Tony Romm

Apple suffered a significant defeat at the Supreme Court, when the justices ruled that consumers could forge ahead with a lawsuit against the tech giant over the way it manages its App Store. The 5-4 decision allows device owners to proceed with a case that alleges Apple has acted as a monopoly by requiring iPhone and iPad users to download apps only from its portal while taking a cut of some sales made through the store. The legal question in the case was whether the suit was barred by a 1977 decision, Illinois Brick Co. v.

Sens Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) expressed frustration with a federal probe into Facebook’s privacy practices, urging the government to move more swiftly and consider imposing tough punishments that target the company’s top executives. “This investigation has been long delayed in conclusion — raising the specter of a remedy that is too little too late,” the lawmakers wrote. “The public is rightly asking whether Facebook is too big to be held accountable.

Apparently, Facebook has told the Federal Trade Commission it is willing to submit to greater oversight of its data-collection practices — from the launching of new services to the decisions of its top executives — in order to end a wide-ranging federal probe into a series of privacy abuses that came to light in 2018. The changes would accompany a record-breaking, multi-billion-dollar fine that the FTC has considered levying against Facebook. Under such a settlement, Facebook would have to complete a more rigorous privacy review of new products and services before launching them.

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey phoned Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and stood by the company’s decision to permit a tweet from President Donald Trump that later resulted in a flood of death threats targeting the congresswoman.

Federal regulators investigating Facebook for mishandling its users’ personal information have set their sights on the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, exploring his past statements on privacy and weighing whether to seek new, heightened oversight of his leadership. Apparently, the discussions about how to hold Zuckerberg accountable for Facebook’s data lapses have come in the context of wide-ranging talks between the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook that could settle the government’s more than year-old probe.

Republicans led by Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) pilloried Facebook, Google and Twitter over allegations they censor conservative users and news sites online, threatening federal regulation in response to claims that Democrats long have described as a hoax.

More than 540 million Facebook records — including users’ comments, likes, account names and more — were left exposed on an Amazon cloud-computing server, researchers announced, marking the latest major privacy and security mishap to plague the social-networking giant. The trove is one of two data sets discovered to be in full public view by the security firm UpGuard, which also raised alarms with a second app developer that appears to have mishandled Facebook records including users’ interests and potentially their app passwords. Facebook said its policies prohibit app developers from “sto

Facebook will begin banning posts, photos and other content that reference white nationalism and white separatism, revising its rules in response to criticism that a loophole had allowed racism to thrive on its platform. Previously, Facebook only had prohibited users from sharing messages that glorified white supremacy -- a rhetorical discrepancy, in the eyes of civil-rights advocates, who argued that white nationalism, supremacy and separatism are indistinguishable and that the policy undermined the tech giant's stepped-up efforts to combat hate speech online.

Some of the country’s most influential state attorneys general are signaling they’re willing to take action against Facebook, Google and other tech giants, warning that the companies have grown too big and powerful -- and that Washington has been too slow to respond. Some state officials feel that Washington bears some of the blame for the tech industry’s string of scandals in the first place.

Members of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations sharply rebuked Equifax and Marriott for failing to protect people’s personal data and prevent two of the largest security breaches in US history, putting hundreds of millions at risk. Democrats and Republicans alike said Equifax, a credit-reporting bureau, and Marriott, a hotel chain, each had failed to implement basic defenses against sophisticated hackers -- and that Equifax repeatedly did not patch known security holes or store key data in a way that was hidden from digital malefactors.