TikTok's Lawsuit Says Trump's Order Not Based on National Security

TikTok is taking its fight against the Trump administration to the courts, filing a legal challenge against the government’s order to ban the video app effective mid-September. TikTok alleges that President Trump’s executive order is “not rooted in bona fide national security concerns,” according to excerpts of the complaint the company detailed in a blog post.

Gun Sellers Find New Tactic to Avoid Facebook's Limits on Selling Guns

Gun sellers have adopted a new tactic to attract buyers on Facebook Inc.’s Marketplace — a year after Democratic lawmakers called on Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to more-effectively police the site’s ban on firearm sales. A new tactic involves posts purporting to sell stickers, alongside images of gun makers’ logos. Sellers typically ask an interested party to send a private message via the service for more information. Several sellers contacted by the Journal responded to say they were actually selling guns, not stickers, and provided details and pricing.

Facebook Blocks Access to 1 Million Members After Thailand Threatens Action

Facebook blocked access within Thailand to a group with 1 million members that discusses the country’s king, after the Thai government threatened legal action over failure to take down content deemed defamatory to the monarchy. The move comes amid near daily youth-led protests against the government led by the former military junta chief and unprecedented calls for reforms of the monarchy.

Twitter Puts Warning Label on Trump's Tweet About Ballot Drop Boxes

Twitter hid one of President Trump’s tweets behind a notice warning users that the message violated company rules against dissuading people from voting. Mr. Trump posted the tweet, which said that ballot drop boxes were not being sanitized to prevent the coronavirus and could be used for fraud, about five hours before Twitter took action.

Facebook Makes Contingency Plans if Trump Tries to Delegitimize Election

Facebook spent years preparing to ward off any tampering on its site ahead of November’s presidential election. Now the social network is getting ready in case President Trump interferes once the vote is over. Employees at the Silicon Valley company are laying out contingency plans and walking through postelection scenarios that include attempts by Mr. Trump or his campaign to use the platform to delegitimize the results, people with knowledge of Facebook’s plans said.

British Finance Minister Plans to Drop Tax on Large Technology Companies

British finance minister Rishi Sunak plans to drop a tax on technology companies such as Facebook and Google because it does not raise much money and could hurt a push for a U.S. trade deal, the Mail on Sunday newspaper said. Britain introduced the digital services tax in April after slow progress in global negotiations over how to tax tech giants, many of which are U.S. companies.

TikTok Plans to Sue Trump Administration Over Executive Order Against It

TikTok plans to sue the Trump administration over the president’s executive order banning U.S. transactions with the popular video-sharing app and its Chinese parent ByteDance, the company confirmed. Under the president’s executive order issued Aug. 6, any transactions with ByteDance subject to U.S. jurisdiction will face prohibition in 45 days.

  • Read the article: CNBC

Four Brothers Arrested in Scheme to Overcharge Amazon for Wholesale Orders

Four brothers from New York state were arrested and charged by federal authorities in an alleged scheme to overcharge Amazon for wholesale orders and pocket $19 million in the process. From 2017 to 2019, the brothers allegedly ran a wholesale business that exploited Amazon's vendor systems to send the e-commerce giant significantly more stuff than it agreed to buy and then charge the company a lot more money.

  • Read the article: CNET

EU Privacy Regulators Debate Whether to Fine Twitter for GDPR Breach

European Union privacy regulators are clashing over how much — if anything — to fine Twitter Inc. for its handling of a data breach disclosed last year, delaying progress of the most advanced cross-border privacy case involving a U.S. tech company under the EU’s strict new privacy law. The dispute, disclosed in a statement from Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, is one of the first major tests for enforcement of the EU’s privacy law, known as GDPR, which took effect in 2018.

Zuckerberg Answers Questions Under Oath in FTC Antitrust Investigation

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, answered questions under oath on multiple days as part of the Federal Trade Commission’s inquiry into whether the company broke antitrust laws, the company said. The interview with Mr. Zuckerberg, reported earlier by Politico, was the first known time that regulators directly questioned a chief executive of one of the tech companies being scrutinized for potential antitrust violations.

Judge Gives Preliminary Approval to Facebook's New Biometric Settlement

Facebook Inc. won preliminary approval late from a federal court for settlement of a lawsuit that claimed it illegally collected and stored biometric data of millions of users without their consent. The social media company had in July raised its settlement offer by $100 million to $650 million in relation to the lawsuit, in which Illinois users accused it of violating the U.S. state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act.

Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Review Twitter-Blocking Case

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that found President Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking his critics on Twitter. The lawsuit arose in 2017 after Trump’s social media account blocked seven people who had tweeted criticism of the president in comment threads linked to his @realDonaldTrump Twitter handle.

Premom Fertility App Accused of Sharing Users' Data Without Permission

A fertility app for Android was also collecting a broad swath of data about its users and sharing it without their permission with three Chinese companies focused on advertising, according to research the International Digital Accountability Council provided to The Washington Post. IDAC, a nonprofit that monitors and works with apps and developers to protect consumer privacy, sent letters on Aug. 6 to the Federal Trade Commission and the attorney general of Illinois, where Premom is headquartered, alleging the data-sharing was deceptive and potentially ran afoul of federal and state law.

DOJ Charges Uber's Former Security Chief for Trying to Conceal Hack

The Justice Department (DOJ) has filed charges against Uber’s former security chief for allegedly attempting to conceal a 2016 hack that exposed the email addresses and phone numbers of 57 million drivers and passengers. Prosecutors accuse Joseph Sullivan, who was Uber’s chief security officer from April 2015-November 2017, of not disclosing the 2016 hacking incident to federal investigators who were looking into another data breach that had occurred two years earlier.

Despite Election Win, Twitter Won't Reverse Ban on Florida Candidate

Twitter said it will not reverse its decision to ban far-right activist and self-described "proud Islamophobe" Laura Loomer from its platform after her Republican primary win in Florida. "The account owner... was permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter Rules, and we do not plan to reverse that enforcement action," a Twitter spokesperson told The Hill.

Coronavirus Misinformation Gets Prominence on Facebook, Study Says

As the coronavirus pandemic has raged across the United States, misinformation about vaccines and other health topics has been viewed an estimated 3.8 billion times on Facebook — four times more than authoritative content from institutions such as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a study by the left-leaning global human rights group Avaaz. The group also found that Facebook pages promulgating misleading health information got even more traffic during the pandemic than at other times — reaching a one-year peak in April — despite Facebook’s policy of removing dangerous coronavirus-related misinformation and reducing the spread of other questionable health claims.

Facebook, Instagram Remove, Restrict Thousands of QAnon Accounts

Facebook said that it had removed 790 QAnon groups from its site and was restricting another 1,950 groups, 440 pages and more than 10,000 Instagram accounts related to the right-wing conspiracy theory, in the social network’s most sweeping action against the fast-growing movement. Facebook’s takedown followed record growth of QAnon groups on the site, much of it since the coronavirus pandemic began in March. Activity

Indian Lawmakers Want to Question Facebook About Extremist Posts

Indian lawmakers want to question Facebook Inc. about extremist posts on its platform. Opposition members of Parliament are acting following an article Friday in The Wall Street Journal that detailed what current and former Facebook employees said was a pattern of favoritism toward the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Hindu hard-liners.

Subscribe

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.