Telegram CEO Blames China for 'Powerful DDoS Attack' Amid Hong Kong Protests

The chief executive of Telegram, a popular encrypted messaging app, said the messaging service experienced a “state actor-sized” cyber attack and pointed to China as its likely country of origin. The service was hit by a “powerful DDoS attack” originating from IP addresses mostly inside China, Pavel Durov, Telegram’s CEO, said in a tweet.

Huawei Tells Verizon to Pay Licensing Fees for More Than 200 Patents

Huawei Technologies Co. has told Verizon Communications Inc. that the carrier should pay licensing fees for more than 200 of its patents, according to people familiar with the matter, further escalating tensions between the Chinese company and the U.S. A Huawei intellectual property licensing executive wrote to the U.S. wireless carrier in February, telling Verizon it should pay to “solve the patent licensing issue,” according to the people. Verizon isn’t a Huawei customer.

Facebook Finds Emails Connecting Zuckerberg to Questionable Privacy Practices

Facebook Inc. uncovered emails that appear to connect Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to potentially problematic privacy practices at the company, according to people familiar with the matter. Within the company, the unearthing of the emails in the process of responding to a continuing federal privacy investigation has raised concerns that they would be harmful to Facebook — at least from a public-relations standpoint — if they were to become public, one of the people said.

Google Moves Some Nest Production Out of China to Avoid U.S. Tariffs

Alphabet Inc.’s Google is moving some production of Nest thermostats and server hardware out of China, avoiding punitive U.S. tariffs and an increasingly hostile government in Beijing, according to people familiar with the matter. Google has already shifted much of its production of U.S.-bound motherboards to Taiwan, averting a 25% tariff, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing internal matters.

WhatsApp Threatens Legal Action Against Those Who Abuse Its System

WhatsApp has threatened legal action against those who publicly claim the ability to abuse its messaging platform, after the emergence of a raft of companies advertising products to bypass usage restrictions. A Reuters investigation found in May that WhatsApp clones and software tools were helping Indian digital marketers and political activists bypass anti-spam restrictions in the run-up to India’s general election.

Warren Wants Antitrust Leader to Recuse Self from Probe of Google, Apple

Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren called on the Justice Department’s antitrust division chief, Makan Delrahim, to recuse himself from the department’s antitrust investigations into Google and Apple, saying his past lobbying for the companies raised conflict of interest concerns. In a letter to Delrahim, Warren said Alphabet Inc’s Google had hired him in 2007 to lobby federal antitrust officials on behalf of the company’s proposed acquisition of online advertising company DoubleClick Inc, and he had reported an estimated $100,000 in income from Google in that year.

House Hearing Focuses on Tech Firms' Impact on News Organizations

Congress opened its antitrust investigation of big tech with a hearing focused on how platforms like Facebook and Google may have harmed publishers by siphoning off profits from news organizations. Lawmakers will hear testimony from executives at News Corp, the owner of The Wall Street Journal and other publications; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and the News Media Alliance, a trade group representing 2,000 news organizations, including The New York Times.

Despite Enforcement, Illegal Drug Markets Continue to Appear Online

Despite enforcement actions over the last six years that led to the shutdown of about half a dozen sites — including the most recent two — there are still close to 30 illegal online markets, according to DarknetLive, a news and information site for the dark web. That means the fight against online drug sales is starting to resemble the war on drugs in the physical world: There are raids. Sites are taken down; a few people are arrested. And after a while the trade and markets pop up somewhere else.

Top U.S. Antitrust Official Says He'll Protect High-Tech Competition

The Justice Department’s top antitrust official said he would act to protect competition in the digital marketplace, his first public remarks since news reports that the department was preparing to investigate Alphabet Inc.’s Google. U.S. Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, in remarks delivered via video to a Tel Aviv University antitrust conference, didn’t specifically mention plans for an investigation of big tech firms, but he noted that a close examination of the digital economy is important in markets where one or two companies are dominant.

In Settlement, Infowars Agrees to Pay $15,000 to Create of Pepe the Frog

Infowars was forced to pay $15,000 in a settlement to the creator of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon amphibian who had been co-opted as a meme by right-wing Internet users, after selling a poster that featured the character on its website. Pepe’s creator, Matt Furie, had brought a copyright lawsuit against Alex Jones’s website after it began selling posters that featured Pepe alongside personalities such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Roger Stone and Diamond and Silk.

Virus Shuts Down Philadelphia's Online Court System for Weeks

As Baltimore deals with a devastating malware attack, the Philadelphia court shutdown is raising similar questions about how cities can respond when crucial services are suddenly lost. The outage has now stretched on for weeks, forcing attorneys to use paperwork filed in person and raising difficult questions about who is slipping through the cracks of the broken system.

103 Public Interest Groups Urge McConnell to Restore Net Neutrality

A coalition of more than 100 activist groups is urging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to take up a bill in the upper chamber to restore net neutrality after the House voted overwhelmingly for the legislation earlier this year. The 103 public interest groups are urging McConnell in a letter to immediately bring the Save the Internet Act, which would reinstate Obama-era net neutrality rules, to a vote in the Senate.

Lawmakers Ramping Up Antitrust Scrutiny of Big Tech Companies

Legislation and more regulation of technology companies such as Google and Facebook is possible, but lawmakers are approaching scrutiny with an open mind, the federal lawmaker leading an antitrust investigation of the industry said. “This is an investigation to collect the best data and best information,” said Rep. David Cicilline, the Rhode Island Democrat who leads the House Antitrust, Commercial & Administrative Law Subcommittee.

U.S. Tech Firms Say Huawei Ban Will Hurt Their Finances, Innovation

U.S. technology companies have told the Commerce Department that the Trump administration’s ban on selling to the Chinese tech giant Huawei could significantly harm their bottom lines and might damage their ability to develop new technological innovations, including those needed by the U.S. military. The companies are making the claims in applications for licenses that would let them do business with Huawei after the prohibition goes into effect in August, according to people familiar with the licensing process.

G20 Finance Ministers to Cooperate on Rules for Closing Tech Tax Loopholes

Group of 20 finance ministers agreed to compile common rules to close loopholes used by global tech giants such as Facebook to reduce their corporate taxes, a copy of the bloc’s draft communique obtained by Reuters showed. Facebook, Google, Amazon, and other large technology firms face criticism for cutting their tax bills by booking profits in low-tax countries regardless of the location of the end customer.

FTC, FDA Tell Vaping Companies to Include Warnings on Social Media

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned a handful of "e-liquid," or vape, companies that they -- and their social media influencers -- must follow the same advertising rules as everyone else. Specifically, ads for vaping products that contain nicotine must include warning labels, as nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Local Governments Fighting 'Pandemic' from Ransomware, FBI Agent Says

Local governments across the country are facing a growing threat of cyberattacks and escalating ransom demands, as an attack in Baltimore has crippled thousands of computers for a month. “Ransomware is a pandemic in the United States,” said Joel DeCapua, supervisory special agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s cyber division, referring to a particularly devastating form of malicious software.

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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.