Messaging platform Telegram claims to have had a surge in signups during a period of downtime for Facebook’s rival messaging services. In a message sent to his Telegram channel, founder Pavel Durov’s just wrote: “I see 3 million new users signed up for Telegram within the last 24 hours.” It’s probably not a coincidence that […]
View More Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outageCategory: Privacy
Google Chrome adds the privacy-first DuckDuckGo as a default option
Google has made a curious addition to its Chrome browser.
With the release of Chrome 73, the browser has added the pro-privacy DuckDuckGo to its suite of default search engines, alongside Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
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Facebook won’t store data in countries with human rights violations — except Singapore
As soon as Mark Zuckerberg said in a lengthy 3,225-word blog post to not build datacenters in countries with poor human rights, he had already broken his promise. He chose to ignore Singapore, which the Facebook founder had only months earlier posted about, declaring the microstate home to the company’s first datacenter in Asia to […]
View More Facebook won’t store data in countries with human rights violations — except SingaporeICE has a huge license plate database targeting immigrants, documents reveal
Newly released documents reveal Immigration and Customs Enforcement is tracking and targeting immigrants through a massive license plate reader database supplied with data from local police departments — in some cases violating sanctuary laws. The documents, obtained by a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and released Tuesday, reveal the […]
View More ICE has a huge license plate database targeting immigrants, documents revealGoogle has quietly added DuckDuckGo as a search engine option for Chrome users in ~60 markets
In an update to the chromium engine, which underpins Google’s popular Chrome browser, the search giant has quietly updated the lists of default search engines it offers per market — expanding the choice of search product users can pick from in markets around the world. Most notably it’s expanded search engine lists to include pro-privacy […]
View More Google has quietly added DuckDuckGo as a search engine option for Chrome users in ~60 marketsCompetition policy must change to help startups fight ‘winner takes all’ platforms, says UK report
A independent report commissioned by the UK government to examine how competition policy needs to adapt itself for the digital age has concluded that tech giants don’t face adequate competition and the law needs updating to address what it dubs the “novel” challenges of ‘winner takes all’ platforms. The panel also recommends more policy interventions […]
View More Competition policy must change to help startups fight ‘winner takes all’ platforms, says UK reportMarking 30 years of the web, Tim Berners-Lee calls for a joint fight against disinformation
The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has published an open letter to mark the 30th anniversary of the day — March 12, 1989 — when he submitted his original proposal for an information management system that went on to underpin the birth of online services. The proposal, dubbed “vague but exciting” […]
View More Marking 30 years of the web, Tim Berners-Lee calls for a joint fight against disinformationRussia blocks encrypted email provider ProtonMail
Russia has told internet providers to enforce a block against encrypted email provider ProtonMail, the company’s chief has confirmed. The block was ordered by the state Federal Security Service, formerly the KGB, according to a Russian-language blog, which obtained and published the order after the agency accused the company and several other email providers of […]
View More Russia blocks encrypted email provider ProtonMailOnline platforms need a super regulator and public interest tests for mergers, says UK parliament report
The latest policy recommendations for regulating powerful Internet platforms comes from a U.K. House of Lord committee that’s calling for an overarching digital regulator to be set up to plug gaps in domestic legislation and work through any overlaps of rules. “The digital world does not merely require more regulation but a different approach to […]
View More Online platforms need a super regulator and public interest tests for mergers, says UK parliament reportDon’t break up big tech — regulate data access, says EU antitrust chief
Breaking up tech giants should be a measure of last resort, the European Union’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, has suggested. “To break up a company, to break up private property would be very far reaching and you would need to have a very strong case that it would produce better results for consumers in the […]
View More Don’t break up big tech — regulate data access, says EU antitrust chiefThe other smartphone business
With the smartphone operating system market sewn up by Google’s Android platform, which has a close to 90% share globally, leaving Apple’s iOS a slender (but lucrative) premium top-slice, a little company called Jolla and its Linux-based Sailfish OS is a rare sight indeed: A self-styled ‘independent alternative’ that’s still somehow in business. The Finnish […]
View More The other smartphone businessPhiladelphia just banned cashless stores. Good.
Cash hasn’t been dethroned, yet.
In the age of Square, Apple Pay, and Amazon Go, buying a sandwich or beer with paper money may feel like a throwback to simpler, neolithic times. But on Feb. 27, Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney signed into law a b…