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Twitter to Pay $150 Million Fine Over Deceptively Collected Data
Federal regulators Wednesday announced that Twitter will pay a $150 million fine to settle allegations that it deceptively used email address and phone numbers it had collected to target advertising, in one of the largest privacy settlements federal regulators have reached with a tech giant.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department said the company also will be banned from profiting off the “deceptively collected” data and be required to notify the more than 140 million users who were affected that it used their phone numbers and email addresses for advertising, according to a news release about the settlement.
And the company will be required to implement and maintain a new privacy program that will require the company to review the security risks of new products.
As backing for the settlement, the U.S. government filed a complaint against the company Wednesday in federal court in the Northern District of California, alleging that Twitter broke federal law as well as a 2011 order it reached with the FTC over allegations that it failed to safeguard personal information.
Report Shows FBI Spied on 3.3 Million Americans Without a Warrant, GOP Demands Answers
Top House Republicans are demanding answers from the FBI after court-ordered information came to light showing that the federal agency had collected the information of over 3 million Americans without a warrant.
In a May 25 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Mike Turner (R-Ohio) asked Wray to explain why his agency had wiretapped and gathered personal information on over 3.3 million Americans without a warrant.
Limited authority to gather foreign intelligence information is granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Historically, insight into how FISA has been used against American citizens has been limited and hidden behind classified reports.
Bill Blocking State, Local Vaccine Mandates Defeated
Legislation that would have kept state or local governments from requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for entry into public places or private businesses was narrowly defeated Wednesday by a state Senate Committee.
Rep. Thomas Pressly of Shreveport had pitched the House-passed bill as a compromise. The Republican lawmaker said it kept government from imposing vaccine mandates on private businesses, while allowing private business owners to impose COVID-19 vaccination requirements if they feel such steps are needed to protect employees and customers.
The defeated bill had drawn opposition from both sides of the vaccine debate. Some wanted it to go farther by prohibiting business owners from imposing proof-of-vaccine mandates. Jill Hines, of a group called Health Freedom Louisiana, said the bill allowed private business owners to discriminate against people who have religious objections to vaccines.
The Elitists Who Want to Rule the World
Klaus Schwab is the head of the World Economic Forum; he founded the organization in 1971. Each year, the WEF hosts a massive conference in Davos, Switzerland, with thousands of world leaders, diplomats and experts on various topics gathering to trade ideas about how best to cooperatively run the world.
This is the call to action for elitists the world over. They appoint themselves the representatives of global interests — without elections, without accountability — and then create mechanisms of national and international order to control citizens over whom they claim to preside.
Schwab and his rationalist buddies — brilliant businessmen and ambitious politicians, striving bureaucrats and myopic experts — will cure the world of its ills, so long as we grant them power. Or, more likely, so long as they seize power in the name of “stakeholders” to whom they are never answerable.
Sen. Marco Rubio Introduces Bill to End Punishment of Military Academy Members Over COVID Vaccine Refusal
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio introduced a bill on Wednesday to protect military academy cadets from punishment over declining the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Defending Freedoms of Conscience for Cadets and Midshipmen Act would keep cadets from being punished or refused commission over COVID-19 vaccine non-compliance.
“It is outrageous to punish young men and women who want nothing more than to serve their nation,” Rubio said. “These are the types of ridiculous, unnecessarily punitive measures that discourage patriotic Americans from joining the military. The Academy should stop playing politics and focus on preparing cadets and midshipmen for their future service.”
The act follows the news of three U.S. Air Force Academy cadets who refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine being informed that they will not receive a commission as military officers when they graduate, according to the academy.
Austrian COVID Vaccine Mandate to Remain Suspended in Summer
Austria’s coronavirus vaccination mandate has been suspended for another three months until the end of August. A parliamentary committee signed off Wednesday on an order from the health minister extending the suspension, the Austria Press Agency reported.
Officials said on Tuesday that the mandate for people aged 18 and over, which became law in early February but hasn’t yet been put into effect, would remain suspended. They said a commission of experts had concluded that enforcing it currently would not be proportionate and therefore was unjustified.
The plan was for police to start checking people’s vaccination status in mid-March, for example during traffic stops. But the government suspended the mandate only a week before its enforcement was due to begin, arguing that there was no need to implement it as things stood.
Global Firms Warn of Sluggish China Demand Due to Lengthy COVID Curbs
Two months into harsh COVID-19 lockdowns that have choked global supply chains, China’s economy is staggering back to its feet, but businesses from retailers to chipmakers are warning of slow sales as consumers in the country slam the brakes on spending.
Car sales in the world’s largest auto market have slowed dramatically, gamers are buying fewer consoles, and people are unwilling to replace their existing smartphones, laptops and TVs, as prolonged COVID curbs crimp spending power and put more people out of jobs.
“The current China lockdowns … has implications to both supply and demand,” said Colette Kress, chief financial officer at U.S. chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O), which forecast on Thursday a $400 million hit to gaming sales from China’s stringent coronavirus restrictions.
Google Urged to Stop Collecting Phone Location Data Before Roe v. Wade Reversal
More than 40 Democratic members of Congress called on Google to stop collecting and retaining customer location data that prosecutors could use to identify women who obtain abortions.
Specifically, Google should stop collecting “unnecessary customer location data” or “any non-aggregate location data about individual customers, whether in identifiable or anonymized form. Google cannot allow its online advertising-focused digital infrastructure to be weaponized against women,” lawmakers wrote. They also told Google that people who use iPhones “have greater privacy from government surveillance of their movements than the tens of millions Americans using Android devices.”
Google obtains detailed information “from Android smartphones, which collect and transmit location information to Google, regardless of whether the phone is being used or which app a user has open,” they wrote.
While Android users have to opt into this data collection, “Google has designed its Android operating system so that consumers can only enable third party apps to access location data if they also allow Google to receive their location data too. In contrast, Google is only able to collect location data from users of iPhones when they are using the Google Maps app,” the lawmakers wrote.
Congress Has Introduced 50 Digital Asset Bills Impacting Regulation, Blockchain and CBDC Policy
The 118th Congress has reached a milestone of seeing 50 bills and resolutions that have been introduced so far which cover the crypto regulatory landscape in a variety of ways.
The number of bills does not even include draft legislation on stablecoins from either Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) or Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), nor a much-discussed but not yet public bill that would cover the entire digital asset regulatory sphere from Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).
Based on research completed at the Value Technology Foundation (VT VT +1.5%F), a 501(c)(3), the 50 bills identified are broken into six different categories.
The categories include crypto taxation, central bank digital currency (CBDC), crypto clarity on the regulatory treatment of digital assets and digital asset securities, supporting blockchain technology, and issues of sanctions, ransomware, and implications involving either China or Russia’s use of blockchain or cryptocurrency, and access and limitations on use of crypto by U.S. elected officials.
Apple’s Digital State ID Cards Are Now Available for Maryland Residents
Apple’s Wallet app now supports Maryland state IDs and driver licenses, marking it as the second state after Arizona to gain the digital identification feature (via MacRumors). Residents of the Free State can now use their iPhone or Apple Watch at certain TSA checkpoints at participating airports, including Baltimore / Washington International and Reagan National.
The iPhone won’t carry a “picture” of the card, only a means to transmit info to a receiving device — and you use biometrics to confirm the information being sent to the device.
This is just a start for the digital ID revolution, and there’s going to be a bit of confusion along the way. So if you’re looking forward to a future where you wouldn’t need to carry a wallet, then adoption will be key.
There has been concern that once law enforcement is able to access information via these devices, the attention comes to your iPhone, and they may ask for you to hand your phone over even though that’s not how it’s supposed to work.
Facebook Owner Meta Updates Its Privacy Policy
Meta says the changes are designed to make it easier to understand how customers’ information is used. The company has previously been criticized by regulators and campaigners for its use of customers’ data.
WhatsApp and some other products are not covered by the update.
Meta says the changes won’t allow it to “collect, use or share your data in new ways.” There are, however, two changes to the way that users can control how their information is processed.
A new setting will give people more control over who can see their posts by default. And existing controls over which adverts users can see are consolidated into a single interface.
Facebook Blasts Apple Power in Newly Released Comments to Government
Meta slammed Apple’s market power in the mobile app industry in comments for a federal agency’s report on the app ecosystem released Thursday.
Meta’s stance escalates the feud between the two industry heavyweights and puts Facebook’s parent company in opposition to the industry groups trying to defend the competitiveness of the app market as the Biden administration cracks down on tech giants’ power.
In 19 pages of comments, Meta almost entirely focuses on criticizing Apple. The multibillion dollar company, which is itself the target of a key federal antitrust lawsuit, paints a picture of Apple as a behemoth that is constraining Meta’s ability to expand.
China and Europe Are Leading the Push to Regulate AI — One of Them Could Set the Global Playbook
As China and Europe try to rein in artificial intelligence, a new front is opening up around who will set the standards for the burgeoning technology.
In March, China rolled out regulations governing the way online recommendations are generated through algorithms, suggesting what to buy, watch or read. It is the latest salvo in China’s tightening grip on the tech sector and lays down an important marker in the way that AI is regulated. While China revamps its rulebook for tech, the European Union is thrashing out its own regulatory framework to rein in AI, but it has yet to pass the finish line.
With two of the world’s largest economies presenting AI regulations, the field for AI development and business globally could be about to undergo a significant change.
