Wall Street Journal

California moved to reinstate Obama-era open-internet rules, challenging Trump administration rollback efforts and setting the state on a path to have the strongest net-neutrality rules in the nation. The California bill would forbid internet service providers from blocking websites, intentionally slowing down a website or app, or accepting payments to make online services go faster.

If America’s tech and telecom giants have an opinion about T-Mobile US’s plan to reshape the wireless industry by taking over Sprint , most are keeping it to themselves.Few large companies have gone on record to back or oppose the roughly $26 billion merger, which would combine the country’s No. 3 and No. 4 carriers. Fewer still are using their lobbying prowess to fight the deal behind the scenes. “I don’t think you’re going to have any entity that has motive and means to oppose this deal” among big business, said Blair Levin, an industry analyst at New Street Research.

The tech industry has largely declared it is off limits to scan emails for information to sell to advertisers. Yahoo still sees the practice as a potential gold mine. Yahoo’s owner, the Oath unit of Verizon Communications has been pitching a service to advertisers that analyzes more than 200 million Yahoo Mail inboxes and the rich user data they contain, searching for clues about what products those users might buy, said people who have attended Oath’s presentations as well as current and former employees of the company. Oath said the practice extends to AOL Mail, which it also owns.

Apple ruled that Facebook's data-security app violated Apple's data-collection policies designed to limit data collection by app developers. Apple informed Facebook that Onavo also violated a part of its developer agreement that prevents apps from using data in ways that go beyond what is directly relevant to the app or to provide advertising. The app, called Onavo Protect, has been available as a free download through Apple’s app store for years, with updates regularly approved by Apple’s app-review board.

Facebook dismantled 652 pages, groups and accounts engaged in an coordinated influence campaign ahead of the 2018 US midterm elections, part of the company’s broader purge of bad actors on its site. Facebook said the 652 pages and accounts originated in Iran, and that they had been flagged for “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” Facebook said the offenders had targeted internet services in the US, Middle East, UK and Latin America. The company separately found evidence of inauthentic Russian activity. Facebook said it found no evidence the campaigns by Russia and Iran were connected.