Facebook VP Says Antitrust Officials Must 'Reconfigure Old Concepts'

Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs and communications, said that antitrust officials should be careful not to treat data like other commodities that could be monopolized, but rather as something more complex that can be shared and kept at the same time. “We think it is legitimate to ask profound questions about how data is held,” Mr. Clegg said at a briefing with journalists. But he added that officials defining what he called the orthodoxy of competition policy should “reconfigure old concepts” and “relinquish themselves of the idea that [using data] is the same as using finite resources in finite, one-off ways.”

FBI Treats Mobile Apps from Russia as 'Potential Counterintelligence Threat'

The FBI is treating any mobile app that comes out of Russia as a “potential counterintelligence threat,” the U.S.’s top law enforcement agency said in a letter to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s concern arises in part from “the legal mechanisms available to the Government of Russia that permit access to data” in the country, according to the letter, which Schumer’s office released.

Amazon Removes Christmas Ornaments Featuring Images of Auschwitz

Amazon has removed a number of Christmas ornaments featuring images of the Auschwitz concentration camps from sale, amid anger from the museum that manages the site. Pictures of the Nazi death camp complex were used on a variety of tree ornaments, a mouse pad and a bottle opener, which the Auschwitz Memorial described as "disturbing and disrespectful."

  • Read the article: CNN

Fake Credentials Allow Applicants to Register .gov Domain Names

Many readers probably believe they can trust links and emails coming from U.S. federal government domain names, or else assume there are at least more stringent verification requirements involved in obtaining a .gov domain versus a commercial one ending in .com or .org. But a recent experience suggests this trust may be severely misplaced, and that it is relatively straightforward for anyone to obtain their very own .gov domain.

Database with Tens of Millions of Text Messages Exposed Online

A massive database storing tens of millions of SMS text messages, most of which were sent by businesses to potential customers, has been found online. The database is run by TrueDialog, a business SMS provider for businesses and higher education providers, which lets companies, colleges, and universities send bulk text messages to their customers and students.

Web Founder 'Very Concerned' About Sale of .org Domain Operator

Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee is worried that a for-profit company plans to buy the organization that administers the .org internet addresses used by millions of nonprofit organizations. On Nov. 13, the Internet Society, a nonprofit devoted to increasing the internet's reach, security and privacy, announced a plan to sell the .org oversight role to investment firm Ethos Capital by the first quarter of 2020.

  • Read the article: CNET

China Bans 'Fake News' Using Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality

Chinese regulators have announced new rules governing video and audio content online, including a ban on the publishing and distribution of “fake news” created with technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality. Any use of AI or virtual reality also needs to be clearly marked in a prominent manner and failure to follow the rules could be considered a criminal offense, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said on its website.

TikTok Apologizes to Teen After Blocking Account Criticizing Chinese Treatment

The popular video app TikTok apologized to a teen user after it said it erroneously blocked access to her account and removed one of her videos criticizing Chinese treatment of Uighur Muslims. Feroza Aziz, 17, uploaded what at first appears to be a beauty video but turns out to be her listing the harsh conditions the minority group has faced in China.

EU Antitrust Regulators Probing Google's Data Collection Practices

EU antitrust regulators are investigating Google’s collection of data, the European Commission told Reuters, suggesting the world’s most popular internet search engine remains in its sights despite record fines in recent years. Competition enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are now looking into how dominant tech companies use and monetise data.

Man Accused of Trying to Help North Korea Avoid Sanctions with Cryptocurrency

A man was arrested in California and accused of traveling to North Korea to deliver a presentation on using cryptocurrency and blockchain technology that could help the country evade sanctions, federal prosecutors in New York said. Virgil Griffith, 36, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport after he allegedly traveled North Korea in April and provided technological information that could assist in evading sanctions imposed on the country by the U.S., the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York said in a statement.

Most Presidential Candidates Not Using Email Security Feature

Just one-third of the 2020 U.S. presidential candidates are using an email security feature that could prevent a similar attack that hobbled the Democrats during the 2016 election. Out of the 21 presidential candidates in the race according to Reuters, only seven Democrats are using and enforcing DMARC, an email security protocol that verifies the authenticity of a sender’s email and rejects spoofed emails, which hackers often use to try to trick victims into opening malicious links from seemingly known individuals.

Singapore Requires Facebook to Post Correction Under 'Fake News' Law

Singapore instructed Facebook to publish a correction on a user’s social media post under a new “fake news” law, raising fresh questions about how the company will adhere to government requests to regulate content. The government said in a statement that it had issued an order requiring Facebook “to publish a correction notice” on a Nov. 23 post which contained accusations about the arrest of a supposed whistleblower and election rigging.

Twitter Permanently Suspends Account for Republican Congressional Candidate

A Republican candidate running to challenge Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota had her Twitter account permanently suspended for repeated violations of Twitter rules, according to a Twitter spokesperson. Danielle Stella says she was banned for a tweet in which she spread a baseless claim about Omar and said if the claim is true, Omar should be tried for treason and hanged, according to a post to her Facebook account.

  • Read the article: CNN

Judge Denies Facebook Users Class-Action Status for Damages in Privacy Case

A federal judge said up to 29 million Facebook Inc. users whose personal information was stolen in a September 2018 data breach cannot sue as a group for damages, but can seek better security at the social media company after a series of privacy lapses. U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco said neither credit monitoring costs nor the reduced value of stolen personal information was a “cognizable injury” that supported a class action for damages.

More Than One-Third of Online Reviews Identified as Fraudulent

More than a third of online reviews on major websites, including those on Amazon.com Inc., Walmart Inc. and Sephora, are fake, meaning they are generated by robots or people paid to write them, according to Fakespot Inc., which identifies fraudulent reviews. The problem has become so pervasive that the Federal Trade Commission has started cracking down on violators, and lawmakers are pressing Amazon to do a better job of policing reviews on its website.

Civil Rights Groups Want Congress to Probe Ring's Video Recording System

A coalition of more than a dozen civil rights groups called for a congressional investigation into Amazon's "surveillance empire" amid escalating scrutiny of the tech giant's home security subsidiary, Ring. Advocacy groups such as Demand Progress, Color of Change and the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Congress to invite Amazon executives to testify publicly about "the threats their nationwide surveillance network pose."

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.