Homeowner Sues Amazon After Hacker Allegedly Accesses Ring Camera

Amazon.com Inc. and its Ring home security camera unit have been sued by an Alabama homeowner who said the cameras’ defective design leaves purchasers vulnerable to cyberattacks. In a proposed class action, John Baker Orange said an unknown hacker recently accessed his Ring camera while his children, ages 7, 9 and 10, were playing basketball on the driveway, and through its speaker system encouraged them to move closer to the camera.

Tuvalu's .tv Top-Level Domain Proves Valuable Amid TV, Gaming Growth

Nearly 25 years after it was assigned the country code top-level domain .tv, the internet’s full power remains relatively unknown to many people on the island of Tuvalu, but its evolution has made the domain one of its most valuable resources. Thanks to the rise of livestreamed programming and competitive video gaming, Tuvalu earns about 1/12th of its annual gross national income (GNI) from licensing its domain to tech giants like Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch through the Virginia-based company Verisign.

California's Internet Privacy Law Creating Confusion for Companies, Consumers

A sweeping new law that aims to rewrite the rules of the internet in California went into effect on Jan. 1. Most businesses with a website and customers in California — which is to say most large businesses in the nation — must follow the new rules, which are supposed to make online life more transparent and less creepy for users. The only problem: Nobody’s sure how the new rules work.

Military Cyber Officials Create Plan to Target Russians for Election Interference

Military cyber officials are developing information warfare tactics that could be deployed against senior Russian officials and oligarchs if Moscow tries to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections through hacking election systems or sowing widespread discord, according to current and former U.S. officials. One option being explored by U.S. Cyber Command would target senior leadership and Russian elites, though probably not President Vladimir Putin, which would be considered too provocative, said the current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

Apple, Google Remove ToTok App After Report Identifying It as UAE Spy Tool

Apple and Google have reportedly both removed the messaging app ToTok from their online stores after The New York Times reported that it is a spy tool used by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government. ToTok said in a statement on its website that the app is "temporarily" not available on the Google Play or Apple App stores because of "a technical issue."

Facebook, Twitter Disable Fake Accounts Using AI to Push Pro-Trump Messages

Facebook and Twitter disabled a global network of hundreds of fake accounts that pushed pro-Trump messages and covered its tracks using inauthentic photos generated with the aid of artificial intelligence. The tech giants’ takedown targeted the BL, a U.S.-based media company that Facebook linked to Epoch Media Group that has criticized the Chinese government; has ties to Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual movement; and has vociferously supported the reelection of President Trump.

France's Competition Watchdog Fines Google $166M Over Ad Abuses

France’s competition watchdog has slapped Google with a €150 million (~$166 million) fine after finding the tech giant abused its dominant position in the online search advertising market. In a decision following a lengthy investigation into the online ad sector, the competition authority sanctioned Google for adopting what it describes as “opaque and difficult to understand” operating rules for its ad platform, Google Ads, and for applying them in “an unfair and random manner.”

'Secure' Chat App ToTok Called Spy Tool Used by United Arab Emirates

It is billed as an easy and secure way to chat by video or text message with friends and family, even in a country that has restricted popular messaging services like WhatsApp and Skype. But the service, ToTok, is actually a spying tool, according to American officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment and a New York Times investigation into the app and its developers.

EU Court Adviser Approves Facebook Data Transfer Agreements

Agreements that let Facebook and other firms send European citizens’ data to the United States and other countries are valid, a key EU court adviser said, although he left room for such transfers to be blocked if European data protection standards are not met in countries receiving the information. The case is based on a challenge by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, who argued that Facebook’s contracts do not protect data to European levels, especially given concerns about activities by U.S. spy agencies.

Data on 267 Million Facebook Users Exposed Online, Report Says

More than 267 million Facebook users allegedly had their user IDs, phone numbers and names exposed online, according to a report from Comparitech and security researcher Bob Diachenko. That info was found in a database that could be accessed without a password or any other authentication, and the researchers believe it was gathered as part of an illegal scraping operation or Facebook API abuse.

Man Gets 5-Year Sentence for Email Scam That Cost Facebook, Google $120M

A Lithuanian man who scammed Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google into sending him more than $120 million must serve five years in prison, a judge said. Evaldas Rimasauskas, 50, and his accomplices engaged in a phishing scheme, sending emails to employees and agents of the two tech giants that appeared to be from a major Taiwanese hardware maker that was a business partner of both companies.

Facebook Bans Ads That 'Advise People Not to Participate in Census'

Facebook Inc., which has come under fire for allowing politicians to run misleading advertisements, said it will ban any ads that aim to limit participation in next year’s U.S. census, which officials and lawmakers fear could be targeted by disinformation aiming to disrupt the count. The census is used to determine each state's representation in the U.S. Congress and to guide the allocation of as much as $1.5 trillion a year in federal funds.

House Committee Unveils First Draft of Bipartisan Federal Privacy Bill

A key House committee unveiled a first draft of a bipartisan federal privacy bill, bringing Congress one step closer to passing a law to rein in the tech industry's unregulated collection of personal information on its millions of U.S. users. The draft from Republican and Democratic staffers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee comes as the Senate continues to wrestle with its own privacy negotiations, which recently broke down as top senators offered separate party-line bills.

Chinese Authorities Combining Tools to Create Widespread Surveillance

Chinese authorities are knitting together old and state-of-the-art technologies — phone scanners, facial-recognition cameras, face and fingerprint databases and many others — into sweeping tools for authoritarian control, according to police and private databases examined by The New York Times. Once combined and fully operational, the tools can help police grab the identities of people as they walk down the street, find out who they are meeting with and identify who does and doesn’t belong to the Communist Party.

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.