The New York Times Opinion – We’re Banning Facial Recognition. We’re Missing the Point. The whole point of modern surveillance is to treat people differently, and facial recognition technologies are only a small part of that. “…These efforts are well intentioned, but facial recognition bans are the wrong way to fight against modern surveillance. Focusing… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Category Archives: E-Commerce
It’s Time to Stop Making Excuses for Amazon’s Disposable Tech
IFixit: “Amazon doesn’t repair their own products for customers outside their return or warranty periods. The company doesn’t make parts available. Need a new battery for your old but still functional Kindle Paperwhite? That’s too bad, Amazon doesn’t sell them directly (though you can roll the dice on a number of third-party vendors). The same… Continue Reading
Google ends third-party cookies in ad-tracking
MyBroadBand: “Google is planning to “render obsolete” a key tool advertisers use to track people around the web, increasing user privacy but also disrupting the marketers and publishers who rely on the search giant’s ad products. Over the next two years the Alphabet Inc. unit intends to stop supporting third-party cookies in its Chrome browser,… Continue Reading
Verizon Media launches OneSearch a privacy-focused search engine
VentureBeat: “Verizon Media, the media and digital offshoot of telecommunications giant Verizon, has launched a “privacy-focused” search engine called OneSearch. The launch comes at a time when public trust in big technology companies has hit rock bottom following countless reports of breaches, lapses, and data harvesting escapades. Consequently, “privacy” is pretty much the buzzword of… Continue Reading
More than 600M users installed Android ‘fleeceware’ apps from the Play Store
ZDNet: A new set of 25 Android apps caught illegally charging users at the end of a trial period. “Security researchers from Sophos say they’ve discovered a new set of “fleeceware” apps that appear to have been downloaded and installed by more than 600 million Android users. Our editors hand-picked these products based on our… Continue Reading
The Evil List Which tech companies are really doing the most harm?
Slate – Here are the 30 most dangerous, ranked by the people who know: “…The tech industry doesn’t intoxicate us like it did just a few years ago. Keeping up with its problems—and its fixes, and its fixes that cause new problems—is dizzying. Separating out the meaningful threats from the noise is hard. Is Facebook… Continue Reading
Why do customers buy seemingly irrelevant products?
Amazon Science – “Product search algorithms, like the ones that help customers place orders through Alexa, aim at returning the products that are most relevant to users’ queries, where relevance is usually interpreted as “anything that satisfies the users’ need”. A common way to estimate customers’ satisfaction is to rely on the judgment of human… Continue Reading
Facebook Said It Won’t Change Its Policies On Allowing Lies In Political Ads
BuzzFeedNews: “Facebook will not make any changes to its policies around political advertising, including ones that allow politicians to lie in ads and micro-target specific audiences, the company announced on Thursday. Facebook’s announcement follows intense pressure from lawmakers in the last few months over the company’s decisions to allow politicians to lie in Facebook ads.… Continue Reading
The end of the beginning – changes in technology shift
Stratechery: “The story tech most loves to tell about itself is the story of disruption: sure, companies may appear dominant today, but it is only a matter of time until they are usurped by the next wave of startups. And indeed, that is exactly what happened half a century ago: IBM’s mainframe monopoly was suddenly… Continue Reading
Facebook Says It Will Ban ‘Deepfakes’
The New York Times – The company said it would remove videos altered by artificial intelligence in ways meant to mislead viewers. “Facebook says it will ban videos that are heavily manipulated by artificial intelligence, the latest in a string of changes by the company to combat the flow of false information on its site.… Continue Reading
A History of Buying Books Onto the Bestseller List
BookRiot: “…For those unaware of how bestseller lists work, here’s a primer. They each use different metrics and data sources, but the NYT is considered to be the most “curated,” with a secretive process. It is known that they poll a large selection of independent booksellers and major retailers. These are often called “reporting” bookstores.… Continue Reading
An elegy for cash: the technology we might never replace
MIT Technology Review – Cash is gradually dying out. Will we ever have a digital alternative that offers the same mix of convenience and freedom? – “This is a feature of physical cash that payment cards and apps do not have: freedom. Called “bearer instruments,” banknotes and coins are presumed to be owned by whoever holds… Continue Reading
