California Anti-Eavesdropping Act Would Restrict Smart Home Speakers

A bill making its way through the California Legislature would prohibit makers of smart home speakers from saving or storing recordings without users’ explicit consent. The Anti-Eavesdropping Act, which cleared its first committee, would also ban smart speaker device manufacturers from sharing with third parties recordings of verbal commands or requests heard by the devices.

Google Says It Spends Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Annually Reviewing Content

Alphabet Inc’s Google unit told a U.S. House panel it spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually on content review and said it manually reviewed more than 1 million suspected “terrorist videos” on YouTube in the first three months of 2019. Google disclosed in a April 24 letter that the manual review found 90,000 videos violated its terrorism policy.

Facebook Discussing Settlement with FTC to Include U.S.-Approved Privacy Officer

Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission are negotiating a possible settlement that would require the company to place privacy-minded executives at the company's highest levels, a source close to the talks told said — in addition to paying the expected multibillion-dollar fine it disclosed. The steps, which are subject to change until a deal is final, would include appointing a federally approved privacy official at the social network and creating an "independent" privacy oversight committee that may include Facebook board members, said the person, who requested anonymity because the discussions are ongoing.

Facebook Bans Far-Right Leaders Including Farrakhan, Alex Jones

Facebook said it has permanently banned several far-right and anti-Semitic figures and organizations, including Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Infowars host Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos and Laura Loomer, for being “dangerous,” a sign that the social network is more aggressively enforcing its hate speech policies under pressure from civil rights groups. Facebook had removed the accounts, fan pages, and groups affiliated with these individuals after it reevaluated the content that they had posted previously, or had reexamined their activities outside of Facebook, the company said.

Online Advertising Fraud Expected to Cost Marketers $5.8 Billion

Marketers are expected to waste $5.8 billion this year on buying online ads that will be viewed by bots instead of humans, a study found — an 11% decline from the amount the group estimated was lost to fraud in 2017. But ad-fraud schemes on other platforms have quickly risen and been much more difficult to measure, according to the study, which was conducted by the Association of National Advertisers and fraud-detection company White Ops Inc.

Qualcomm to Receive at Least $4.5B in Patent Settlement with Apple

Qualcomm Inc. will receive at least $4.5 billion as part of a legal settlement with Apple Inc. that ended more than two years of wrangling over the chip maker’s patent-licensing fees, the company said. The payment — part of a three-pronged settlement between the companies last month — would range from $4.5 billion to $4.7 billion, based on how the accounting ultimately works out, Qualcomm Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Facebook Debuts Product Changes to Address Privacy Concerns

Facebook debuted an overhaul of its core social network, taking its first concrete steps to refashion itself into a private messaging and e-commerce company as it tries to move past a stream of scandals while tapping new revenue sources. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a fresh design for the world’s biggest social network that de-emphasized its News Feed and showcased its messaging app, online marketplace and video-on-demand site.

Alibaba to Pay $250 Million to Settle Suit Over Counterfeit Goods Disclosure

Alibaba Group Holding, China’s largest e-commerce services provider, has agreed to pay $250 million to settle a U.S. lawsuit over the company’s failure to disclose that its executives met with Chinese regulators to discuss counterfeit goods sold on its largest retail platform, several months before the firm went public in 2014. New York-traded Alibaba and its senior executives deny any wrongdoing in the settlement, which “does not constitute an admission or finding that the claims asserted has any merit”, according to the company’s filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

ACLU Says CBP, ICE Have 'Near-Unfettered Authority' to Search Devices

United States officials have largely unchecked power to search electronic devices at the border, and can share the resulting data widely, the American Civil Liberties Union said. The organization, which is suing both Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agencies had released new information on how they conduct border searches.

Pompeo Expects Russian Interference Efforts in U.S. Elections for Decades

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he expects Russia will try to interfere in U.S. elections for decades to come, describing Moscow as having long presented a threat to American elections — not just in 2016. Pompeo told The Hill’s editor-in-chief Bob Cusack that “of course” the Russians continue to represent a threat to U.S. elections.

Supreme Court Asks Trump Administration About Google-Oracle Copyright Case

The U.S. Supreme Court asked the Trump administration to offer its views on whether it should hear Google’s bid to end Oracle Corp’s copyright infringement lawsuit involving the Android operating system that runs most of the world’s smartphones. The justices are considering whether to take up Google’s appeal of a lower court ruling reviving the lawsuit.

SEC, Musk Agree to Settlement Over Tesla CEO's Tweeting Practices

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has reached a deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a dispute over his use of Twitter, agreeing to submit his public statements about the company’s finances and other topics to vetting by its legal counsel, according to a court filing. If it is approved by a judge, the deal means the Tesla founder no longer faces the prospect of being held in contempt for violating an earlier settlement with the agency, which had required him to submit statements “material” to investors for prior review.

Facebook Bans Some Apps That Collect User Info Without Consent

Facebook is cracking down on third-party apps on its platform, announcing that it will no longer allow programs like the one that enabled political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to obtain the information of millions of users without their consent. The company said in a blog post that it will no longer allow apps with “minimal utility,” like personality quizzes, and will no longer allow apps to “ask for data that doesn't enrich the in-app, user experience.”

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.