China's Central Bank Promises 'Normalized' Supervision of Tech Companies

China’s central bank said it will implement “normalized” supervision on the financial activities of online platform companies, reiterating comments from top leaders. The People’s Bank of China held a meeting on April 29 to discuss implementing financial support for the economy and policies to boost the healthy development of technology platform companies, it said in a statement.

U.S. to Boost Cybersecurity Efforts Related to Quantum Technology

The White House will announce a slate of measures to support quantum technology in the United States while laying out steps to boost cybersecurity to defend against the next generation of supercomputers. The U.S. and other nations are in a race to develop quantum technology, which could fuel advances in artificial intelligence, materials science and chemistry. Quantum computers, a main focus of the effort, can operate millions of times faster than today's advanced supercomputers.

SEC Boosting Size of Special Unit Devoted to Cryptocurrency Fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission will boost the size of its special unit devoted to investigating cryptocurrency frauds and other misconduct, a move that follows the agency’s aggressive push to get the unregulated industry to come under federal supervision. The SEC said it plans to add 20 investigators and litigators to its Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit, which was created in September 2017 when regulators noticed a surge of new digital coins sold to the public.

Homeland Security Advisory Board on Disinformation Creates Partisan Fight

The creation of an advisory board at the Department of Homeland Security on the threat of disinformation has turned into a partisan fight over disinformation itself — and what role, if any, the government should have in policing false, at times toxic, and even violent content online. Within hours of the announcement, Republican lawmakers began railing against the board as Orwellian, accusing the Biden administration of creating a “Ministry of Truth” to police people’s thoughts.

Apple Sues Tech Startup Rivos for Stealing Computer Chip Trade Secrets

Technology startup Rivos Inc allegedly stole Apple Inc's computer-chip trade secrets after poaching its engineers, Apple said in a lawsuit filed in California federal court. Apple's lawsuit said Mountain View, California-based Rivos has hired over 40 of its former employees in the past year to work on competing "system-on-chip" (SoC) technology, and that at least two former Apple engineers took gigabytes of confidential information with them to Rivos.

PayPal Prompted European Commission's Antitrust Complaint Against Apple

PayPal Holdings Inc. helped spur a formal antitrust complaint against Apple Inc. and its iPhone payments system by raising concerns with the European Commission, according to people with knowledge of the matter. European regulators hit Apple with a so-called statement of objections, arguing that the iPhone maker abuses its control over mobile payments. The complaint centers on the company reserving the iPhone’s tap-to-pay abilities for its own Apple Pay service, rather than letting rival payment platforms use the feature.

Chipmakers Divided Over Fighting U.S. Proposal to Limit Investments in China

Chipmakers are divided over how aggressively to oppose a legislative proposal that would give the U.S. government sweeping new powers to block billions in U.S. investment into China, according to documents seen by Reuters. The measure is part of the House version of a bill that would also grant $52 billion to chipmakers to expand operations, a boon to the industry that has made some companies loath to forcefully oppose the package's China investment controls.

War in Ukraine Leads to Unprecedented Cyber Attacks Against Russia

The third month of war in Ukraine finds Russia, not the United States, struggling under an unprecedented hacking wave that entwines government activity, political voluntarism and criminal action. Digital assailants have plundered the country’s personal financial data, defaced websites and handed decades of government emails to anti-secrecy activists abroad. One recent survey showed more passwords and other sensitive data from Russia were dumped onto the open Web in March than information from any other country.

Russian Law Firm Sues Apple for Withdrawing Its Payment Service

A Russian law firm said it had filed a lawsuit against U.S. tech giant Apple seeking 90 million rubles ($1.28 million) in damages for consumers affected by Apple withdrawing its payment service from Russia. Law firm Chernyshov, Lukoyanov & Partners said Apple had violated Russian consumers' rights after the company restricted the use of its built-in Apple Pay service on March 1 in response to Moscow sending troops into Ukraine.

Judge Refuses to Lift Agreement Musk Signed About His Social Media Posts

A federal judge in New York denied a request by Elon Musk to end a 2018 agreement he signed with securities regulators, which requires him to run his social media posts by a company lawyer if the statements contained material information about his electric car company, Tesla. Mr. Musk had argued that the agreement to settle accusations of securities violations infringed on his right to freedom of speech and that the Securities and Exchange Commission had used the agreement as an excuse to “launch endless, boundless” investigations of his public statements.

Musk Criticizes Twitter's Top Lawyer, Raising Disparagement Questions

Elon Musk's criticism of Twitter Inc. sparked a barrage of abusive tweets against the company's top lawyer, raising questions about his compliance with a non-disparagement agreement and the tone that the social media platform's incoming owner will set for its users. Musk tweeted he disagreed with a decision Twitter made in 2020 to restrict the distribution of a New York Post article about U.S. President Joe Biden's son, Hunter.

Microsoft Says Russian-Backed Hacking Groups Targeted Ukraine 200 Times

Microsoft released a report detailing how Russian-backed hackers unleashed a series of cyber operations against Ukraine as early as March 2021. According to the report, at least six separate Russian-backed hacking groups have launched more than 200 cyber operations against Ukraine, including destructive attacks that have threatened civilian welfare.

Hacker Uses Bored Ape Yacht Club's Instagram Account in Phishing Scam

A hacker got into the Instagram account for the popular BFT brand Bored Ape Yacht Club and posted a link to a supposed airdrop, which would give existing Bored Ape holders a free allotment of land in the upcoming Otherside metaverse. But the link included in the post was a phising scam. People who opened it and connected their crypto wallet had their Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs stolen.

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Consensus Emerging in U.S. Congress on Need for Privacy Legislation

Congressional leaders are negotiating in earnest on long-stalled consumer-privacy legislation, raising the prospect that a bipartisan bill could become reality after years of false starts. Congress is under pressure to act following recent disclosures of content potentially harmful to young people on social-media sites including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

Tech Companies Duped Into Providing Personal Info in Fake Legal Requests

Major technology companies have been duped into providing sensitive personal information about their customers in response to fraudulent legal requests, and the data has been used to harass and even sexually extort minors, according to four federal law enforcement officials and two industry investigators. The companies that have complied with the bogus requests include Meta Platforms Inc., Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Snap Inc., Twitter Inc. and Discord Inc., according to three of the people. All of the people requested anonymity to speak frankly about the devious new brand of online crime that involves underage victims.

Former eBay Executive Pleads Guilty to Stalking Newsletter Publishers

When former eBay executive James Baugh of San Jose first launched the harassment campaign against a couple publishing a newsletter with content critical of the e-commerce giant, Baugh suggested to his operatives that they send the pair “scary masks, live insects, or embarrassing items, such as pornography and strippers,” according to an FBI affidavit. Minus the strippers, that’s what they sent — and more. Baugh, 47, pleaded guilty to five counts of stalking, two counts of witness tampering and two counts of destruction, alteration and falsification of records in a federal investigation.

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.