A new research paper written by a team of academics and computer scientists from Spain and Austria has demonstrated that it's possible to use Facebook's targeting tools to deliver an ad exclusively to a single individual if you know enough about the interests Facebook's platform assigns them. TechCrunch reports: The paper -- entitled "Unique on Facebook: Formulation and Evidence of (Nano)targeting Individual Users with non-PII Data" -- describes a "data-driven model" that defines a metric showing the probability a Facebook user can be uniquely identified based on interests attached to them by the ad platform. The researchers demonstrate that they were able to use Facebook's Custom Audience tool to target a number of ads in such a way that each ad only reached a single, intended Facebook user.

The research raises fresh questions about potentially harmful uses of Facebook's ad targeting tools, and -- more broadly -- questions about the legality of the tech giant's personal data processing empire given that the information it collects on people can be used to uniquely identify individuals, picking them out of the crowd of others on its platform even purely based on their interests. The findings could increase pressure on lawmakers to ban or phase out behavioral advertising -- which has been under attack for years, over concerns it poses a smorgasbord of individual and societal harms. And, at the least, the paper seems likely to drive calls for robust checks and balances on how such invasive tools can be used. The findings also underscore the importance of independent research being able to interrogate algorithmic adtech -- and should increase pressure on platforms not to close down researchers' access.

Amazon gives a leg up to hundreds of house brand and exclusive products that most people don't know are connected to Amazon. From a report: It took Robert Gomez about five months to get his Kaffe coffee grinder to the big leagues in e-commerce: among the first three search results for "coffee grinder" on Amazon.com. Gomez, founder of Atlanta-based consumer goods startup 4Q Brands, said he obsessively refined his photos and description, amassed reviews from happy customers, and paid Amazon $40,000 a month on advertising to boost sales, one of the elements Amazon tells sellers will increase search ranking. Then Amazon introduced a competitor from house brand Amazon Basics and another from a brand that sells exclusively on Amazon, DR Mills. "They ranked well right away," Gomez said, each of them appearing among the top-three results for "coffee grinder" searches immediately. The reason, he said, was clear: "Their search ranking is high because they're an Amazon brand."

An investigation by The Markup found that Amazon places products from its house brands and products exclusive to the site ahead of those from competitors -- even competitors with higher customer ratings and more sales, judging from the volume of reviews. We found that knowing only whether a product was an Amazon brand or exclusive could predict in seven out of every 10 cases whether Amazon would place it first in search results. These listings are not visibly marked as "sponsored" and they are part of a grid that Amazon identifies as "search results" in the site's source code. (We only analyzed products in that grid, ignoring modules that are strictly for advertising.) When we analyzed star ratings and number of reviews, neither could predict much better than a coin toss which product Amazon placed first in search results. Amazon told Congress in 2019 that its search results do not take into account whether a product is an Amazon-owned brand. Sellers say it doesn't seem that way to them. Gomez said Amazon's brands have "unfair advantages" that make it harder for small merchants like him to compete on its open marketplace. "Who bears the cost are those entrepreneurs and small businesses that don't have the means to fight." From Wednesday: Amazon Copied Products and Rigged Search Results To Promote Its Own Brands, Documents Show.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg Law: Companies including Amazon and Facebook could face fines over fake reviews or other misleading endorsements online, according to a warning from the Federal Trade Commission. The warning comes as social media has blurred the line between authentic content and advertising, according to the FTC's Wednesday announcement. Practices such as influencer marketing leave some consumers confused about when posters are paid to endorse a product, if their connection to the brand isn't clearly disclosed.

The agency sent more than 700 companies a notice that they could incur penalties of up to $43,792 per violation if they use endorsements in ways that run counter to past FTC enforcement cases. The notices demonstrate FTC chair Lina Khan's efforts to ramp up enforcement under the commission's existing authorities, following a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited the agency's ability to seek monetary awards in court. The commission's move on endorsements relies on an agency authority that allows for civil penalties against a company that engages in conduct that it knows has been found unlawful in a previous FTC administrative order, other than a consent order.

A new study (PDF) by a team of university researchers in the UK has unveiled a host of privacy issues that arise from using Android smartphones. BleepingComputer reports: The researchers have focused on Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, and Huawei Android devices, and LineageOS and /e/OS, two forks of Android that aim to offer long-term support and a de-Googled experience. The conclusion of the study is worrying for the vast majority of Android users: "With the notable exception of /e/OS, even when minimally configured and the handset is idle these vendor-customized Android variants transmit substantial amounts of information to the OS developer and also to third parties (Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) that have pre-installed system apps." As the summary table indicates, sensitive user data like persistent identifiers, app usage details, and telemetry information are not only shared with the device vendors, but also go to various third parties, such as Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And to make matters worse, Google appears at the receiving end of all collected data almost across the entire table.

It is important to note that this concerns the collection of data for which there's no option to opt-out, so Android users are powerless against this type of telemetry. This is particularly concerning when smartphone vendors include third-party apps that are silently collecting data even if they're not used by the device owner, and which cannot be uninstalled. For some of the built-in system apps like miui.analytics (Xiaomi), Heytap (Realme), and Hicloud (Huawei), the researchers found that the encrypted data can sometimes be decoded, putting the data at risk to man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks. As the study points out, even if the user resets the advertising identifiers for their Google Account on Android, the data-collection system can trivially re-link the new ID back to the same device and append it to the original tracking history. The deanonymization of users takes place using various methods, such as looking at the SIM, IMEI, location data history, IP address, network SSID, or a combination of these. In response to the report, a Google spokesperson said: "While we appreciate the work of the researchers, we disagree that this behavior is unexpected -- this is how modern smartphones work. As explained in our Google Play Services Help Center article, this data is essential for core device services such as push notifications and software updates across a diverse ecosystem of devices and software builds. For example, Google Play services uses data on certified Android devices to support core device features. Collection of limited basic information, such as a device's IMEI, is necessary to deliver critical updates reliably across Android devices and apps."

Google has pulled several "stalkerware" ads that violated its policies by promoting apps that encouraged prospective users to spy on their spouses' phone. From a report: These consumer-grade spyware apps are often marketed to parents wishing to monitor their child's calls, messages, apps, photos and location, often under the guise of protecting against predators. But these apps, which are often designed to be installed surreptitiously and without the device owner's consent, have been repurposed by abusers to spy on the phones of their spouses.

[...] Last August, Google banned ads in users' search results that promoted apps that are designed "with the express purpose of tracking or monitoring another person or their activities without their authorization." But TechCrunch found five app makers were still advertising their stalkerware apps as recently as last week. "We do not allow ads promoting spyware for partner surveillance. We immediately removed the ads that violated this policy and will continue to track emerging behaviors to prevent bad actors from trying to evade our detection systems," a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Eight days ago Ozy announced it was shutting down after reports that the news site bought traffic, overstated its cable deals, and at one point even had its Chief Operating Officer impersonate a YouTube executive during a phone call with investors.

Then four days ago, Ozy's CEO said he planned to relaunch the company's newsletters (while looking for new board members) to try to instead revive the company. "Ozy Media boasts that it has more than 26 million subscribers for its newsletters," reports Forbes...

"But former employees say this is another example of deceptive tactics at the embattled digital media company, with most of the email addresses on its newsletter lists either purchased, taken from other companies without their permission or added back to the lists after the recipients unsubscribed — a potentially illegal act." Three ex-employees with knowledge of Ozy's newsletter operations, who asked to remain anonymous because of non-disclosure agreements they signed, said the company on multiple occasions obtained large numbers of email addresses through marketing partnerships it formed with other companies and news outlets. Ozy would offer to send an email for the other company as part of the partnership, and some companies would then share a list of addresses for a supposed one-time message. Instead, the former employees allege, those email addresses would then be permanently added to Ozy's newsletter subscriber list. Among the companies they say Ozy collectively accumulated millions of email addresses from were the McClatchy newspaper chain and the technology magazine Wired, according to two of the former employees.

Ozy would also buy in bulk email addresses from third-party websites like U.S. Data Corporation and Exact Data, ramping up the size of its newsletter following in order to fulfill advertising deals with its clients. After Ozy added batches of new addresses to its mailing lists, many recipients would attempt to unsubscribe from the newsletters only to be kept on the distribution lists and even re-subscribed under the direction of Ozy management, a potential violation of commercial email laws...

Despite a "very small" organic audience and low engagement numbers, according to a source with knowledge of Ozy's newsletter audience, Ozy sent a pitch deck to investors over the summer for its Series D funding round that claimed it was achieving an email open rate of 25%, or (in Ozy's words): "2.5x the industry standard." Ozy founder and CEO Carlos Watson admitted that number was exaggerated during a Monday interview with CNBC, claiming it instead represents the engagement rate among Ozy's "best, most regular people." Watson still claimed this subset of Ozy's audience is between 10 and 12 million people.
Forbes adds that there was no response to their request for a comment from Ozy, McClatchy, and Wired's parent company Conde Nast.

"October 5 marks the official release of Windows 11, a new version of the operating system that doesn't do anything at all to counteract Windows' long history of depriving users of freedom and digital autonomy," writes Free Software Foundation campaigns manager Greg Farough.

"While we might have been encouraged by Microsoft's vague, aspirational slogans about community and togetherness, Windows 11 takes important steps in the wrong direction when it comes to user freedom." Microsoft claims that "life's better together" in their advertising for this latest Windows version, but when it comes to technology, there is no surer way of keeping users divided and powerless than nonfree softwarechoosing to create an unjust power structure, in which a developer knowingly keeps users powerless and dependent by withholding information. Increasingly, this involves not only withholding the source code itself, but even basic information on how the software works: what it's really doing, what it's collecting, and how often it's snitching on users. "Snitching" may sound dramatic, but Windows 11 will now require a Microsoft account to be connected to every user account, granting them the ability to correlate user behavior with one's personal identity. Even those who think they have nothing to hide should be wary of sharing potentially all of their computing activity with any company, much less one with a track record of abuse like Microsoft...

We expect Microsoft to use its tighter control on cryptography that happens in Windows as a way to impose more severe Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) onto media and applications, and as a way to ensure that no application can run in Windows without Microsoft's approval. In cases like these, it's no longer appropriate to call a machine running Windows a "personal" computer, as it obeys Microsoft more than it does its user. Indeed, it's bitterly ironic that Microsoft is calling the program that verifies a system's compatibility with Windows 11 a "PC Health Check." We counter that a healthy PC is one that respects its user's wishes, runs free software, and doesn't purposefully restrict them through treacherous computing. It would also never send the user's encryption keys back to its corporate overlords. Intrepid users will likely find a way around this requirement, yet it doesn't change the fact that the majority of Windows users will be forced into a treacherous computing scheme...

Sometimes, Microsoft realizes that it can't be quite so overtly antisocial. We've commented many times before on the hypocrisy involved in saying that Microsoft "loves open source" and "loves Linux," two ways of mentioning free software without reference to freedom. At the same time, Microsoft employees do make contributions to free software, contributions which benefit many others. Yet they do not extend this philosophy to their operating system, and in the last few years, they've made an attempt to impair the ways free software makes "life better together" further by making critical functions of Microsoft GitHub rely on nonfree JavaScript and directing users toward Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS) platforms. By attacking user freedom through Windows, and the free software community directly by means of nonfree JavaScript, Microsoft proves that it has no plans to loosen its grip on users.

No program that you're forbidden to copy, modify, or share can truly bring people "together" in the way that Microsoft claims.

Thankfully, and right outside the window, there's a true community of users you and your loved ones can join...

Let's stop falling for the trap of chasing short-term, superficial improvements in proprietary software that may seem to make life better, and instead opt for free software, the only software that can support the best versions of ourselves.
The post urges readers to sign (or renew!) their pledge not to use Windows and to help a friend install GNU/Linux, "sending Microsoft the strong message that software that subjugates its users has no place in Windows.... If you don't feel ready to take the plunge and switch entirely, you can use our resources like the Free Software Directory to find programs you can use as starting points for your free software journey."

The post also has harsh words for TPM, warning that "when it's deployed by a proprietary software company, its relationship to the user isn't one based on trust, but based on treachery. When fully controlled by the user, TPM can be a useful way to strengthen encryption and user privacy, but when it's in the hands of Microsoft, we're not optimistic."

And when it comes to Microsoft teams, "it seems that no Windows user can avoid it any longer.... we hope Teams' unpopularity and its newfound, unwanted place in Windows will encourage users to seek out conferencing programs that they themselves can control."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Guide: A new survey has reached a startling conclusion: iPhone apps tend to violate your privacy just as often as Android apps do. "Overall, we find that neither platform is clearly better than the other for privacy across the dimensions we studied," say the academic paper entitled "Are iPhones Really Better for Privacy?" and presented by researchers from the University of Oxford. "While it has been argued that the choice of smartphone architecture might protect user privacy, no clear winner between iOS and Android emerges from our analysis," the paper adds. "Data sharing for tracking purposes was common on both platforms." There's one big caveat regarding the new study: It was conducted before the introduction of iOS 14.5 in April 2021, which made opt-in to tracking and app privacy labels mandatory on iPhones.

The researchers analyzed the code, permissions and network traffic of 12,000 randomly selected free apps from each platform that had been updated or released in 2018 or later. Each app was run on a real device, either a first-generation iPhone SE running iOS 14.2 or a Google Nexus 5 running Android 7 Nougat. They found that nearly all (89%) of the Android apps contained at least one tracking library, which was almost always Google Play Services. The numbers weren't much lower on iOS, where 79% of apps had at least one tracking library, most likely Apple's own SKADNetwork, which tracks which ads a user clicks on. However, 62% of iOS apps also ran Google's AdMob ad tracking library, followed by 54% of iOS apps (and 58% of Android apps) running Google Firebase. Facebook trackers were in 28% of Android apps and 26% of iOS ones. In fact, most apps on either platforms -- 90% of Android apps and more than 60% of iOS -- shared data with tracking companies owned by Google. Almost all tracking companies observed were based in the U.S. About 9.5% of iOS apps and 5% of Android ones used Chinese-based trackers; 7.5% of iOS apps and 2% of Android ones used Indian trackers. The team commended Apple for making it possible for iPhone users to block the temporary advertising IDs that flag your phone to advertisers, but the team also saw an ulterior motive on Apple's part. "Apple's crackdown on Ad ID use could be interpreted as an attempt to divert revenue from Google and other advertising providers, and motivate the use of alternative monetization models -- which are more lucrative for Apple," the Oxford research paper states. "Apple has arguably placed a larger emphasis on privacy, seeking to gain a competitive advantage by appealing to privacy-concerned consumers."

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose high-profile antitrust lawsuit against Apple is now under appeal, is today calling out the iPhone maker for giving itself access to an advertising slot its competitors don't have: the iPhone's Settings screen. From a report: Some iOS 15 users noticed Apple is now advertising its own services at the top of their Settings, just below their Apple ID. The services being suggested are personalized to the device owner, based on which ones they already subscribe to, it appears. For example, those without an Apple Music subscription may see an ad offering a free six-month trial. However, current Apple Music subscribers may instead see a prompt to add on a service they don't yet have, like AppleCare coverage for their devices.

Sweeney suggests this sort of first-party advertising is an anticompetitive risk for Apple, as some of the services it's pushing here are those that directly compete with third-party apps published on its App Store. But those third-party apps can't gain access to the iPhone's Settings screen, of course --- they can only bid for ad slots within the App Store itself. Writes Sweeney: "New from the guys who banned Fortnite: settings-screen ads for their own music service, which come before the actual settings, and which aren't available to other advertisers like Spotify or Sound Cloud."

The Guardian reports on "a new breed of scambaiters...taking over TikTok and YouTube."

And one of them has more than 1.5 million followers across both video platforms. "Three to four days a week, for one or two hours at a time, Rosie Okumura, 35, telephones thieves and messes with their minds," reports the Guardian: For the past two years, the LA-based voice actor has run a sort of reverse call centre, deliberately ringing the people most of us hang up on — scammers who pose as tax agencies or tech-support companies or inform you that you've recently been in a car accident you somehow don't recall. When Okumura gets a scammer on the line, she will pretend to be an old lady, or a six-year-old girl, or do an uncanny impression of Apple's virtual assistant Siri. Once, she successfully fooled a fake customer service representative into believing that she was Britney Spears. "I waste their time," she explains, "and now they're not stealing from someone's grandma...."

Batman became Batman to avenge the death of his parents; Okumura became a scambaiter after her mum was scammed out of $500... Thankfully, the bank was able to stop the money leaving her mother's account, but Okumura wanted more than just a refund. She asked her mum to give her the number she'd called and called it herself, spending an hour and 45 minutes wasting the scammer's time. "My computer's giving me the worst vibes," she began in Kim Kardashian's voice. "Are you in front of your computer right now?" asked the scammer. "Yeah, well it's in front of me, is that... that's like the same thing?" Okumura put the video on YouTube and since then has made over 200 more videos, through which she earns regular advertising revenue (she also takes sponsorships directly from companies).

"A lot of it is entertainment — it's funny, it's fun to do, it makes people happy," she says when asked why she scambaits. "But I also get a few emails a day saying, 'Oh, thank you so much, if it weren't for that video, I would've lost $1,500.'" Okumura isn't naive — she knows she can't stop people scamming, but she hopes to stop people falling for scams. "I think just educating people and preventing it from happening in the first place is easier than trying to get all the scammers put in jail...."
The Guardian also describes Jim Browning, a Northern Irish YouTuber with nearly 3.5 million subscribers who's been posting scambaiting videos for seven years. "Browning regularly gets access to scammers' computers and has even managed to hack into the closed-circuit TV footage of call centres in order to identify individuals. He then passes this information to the 'relevant authorities' including the police, money-processing firms and internet service providers...."

And they also tell the story of an American software engineer who joined with friends to convince a scammer he'd been offered a high-paying job — only to end up stranded in Laos after paying for a 600-miles flight.

"He was crying... that was the one where I was like, 'Ah, maybe I'm taking things a little too far.'"

Google called on European Union judges to cut or cancel a "staggering" 4.3 billion euro ($5 billion) antitrust fine because the search giant never intended to harm rivals. From a report: The company "could not have known its conduct was an abuse" when it struck contracts with Android mobile phone makers that required them to take its search and web-browser apps, Google lawyer Genevra Forwood told the EU's General Court in Luxembourg. The search-giant's power over mobile phones is the focus of a week-long court hearing. Google's lawyers are arguing that the European Commission blundered by demanding changes to allegedly anti-competitive contracts with suppliers of phones running its Android operating system -- the engine room for the vast majority of mobile devices in the region. At the very least the court should "dial down" the fine, an EU record, because it was wrongly based on advertising revenue from Google's home page that isn't directly linked to Android phones at the heart of the EU's decision, Forwood said. The European Commission's lawyer, Anthony Dawes, scoffed at Google's plea, saying the fine was a mere 4.5% of the company's revenue in 2017, well below a 10% cap.

EFF.org has the story: For the last month, civil liberties and human rights organizations, researchers, and customers have demanded that Apple cancel its plan to install photo-scanning software onto devices. This software poses an enormous danger to privacy and security. Apple has heard the message, and announced that it would delay the system while consulting with various groups about its impact. But in order to trust Apple again, we need the company to commit to canceling this mass surveillance system.

The delay may well be a diversionary tactic. Every September, Apple holds one of its big product announcement events, where Apple executives detail the new devices and features coming out. Apple likely didn't want concerns about the phone-scanning features to steal the spotlight.

But we can't let Apple's disastrous phone-scanning idea fade into the background, only to be announced with minimal changes down the road. To make sure Apple is listening to our concerns, EFF turned to an old-school messaging system: aerial advertising.

During Apple's event, a plane circled the company's headquarters carrying an impossible-to-miss message: "Apple, don't scan our phones!" The evening before Apple's event, protestors also rallied nationwide in front of Apple stores. The company needs to hear us, and not just dismiss the serious problems with its scanning plan. A delay is not a cancellation, and the company has also been dismissive of some concerns, referring to them as "confusion" about the new features.

Apple's iMessage is one of the preeminent end-to-end encrypted chat clients. End-to-end encryption is what allows users to exchange messages without having them intercepted and read by repressive governments, corporations, and other bad actors. We don't support encryption for its own sake: we fight for it because encryption is one of the most powerful tools individuals have for maintaining their digital privacy and security in an increasingly insecure world.

Now that Apple's September event is over, Apple must reach out to groups that have criticized it and seek a wider range of suggestions on how to deal with difficult problems, like protecting children online...

The world, thankfully, has moved towards encrypted communications over the last two decades, not away from them, and that's a good thing. If Apple wants to maintain its reputation as a pro-privacy company, it must continue to choose real end-to-end encryption over government demands to read user's communication.

Privacy matters now more than ever. It will continue to be a selling point and a distinguishing feature of some products and companies. For now, it's an open question whether Apple will continue to be one of them.

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, has signed off on an effort to show users pro-Facebook stories and to distance himself from scandals. From a report: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, signed off last month on a new initiative code-named Project Amplify. The effort, which was hatched at an internal meeting in January, had a specific purpose: to use Facebook's News Feed, the site's most important digital real estate, to show people positive stories about the social network. The idea was that pushing pro-Facebook news items -- some of them written by the company -- would improve its image in the eyes of its users, three people with knowledge of the effort said. But the move was sensitive because Facebook had not previously positioned the News Feed as a place where it burnished its own reputation. Several executives at the meeting were shocked by the proposal, one attendee said.

Project Amplify punctuated a series of decisions that Facebook has made this year to aggressively reshape its image. Since that January meeting, the company has begun a multipronged effort to change its narrative by distancing Mr. Zuckerberg from scandals, reducing outsiders' access to internal data, burying a potentially negative report about its content and increasing its own advertising to showcase its brand. [...] So Facebook executives, concluding that their methods had done little to quell criticism or win supporters, decided early this year to go on the offensive, said six current and former employees, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisal. "They're realizing that no one else is going to come to their defense, so they need to do it and say it themselves," said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director. The changes have involved Facebook executives from its marketing, communications, policy and integrity teams. Alex Schultz, a 14-year company veteran who was named chief marketing officer last year, has also been influential in the image reshaping effort, said five people who worked with him. But at least one of the decisions was driven by Mr. Zuckerberg, and all were approved by him, three of the people said.

Google employees have joined the slew of politicians and activists blasting the internet giant for pulling a voting app from Russia's opposition leader, a move critics say showed the company was caving in to the Kremlin. From a report: Staff members complained over the weekend about the Google's decision in internal forums and on memegen, a messaging board that has served as a breeding ground for protests within the company. Images circulating inside Google, which were viewed by Bloomberg News, spoofed its corporate creed about prioritizing users. One picture depicts a man reading a magazine below the slogan, "Putin the user first."

These internal frustrations are the latest in a series of blows to Alphabet's Google operations in Russia, where the company is facing increased political pressure, fines and aggressive demands to police its influential internet services. So far, Google has decided those pressures are still worth operating in the multibillion dollar advertising market. Google and Apple on Friday removed a smart-voting app from Alexey Navalny, an imprisoned critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Google made the decision to remove the app from its online store in Russia after officials threatened to imprison local employees, according to a person close to the company.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Search for "toothpaste" on Amazon, and the top of the web page will show you a mix of popular brands like Colgate, Crest and Sensodyne. Try a separate search for "deodorant" and you'll first see products from Secret, Dove and Native. Look a little closer, though, and you'll notice that those listings are advertisements with the "sponsored" label affixed to them. Amazon is generating hefty revenue from the top consumer brands because getting valuable placement on the biggest e-commerce site comes with a rising price tag. "There's fewer organic search results on the page, so that increasingly means the only way to get on the page is to buy your way on there," said Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at advertising firm Publicis.

For consumers looking for toothpaste on Amazon, getting to unpaid results requires two full swipes up on the mobile app. ntil recently, Amazon put two or three sponsored products at the top of search results. Now, there may be as many as six sponsored products that appear ahead of any organic results, with more promotions elsewhere on the page, said Juozas Kaziukenas, who runs e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse. The number of ads that appear differs depending on the exact search term and other factors such as whether users are shopping on desktop, mobile or in the Amazon app, Amazon says.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The FCC has announced (PDF) it's investigating deals the broadband industry strikes with landlords that block broadband competition in apartment complexes, condos, and developments. While the FCC passed rules in 2008 attempting to prevent such deals, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have exploited massive loopholes in the restrictions for more than a decade. "With more than one-third of the U.S. population living in condos and apartment buildings, it's time to take a fresh look at how exclusive agreements between carriers and building owners could lock out broadband competition and consumer choice," interim FCC boss Jessica Rosenworcel said of the announcement. "I look forward to reviewing the record."

The inquiry comes after President Biden signed an executive order in July urging regulators to take a closer look at competition and monopoly issues in several sectors. The order also mandated the creation of a competition council, which urged the FCC to take a closer look at the anticompetitive nature of these arrangements. The FCC's existing rules technically bar landlords and ISPs from colluding to restrict broadband competition. But in a 2016 piece in Wired, Harvard Law Professor Susan Crawford outlined the various ways big telecom wiggles around the restrictions -- often by simply calling what they're doing -- something else. "Sure, a landlord can't enter into an exclusive agreement granting just one ISP the right to provide Internet access service...but a landlord can refuse to sign agreements with anyone other than Big Company X, in exchange for payments labeled in any one of a zillion ways," Crawford wrote. "Exclusivity by any other name still feels just as abusive."

For example, to get around FCC rules expanding access to an ISP's in-building wiring, companies like Comcast or Charter will often deed ownership of these wires to a landlord, then turn around and pay that landlord to ensure that nobody else can have access. Because the landlord now technically owns the wires, the FCC rules no longer apply. ISPs also pay landlords to sign agreements that ban any other competing ISPs from advertising in the building. If you're a landlord that violates such arrangements, you can then expect a nastygram from a company like Comcast for violating your deal. In addition, many landlords will charge "door fees" to any company that needs access to a building to install new wiring, creating an additional layer of difficulty and expense for smaller broadband competitors trying to compete with dominant ISPs. Collectively such restrictions serve the same function as blocking broadband competition outright. Much as it does on the national level, this lack of block by block competition directly contributes to higher prices, slower speeds, and comically-terrible customer service.

"After 9/11, I took the threat of terrorism seriously, still do," U.S. Senator Ron Wyden tells Fast Company. "But also I was concerned about how the new surveillance authorities might be abused..."

From Fast Company's report: After the 9/11 attacks, one big concern was connecting the dots. Failing to do so was why we missed the warning signs of the attacks and how we would prevent the next ones, the thinking went. One solution, according to the Pentagon, was a project to gather as much data as possible, to look for signs of future bad behavior. It was called Total Information Awareness...

Since the 1970s, Congress has been charged with preventing further abuse of the government's surveillance powers, particularly when it comes to spying on Americans. And few in Congress have questioned these powers as vigorously as Sen. Ron Wyden...

Sen. Wyden: Total Information Awareness was an ominous sounding idea to put together as much data on Americans as possible, and when used with what was then so-called predictive technology, identify who to watch as a way to stop terrorism. In the fight in Congress, here's the lesson that goes to the concerns we had 20 years ago: Total Information Awareness made it clear that the threat is not just surveillance through the aggressive collection, amalgamating, and mining of information through existing authorities. The bigger problem now is the amount of data on Americans that's available commercially or on social media... the threat to people's privacy is just as great. And the job of getting people's attention is still very, very challenging...

This is a national security issue: The personal data of Americans that the data brokers are selling is a gold mine for foreign intelligence services who can exploit it, to target supercharged hacking, blackmail, and influence campaigns. So I'm leading an effort right now that encompasses the biggest online advertising companies, to ask if they're sharing Americans' web browsing and location data with foreign companies.

The well-known three-arrows symbol doesn't necessarily mean that a product is actually recyclable. A new bill would limit the products allowed to feature the mark. From a report: The triangular "chasing arrows" recycling symbol is everywhere: On disposable cups. On shower curtains. On children's toys. What a lot of shoppers might not know is that any product can display the sign, even if it isn't recyclable. It's false advertising, critics say, and as a result, countless tons of non-recyclable garbage are thrown in the recycling bin each year, choking the recycling system. Late on Wednesday, California took steps toward becoming the first state to change that. A bill passed by the state's assembly would ban companies from using the arrows symbol unless they can prove the material is in fact recycled in most California communities, and is used to make new products.

"It's a basic truth-in-advertising concept," said California State Senator Ben Allen, a Democrat and the bill's lead sponsor. "We have a lot of people who are dutifully putting materials into the recycling bins that have the recycling symbols on them, thinking that they're going to be recycled, but actually, they're heading straight to the landfill," he said. The measure, which is expected to clear the State Senate later this week and be signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is part of a nascent effort across the country to fix a recycling system that has long been broken.

Though materials like paper or metals are widely recycled, less than 10 percent of plastic consumed in the United States is recycled, according to the most recent estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency. Instead, most plastic is incinerated or dumped in landfills, with the exception of some types of resins, like the kind used for bottled water or soda. For years, the United States also shipped much of its plastic waste overseas, choking local rivers and streams. A global convention now bans most trade in plastic waste, though U.S. waste exports have not completely ceased. This summer, Maine and Oregon passed laws overhauling their states' recycling systems by requiring corporations to pay for the cost of recycling their packaging. In Oregon, the law included plans to establish a task force that would evaluate "misleading or confusing claims" related to recycling. Legislation is pending in New York that would, among other things, ban products from displaying misleading claims.

Apple will start asking for permission to enable Personalized Ads in iOS 15, the company's method of serving relevant ads in the App Store and Apple News by analyzing what you read, purchase, and search for on your device. From a report: The company used to collect that information by default, but now it plans to ask for permission. Apple required other developers to seek users' permission with the debut of App Tracking Transparency, so it seems like it's showing that it will hold itself to a similar standard. The Personalized Ads pop-up should show up when you open the App Store if you're running the most recent iOS 15 beta. In the pop-up, Apple writes that the ads will help you discover relevant apps, products, and services while protecting your privacy by using "device-generated identifiers and not linking advertising information to your Apple ID."

New submitter Chaldean42 shares a report from The Verge: On Wednesday, September 1st, a number of channels on Twitch will go dark as streamers participate in #ADayOffTwitch, a walkout designed to bring attention to the ongoing hate and harassment that's plagued the platform for the last several weeks. [...] A Day Off Twitch was born out of the #TwitchDoBetter movement, a hashtag created by streamers affected by the hate raids that have exploded across Twitch in recent weeks. Though the action of bombing a streamer's chat with racist, sexist, transphobic, and generally abusive messages is not new, the phenomenon has seen a dramatic increase, thanks to users employing bots to overwhelm chats with hundreds of automatically generated messages. In response to what they thought was Twitch's slow response to the abuse, streamer RekitRaven created the #TwitchDoBetter hashtag to urge the Amazon-owned streaming platform to deploy better tools to stem the tide of harassment.

Twitch has promised that fixes are forthcoming, but in the meantime, streamers are left to contend against the hate raids with community-developed tools and resources. [...] The responses to A Day Off Twitch have been varied, even among its supporters. Because of Twitch's endemic hold on the streaming community, it's just not feasible for some smaller streamers, arguably the population most affected by hate raids, to take a day off. For some creators, Twitch is their only means of income. Users trying to make or maintain affiliate or partner status -- designations that grant creators access to many different methods of monetization -- could jeopardize their finances or the health of their channel by taking even one day off. There are also contractual obligations like advertising deals or partnerships that prevent streamers from skipping a day. Other streamers oppose A Day Off Twitch for more philosophical reasons. To them, the people behind these hate raids are working to bully marginalized streamers off the platform, and taking a day off is giving them exactly what they want. Continuing to stream and speaking out against the abuse is therefore the best way to counter trolls who might not otherwise face repercussions for their actions. A spokesperson for Twitch told The Verge, "We support our streamers' rights to express themselves and bring attention to important issues across our service. No one should have to experience malicious and hateful attacks based on who they are or what they stand for, and we are working hard on improved channel-level ban evasion detection and additional account improvements to help make Twitch a safer place for creators."