As you almost certainly know, earlier this month, Meta released Threads, its Twitter-like microblogging service. There are rumors that the company rushed the launch, pushing it up a few weeks to try to capitalize on the latest nonsense at Twitter. And, it seemed to work (to some extent) in that the company was able to […]
Well, this is an unfortunate turn of events. The last time we discussed this issue in this state (March 2019), a state appeals court came to the opposite conclusion: compelling password production is a violation of rights. That ruling said the foregone conclusion doctrine didn’t apply, at least not the way the state wanted it […]
The 2023 Mobile App Developers Bundle has 7 courses to help you learn how to create your own mobile apps. Courses cover iOS app development, Java for Android, Kotlin, Flutter, Android SQL databases, and more. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all […]
It seems to anger certain Elon Musk fans every time I mention it, but pre-Elon Twitter was generally doing okay. Not great. Not terrible. Just okay. It wasn’t printing cash like Meta or Google, but it had been steadily increasing revenue and was profitable in 16 of the previous 20 quarters before Elon took over. […]
For more than a decade now, app makers, phone makers, wireless companies — and pretty much everybody else — has been collecting and monetizing your daily movement habits. There’s genuinely no reason most of these companies (like, say, your light bulb maker) need this information, but because the U.S. is too corrupt to pass a […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is zeiche with a response to the claim that we have “an axe to grind” against In-N-Out because we covered their trademark tourism in Japan: techdirt grinds axes against companies that try to protect trademarks in countries that they don’t do business in. that isn’t […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2018, more police were admitting that FOSTA/SESTA made it harder to catch traffickers, while UK Parliament members were looking to enact a similar law of their own. California was cooking up its disastrous privacy bill, while we looked at the censorship potential of the EU Copyright Directive’s Article 13. […]
If you go back and read nearly all of the posts we’ve done on luxury fashion company Louis Vuitton, you’ll see a history of a company that is about as big a pain in the ass when it comes to intellectual property bullying as you’ll find. The company often times takes it’s “protecting” of it’s […]
So we wrote about Judge Terry Doughty’s somewhat questionable ruling preventing the Biden White House from communicating with tech companies or researchers regarding certain areas of disinformation. As we noted, there were some good elements in the ruling, reminding government officials of the 1st Amendment restrictions on coercion in attempting to silence protected speech. But […]
There aren’t many sites with “tech” in their names that provide this much discussion on the First Amendment implications of vanity plate laws. Maybe it’s just us. Or maybe it’s just (mostly) me. Whatever the case, I find it fascinating that so many state governments have so many restrictions on what people can express via […]
Well, well, it appears that rumors of the death of the regulatory battle over the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard purchase have been greatly exaggerated. We just discussed media reports of two items related to the deal. The first was the FTC’s loss in court to get a preliminary injunction barring the two companies from consummating […]
Portable, sleek and sophisticated, the Nix Mini 2 Color Sensor is engineered with life in mind. It’s perfect for those who find inspiration wherever they go. The Nix Mini can easily identify any color with a simple scan, ideal for those who work with color, or for those who simply want to bring it into […]
We’re getting a bit more clarity and commonsense applied to lawsuits involving constitutional violations by TSA agents. As we’re all painfully aware, to fly is to spend some time in often uncomfortably close proximity to a TSA officer. That’s the bargain we make when we choose to board a plane. These searches are far from […]
Last month we noted how the country’s top telecom and media regulator has been under the bootheel of industry for the better part of seven years, and nobody much seems to care. For four years under Trump the agency was a glorified rubber stamp to industry interests. Telecom and media giants then lobbied Congress into […]
Out of all the purveyors of facial recognition tech, Clearview is by far the sketchiest. It has compiled billions of photos and other personal info by doing little more than scraping the internet of anything that isn’t locked down. Web scraping isn’t inherently evil, but Clearview certainly makes scraping appear malicious. There are any number […]
Video games are a form of art and a form of expression. While that used to be somewhat controversial to state decades ago, nobody of any value really argues that point any longer. And the moment you accept that simple fact, it throws into light how absolutely absurd it is that the preservation efforts of […]
Pretty much everyone who isn’t a UK legislator backing the Online Safety Bill has come out against it. The proposal would give the UK government much more direct control of internet communications. Supposedly aimed at limiting the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), the proposal would do the opposite of its moniker by making […]
As we’ve been covering over the last few years, there’s been an almost entirely unsubstantiated moral panic over “kids and social media.” This is despite the fact that multiple large scale studies have found that way more kids have benefitted from social media than have been harmed by it. As we’ve noted time and time […]
We just got done noting how Dish Network’s long-hyped 5G wireless network is likely doomed. While they’re technically building a “wireless network,” the network’s coverage, phone selection, and overall quality has proven laughable so far, and there have been growing worries that Dish is running out of cash. Hoping to distract the press and regulators […]
No one wants the bulky and tangled chargers anymore… and if all the power we need can be put in a little device, we’d take it, right? This Smart Keychain replaces the typical charging cable and uses the microcomputer electronic system to wirelessly charge the touch-sensitive Apple Watch by simply placing the watch on a […]
stLouIST