are benefiting, Europe’s competition chief said. The comments from European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager come amid calls from Google’s competitors for her to take more drastic action against the world’s most popular internet search engine.
The Pentagon has quietly empowered the United States Cyber Command to take a far more aggressive approach to defending the nation against cyberattacks, a shift in strategy that could increase the risk of conflict with the foreign states that sponsor malicious hacking groups. Until now, the Cyber Command has assumed a largely defensive posture, trying to counter attackers as they enter American networks.
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