Rite Aid Says Cybersecurity Breach Disclosed Names of Some Customers

Rite Aid disclosed customer data was accessed in a June cybersecurity breach. The drugstore operator said it determined the party acquired certain data associated with the purchase or attempted purchase of specific retail products, including purchaser name, address, date of birth and driver’s license number or other form of government-issued ID presented at purchase between June 6, 2017, and July 30, 2018.

FBI Says It 'Gained Access' to Phone Used by Shooter at Trump Rally

Just two days after the attempted assassination at former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the FBI announced it “gained access” to the shooter’s phone. The bureau has not disclosed how it broke into the phone — or what has been found on it — but the speed with which it did so is significant, and security experts say it points to the increased efficacy of phone-hacking tools.

Meta Reduces Restrictions on Trump's Facebook, Instagram Accounts

Meta announced it’s rolling back heightened restrictions on former president Donald Trump’s social media accounts — an effort to give the Republican presidential contender more leeway to share content in a heated campaign season. The social media giant said it’s loosening the more rigorous consequences for Trump if he breaks their content rules, such as those that bar hate speech, incitement to violence and voter suppression.

Hackers Publish Data from Thousands of Disney's Internal Slack Channels

Data from Disney’s internal Slack workplace collaboration system have been leaked online, including discussions about ad campaigns, studio technology and interview candidates, according to files viewed by The Wall Street Journal. An anonymous hacking group that calls itself Nullbulge said in a blog post that it published data from thousands of Slack channels at the entertainment company, including computer code and details about unreleased projects.

Record Labels Seek Up to $2.6 Billion in Copyright Suit Against Verizon

Powerful record labels, including UMG Recordings, Warner Music, and Sony Music, filed a lawsuit accusing Verizon of intentionally ignoring its customers’ copyright violations for profit, reports Music Business Worldwide. The labels say they’ve sent “nearly 350,000 infringement notices” to Verizon since 2020, alleging that the company ignored people repeatedly cited for illegally sharing files because they pay more for faster, better internet service.

AT&T Says Cyberattack Exposed Phone Records on 'Nearly All' Customers

A cyberattack on the telecommunications giant AT&T exposed phone records from “nearly all” of its customers but did not compromise the content of calls or texts, the company said. The compromised data included files containing AT&T records of calls and texts from more than 100 million cellular customers, wireless network customers and landline customers from May 2022 through October 2022, and records from Jan. 2, 2023, for a small number of customers, the company said.

EU Subjects Adult Content Platform XNXX to Digital Services Act's Rules

The European Union has designated adult content platform XNXX as a very large online platform (VLOP) under its Digital Services Act (DSA) as it has on average 45 million monthly users in the EU, it said in a statement. The rules under the DSA require companies to share data with authorities and researchers, conduct risk management, and undergo external and independent auditing.

FTC Bars Anonymous Messaging App from Serving Young Users

The Federal Trade Commission barred an online service for the first time from serving users under the age of 18, saying the app had violated child privacy and consumer protection laws and had harmed children and teenagers. The FTC said it had reached a settlement with the maker of the anonymous messaging app NGL over privacy and consumer protection violations.

Meta Promises to Remove Facebook, Instagram Posts 'Attacking Zionists'

Meta Platforms said it would start taking down more posts that target "Zionists", where the term is used to refer to Jewish people and Israelis rather than representing supporters of the political movement. The Facebook and Instagram parent said in a blog post it would remove content "attacking 'Zionists' when it is not explicitly about the political movement" and uses antisemitic stereotypes or threatens harm through intimidation or violence directed against Jews or Israelis.

Judge Dismisses Developers' Claims of Unlawful Copying by GitHub Copilot

Claims by developers that GitHub Copilot was unlawfully copying their code have largely been dismissed, leaving the engineers for now with just two allegations remaining in their lawsuit against the code warehouse. The class-action suit against GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI was filed in America in November 2022, with the plaintiffs claiming the Copilot coding assistant was trained on open source software hosted on GitHub and as such would suggest snippets from those public projects to other programmers without care for licenses – such as providing appropriate credit for the source – thus violating the original creators' intellectual property rights.

U.S. Seizes Two Domain Names in Russian AI Disinformation Campaign

A Russian propaganda campaign backed by the Kremlin that spread online disinformation in the United States and was boosted by artificial intelligence has been disrupted, the Justice Department said. U.S. officials described the Internet operation as part of an ongoing effort to sow discord in the U.S. through the creation of fictitious social media profiles that purport to belong to authentic Americans but are actually designed to advance the aims of the Russian government, including by spreading disinformation about its war with Ukraine.

Google to Require Disclosures on Altered Content in Election Ads

Google said it would make it mandatory for advertisers to disclose election ads that use digitally altered content to depict real or realistic-looking people or events, its latest step to battle election misinformation. The update to the disclosure requirements under the political content policy requires marketers to select a checkbox in the "altered or synthetic content" section of their campaign settings.

EU Says Meta's Subscription Model Violates Digital Markets Act

The European Union charged Meta Platforms with breaching its new digital-competition law, saying the company’s policy of giving users the option of either paying a subscription fee or allowing it to use their data for targeted advertising doesn’t provide adequate choice. The social-media company introduced the so-called pay or consent model for European users of Facebook and Instagram last year as part of its plan to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act.

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Challenge to Age-Verification Law for Porn Sites

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether a Texas law that requires pornographic websites to verify the age of individual users in an effort to restrict access to minors violates constitutional free speech protections. The justices took up an appeal by a trade group representing adult entertainment performers and companies of a lower court's decision upholding the Republican-led state's age-verification measure, finding that it likely did not violate the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment safeguard against government infringement of speech.

Supreme Court Avoids Decision on Social Media Content Moderation Laws

The Supreme Court avoided a definitive resolution of challenges to laws in Florida and Texas that curb the power of social media companies to moderate content, leaving in limbo an effort by Republicans who have promoted such legislation to remedy what they say is a bias against conservatives. Instead, the justices unanimously agreed to return the cases to lower courts for analysis.

Meta’s Oversight Board Seeks New Role Under EU Digital Services Act

Meta’s Oversight Board had tried for years to find new clients, approaching YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest and a host of other tech companies without much luck, according to half a dozen people familiar with the board’s efforts, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private organizational matters. Now, however, the Oversight Board may get a second chance, as a sweeping European law, known as the Digital Services Act (DSA), requires tech companies to supply an independent group of experts to social media users seeking to appeal restrictions on their accounts.

Supreme Court's Ruling in Chevron Case Could Impact Net Neutrality

A major Supreme Court ruling that shifted power from the executive branch to the judiciary stands to transform how the federal government works, including whether the Federal Communications Commission is recognized as having the power to regulate — and deregulate — internet service providers (ISPs). Using that authority, the agency voted in April to restore net neutrality rules for ISPs, prohibiting them from blocking or slowing down websites, a move that instantly triggered industry lawsuits.

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EU Faults Microsoft for Bundling Teams with Other Business Apps

The European Union said that Microsoft abused its market power when it folded the chat and videoconferencing program Teams into a bundle with other popular business apps, boosting its own offering over rivals like Slack and Zoom. In a preliminary finding, the European Union told the company that these practices were “possibly abusive” and warned that it could face fines of up to 10 percent of global revenue for violations of antitrust rules.

U.S. Offers $10M Reward for Information on Russian Linked to Ukraine Cyberattack

Federal authorities are offering a reward of up to $10 million for information on the whereabouts of a Russian national who they say is connected to a sprawling cybersecurity attack on Ukrainian government computer systems ahead of Russia’s invasion of the country. The planned attack, known as “WhisperGate,” also targeted one of Ukraine’s Central European ally nations and included attempted probes of U.S. government facilities in Maryland, according to an indictment unsealed.

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.