Facebook Removes 425 Hate Pages 'Linked to the Myanmar Military'

Facebook has discovered and removed another coordinated hate campaign operated by the Myanmar military, which has used the service to spread false news and insults about the Rohingya people, Myanmar’s mostly Muslim ethnic minority. In a blog post, Facebook said it took down 425 Pages and 150 additional Facebook and Instagram accounts “linked to the Myanmar military.”

EU Court Issues Ruling for Google in Yelp's Antitrust Lawsuit

Google won a European Union court order that prevents local search service Yelp Inc. and advocacy group Consumer Watchdog from teaming up with the EU at a legal challenge of a 2017 antitrust fine. The EU’s General Court said Yelp "cannot be directly affected" by the EU’s ruling over Google’s comparison-shopping search service, according to a filing published on its website.

Charter Communications Settles Internet Speed Charges for $174.2 Million

After being accused of defrauding its Internet subscribers, Charter Communications agreed to a whopping $174.2 million settlement with New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, the Daily News has learned. In February 2017, the AG charged in a civil lawsuit that Charter Communication, and its predecessor Time Warner Cable, knowingly delivered since 2012 slower internet speed to customers than promised.

French Government Moves Forward with Plan to Tax U.S. Tech Giants

With the so-called Yellow Vest movement forcing concessions that have widened the country’s budget shortfall, the French government is accelerating a plan to place hefty taxes on American technology giants that have long maneuvered to keep their bills low while reaping huge sums of money. France has been working with other countries on a European Union-wide digital tax on companies including Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, but some members of the bloc have balked at the proposal.

Sandberg Promises Facebook Will Do More to 'Advance Civil Rights'

Facebook Inc. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said the company needs to do more to protect its users from disinformation efforts, after researchers found Russian trolls attempted to suppress African-American voter turnout during the 2016 election. “Facebook is committed to working with leading U.S. civil rights organizations to strengthen and advance civil rights on our service,” Ms. Sandberg wrote on her Facebook page.

Security Researchers Find Malware That Uses Code in Twitter Memes

Security researchers said they’ve found a new kind of malware that takes its instructions from code hidden in memes posted to Twitter. The malware itself is relatively underwhelming: like most primitive remote access trojans (RATs), the malware quietly infects a vulnerable computer, takes screenshots and pulls other data from the affected system and sends it back to the malware’s command and control server.

Senate Committee Report Says Social Media Firms Impeded Probe

A report prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee's probe into Russia's online disinformation campaigns aimed at U.S. voters accused Facebook, Google and Twitter of impeding the investigation. The analysis, prepared by researchers with the firm New Knowledge, said the internet giants submitted incomplete datasets to the panel and may have misled lawmakers about the efforts of the Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency.

Google Shuts Down Project for Censored Search Engine in China

Google has been forced to shut down a data analysis system it was using to develop a censored search engine for China after members of the company’s privacy team raised internal complaints that it had been kept secret from them, The Intercept has learned. The internal rift over the system has had massive ramifications, effectively ending work on the censored search engine, known as Dragonfly, according to two sources familiar with the plans.

Cloudflare Providing Services to Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Militants

American tech firm Cloudflare is providing cybersecurity services to at least seven designated foreign terrorist organizations and militant groups, HuffPost has learned. Among Cloudflare’s millions of customers are several groups that are on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, including al-Shabab, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, al-Quds Brigades, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Hamas — as well as the Taliban, which, like the other groups, is sanctioned by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Apple Says Ban on iPhone Sales in China Would Hurt Industry

Apple Inc. says a Chinese ban on sales of the iPhone will force it to settle a long and bitter licensing battle with Qualcomm Inc., an outcome that may end up harming the country’s smartphone industry and give its fiercest legal rival a boost. The U.S. company was responding to a Chinese court that ruled this week Apple infringed two Qualcomm patents and issued injunctions against the sale of six older versions of the iPhone.

Facebook Says Software Bug Exposed Photos from 7 Million Users

Facebook said that a software bug affecting nearly 7 million users may have exposed a broader set of photos to app developers than what those users intended. Although this doesn't mean the photos were actually seen by anyone, the revelation of the bug offers another reminder of just how much data Facebook has on its 2.27 billion users and how often these sorts of slipups happen.

Chinese Hackers Breaching Navy Contractors, Stealing Missile Plans

Chinese hackers are breaching Navy contractors to steal everything from ship-maintenance data to missile plans, officials and experts said, triggering a top-to-bottom review of cyber vulnerabilities. A series of incidents in the past 18 months has pointed out the service’s weaknesses, highlighting what some officials have described as some of the most debilitating cyber campaigns linked to Beijing.

YouTube Removes 7.8 Million Videos in Quarter for Inappropriate Content

YouTube removed 7.8 million videos and 1.6 million channels in the third quarter of this year, mostly for spreading spam or posting inappropriate adult content, the company said in a report. The Community Guidelines Enforcement Report comes amid growing questions — including in a congressional hearing — about how YouTube monitors and deletes problematic content from the platform, including videos depicting violent extremism and hateful, graphic content.

After Victory, Qualcomm Asks Chinese Courts to Ban New iPhones

Chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. is asking courts in China to ban sales of Apple Inc.’s latest iPhone models XS and XR after winning a preliminary injunction against older models, the company confirmed. Three days earlier, a Chinese court had ordered a sales ban of some older Apple iPhone models for violating two patents of Qualcomm, though intellectual property lawyers said enforcement of the ban was likely still a distant threat.

Bitcoin Blackmail Threatens to Detonate Bombs in Offices, Schools

In offices and universities all across the country, the same threat appeared in email inboxes: Pay $20,000 worth of bitcoin, or a bomb will detonate in your building. It appears to be a steep escalation of a bitcoin blackmail tactic that took off this summer. In that scheme, victims received an email claiming that a hacker commandeered their webcam while they were watching pornography and would release the resulting photos publicly if the target didn't pay a small amount in bitcoin.

Subscribe

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.