USA Today – “With Google processing 40,000 search queries a second — or 1.2 trillion a year — it’s a safe bet that many of those doing the Googling are kids. Little surprise then that beginning next year the tech giant plans to create specific versions of its most popular products for those 12 and younger.… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: E-Commerce
Taxation of Internet Sales and Access: Legal Issues
CRS – Taxation of Internet Sales and Access: Legal Issues. Erika K. Lunder, Legislative Attorney. December 1, 2014. “In recent years, there has been significant congressional interest in the states’ ability to impose sales and use taxes on sales made over the Internet. While these taxes are imposed on the consumer, states generally prefer that retailers collect and remit them, rather… Continue Reading
FCC Should Track the Application of Fixed Internet Usage-Based Pricing and Help Improve Consumer Education
BROADBAND INTERNET: FCC Should Track the Application of Fixed Internet Usage-Based Pricing and Help Improve Consumer Education, GAO-15-108: Published: Nov 24, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 2, 2014. “Based on an analysis of consumer data plans of the top 13 fixed—in home—and 4 mobile Internet providers, GAO found that mobile providers employ usage-based pricing (UBP) more commonly than… Continue Reading
Computer and Internet Use in the United States: 2013
“For many Americans, access to computers and high-speed Internet connections has never been more important. We use computers and the Internet to complete schoolwork, locate jobs, watch movies, access healthcare information, and find relationships, to name but a few of the ways that we have grown to rely on digital technologies. Just as our Internet activities have increased, so too have… Continue Reading
WaPo – Is Uber’s rider database a sitting duck for hackers?
Craig Timberg – Washington Post: “Before #Ubergate recedes entirely from the news, let’s pause on one aspect of the story that hasn’t gotten much attention so far: the cybersecurity risk of collecting massive troves of private travel information in online databases. Imagine for a second that your job is to gather intelligence on government officials in Washington, or financiers… Continue Reading
Internet Security Threat Report 2014
“Symantec has established the most comprehensive source of Internet threat data in the world through the Symantec™ Global Intelligence Network, which is made up of more than 41.5 million attack sensors and records thousands of events per second. This network monitors threat activity in over 157 countries and territories through a combination of Symantec products and services such as Symantec DeepSight™ Threat Management System,… Continue Reading
The Miner’s Dilemma – Paper
The Miner’s Dilemma – Ittay Eya, November 26, 2014 “An open distributed system can be secured by requiring participants to present proof of work and rewarding them for participation. The Bitcoin digital currency introduced this mechanism, which is adopted by almost all contemporary digital currencies and related services. A natural process leads participants of such systems… Continue Reading
Lessons From Fair Lending Law For Fair Marketing and Big Data
Lessons From Fair Lending Law For Fair Marketing and Big Data. Peter Swire, Nancy J. & Lawrence P. Huang Professor of Law and Ethics, Georgia Institute of Technology. Senior Fellow, Future of Privacy Forum. September 11, 2014. “This White Paper is submitted in connection with Peter Swire’s participation at the Federal Trade Commission’s September 15, 2014 event on… Continue Reading
What Americans Think About Privacy
Pew Data Visualization and report – “The majority of Americans feel their privacy is being challenged in some fundamental ways, our new report finds. Select one of the nine profiles below to see the variety of perspectives our focus group respondents shared about privacy. Their answers are real, but they have been assigned a pseudonym.” Continue Reading
Major Pay-TV providers continue to see change in subscriber numbers
November 14, 2014 news release – “Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (LRG) found that the thirteen largest pay-TV providers in the US — representing about 95% of the market — lost about 150,000 net video subscribers in 3Q 2014, compared to a loss of about 25,000 video subscribers in 3Q 2013, and more net losses than… Continue Reading
Arrested – Mastermind of Silk Road Drug Sales Dark Web
ELIAS GROLL – Foreign Policy: “According to the criminal complaint filed in a New York federal court detailing charges against him, Benthall was easily identified once federal authorities discovered a server used to run Silk Road 2.0. His email address gave away his name and was listed on several publicly available social media profiles, including his account… Continue Reading
Measuring Price Discrimination and Steering on E-commerce Web Sites
Northeastern University: “Internet users regularly receive all kinds of personalized content, from Google search results to product recommendations on Amazon. This is thanks to the complex algorithms that produce results based on users’ profiles and past activity. It’s Big Data at work, and it’s often advantageous for users. But such personalization can also be a… Continue Reading
