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Meta Reaches $37.5 Million Settlement of Facebook Location Tracking Lawsuit
Meta Platforms Inc. (META.O) reached a $37.5 million settlement of a lawsuit accusing the parent of Facebook of violating users’ privacy by tracking their movements through their smartphones without permission.
A preliminary settlement of the proposed class action was filed on Monday in San Francisco federal court and requires a judge’s approval.
It resolved claims that Facebook violated California law and its own privacy policy by gathering data from users who turned off Location Services on their mobile devices.
The users said that while they did not want to share their locations with Facebook, the company nevertheless inferred where they were from their IP (internet protocol) addresses, and used that information to send them targeted advertising.
With Days Left for Turnaround, Tennis Great Novak Djokovic Still Barred From U.S. Open for Refusing COVID Vax
Tennis great Novak Djokovic is still barred from competing in the U.S. Open for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID.
As of Monday, a rule from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) still stands barring the 21-time Grand Slam champ from traveling to the U.S. to compete in the tournament that starts on August 29.
Tennis 365 reported Monday that Djokovic is still on the main draw list, but it’s unclear if the CDC will relax its rules or carve out an exemption for the athlete.
Djokovic, who is not hopeful an exemption will be granted, has made clear in the past that he has no plans to vaccinate against the virus, noting his good health and feelings about medical freedom.
New York Ending COVID Rules in Schools
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced Monday that students and teachers will no longer be required to isolate or quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19.
The move puts New York schools in line with recently changed coronavirus guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Earlier this month, the CDC dropped quarantine and social-distancing recommendations for those who come in close contact with a COVID-positive person.
Hochul added that the state will also scrap “test to stay” programs that allowed students who came in contact with the virus to stay in the classroom as long as they tested negative.
Anyone in a school who tests positive for the virus will still be required to quarantine for five days and wear a mask upon their return to school for at least five days.
New York City Exempts Some Illegal Aliens From School Vaccine Requirements
New York City is rolling out the red carpet for school-aged illegal aliens under a new program replete with taxpayer-funded benefits not afforded to American families — including school-related vaccine exemptions for some children.
Yet if you are an American child and your parents own or rent, a different set of standards applies.
NYC’s Department of Education (DOE) website states that students in grades kindergarten through 12 must be fully vaccinated against various diseases.
While New York City does not have a COVID-19 immunization requirement for students to attend class, the city does mandate the vaccine for a range of after-school activities. According to the NYC DOE, families who do not vaccinate their children as required aren’t even allowed to send them to school. There are limited medical exemptions and zero religious exemptions for non-illegal alien students.
Former Mighty Mighty Bosstones Frontman Dicky Barrett Has New Band, Same Anti-COVID Vaccine Views
The Boston Globe via MSN reported:
Dicky Barrett says his refusal to get the COVID vaccine is the reason the Mighty Mighty Bosstones broke up, but he’s got a new band.
In an interview with musician Joseph Arthur, a fellow COVID vaccine skeptic, Barrett said he and his former Bosstones bandmates “never say never” about re-forming, but he’s excited about his new act.
In addition to the break-up of the Bosstones, Barrett’s vax status also cost him his job as the announcer on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” a gig he’d held since 2004.
The Bosstones frontman said he never seriously considered getting the COVID vaccination because “I felt that what was happening was dangerous and I couldn’t signal to people, or even let them think, that I was taking part in it.”
As Amazon Grows, so Does Its Eye on Consumers
From what you buy online, to how you remember tasks, to when you monitor your doorstep, Amazon is seemingly everywhere.
And it appears the company doesn’t want to halt its reach anytime soon. In recent weeks, Amazon has said it will spend billions of dollars on two gigantic acquisitions that, if approved, will broaden its ever-growing presence in the lives of consumers.
This time, the company is targeting two areas: healthcare, through its $3.9 billion buyout of the primary care company One Medical, and the “smart home,” where it plans to expand its already mighty presence through a $1.7 billion merger with iRobot, the maker of the popular robotic Roomba vacuum.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a company known for its vast collection of consumer information, both mergers have heightened enduring privacy concerns about how Amazon gathers data and what it does with it. The latest line of Roombas, for example, employs sensors that map and remember a home’s floor plan.
Former Security Chief Claims Twitter Buried ‘Egregious Deficiencies’
Twitter executives deceived federal regulators and the company’s own board of directors about “extreme, egregious deficiencies” in its defenses against hackers, as well as its meager efforts to fight spam, according to an explosive whistleblower complaint from its former security chief.
The complaint from the former head of security Peiter Zatko, a widely admired hacker known as “Mudge,” depicts Twitter as a chaotic and rudderless company beset by infighting, unable to properly protect its 238 million daily users including government agencies, heads of state and other influential public figures.
Among the most serious accusations in the complaint, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is that Twitter violated the terms of an 11-year-old settlement with the Federal Trade Commission by falsely claiming that it had a solid security plan.
What the Twitter Whistleblower Could Mean for Elon Musk’s Takeover Deal
Elon Musk‘s months-long effort to buy — and then to get out of buying — Twitter has been marked by a range of unexpected twists. Now, a stunning whistleblower disclosure from the company’s former security lead Peiter Zatko is almost certain to become the latest complication.
As part of a wide-ranging, nearly 200-page disclosure sent last month to U.S. lawmakers and regulators, which was exclusively reported by CNN and The Washington Post on Tuesday, Zatko alleges that Twitter (TWTR) has neither the incentive nor the resources to properly measure the full scope of bots on its platform.
He also alleges that Twitter suffers from a range of other security vulnerabilities that it has for years failed to fix. (Twitter has broadly defended itself and criticized Zatko’s allegations as “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies.”)
The new disclosure could help bolster Musk’s argument and potentially encourage the court to pay closer attention to the bot issue.
This App Beeps Every Time You Send Data to Google, and It Beeps a Lot
What if you got an audio cue every time your computer sent data to Google? Enter Googerteller, an app created by developer Bert Hubert (via 9to5Google). It makes a beeping noise every time your computer sends data to Google, and as you might imagine, it beeps a lot.
The app works by using a list of IP addresses Google uses for its various services (excluding those related to Google Cloud) and alerting you whenever your computer communicates with one of those addresses. As you can see in the video, it beeps basically every time you click on anything.
Googerteller is only available for Linux (though there are ways to run it on a Mac), but we doubt people are going to swarm to install it on their systems. It’s easy to forget just how often you’re being tracked online, and the app’s value is in providing a very direct (and scary) example of how often your data is being sent to Google.
