Twitter said it has "permanently suspended" conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his InfoWars outlet, citing "new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy." Last month, YouTube, Apple, Facebook and Spotify banned Jones' main platforms over concerns about his content. But Twitter only suspended some of his privileges, a move that drew criticism.
The Justice Department announced charges against an alleged hacker for the North Korean government in connection with a series of major cyberattacks including the 2014 assault on Sony Pictures Entertainment, marking the first time the United States has brought such charges against a Pyongyang operative. Park Jin Hyok, officials said, is accused of being part of a conspiracy to hack on behalf of North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), the military intelligence agency that controls most of the country’s cyber capabilities.
Apple Inc. plans to create an online tool for police to formally request data about its users and to assemble a team to train police about what data can and cannot be obtained from the iPhone maker, according to a company letter seen by Reuters. The letter, dated Sept. 4, was from Apple General Counsel Kate Adams to U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island.
Google, faced with what may be the most intense political scrutiny in the company’s 20-year history, decided to pass on a chance to defend itself in Congress. A U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee panel was convened, the latest in a series of high-profile hearings on state-sponsored election meddling involving the largest technology platforms. Senior executives from Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. sat before the senators next to an empty chair marked "Google."
Facebook Inc. is suing BlackBerry Ltd. for patent infringement, escalating the legal battle between the two companies over protected technology. In a 118-page complaint filed filed in San Francisco federal court, Facebook accused BlackBerry of stealing its voice messaging technology, among other patented processes.
U.S. President Donald Trump accused social media companies of interfering with the upcoming congressional elections, without appearing to offer any evidence, in an interview published ahead of congressional testimonies from top social media executives. Referring to companies such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., Trump, a Republican, told the Daily Caller in an interview, “I think they already have” interfered in the Nov. 6 election.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions plans to meet with state attorneys general later this month to discuss whether tech companies may be “intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas,” the Justice Department said in a statement. Agency spokesman Devin O'Malley said the meeting will also consider whether tech platforms “may have harmed competition” with their actions, a hint that the Justice Department may be weighing antitrust action against the firms.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced that it will begin to create a framework to guide organizations on how they can protect the information of individuals using their products or services. The non-regulatory agency, responsible for setting scientific standards and housed in the Commerce Department, said in a release that the privacy framework would be based off the framework it previously established for cybersecurity issues.
When Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, and Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, appear in Washington to testify about misuse of their services by foreign operatives and the disproportionate influence their platforms have over people’s thinking, they plan to answer lawmakers’ questions using two main tactics: a conciliatory and apologetic approach, as well as a rundown of the growing number of efforts that the companies have taken to deal with manipulation and disinformation problems.
European Union finance ministers will discuss proposals to adopt a tax on companies’ digital turnover by the end of the year, a document prepared by the Austrian presidency of the bloc said. EU governments agree that tax rules should be changed to increase levies on digital services that are currently undertaxed, but are at odds on the process to reach this target.
A majority of the 25 most-populous U.S. cities now have cyber insurance or are looking into buying it, according to a Wall Street Journal survey. A ransomware attack on Atlanta earlier this year -- one of the biggest reported breaches of a city’s network -- served as a warning to officials everywhere of the constant barrage from hackers.
A federal government transparency website made public dozens, if not hundreds, of Social Security numbers and other personal information in a design error during a system upgrade. The error, on a Freedom of Information Act request portal, was fixed after CNN alerted the government to the situation.
California lawmakers rallied enough votes to pass the nation’s toughest net neutrality law to prevent Internet providers from favoring certain websites, setting up a fight with federal regulators who voted last year to erase such rules. If Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signs the law in the coming weeks, California will become the powerhouse in a growing group of states at odds with the Federal Communications Commission in a clash that could end up before the Supreme Court.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google is taking action to weed out scam artists who advertise on its platform aiming to defraud customers seeking technical support online. The move comes after a Wall Street Journal investigation found fraudsters were exploiting Google’s advertising system by purchasing search ads and masquerading as authorized service agents for companies such as Apple Inc.
The company that holds the copyrights to the 2015 film “The Cobbler” must pay $17,000 to cover the attorneys fees of a man who was accused of downloading the movie. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Aug. 27 affirmed the dismissal of the copyright infringement lawsuit against the man, Thomas Gonzales, and the fees award against Cobbler Nevada LLC.
British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt accused Google of abandoning its moral values by failing to remove child abuse content while launching a version of its search engine in China that will block some websites. The British government has repeatedly criticized online platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook for failing to remove abusive material or sexual content posted online even after they were notified.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is calling on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate whether Google’s search and digital advertising practices are stifling the marketplace. Hatch sent a letter to FTC Chairman Joseph Simons expressing concern about reports in recent years ranging from Google restricting competing advertising services to collecting data from users’ Gmail inbox contents.
Russia is experimenting with more precise technology to block individual online services after an attempt to shut down banned messaging service Telegram failed, but Moscow has yet to find a way to shut it down without hitting other traffic. Telegram, which has 200 million global users and has been popular in countries including Russia and Iran, has been banned in Russia because it refused to comply with a court order to give security services access to users’ encrypted messages.
Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey and Facebook chief operations officer Sheryl Sandberg will testify in an open hearing at the Senate Intelligence Committee next week, the committee’s chairman has confirmed. Larry Page, chief executive of Google parent company Alphabet, was also invited but has not confirmed his attendance, a committee spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch.
The Federal Trade Commission might have a renewed interest in justice for crowdfunding backers. Emails seen by The Verge show that the agency is investigating at least one crowdfunding campaign gone bad — the iBackPack — which raised more than $700,000 across both Indiegogo and Kickstarter.
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