Privacy International: “Previous research has shown how 42.55 percent of free apps on the Google Play store could share data with Facebook, making Facebook the second most prevalent third-party tracker after Google’s parent company Alphabet. In this report, Privacy International illustrates what this data sharing looks like in practice, particularly for people who do not… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: E-Commerce
How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually
New York Magazine, The Intelligencer: “How much of the internet is fake? Studies generally suggest that, year after year, less than 60 percent of web traffic is human; some years, according to some researchers, a healthy majority of it is bot. For a period of time in 2013, the Times reported this year, a full… Continue Reading
DC slaps Facebook with latest suit targeting privacy lapses
WASHINGTON (AP) — The District of Columbia has fired the latest legal salvo against Facebook with a lawsuit seeking to punish the social networking company for allowing data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly access data from as many as 87 million users . “The complaint filed Wednesday by Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine alleges… Continue Reading
The 21 (and Counting) Biggest Facebook Scandals of 2018
Wired: “Every January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces a personal challenge he will undertake in the year ahead. In 2016, he committed to running 365 miles before the year was up. In 2017, he milked cows and rode tractors as part of his resolution to meet more people outside the Silicon Valley bubble. Last January,… Continue Reading
As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
The New York Times: “For years, Facebook gave some of the world’s largest technology companies more intrusive access to users’ personal data than it has disclosed, effectively exempting those business partners from its usual privacy rules, according to internal records and interviews. The special arrangements are detailed in hundreds of pages of Facebook documents obtained… Continue Reading
Bookstore’s viral tweet calls out shoppers who buy on Amazon
Business Insider: The Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia, called out shoppers for “showrooming” in a viral tweet. It said that customers have been coming in and taking pictures of books, then buying them on Amazon. It said some are even bragging about doing it. Showrooming is still a problem for small, independent retailers without an… Continue Reading
Why You Don’t Own Your Tech
Via Adam Ruins Everything on truTV every Tuesday 10/9C! #AdamRuinsWhy You Don’t Own Your Tech [Adam Ruins Everything] – YouTube Video. Continue Reading
Facebook Filed A Patent To Calculate Your Future Location
BussFeedNews: The methods described in three Facebook patent applications use your historical location data — and others’ — to figure out where you’ll go next. “Facebook has filed several patent applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office for technology that uses your location data to predict where you’re going and when you’re going to… Continue Reading
Ajit Pai’s FCC gives carriers the option to block text messages
Cnet: The agency approves new rules to help phone companies combat spam texts. But opponents have censorship concerns. “The one Democrat on the FCC, Jessica Rosenworcel disagrees. She warned that the FCC is misleading the public about what the new classification will actually do. “Today’s decision offers consumers no new ability to prevent robotexts,” she… Continue Reading
A Sustainable Path Forward Report from the Task Force on US Postal System
United States Postal Service: A Sustainable Path Forward Report from the Task Force on the United States Postal System. December 4, 2018 – “On April 12, 2018, you [President Trump] signed Executive Order 13829, which established the Task Force on the United States Postal System to evaluate the operations and finances of the United States… Continue Reading
Questions We Should Be Asking About Facebook’s Smear Campaign Against Its Critics
EFF: “The New York Times published a blockbuster story about Facebook that exposed how the company used so-called “smear merchants” to attack organizations critical of the platform. The story was shocking on a number of levels, revealing that Facebook’s hired guns stooped to dog-whistling, anti-Semitic attacks aimed at George Soros 1 and writing stories blasting… Continue Reading
Tech giants offer empty apologies because users can’t quit
TechCrunch – ‘Sorry’ means nothing since so does ‘We’re deleting’ A true apology consists of a sincere acknowledgement of wrongdoing, a show of empathic remorse for why you wronged and the harm it caused and a promise of restitution by improving ones actions to make things right. Without the follow-through, saying sorry isn’t an apology,… Continue Reading
