Digital Content

Google is removing anonymized and encrypted user IDs from DoubleClick data transfer starting May 25, to align its data practices with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). The changes apply to all companies using the DoubleClick ID feature. The data remains accessible to advertisers, but the move makes Google the gatekeeper of the data to prevent data sharing and requires advertisers to use its platforms and tools.

Facebook’s failure to compel Cambridge Analytica to delete all traces of data from its servers – including any “derivatives” – enabled the company to retain predictive models derived from millions of social media profiles throughout the US presidential election, the Guardian can reveal. Leaked emails reveal that when Cambridge Analytica told Facebook almost a year before the election that it had deleted data harvested from tens of millions of Facebook users, it stopped short of agreeing to also erase derivatives of the data.

AT&T has been blocking the new Cloudflare DNS service, but AT&T says the blocking was unintentional and that it will fix the problem soon. The blocking is affecting AT&T home Internet customers who use an AT&T gateway. "With the recent launch of Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 DNS service, we have discovered an unintentional gateway IP address conflict with 1 of their 4 useable IPs and are working to resolve the issue," said AT&T. Most of AT&T's customers should be able to access Cloudflare DNS using the alternate 1.0.0.1 address.

Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission commissioners expressing concern that Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree with the Commission.

[Commentary] The Senate may soon be voting on net neutrality. The net neutrality debate is driven in part by the fact that Internet service providers (ISPs) have the technical ability and financial incentive to act as gatekeepers, picking winners and losers in the Internet marketplace. Perhaps an ISP will favor a particular airline reservation website or an online newspaper by blocking access to its competitors, or simply by making access to competitors’ content painfully slow.

For the last decade or so, China has defied the truism that only free and open societies can innovate. Even as the Communist Party has kept an iron grip on politics and discourse, the country’s technology industry has grown to rival Silicon Valley’s in sophistication and ambition. President Xi Jinping’s tilt toward strongman rule could put all that to the test. As Mr.

In recent months, executives at Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group, along with the Mercer family, have moved to created a new firm, Emerdata, based in Britain, according to British records. The new company’s directors include Johnson Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Erik Prince. Prince founded the private security firm Blackwater, which was renamed Xe Services after Blackwater contractors were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians.

A trick of YouTube’s algorithms has led to the blossoming of hundreds of unlicensed, independent radio stations on the site, reminiscent of an age of underground broadcasts in the previous century. Many of the channels blink in and out of existence within a week, but their presence has become a compelling part of the site’s musical ecosystem. 

To address allegations of bias, Facebook is bringing in two outside advisors — one to conduct a legal audit of its impact on underrepresented communities and communities of color, and another to advise the company on potential bias against conservative voices. 

A Q&A with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.