Microsoft Pushes Governments to Regulate Facial-Recognition Technology

Microsoft Corp. is urging governments world-wide to enact regulation of facial-recognition technology next year that requires independent assessment of accuracy and bias and prohibits ongoing surveillance of specific people without a court order. The technology giant’s push to police the emerging technology comes as rivals including Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, face increasing backlash over their privacy practices from lawmakers and others.

Links Found Between Marriott Hackers, Chinese Government

Hackers behind a massive breach at hotel group Marriott International Inc. left clues suggesting they were working for a Chinese government intelligence gathering operation, according to sources familiar with the matter. Private investigators looking into the breach have found hacking tools, techniques and procedures previously used in attacks attributed to Chinese hackers, said three sources who were not authorized to discuss the company’s private probe into the attack.

U.S. Business Roundtable Recommends National Privacy Law

A broad coalition of more than 200 retailers, banks and technology companies is releasing new recommendations for national privacy legislation in a clear push to get out in front of lawmakers promising to rein in their data collection practices in the next Congress. The Business Roundtable’s consumer privacy legislation framework calls on the United States to adopt a national privacy law that would apply the same data collection requirements to all companies regardless of sector -- while ramping up Federal Trade Commission staffing and funding to enforce the rule.

Australian Parliament Passes Anti-Encryption Legislation to Fight Crime

Australia’s parliament passed some of the world’s toughest anti-encryption legislation, installing a bill that seeks to force Facebook Inc. and other tech giants to help decode messages used in terrorism and organized crime. Under new powers to be given to police and intelligence agencies, companies may be required to help decrypt communications on platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, and even insert code to help capture data.

Giuliani Blames Twitter for 'Traitor' Link He Accidentally Created

In a tweet, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor who is one of President Trump’s lawyers, said Twitter had “allowed someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-President message.” He was referring to a tweet in which Mr. Giuliani — by failing to put a space after a period, and starting the next sentence with the word “In” — had inadvertently created a hyperlink, which someone later associated with a website that said, “Donald J. Trump is a traitor to our country.”

U.K. Lawmakers Disclose Emails Showing How Facebook Used Data

Facebook Inc. wielded user data like a bargaining chip, providing access when that sharing might encourage people to spend more time on the social network -- and imposing strict limits on partners in cases where it saw a potential competitive threat, emails show. A trove of internal correspondence, published online by U.K. lawmakers, provides a look into the ways Facebook executives, including Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, treated information posted by users like a commodity that could be harnessed in service of business goals.

China Announces Punishments for Intellectual Property Theft

China announced an array of punishments that could restrict companies’ access to borrowing and state-funding support over intellectual-property theft, a key sticking point in its trade conflict with the U.S. News of the measures came just days after President Xi Jinping promised to resolve the U.S.’s “reasonable concerns” about IP practices in a statement after meeting President Donald Trump at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina.

Oath Agrees to $5 Million Settlement for Violating Children's Privacy Law

Oath, the owner of AOL and Yahoo, has agreed to pay about $5 million to settle charges from the New York attorney general that the media company’s online advertising business was violating a federal children’s privacy law. AOL, through its ad exchange, helped place targeted display ads on hundreds of websites that it knew were directed to children under 13, such as Roblox.com and Sweetyhigh.com, according to a settlement that the attorney general’s office planned to announce.

Tech Giants Prepare for 'Platform-to-Business Regulation' from EU

Google, Amazon, Apple and other tech giants face one of their biggest challenges this week as a key EU lawmaking committee prepares to take a tough stance on legislation designed to curb their power and boost the rights of businesses. In a bid to ensure a level playing field between the tech companies and bricks-and-mortar businesses, the European Commission in April drafted rules to prevent unfair business practices by app stores, search engines, e-commerce sites and hotel booking websites.

EU Finance Ministers Fail to Agree on Tax on Digital Revenues

European Union finance ministers failed to agree a tax on digital revenues, despite a last minute Franco-German plan to salvage the proposal by narrowing its focus to companies like Google and Facebook. The European Union’s executive arm proposed a 3 percent tax on big digital firms’ online revenues in March, alleging the companies funnelled profit through states with the lowest tax rates.

Marriott Hack May Have Exposed Customers' Passport Information

The hack that engulfed Marriott — and 500 million of its customers — has added a new step: Your passport might be at risk, too. Whether those customers should go get a new passport is perhaps the most complicated consumer question hanging out there in the wake of the news that millions of Starwood Hotels customers had their data stolen in a breach that began as early as 2014.

Quora Says Hackers May Have Stolen Data on 100 Million Users

Hackers may have stolen the personal data of around 100 million users of the question-and-answer website Quora, the company announced. Quora said it discovered that hackers may have compromised account information such as email addresses, passwords and private direct messages, as well as questions and answers posted on the platform by users, the company wrote on its site.

Apple CEO Says White Supremacists Have 'No Place on Our Platforms'

Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed white supremacists and “dangerous conspiracy theorists”, reiterating that hateful content will not have a home on Apple platforms. Cook received the first “Courage Against Hate” award from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and he used his time onstage to talk about the company’s commitment to preventing hate speech from spreading.

New York City Lawmakers Want to Make 'Cyber Flashing' a Crime

Two lawmakers introduced a New York City Council bill to explicitly make cyber flashing — a growing trend of technology-enabled sexual harassment — a crime, punishable by a $1,000 fine or up to a year in jail. One of the first news reports of cyber flashing was in London in 2015, when a female commuter told the British Transport Police that she had received lewd photos on her phone via AirDrop as she traveled to work.

House Judiciary Committee to Delay Google CEO's Testimony

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee will likely put off until next week a hearing with Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai on the Alphabet Inc unit’s social media practices because of the state funeral of former President George H.W. Bush, Chairman Bob Goodlatte said. Pichai had agreed to testify before the panel over Republican concerns that the company is biased against conservatives after it skipped a high-profile Senate hearing. Google has denied it is biased toward conservatives.

Tumblr Says, 'Adult Content Will No Longer be Allowed Here'

Tumblr will permanently ban adult content from its platform on December 17 in a move that will eradicate porn-related communities on the platform and fundamentally alter how the service is used. The new policy’s announcement comes just days after Tumblr was removed from Apple’s iOS App Store over a child pornography incident, but it extends far beyond that matter alone.

China Increases Cyberespionage Efforts Amid U.S. Trade Tensions

Soon after President Trump took office, China’s cyberespionage picked up and, according to intelligence officials and analysts, accelerated in the last year as trade conflicts and other tensions began to poison relations between the world’s two largest economies. The hackers of the People’s Liberation Army — whose famed Unit 61398 tore through American companies until its operations from a base in Shanghai were exposed in 2013 — have begun to be replaced by stealthier operatives in the country’s intelligence agencies.

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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.