Visitors to the U.S. under a visa waiver program are being asked by the Department of Homeland Security for information on their social media accounts, a plan that had drawn criticism from civil rights groups for its potential encroachment on privacy.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection unit of the DHS asked for written comments earlier this year on its proposal that would add to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) and to a form called I-94W the following entry: “Please enter information associated with your online presence—Provider/Platform—Social media identifier,” which visitors can fill optionally.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Visitors to the U.S. under a visa waiver program are being asked by the Department of Homeland Security for information on their social media accounts, a plan that had drawn criticism from civil rights groups for its potential encroachment on privacy.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection unit of the DHS asked for written comments earlier this year on its proposal that would add to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) and to a form called I-94W the following entry: “Please enter information associated with your online presence—Provider/Platform—Social media identifier,” which visitors can fill optionally.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Alibaba’s Taobao.com marketplace is in the eye of a storm after the U.S. Trade Representative included the vastly popular online Chinese marketplace in the list of ‘Notorious Markets’ for 2016, after a long break.The list identifies markets that are allegedly "engaging in and facilitating substantial copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting.” The listing carries no penalties but will likely be an embarrassment for Alibaba, which has been trying to burnish its image in international markets.The move by the USTR comes even as the company claims to have used “big data” technologies to zero in, for example, on 13 factories and shops that were selling knockoff RAM modules under Kingston and Samsung brands, according to Alibaba's news hub Alizila.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A product manager at Google has sued the company for its allegedly illegal confidentiality agreements, policies and practices that among other things prohibit employees from speaking even internally about illegal conduct and dangerous product defects for fear that such statements may be used in legal discovery during litigation or sought by the government.The alleged policies, which are said to violate California laws, restrict employees' right to speak, work or whistle-blow, and include restrictions on speaking to the government, attorneys or the press about wrongdoing at Google or even “speaking to spouse or friends about whether they think their boss could do a better job,” according to a complaint Tuesday in the Superior Court of California for the city and county of San Francisco.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Privacy groups have complained to the Federal Trade Commission that Google is encroaching on user privacy through a policy change in June that allows it to combine personally-identifiable information with browsing data collected by its DoubleClick digital advertising service.The complaint by Consumer Watchdog and Privacy Rights Clearing House alleged that Google has created “super-profiles” as it can track user activity on Android mobile phones, with an 88 percent market share of smartphones worldwide, "and from any website that uses Google Analytics, hosts YouTube videos, or displays ads served by DoubleClick or AdSense."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Privacy groups have complained to the Federal Trade Commission that Google is encroaching on user privacy through a policy change in June that allows it to combine personally-identifiable information with browsing data collected by its DoubleClick digital advertising service.The complaint by Consumer Watchdog and Privacy Rights Clearing House alleged that Google has created “super-profiles” as it can track user activity on Android mobile phones, with an 88 percent market share of smartphones worldwide, "and from any website that uses Google Analytics, hosts YouTube videos, or displays ads served by DoubleClick or AdSense."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Lynda.com, the online learning unit of LinkedIn, has reset passwords for some of its users after it discovered recently that an unauthorized external party had accessed a database containing user data.The passwords of close to 55,000 affected users were reset as a precautionary measure and they have been notified of the issue, LinkedIn said in a statement over the weekend.The professional network is also notifying about 9.5 million Lynda.com users who “had learner data, but no protected password information,” in the breached database. “We have no evidence that any of this data has been made publicly available and we have taken additional steps to secure Lynda.com accounts,” according to the statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Lynda.com, the online learning unit of LinkedIn, has reset passwords for some of its users after it discovered recently that an unauthorized external party had accessed a database containing user data.The passwords of close to 55,000 affected users were reset as a precautionary measure and they have been notified of the issue, LinkedIn said in a statement over the weekend.The professional network is also notifying about 9.5 million Lynda.com users who “had learner data, but no protected password information,” in the breached database. “We have no evidence that any of this data has been made publicly available and we have taken additional steps to secure Lynda.com accounts,” according to the statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Evernote has reversed proposed changes to its privacy policy that would allow employees to read user notes to help train machine learning algorithms.CEO Chris O’Neill said the company had “messed up, in no uncertain terms.”The move by the note-taking app follows protests from users, some of whom have threatened to drop the service after the company announced that its policy would change to improve its machine learning capabilities by letting a select number of employees, who would assist with the training of the algorithms, view the private information of its users. The company claims 200 million users around the world. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Evernote has reversed proposed changes to its privacy policy that would allow employees to read user notes to help train machine learning algorithms.CEO Chris O’Neill said the company had “messed up, in no uncertain terms.”The move by the note-taking app follows protests from users, some of whom have threatened to drop the service after the company announced that its policy would change to improve its machine learning capabilities by letting a select number of employees, who would assist with the training of the algorithms, view the private information of its users. The company claims 200 million users around the world. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
California has become the first state in the U.S. to mandate energy-efficiency standards for monitors and a variety of computers, including notebooks, desktops, workstations and servers.The standards, which come into force starting from from Jan. 1, 2018, focus on the performance of computers in idle, sleep and off modes rather than putting limits on when they are in active operation, said the California Energy Commission, which on Wednesday adopted the new standards.California has more than 25 million computer monitors installed in homes and businesses, and the new standards recommend the use of higher efficiency LED backlights and screen technologies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel’s plan to spin out its security business under the McAfee name could run into rough weather with security expert John McAfee asking a court in New York to order an injunction on the deal until a dispute over the use of his personal name for another company is resolved.In a court filing on Tuesday, John McAfee and MGT Capital Investments claimed that there is a high likelihood that Intel intends to sell the rights to the use of his full name to the new venture. “Should the sale go forward any judgment awarded to Plaintiffs will be ineffectual,” it added.John McAfee and MGT informed the court that they will be seeking a preliminary injunction that would prevent Intel from “selling, trading, assigning, leasing or otherwise transferring any alleged rights, in whole or in part, relating to any marks, names, trade names, or entities containing the word ‘McAfee’” until the resolution of the dispute.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel’s plan to spin out its security business under the McAfee name could run into rough weather with security expert John McAfee asking a court in New York to order an injunction on the deal until a dispute over the use of his personal name for another company is resolved.In a court filing on Tuesday, John McAfee and MGT Capital Investments claimed that there is a high likelihood that Intel intends to sell the rights to the use of his full name to the new venture. “Should the sale go forward any judgment awarded to Plaintiffs will be ineffectual,” it added.John McAfee and MGT informed the court that they will be seeking a preliminary injunction that would prevent Intel from “selling, trading, assigning, leasing or otherwise transferring any alleged rights, in whole or in part, relating to any marks, names, trade names, or entities containing the word ‘McAfee’” until the resolution of the dispute.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
President-elect Donald Trump added 131 votes to his winning margin in a recount in Wisconsin of ballots cast in the state for the recent U.S. presidential elections, but a significant part of the recount was not by hand.The recount was asked for by Green Party candidate Jill Stein after doubts were raised that the voting systems can be hacked. Wisconsin uses both the optical scan and direct-recording electronic types of voting machines, which are both susceptible to compromise, Stein said in a petition to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
President-elect Donald Trump added 131 votes to his winning margin in a recount in Wisconsin of ballots cast in the state for the recent U.S. presidential elections, but a significant part of the recount was not by hand.The recount was asked for by Green Party candidate Jill Stein after doubts were raised that the voting systems can be hacked. Wisconsin uses both the optical scan and direct-recording electronic types of voting machines, which are both susceptible to compromise, Stein said in a petition to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump is meeting this week in New York with top tech executives, including Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Alphabet CEO Larry Page and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, according to news reports.Invitations to the meeting were signed by Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, chief of staff Reince Priebus, and billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley figure who came out openly early on in favor of Trump.The relationship between Trump and Silicon Valley companies has been difficult with some senior tech executives openly backing his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the presidential elections. The president-elect and tech companies also appear to have differing views on issues such as immigration, outsourcing abroad, clean energy, net neutrality, encryption, surveillance and on restoring lost manufacturing jobs in the U.S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump is meeting this week in New York with top tech executives, including Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Alphabet CEO Larry Page and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, according to news reports.Invitations to the meeting were signed by Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, chief of staff Reince Priebus, and billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley figure who came out openly early on in favor of Trump.The relationship between Trump and Silicon Valley companies has been difficult with some senior tech executives openly backing his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the presidential elections. The president-elect and tech companies also appear to have differing views on issues such as immigration, outsourcing abroad, clean energy, net neutrality, encryption, surveillance and on restoring lost manufacturing jobs in the U.S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Department of Transportation is considering making it mandatory for airlines to inform passengers before purchasing tickets if they will allow voice calls using mobile wireless devices on board their aircraft, thus hoping to placate customers who could object to having co-passengers talking away on their phones in an enclosed space.An alternative measure would be to ban all voice calls on domestic and international flights to or from the U.S., the DOT said in a proposal for which it has asked for comments within 60 days of publication of the notice on the Federal Register.The Federal Communications Commission already bans the use of mobile devices on certain radio frequencies on board aircraft, including for voice calls, but it has not prohibited calls using the Wi-Fi network or other means, according to the DOT.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Samsung’s recall of Galaxy Note7 smartphones because of exploding batteries is far from complete with some users, for example, in Canada still not turning in their devices for a refund or exchange.The South Korean company has now decided to cut these phones from the network, adopting similar measures to those taken last month in New Zealand and earlier this month in Australia.The company said Wednesday that from Dec. 12 functional limitations on Note7 phones, including curbs on the battery charge, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth disablement will be introduced in Canada.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled in favor of Samsung Electronics and its backers in the industry in a design patent dispute with Apple, when in a 8-0 decision it said that “the term 'article of manufacture' is broad enough to embrace both a product sold to a consumer and a component of that product, whether sold separately or not.”But the top court has left a lot unsaid, including by not providing guidance to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on how the damages Samsung has to pay Apple for the infringement of smartphone design patents will have to be calculated. That could also delay for a long time the resolution of the patent dispute between Apple and Samsung, which has already dragged on for a number of years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
John Ribeiro