New webcam-based anti-cheating monitoring is so stressful, it’s made some students cry, the Washington Post reports: “Online proctoring” companies saw in coronavirus shutdowns a chance to capitalize on a major reshaping of education, selling schools a high-tech blend of webcam-watching workers and eye-tracking software designed to catch students cheating on their exams. They’ve taken in millions of dollars, some of it…
Tag: lawsuits
Face For Sale: Leaks and Lawsuits Blight Russia Facial Recognition
The rise of cloud computing and AI have popularised face recognition technology globally, but at what cost? From a report: When Anna Kuznetsova saw an ad offering access to Moscow’s face recognition cameras, all she had to do was pay 16,000 roubles ($200) and send a photo of the person she wanted spying on. The 20-year-old — who was acting as…
EFF Argues RIAA is ‘Abusing DMCA’ to Take Down YouTube-DL
While the RIAA has objected to a tool for downloading online videos, EFF senior activist Elliot Harmon responds with this question. “Who died and put them in charge of YouTube?” He asks the question in a new video “explainer” on the controversy, and argues in a new piece at EFF.org that the youtube-dl tool “doesn’t infringe on any RIAA copyrights.” RIAA’s…
Google’s Epic Response: Android 12 Will Make It Easier To Install App Stores
Google today announced it will make it easier to install and use third-party app stores with the release of Android 12 next year. From a report: Google also reiterated its existing Payments Policy for in-app purchases of digital goods: Android developers who want to distribute apps and games on Google Play, must use Play’s billing system. Google is offering a 1-year…
Illinois Facebook Users Can Claim Up To $400 In Class-Action Suit
Facebook has settled a class action lawsuit that claimed the company collected and stored facial templates for its users between June 7, 2011, and Aug. 19, 2020, when the settlement was approved. “Individuals could be eligible for cash payouts of $200 to $400,” reports Patch. From the report: In 2015, lawsuits were filed against Facebook over its use of “face tagging”…
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Confirms a Pattern of Age Discrimination at IBM
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued a sweeping decision concluding that IBM engaged in systematic age discrimination between 2013 and 2018, when it shed thousands of older workers in the United States. ProPublica reports: The EEOC finding, contained in an Aug. 31 letter to a group of ex-employees, comes more than two years after ProPublica reported that the company…
California Amends Freelancer Law, But Still Pursues Gig-Worker Companies and Food-Delivery Services
“California is exempting about two-dozen more professions from a landmark labor law designed to treat more people like employees instead of contractors, under a bill that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed on Friday,” reports the San Diego Union-Tribune: The amendments, which take effect immediately, end what lawmakers said were unworkable limits on services provided by freelance writers and still photographers, photojournalists, and…
Big Tech is Suing the Patent Office
Apple, Google, Cisco and Intel this week sued the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, challenging the agency’s recent rule that it can refuse to adjudicate patent claims while litigation about them is pending in court. From a report: The companies say the rule hurts innovation and their legal rights, letting invalid patents stay on the books while lawsuits slowly wend their…
Facebook Sues Maker of Advertising SDK for Refusing To Participate in Audit
Facebook has filed lawsuits today in both the US and the UK against MobiBurn, a UK software company that provided advertising tools for mobile app developers. From a report: In particular, MobiBurn provided an advertising software development kit (SDK) that allowed app developers to embed ads inside their applications and monetize user behavior. But in a lawsuit filed today, Facebook claims…
Spies in Silicon Valley: Twitter Breach Tied To Saudi Dissident Arrests
An internal breach at Twitter a half decade ago yielded data that was later used by Saudi Arabia to harass or arrest people critical of the government, according to lawsuits, human rights groups and the relative of a person apprehended in 2018. From a report: In 2015, two Twitter employees allegedly accessed more than 6,000 accounts while acting as spies for…