Amazon to Pay $61.7 Million in Dispute Over Tips for Flex Drivers

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced that Amazon will be required to pay $61.7 million to settle charges that it withheld some customer tips from its Amazon Flex drivers over a two and a half year period. According to the complaint against Amazon and its subsidiary Amazon Logistics, the company had advertised that it paid 100% of tips to drivers. But in reality, Amazon used the customer tips to cover the difference after it lowered the hourly rate — a change it didn’t inform drivers about, the complaint says.

Facebook to Notify iPhone Users of Privacy Changes Via On-Screen Prompt

Facebook Inc. said in a blog post it will begin rolling out a notification for iPhone users globally about how data is used for personalized ads, in an attempt to get ahead of upcoming Apple Inc. privacy changes that Facebook says will hurt its advertising business. The full-screen prompt will ask Facebook and Instagram users to allow their app and website activity to be used for personalized ads and to “support businesses that rely on ads to reach customers.”

Conservative Voices Not Being Censored Online, NYU Report Says

Claims that conservative voices are being censored online by social media platforms are not backed by evidence and are themselves a disinformation narrative, according to a report. The New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights’ report concluded that anti-conservative bias claims, boosted by some top Republican lawmakers including former President Trump, are not based on any tangible evidence.

Number of Hate Groups Declines as Extremists Move Online, SPLC Says

During one of the most politically divisive years in recent memory, the number of active hate groups in the U.S. actually declined as far-right extremists migrated further to online networks, a move that has made adherents of white nationalist and neo-Nazi ideologies more difficult to track. In its annual report, released Monday, the Southern Poverty Law Center said many hate groups have moved to social media platforms and use of encrypted apps, while others have been banned altogether from mainstream social media networks.

Facebook's Oversight Board Seeks Public Comments on Banning Trump

Facebook's content oversight board is accepting public comment on the social network's decision to indefinitely bar Donald Trump from posting to his account because of concerns the now-former president could incite violence like the Jan. 6 insurrection at Capitol Hill. The board is asking the public for its views on a host of issues surrounding the suspension, including whether the decision meets with Facebook's "responsibilities to respect freedom of expression and human rights" and how the company should balance potentially dangerous activity off of the social network when making its decisions.

  • Read the article: CNET

Indian Law Would Ban Bitcoin, Other Private Cryptocurrencies

India plans to introduce a law to ban private cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin in the country and provide a framework for the creation of an official digital currency during the current budget session of parliament. In the agenda published on the lower house website, the legislation seeks to “prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India,” but allow “for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology [blockchain] of cryptocurrency and its uses.”

Google Removes Negative Reviews of Robinhood App from Play Store

Google is actively removing negative reviews of the Robinhood app from the Google Play Store, the company confirmed to The Verge. After some disgruntled Robinhood users organized campaigns to give the app a one-star review on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store — and succeeded in review-bombing it all the way down to a one-star rating — the company has now deleted enough reviews to bring it back up to nearly four stars.

Investigators Find Evidence Linking Russian Attack to More Than SolarWinds

Investigators probing a massive hack of the U.S. government and businesses say they have found concrete evidence the suspected Russian espionage operation went far beyond the compromise of the small software vendor publicly linked to the attack. Close to a third of the victims didn’t run the SolarWinds Corp. software initially considered the main avenue of attack for the hackers, according to investigators and the government agency digging into the incident.

Xiaomi Sues U.S. Defense, Treasury Departments to Get Off Banned List

Xiaomi Corp filed a complaint in a Washington district court against the U.S. Defense and Treasury Departments, seeking to remove the Chinese smartphone maker from an official list of companies with ties to China’s military. The Defense Department, under the Trump administration in mid-January, added Xiaomi and eight other companies to the list, which requires American investors to divest their holdings in the firms by a set deadline.

Apple's Cook Appears to Accuse Facebook of 'Misleading Users'

Apple CEO Tim Cook used an appearance on a virtual International Data Privacy Day panel to attack Facebook in a series of thinly veiled jabs and to call for global data privacy reforms. "If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform," Cook said in one notable reference to Facebook.

  • Read the article: CNET

Cybercriminals Shift Focus Away from Individuals, Toward Businesses

Cybercriminals shifted away from stealing individual consumers’ information in 2020 to focus on bigger, more profitable attacks on businesses, according to a report from the Identity Theft Resource Center. The nonprofit, which supports victims of identity crime, found that the number of U.S. data breaches fell 19% in 2020 to 1,108. But the number of individual victims of such cybercrimes fell 66% compared with the year prior.

Legislation Would Increase Privacy Protections for Personal Health Data

A group of Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced legislation intended to increase the privacy and security of personal health data collected in connection to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Public Health Emergency Privacy Act would ensure that health data collected during the pandemic could not be used for anything other than public health efforts, along with addressing a slew of potentially discriminatory practices.

Facebook Considers Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple Over App Store

Facebook has considered filing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, two people familiar with the deliberations said, a move that could escalate tensions between two of the world’s most powerful technology companies. Facebook executives discussed accusing Apple of anticompetitive actions in its App Store, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

European Commission Tells Top Tech Firm to Continue Reports on Fake News

The European Commission has told Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft to continue monthly reports on their efforts to tackle fake news, especially on COVID-19, for another six months. Social media and online platforms have come under fire globally over the spread of fake news, leading to calls for regulators to force them to do more or face cumbersome rules.

Facebook's Oversight Board Issues First Rulings, Two on Hate Speech

Facebook's Oversight Board issued its first round of decisions, overturning several decisions by the company to remove posts for violating policies on hate speech, violence and other issues. The first-ever rulings, which Facebook has said it will abide by, come in the run-up to a far more consequential decision the board will make in the weeks ahead: Whether to overturn Facebook's decision to suspend former President Donald Trump's account in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots in Washington.

  • Read the article: CNBC

Trump Supporter on Twitter Charged with Election Interference for 2016 Scam

A Florida man who was an ardent supporter of former President Trump on Twitter was charged with election interference after allegedly running a scam in 2016 that fooled thousands of people into believing they could vote via text message. In a press release, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the arrest of 31-year-old Douglass Mackey, who went by the name "Ricky Vaughn" on Twitter in several now-deleted accounts.

Four European Apps Using Encryption Warn of Creating Backdoor

Four European apps which secure user data via end-to-end encryption, ProtonMail, Threema, Tresorit and Tutanota, have issued a joint-statement warning over recent moves by EU institutions that they say are setting lawmakers on a dangerous path to backdooring encryption. End-to-end encryption refers to a form of encryption where the service provider does not hold keys to decrypt the data, thereby enhancing user privacy — as there’s no third party in the loop with the technical capability to access data in a decrypted form.

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