The European Parliament has voted against a controversial set of copyright rules known as the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. The vote follows weeks of intensifying protests, with internet companies such as Mozilla and pioneers like Vint Cerf and Sir Tim Berners-Lee speaking out against the EU’s copyright proposals and Wikipedia taking its …
In a new paper, titled ‘Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered?’, University of Texas finance professor John Griffin, and graduate student Amin Shams, look at how Bitcoin’s price may have been artificially inflated last year. Bitcoins incredible rise in value in the last 12 months has been down to massive market manipulation, a new study has revealed. During …
Microsoft has reportedly acquired GitHub, and could announce the deal as early as Monday. GitHub is a large code repository that has become popular with developers and companies hosting their projects, documentation, and code. Apple, Amazon, Google, and many other big tech companies use GitHub. Bloomberg reports that the software giant has agreed to acquire …
Uganda’s parliament has passed a law to impose a controversial tax on people using social media platforms. The new Excise Duty (Amendment) Bill will also impose various other taxes, including a 1% levy on the total value of mobile money transactions – which civil society groups complain will affect poorer Ugandans who rarely use banking …
Facebook took moderation action against almost 1.5bn accounts and posts which violated its community standards in the first three months of 2018, the company has revealed. In its first quarterly Community Standards Enforcement Report, Facebook said the overwhelming majority of moderation action was against spam posts and fake accounts: it took action on 837m pieces …
The Guardian reports that United Kingdom and US lawyers have launched a joint class action against Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and two other companies SCL Group Limited and Global Science Research Limited (GSR). for allegedly misusing the personal data of more than 71 million people. The lawsuit claims the firms obtained users’ private information from the …
The Firefox broswer maker has suspended all advertising activities on Facebook following the the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which has embroiled the popular social networking site. In a blog post announcing the move, Denelle Dixon, Mozilla’s chief business and legal officer, said: We understand that Facebook took steps to limit developer access to friends’ data beginning …
Following its iOS launch last December, Facebook’s Messenger Kids app is now available on Android. It’s like Messenger, except it comes with parent-friendly features like the ability to manage your child’s contact list, a registration process that’s independent of the social network, and persistent messages so you can keep an eye on conversations. There’s also …
The European Commission has suggested that law enforcement authorities could soon have restricted access to the WHOIS database that identifies website owners because the system is on a collision course with the EU’s strict new data protection law. Law enforcement authorities have complained to the Commission about plans to change the system in May because …
A landmark court ruling in Sweden could have dire consequences for those using torrent sites like the Pirate Bay to download pirate films and TV shows. One of Sweden’s key internet service providers (ISP’s), Bahnhof, has been ordered to provide the names of customers using its services to download pirated content. Bahnhof is a popular …