TikTok says fake account removal increased 61% to 33.6M in Q2 2022

European Commission orders staff to remove TikTok from work devices

The European Commission (EC) has issued a directive requesting all EC employees to remove TikTok from their corporate devices. The suspension also extends to workers’ personal devices where they are used for work purposes. In an announcement issued today, the commission said that the move was made on security grounds, while suggesting that rival social […]

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Amazon and EU settle two antitrust cases, including one focused on merchant data abuse

Amazon and EU settle two antitrust cases, including one focused on merchant data abuse

The European Commission (EC) has announced that it has reached an agreement with Amazon over a duo of antitrust probes, one that will enshrine commitments made by Amazon in European Union (EU) antitrust legislation. The initial probe kicked off back in 2018, when regulators launched enquiries into how Amazon was leveraging non-public data from third-party […]

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Armed with $19.5M, LiveEO plots a big data course between satellite geospatial information and industry

Armed with $19.5M, LiveEO plots a big data course between satellite geospatial information and industry

When it comes to geospatial and mapping data and how they are leveraged by organizations, satellites continue to play a critical role when it comes to sourcing raw information. Getting that raw data into a state that can be usable by enterprises, however, is a different story. Today, a Berlin-based startup called LiveEO, which has […]

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TikTok Music’s trademarks spotted in multiple countries, hinting toward global launch plans

Italy warns TikTok over privacy policy switch

TikTok’s attempt to switch legal basis for targeting advertising at users in Europe looks to be in trouble after Italy’s data protection watchdog stepped in and issued a warning of legal inadequacy just days ahead of the planned privacy policy change. The user-generated video sharing platform attracted attention from privacy experts last month when it […]

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Google will reimburse developers $90 million to settle a lawsuit over Play Store earnings

Google’s ‘deceptive’ account sign-up process targeted with GDPR complaints

Consumer rights groups in Europe have filed a new series of privacy complaints against Google — accusing the advertising giant of deceptive design around the account creation process that they say steers users into agreeing to extensive and invasive processing of their data. The tech giant profiles account holders for ad targeting purposes — apparently […]

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WhatsApp given a month to fix consumer ToS concerns in Europe

WhatsApp given a month to fix consumer ToS concerns in Europe

WhatsApp has been warned by European regulators it has one more month to fix its confusing terms of service, the Commission said today. The Meta-owned messaging platform has been under investigation by the bloc following a series of consumer protection complaints lodged against it by the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network, led by Sweden’s national […]

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Report spotlights vast scale of adtech’s ‘biggest data breach’

Report spotlights vast scale of adtech’s ‘biggest data breach’

New data about the real-time-bidding (RTB) system’s use of web users’ info for tracking and ad targeting, released today by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), suggests Google and other key players in the high velocity, surveillance-based ad auction system are processing and passing people’s data billions of times per day. “RTB is the […]

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UK opts for slow reboot of Big Tech rules, pushes ahead on privacy ‘reforms’

UK opts for slow reboot of Big Tech rules, pushes ahead on privacy ‘reforms’

The U.K. government has confirmed it will move forward on a major ex ante competition reform aimed at Big Tech, as it set out its priorities for the new parliamentary session earlier today. However it has only said that draft legislation will be published over this period — booting the prospect of passing updated competition […]

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Meta’s first human rights report is largely self-congratulatory

Leaked Facebook ads document raises fresh questions over GDPR enforcement

Motherboard/Vice had an explosive report on Facebook’s business yesterday that’s sure to raise fresh questions over the lack of enforcement of European privacy laws against the adtech giant. The report is based on a leaked internal document written last year by privacy engineers on its Ad and Business product team. The document, which is entitled […]

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Europe seals a deal on tighter rules for digital services

Europe seals a deal on tighter rules for digital services

In the small hours local time, European Union lawmakers secured a provisional deal on a landmark update to rules for digital services operating in the region — grabbing political agreement after a final late night/early morning of compromise talks on the detail of what is a major retooling of the bloc’s existing ecommerce rulebook. The […]

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