Microsoft Discusses Buying TikTok As Trump Vows to Ban It

China’s ByteDance has agreed to divest the U.S. operations of TikTok completely in a bid to save a deal with the White House, after President Donald Trump said he had decided to ban the popular short-video app, two people familiar with the matter said. ByteDance’s concession will test whether Trump’s threat to ban TikTok is a negotiating tactic, or whether he is intent on cracking down on a social media app that boasts it has 100 million users in the United States.

Florida Teenager Arrested as 'Mastermind' Behind Attack on Popular Twitter Accounts

The authorities said that a Florida teenager was the “mastermind” of a recent high-profile hack of 130 Twitter accounts, including the accounts of celebrities like former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Silicon Valley mogul Elon Musk. Graham Ivan Clark, 17, was arrested in his Tampa home and is believed to be the linchpin of a hack that turned into an embarrassment for Twitter and called into question the security measures of a range of tech companies. Two other people were also charged with taking part in the hack.

EU Leaders Pushing for Laws to Regulate Large U.S. Tech Companies

Europe’s lawmakers and regulators have shifted to a new stage in their battle to limit the power of the world’s biggest tech companies. The region has long been at the forefront of using existing antitrust laws and levying multibillion dollar penalties against the tech giants, but officials now say that those tactics have not gone far enough in altering the behavior of Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook. So they are drafting at least half a dozen new laws and regulations to aim at the heart of how those tech companies’ businesses work.

Senators Ask Justice Department to Investigate Zoom, TikTok

Senators Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, and Josh Hawley, a Republican, wrote to the U.S. Justice Department to urge a probe of video technology company Zoom and Chinese-owned social media company TikTok. The lawmakers said Americans, many of whom are largely staying home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, were substituting Zoom calls for personal interaction and binging on TikTok videos.

EU Sanctions Russia's Military Intelligence Agency for Cyberattacks

The European Union slapped sanctions on six people and three organizations, including Russia’s military intelligence agency, accusing them of responsibility for several cyber-attacks that threatened EU interests. EU headquarters said in a statement that those targeted include people considered to be involved in the 2017 “WannaCry” ransomware attack, the “NotPetya” strike that notably caused havoc in Ukraine, and the “Operation Cloud Hopper” hacking campaign.

Top Tech CEOs Face Tough Questions from Republicans and Democrats

The chief executives of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook, four tech giants worth nearly $5 trillion combined, faced withering questions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike for the tactics and market dominance that had made their enterprises successful. For more than five hours, the 15 members of an antitrust panel in the House lobbed questions and repeatedly interrupted and talked over Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google.

TikTok Says It Will Let Experts to Examine Its Underlying Source Code

TikTok pledged it will allow U.S. regulators and privacy experts to take a closer look under its digital hood, offering them the ability to “examine” its underlying software code in response to claims it is handing off data to the Chinese government. The commitment from the company’s chief executive — Kevin Mayer, who recently arrived from Disney — is part of an enhanced push by the popular short-form video app to “show users, advertisers, creators, and regulators that we are responsible and committed members of the American community that follows US laws,” he wrote in a blog post.

Arizona Leads Investigation of Apple Slowing Older iPhones

Arizona is leading a multi-U.S. state probe into whether Apple Inc’s deliberate slowing of older iPhones violated deceptive trade practice laws, documents reviewed by Reuters showed. Last week, a separate document released by a tech watchdog group showed the Texas attorney general might sue Apple for such violations in connection with a multi-state probe, without specifying charges.

Twitter Suspends Trump Jr.'s Account for Sharing Coronavirus Misinformation

Twitter has temporarily limited the account belonging to Donald Trump Jr., President Donald Trump's eldest child, for 12 hours after he posted content that violated the company's policies on misinformation related to the coronavirus pandemic. A Twitter spokesperson says the tweet with video Trump Jr. directly shared -- dismissing masks and lockdowns and promoting hydroxychloroquine -- violated its "COVID-19 misinformation policy." President Trump separately retweeted the video.

Bill Would Limit Protections for Platforms Using Behavioral Advertising

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced legislation that would condition legal protections for online platforms that utilize behavioral advertising, the use of browsing habits to serve tailored ads to users. The Behavioral Advertising Decisions Are Downgrading Services (BAD ADS) Act would take Section 230 protections away from the biggest tech companies that use the advertising method.

Google Rejects Liberal Political 'Police State' Ad Due to Graphic Violence

A sequence of clips showing police officers beating, pushing and tasing protesters and other unarmed Americans is set against President Trump’s description of himself as “your president of law and order” and his notorious 2017 directive to law enforcement, “Please don’t be too nice.” The 30-second spot, aimed at mobilizing black voters, was rejected by Google, along with Hulu and Verizon. Facebook, by contrast, approved the ad.

Prosecutors Ask Judge to Drop Charges Against Former Twitter Employees

The U.S. sought to dismiss charges it brought late last year against two former Twitter Inc. employees and a Saudi national for allegedly helping Riyadh spy on dissidents who use the social network. Prosecutors in San Francisco asked for a judge’s permission to drop the charges. The two-page filing doesn’t offer a reason but specifies that the dismissal would be “without prejudice,” meaning the government could file new charges.

Cybersecurity Group Says Election Administrators Vulnerable to Cyberattacks

Election administrators across the country are vulnerable to cyberattacks that originate through malicious phishing emails, a report found. The report, compiled by cybersecurity group Area 1 Security, found that over 50 percent of election administrators have “only rudimentary or non-standard technologies” to protect against malicious emails from cyber criminals, with less than 30 percent using basic security controls to halt phishing emails.

Facebook Sues EU Antitrust Regulators Over 'Exceptionally Broad' Requests

Facebook is suing EU antitrust regulators for seeking information beyond what is necessary, including highly personal details, for their investigations into the company’s data and marketplace, the U.S. social media group said. Facebook has been under EU competition enforcers’ scrutiny since last year, with one investigation focused on its trove of data and the other on its online marketplace launched in 2016 and used by 800 million Facebook users in 70 countries to buy and sell items.

Trump Says He Often Regrets Sending His Tweets, Retweets

President Trump acknowledged in an interview that he “often” regrets his tweets and retweets. “It used to be in the old days before this, you’d write a letter and you’d say, ‘this letter is really bad,’ you put it on your desk and you go back tomorrow and you say, ‘oh, I’m glad I didn’t send it,’” Trump told Barstool Sports’ founder Dave Portnoy.

Quantum Internet Would Offer Economic, National Security Advantages

U.S. officials and scientists unveiled a plan to pursue what they called one of the most important technological frontiers of the 21st century: building a quantum Internet. Speaking in Chicago, one of the main hubs of the work, they set goals for forging what they called a second Internet — one that would function alongside the globe’s existing networks, using the laws of quantum mechanics to share information more securely and to connect a new generation of computers and sensors.

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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.