• Utah AG, In Contention For FTC Spot, Sees Surge In Political Donations
    Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, reportedly a contender to head the FTC, has seen donations to his political campaign surge this year -- even though he isn't up for re-election. In the first three months of 2017, he received more than $113,000, The New York Times reports.
  • Home Depot Exposes 8,000 Customers' Data
    Home Depot may have leaked 8,000 customers' names, phone numbers, emails and other data by hosting spreadsheets with that information on a publicly accessible site, Consumerist reports. "All of the files there were unencrypted, unprotected, discoverable by search engines (several of the email addresses listed, when typed into a Google search, surfaced the documents), and completely accessible to the open internet," Consumerist writes.
  • Consumer Watchdog Urges FTC To Investigate Uber
    Consumer Watchdog is asking the FTC to investigate Uber for allegedly taking steps to identify specific devices even after users deleted the company's app. The alleged efforts at device fingerprinting violated Apple's policies. Uber says it didn't track users who deleted the app, but wanted to be able to recognize specific phones to fight fraud.
  • Google Fiber Readies Louisville Rollout
    Google Fiber is still planning to launch in Louisville, but the service may rely on wireless technology. The company has been vague about its plans, saying only that it is "committed to bringing Google Fiber to Louisville and ... excited about the future."
  • Utah Court Tosses Lawyer's Defamation Suit Over Bad Yelp Review
    An appellate court in Utah has refused to revive a lawyer's defamation lawsuit over a bad Yelp review, which included the comments: "Worst. Ever." The court said the phrase was "rhetorical hyperbole."
  • FCC Chair To Unveil Plan For Net Neutrality Rollback
    Tomorrow, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will unveil his plan to revise the net neutrality regulations, Politico reports. He could circulate an official notice as soon as Thursday, which would pave the way for a vote on May 18.
  • Verizion Rolls Out Gigabit Service
    Verizon will start offering Gigabit connections to Fios customers in some markets, including New York, Boston and Washington, D.C. Previously, the company's fastest speeds were 750 Mbps.
  • Unroll.me Promises 'Clearer Messaging' After Caught Selling Users' Data
    The CEO of email management company Unroll.me apologized after it emerged that the company sold data about users to Uber. Jojo Hedaya said in a blog post that the company will offer "clearer messaging on our website, in our app, and in our FAQs" about its data usage policies.
  • Uber Threatened With App Store Ban Over Privacy Violations
    Two years ago, Uber was caught violating Apple's privacy rules by fingerprinting devices, in order to track people who had deleted the app. Uber did so for fraud detection purposes. Apple CEO Tim Cook told Uber's Travis Kalanick to stop breaking Apple's rules, or risk getting thown out of the App store, The New York Times writes in a profile of Kalanick.
  • NY Judge Orders Daily News To Scrub Litigant's Name
    An acting state court judge in Long Island, New York ordered the New York Daily News to remove a defendant's name and picture from an article about a pending lawsuit against him. The Daily News, which is appealing the order, wrote an editorial about the ruling. "Supreme Court Justice John Galasso, who wants us to scrub the man’s name from an October 2016 story, must have missed the day the Constitution was taught in law school," the paper wrote.
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