Scrap coercive ‘privacy fee’, MEPs urge Meta’s Nick Clegg in open letter

Meta is facing a call from lawmakers in the European Union to scrap its controversial “consent or pay” tactic on Facebook and Instagram. Currently, the company demands a per-account fee of €9.99/month on web or €12.99/month on mobile for users in the region wanting to avoid its tracking. No other choice is offered — meaning […]

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Europe eyes LinkedIn’s use of data for ads in another DSA ask

Microsoft-owned professional social network, LinkedIn, is the latest to get a formal request for information (RFI) from the EU. The Commission, which oversees larger platforms’ compliance with a subset of risk management, transparency and algorithm accountability rules in its ecommerce rulebook, the Digital Services Act (DSA), is asking questions about LinkedIn’s use of user data […]

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Proton Mail desktop app officially launches, but remains for premium subscribers only

Proton Mail, the end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) email service from Swiss company Proton, is now officially available via a dedicated desktop app some three months after debuting in beta. However, despite previous claims that the client would be available to all Proton Mail users in early 2024, the company has decided to restrict it to paying […]

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Apple to allow web distribution for iOS apps in latest DMA tweaks

Apple will allow iOS developers located in the European Union to distribute apps from the web, rather then via its App Store. The option, which it says will be made available to qualifying developers “later this Spring”, is being offered in response to the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) which puts obligations on how Apple […]

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Four things we learned when US spy chiefs testified to Congress

Cyberattacks, regional conflict, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, commercial spyware, AI, misinformation, disinformation, deepfakes, and TikTok. These are just some of the top perceived threats that the United States faces, according to the U.S. government’s intelligence agency’s latest global risk assessment. The unclassified report published Monday — sanitized for public release — gave a frank […]

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After losing access to Twitter’s API, Block Party pivots to privacy

Block Party, a startup developed by software engineer and tech diversity advocate Tracy Chou, was among the victims of Twitter’s (now X’s) API changes earlier this year, forcing it to pivot its business. At the SXSW conference in Austin this weekend, Chou presented a glimpse of what Block Party is now up to with its […]

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Worldcoin fails to get injunction against Spain’s privacy suspension

Controversial eyeball scanning startup Worldcoin has failed to get an injunction against a temporary suspension ordered Wednesday by Spain’s data protection authority, the AEPD. The authority used emergency powers contained in the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to make the local order, which can apply for up to three months. It said it […]

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Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras inside its listings

Airbnb is banning the use of indoor security cameras in all of its listings, the company announced on Monday. Previously, Airbnb has allowed hosts to have indoor security cameras in common areas, such as hallways and living rooms, as long as they disclosed them on their listing page and did not place them in bathrooms […]

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EU’s use of Microsoft 365 found to breach data protection rules

A lengthy investigation into the European Union’s use of Microsoft 365 has found the Commission breached the bloc’s data protection rules through its use of the cloud-based productivity software. Announcing its decision in a press release today, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) said the Commission infringed “several key data protection rules when using Microsoft […]

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