Last week, Twitter (with no notice or explanation) seemed to cut off API access to the most popular 3rd party Twitter clients. It was unclear if this was done on purpose or not. Earlier this week, it became pretty damn clear that it was done on purpose, after one of those providers, Tweetbot, dug up […]
Recently, New York State passed a new law (pdf) demanding that regional broadband providers (Verizon, Charter Spectrum, and Altice) provide low-income consumers $15, 25 Mbps broadband tiers to help them survive COVID. The goal: to try and help struggling Americans afford the high cost of broadband during an historic health crisis. Under the proposal ISPs are also […]
This is one of those interesting times when multiple topics we regularly cover here at Techdirt converge. Readers here will recall all the posts we did on the rollout and eventual demise of Google’s Stadia product. Stadia was primarily to be a game streaming service for existing games. That being said, the service also signed […]
Every amicus brief the Copia Institute has filed has been important. But the brief filed today is one where all the marbles are at stake. Up before the Supreme Court is Gonzalez v. Google, a case that puts Section 230 squarely in the sights of the Court, including its justices who have previously expressed serious […]
While some states work on how best to phase out traditional gas cars to help mitigate the climate’s steady collapse, Wyoming is busy showcasing how far its head is lodged up the ass of the oil and gas industry. Last week Wyoming’s GOP-controlled state legislature passed Senate Joint Resolution 4, which calls for a phaseout […]
Over the last year, we’ve been covering a whiny, victim-playing, bit of nonsense, inspired and pushed by a firm whose main business seems to be running spam email campaigns for Republican politicians, that Google is “unfairly” putting their campaign emails into the spam folder. This was all kicked off when some of these Republican spammer […]
Data brokers like Experian and Equifax pose tempting targets for malicious hackers looking to find another source for personal info they can hawk online to other malicious people. The sad thing is, no one really needs to hack their databases. They’re more than willing to just leave them exposed. In 2017, Equifax leaked personal info […]
MiniTool Power Data Recovery Personal is the most cost-effective data recovery program for all common Windows system users. The 100% clean data recovery software for Windows enables you to recover unlimited data (deleted or lost) from Windows computers, memory/SD cards, USB flash drives, external hard drives, etc. On one hand, it covers all the functions […]
Things are going great in Twitterland, apparently. The company has been facing lawsuits, tech outages, government investigations, bailing partners, not to mention departing users and advertisers. We had noted that 40% of advertising had gone away last month, and this week reporters are noting that an internal Twitter presentation confirms that number, while noting that […]
For decades, U.S. policymakers have utterly refused to support any meaningful privacy protections for consumers. They opposed any new Internet privacy laws, however straightforward. They opposed privacy rules for broadband ISPs. They also fought tooth and nail to ensure the nation’s top privacy enforcement agency, the FTC, lacked the authority, staff, funds, or resources to actually do […]
It’s hard to find people who care less about the law than law enforcement. Most traffic stops are pretextual. A real (or fake!) moving violation is an opportunity to go fishing for bigger fish. Conversations with drivers move from the standard requests for licenses and registrations towards anything that might broaden the scope of the […]
For years now we’ve written about the problems of the UK’s latest (in a long line) of attempts to “Disneyfy” the internet with its Online Safety Bill. While the bill had faced some hurdles along the way, made worse by the ever-rotating Prime Minister position last year, there was talk last week that some more […]
A couple of years before criticism of Israel-based NSO Group reached critical mass, the malware merchant was sued by WhatsApp. According to the messaging service (now owned by Meta), its servers were used (without its permission and in violation of the terms of service) to deliver powerful spyware to targets of NSO Group customers (which […]
“Politics,” the writer Auberon Waugh liked to say, “is for social and emotional misfits.” Its purpose is “to help them overcome these feelings of inferiority and compensate for their personal inadequacies in the pursuit of power.” You could accuse old Bron of painting with a rather broad brush, and you would be right. But he […]
There are lots of ways facial recognition tech can be misused. Since it’s far from infallible, the most common misuse of the tech is accepting matches as statements of fact. What should be considered, at best, an investigative lead, has instead been used to wrongly arrest people for crimes they didn’t commit. The private sector […]
The 2023 Complete Cybersecurity Ethical Hacking Bundle has 10 courses to help you go from beginner to expert in cybersecurity. You’ll learn about penetration testing, AWS Security Management, how to use Metasploit, how to protect Wi-Fi networks, and more. The bundle is on sale for $25. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated […]
In the last few weeks I’ve written about how Elon Musk’s “changes” to how Twitter is running have done an amazing job convincing people to join Mastodon. And I’ve also noted how many more people (including myself!) are realizing how much better social media can be when it’s decentralized, rather than owned and run by […]
When last we checked in with One America News (OAN), it was trying (with the help of numerous Republican AGs) to pretend that DirecTV’s decision to boot the barely watched conspiracy network from its cable lineup was part of a vast, diabolical cabal to censor conservatives. The AG lawsuit filed last March pulls out the traditional “Conservatives […]
Shirking accountability is a standard law enforcement pattern and practice. Those enforcing laws often feel they’re not obligated to follow the law. This attitude is internalized in every sense of the word. It’s not just blowing off outside oversight. The police refuse to police themselves, allowing good officers to go bad and bad officers to […]
A decade or so ago there was a wave of warnings by privacy advocates about how modern toys had become major surveillance devices. Makers of voice recognition toys in particular had a nasty habit, researchers warned, of collecting everything your child says, poorly “anonymizing” the data (a meaningless term), then failing to secure that data […]
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