Cyberlaw

Be careful with other people's cables! Manipulated USB-C cables such as the O.MG cable are almost indistinguishable from originals. CT scans from Lumafield reveal the hidden chips that can be a danger to PCs and smartphones.

It's no secret that Apple isn't the biggest fan of the EU's interoperability mandates in the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and is now using Meta's interoperability requests as an example against it.

TikTok filed an emergency motion earlier this month to delay its looming ban in the US until the Trump government is in office and The Supreme Court could hear its case. The US top court has now agreed to hear TikTok's plea.

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) has fined Netflix €4.75 million for not properly disclosing what it does with user data to customers between 2018 and 2020. The company has objected to the fine.

The Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE) has claimed that the annulled presidential elections were the victim of Russian cyberattacks. Russia has denied the claims.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission has fined Meta €251 million for a 2018 Facebook security breach affecting 29 million users. Hackers exploited Facebook's View As feature, which lets users see a public view of their profiles.

BBC has claimed that Meta purposely increased the moderation of Palestinian user comments on Instagram and Facebook and harmed the ability of Palestinian journalists to reach an audience.

The EU opens a second investigation into TikTok under the Digital Services Act (DSA) to see whether they complied with directives to assess and safeguard against election integrity risks in Romanian presidential elections on November 24.

In a landmark settlement with OAIC, Meta has agreed to a $50 million payout for Australians impacted by the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018.

An international cybercriminal group hacked into Rhode Island's online portal for social services and stole personal and bank credentials, including social security numbers.

Thanks to the changes in licensing requirements announced by the local Department of Communication and Digital Technologies, Starlink could enter South Africa next summer. However, this is not certain yet, although Elon Musk's satellite-based internet service gained political support in the country already.

Apple has to withdraw certain iPhones from sale in the European Union due to regulatory requirements that cannot be circumvented. Consequently, this reduces Apple's product range, meaning that users do not have alternatives in every situation.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced investigations into fourteen online platforms, including Character.ai, Reddit, Instagram, Discord, and others, over child safety and privacy concerns.

Price comparison websites across Europe have banded together to criticize Google's proposed Search changes and want the EU to investigate and impose charges on the company, citing antitrust violations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country will develop AI with its BRICS partners to "participate on equal terms in the global race."

The FTC has begun sending out the first wave of refunds to Fortnite players tricked into making unwanted purchases by Epic. Players charged between January 2017 and September 2022 are eligible for refunds.

Google has reportedly asked the FTC to investigate Microsoft's exclusive access to OpenAI technologies on its cloud platforms. The FTC questioned Google on Microsoft's practices as part of a broader investigation.

China has ordered an antitrust probe into Nvidia, accusing the company of potentially violating the anti-monopoly laws. The main focus is the $6.9 billion acquisition of Israeli networking products company Mellanox Technologies in 2020.

TikTok has announced that it has filed an emergency injunction to delay the upcoming US ban in January 2025. The social media platform lost an appeal that sought to block the bill that demanded ByteDance sell the platform or face a ban in the US.

A new assembly bill has proposed legislation mandating mental health warning labels on social media platforms. The bill, AB 56, will require social media platforms to disclose the mental risks to people who spend more than three hours daily on social media.

Google has sued the US consumer finance watchdog, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CSFB), for ordering federal supervision of Google Payment Corp, the company's finance services division.

Apple is facing a lawsuit in North California for its failure to find a way to implement CSAM detection in iCloud. The lawsuit, filed by a victim, alleges that Apple's abandonment of the program failed to prevent her images from being shared online.

TikTok has been battling a potential ban in the US for months now, and its latest appeal was just denied. The parent company, ByteDance, may bring the matter to the Supreme Court. Failing that, the company must either sell TikTok, or face the service being banned in the US.

While Apple is trying to lift the iPhone 16 ban in Indonesia, the Indonesian Government now expects the company to invest 10 times more in the country than previously offered. The development comes after Apple offered to increase its initial offer of a $10 million investment to lift the sales ban.

Britain's cyber security chief has warned of increased hostile activity in cyberspace. The NCSC says there has been a three-fold increase in cyberattacks from hostile states and criminals compared to a year ago.

The Australian government's proposed digital competition regime will act as a competition watchdog and impose heavy fines on tech companies that stifle competition and make it difficult for consumers to switch between services.

More than 80 Spanish media companies sued Meta in December 2023 for unfair competition in advertising. The lawsuit said Meta's access to user data on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp gave them an unfair competitive edge in offering personalized ads.

Canadian news outlets, including CBC/Radio-Canada, Postmedia, Metroland, The Toronto Star, and more, are suing OpenAI for copyright infringement, accusing the ChatGPT creator of using their articles to train its AI model.

The Competition Bureau argues that the tech company is abusing its dominant position, and called for Google to sell off two of its key ad tech tools in order to restore competition in the market.

Instagram, X, Snapchat, Facebook, and other key players in the social media market will be affected starting at the end of next year, when teenagers younger than 16 will not be allowed to use this kind of online platform. The companies involved will begin testing methods to be used to enforce the ban in January 2025.

Google and Meta have urged the Australian government to wait for a trial for the proposed age-verification systems in their social media bill. The controversial bill proposes stringent age-verification systems that may include biometrics to ban social media for kids under 16.

Businesses in the UK have lost £44 billion due to cyberattacks in the last five years. International insurance intermediary group Howden published a report that found 52% of UK businesses had suffered at least one attack in five years

A US judge has ruled Tesla must face a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging it failed to inform would-be buyers that its cars could brake automatically - without an apparent collision risk. The Elon Musk-owned company did manage to get a few parts removed from the case, though.

The New York Times has alleged that OpenAI accidentally deleted data that could have been used as potential evidence in the ongoing legal battle between the two companies. The publication sued OpenAI in December last year for illegally using its data to train AI models.

The US Department of Justice has found Google to be a monopoly, forcing competitors out of the search market through its control over the Chrome web browser and Android smartphone operating system. The final proposal seeks to force the divesture of Chrome, even Android, to reopen the market.

The FBI and CISA have reported that hackers linked to China have stolen surveillance data from several telecom companies.

A new feature surreptitiously added to iOS 18.1 automatically reboots an iPhone after a set period of inactivity. This feature, dubbed "inactivity reboot," puts the iPhone in a more secure state after it has sat idle for four days, making it almost impossible to crack into, even with sophisticated tools.

Since the Canadian government considers the establishment of TikTok Technology Canada Inc. by ByteDance Ltd. an endeavor that poses a national security risk, the business will be disolved. However, while TikTok offices in Canada are shutting down, the mobile app and the web services can still be accessed without restrictions.

Australia has proposed a ban on social media for children under 16. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that firms must follow regulations or face fines.

South Korea has imposed a $15 million fine on Meta for collecting user data without permission. Meta gathered information from 980,000 South Korean Facebook users without an agreement and gave it to advertisers.

Since Apple hasn't managed to meet the requirements of the Indonesian law that requires certain smartphones to contain at least 40% locally manufactured parts, sales of the iPhone 16 lineup are not allowed in the country. However, local residents who want to get the iPhone 16 can do so by purchasing them from abroad.

The Video Game History Foundation was recently struck a massive blow when the US Copyright Office shot down its argument that game preservation is a valid reason to bypass DMCA protections. In response, the Video Game History Project called out "lobbying efforts by rightsholder groups" for "holding back progress." The VGHF sought to break copyright protections to allow libraries to digitally distribute out-of-print games.

After escaping a fine of over $1.1 billion, Intel is now free of all the legal trouble connected to the nearly two-decade-long fight with EU regulators, thanks to a decision of the EU Court of Justice. The tech giant had been accused of trying to block AMD by awarding rebates to Lenovo, Dell, HP, and NEC.

With the current change to the privacy policy, X (formerly Twitter) will be allowed to pass on user data to third parties from November 15. To protect yourself against this, you need to take action on your own.

After receiving more than 16,000 complaints, the FTC has taken steps to mitigate the deceptive practices companies have exploited to keep users from canceling subscriptions. The “Click-to-Cancel” policy has arrived to squelch any ambiguity surrounding the status of monetized user accounts.

Google is preparing to block the popular ad blocker uBlock Origin, along with other extensions built on the Manifest V2 framework, from the Chrome browser. This is due to the planned switch to Google's Manifest V3.

Hailing from China, Pyramid Flow is an open-source AI model capable of creating virtual hi-resolution (768p) videos. According to the team behind it, this model can generate a five-second 384p video in less than a minute. The MIT License covers Pyramid Flow, which underwent training on open-source datasets.

Steam recently updated its store checkout page to clarify that gamers are buying licenses for games, instead of the games themselves — along with all the content removal and malarkey that accompany these distribution strategies. GOG sarcastically responded to Steam's new storefront disclaimer, reminding us that GOG's offline installers "cannot be taken away from you."

Turkey has now banned Discord after they denied the authorities' request to share private user information. The court decision was caused by "child sexual abuse and obscenity" suspicions pointing at some users of the platform. The ban comes shortly after Discord was blocked in Russia, but for different reasons.

On October 7, 2024, a significant court ruling was announced in the "Epic Games v. Google" case, which could fundamentally change the app landscape at Android. The ruling compels Google to open its Play Store to third-party providers, paving the way for a more open app market on Android devices for at least three years.