Justice Department Preparing to Open Antitrust Investigation of Google

The Justice Department has taken early steps toward opening a federal antitrust investigation into Google, according to three people familiar with the matter, marking a new chapter in the tech giant’s troubles with regulators around the world who contend the company is too large and threatens rivals and consumers. The move thrusts Google back under the regulatory microscope in the United States roughly six years after another federal agency probed the search and advertising behemoth on grounds that its business practices threatened competitors — though the government spared the company from major punishment at the time.

N.Y. Education Department Orders School District to Stop Facial Recognition

The New York State Education Department instructed a school district to delay its plans to implement the use of facial recognition technology. "We have made it clear, the Department has not approved the testing of the system planned for next week and we told the District not to commence the testing of the technology until we receive information that assures us that student information will be properly protected," a spokesperson for the department told The Hill.

Tech Firms Oppose British Proposal for Spying on Encrypted Communications

Tech giants, civil society groups and Ivy League security experts have condemned a proposal from Britain’s eavesdropping agency as a “serious threat” to digital security and fundamental human rights. In an open letter to GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), 47 signatories including Apple, Google and WhatsApp have jointly urged the U.K. cybersecurity agency to abandon its plans for a so-called “ghost protocol.”

  • Read the article: CNBC

Salesforce Tells Retailers It Can't Use Its Software to Sell Military-Style Rifles

Behind the scenes in recent weeks, Silicon Valley tech giant Salesforce.com has delivered a message to gun-selling retailers such as Camping World: Stop selling military-style rifles, or stop using our software. The change in Salesforce’s acceptable-use policy shows how a technology giant that is mostly unknown to the public is trying to influence what retailers in America sell and alter the dynamics of a charged social issue.

Checkers Drive-In Restaurants Reports Malware on Payment Card Readers

Tampa-based fast food chain Checkers Drive-In Restaurants Inc. announced a data breach that affected an unknown number of customers' payment card information. According to the company, malware on some payment card readers at just over 100 Checkers and Rally's locations siphoned information including cardholder names, payment card numbers, card expiration dates and card verification codes.

Pelosi Criticizes Facebook for Refusing to Delete Altered Videos of Her

Speaker Nancy Pelosi strongly rebuked Facebook, saying the company’s refusal to take down altered videos of her demonstrated how the social network contributed to misinformation and enabled Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. “We have said all along, poor Facebook, they were unwittingly exploited by the Russians,” Ms. Pelosi said in an interview with the public radio station KQED.

Apple Defends App Store from Criticism About How It Treats Rivals

Apple Inc. publicly defended its App Store from mounting criticism over its treatment of rivals in a new blog post detailing its functions and guidelines. Companies like music streaming leader Spotify Technology SA have criticized the iPhone maker’s practices, describing it as anti-competitive behavior in a complaint to the European Union’s antitrust regulators.

Google Announces New App Developer Policies to Protect Children

Google announced a new set of developer policies aimed at providing additional protections for children and families seeking kid-friendly apps on Google Play. The new policies require that developers ensure their apps are meeting all the necessary policy and regulatory requirements for apps that target children in terms of their content, ads and how they handle personally identifiable information.

Flipboard Tells Users Hackers Had Access to Internal Systems for 9 Months

Flipboard, a news aggregator service and mobile news app, has started notifying users of a security incident during which hackers had access to internal systems for more than nine months. In a series of emails seen by ZDNet that the company sent out to impacted users, Flipboard said hackers gained access to databases the company was using to store customer information.

Qualcomm Asks Judge Not to Enforce Decision in FTC Antitrust Case

Qualcomm Inc. asked a federal judge not to enforce her decision that it illegally squeezed out rivals in the smartphone chips market as it plans to file an appeal that could take more than a year to wind through the courts. In a filing in federal court in San Jose, California, Qualcomm said that it believes it can succeed in appealing the May 21 decision by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in an antitrust case brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in January 2017.

Huawei Asks Court to Declare National Defense Authorization Act Unconstitutional

China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd has filed a motion for summary judgment in its lawsuit against the U.S. government, according to a court filing in the United States, in the telecoms equipment maker’s latest attempt to fight sanctions from Washington that threaten to push it out of global markets. The motion, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, asks it to declare the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) unconstitutional in an update to the lawsuit brought by the telecommunications equipment maker in March.

Pro-Iranian Influence Campaign Created Fake Social Media Accounts

A pro-Iranian influence campaign created fake Facebook and Twitter accounts to push Tehran's viewpoint in the U.S. and succeeded in having a number of American newspapers publish their letters, according to new research published. Facebook, operating on a tip from the threat intelligence company FireEye who authored the research, announced that it had removed 51 accounts, 36 pages, and seven groups, as well as three Instagram accounts that it believed were part of the same campaign.

  • Read the article: CNN

Mortgage Company Reportedly Exposed Hundreds of Millions of Customers

A leading mortgage settlement and title insurance company, First American Financial Corporation, left hundreds of millions of customer records accessible on the web, including personal information such as Social Security numbers, according to a report on a security blog. Though no data is known to have been taken, the scale of the security lapse was massive, putting at risk 885 millions records from an unknown numbers of customers, wrote Brian Krebs, of KrebsonSecurity, which covers breaches, hacks and online crime.

WHO Adopts Update to Diseases Classification to Add 'Gaming Disorder'

The World Health Organization adopted the latest update to its International Classification of Diseases (ICD), which adds "gaming disorder" to its list of modern diseases. The organization last June added gaming addiction under its section of potentially harmful technology-related behaviors, including too much use of "the internet, computers, smartphones" and more.

  • Read the article: CNET

FTC Commissioners Can't Agree on Possible $5B Facebook Privacy Settlement

A long-awaited multibillion-dollar settlement between Facebook Inc. and federal regulators over privacy missteps has been bogged down by a split between Republicans and Democrats on the Federal Trade Commission, according to people familiar with the matter. Facebook said April 24 that it was expecting to pay up to $5 billion in an accord with the FTC. At the time, people closely following the talks said a settlement was expected within days.

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