Tag Archives: internet

Telecoms Sue To Block FTC’s “Click To Cancel” Rule

Reuters reports: An industry group representing cable and internet providers sued along with two others on Wednesday to block a U.S. Federal Trade Commission rule that requires companies to offer simple cancellation mechanisms for subscriptions. NCTA – The Internet & Television Association and groups representing the home security and online advertising industries said in papers filed with the 5th U.S. …

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FCC Reverses Trump-Era Ruling, Restores Net Neutrality

Reuters reports: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 on Thursday to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules and reassume regulatory oversight of broadband internet rescinded under former President Donald Trump. The commission voted along party lines to finalize a proposal first advanced in October to reinstate open internet rules adopted in 2015 and re-establish the commission’s broadband authority. Reinstating the …

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Twitter/X Alternative Post News To Shut Down Soon

The Verge reports: Post News, a Twitter alternative that emerged in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover, is shutting down. Noam Bardin, the platform’s founder and former CEO of Waze, writes that Post News “is not growing fast enough to become a real business or a significant platform.” The Andreessen Horowitz-backed platform launched in a closed beta in November 2022, …

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Traffic Has Plummeted For Right Wing Sites Since 2020

Mediaite reports: Major hard-right media outlets saw their online traffic plummet in January of 2024 when compared to January 2020, according to new data from The Righting. Townhall, Washington Free Beacon, and Breitbart have seen their digital traffic plummet a whopping 87% in the two years, according to the Comscore data set. Other major drops were registered by the Daily …

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Google Settles $5B Lawsuit Over “Incognito” Browser

Business Insider reports: On Thursday, Google agreed to settle a $5 billion class-action privacy lawsuit alleging that it spied on people who used the “incognito” mode in its Chrome browser to track their internet use. The lawsuit filed in 2020 claimed Google misled users into believing that it wouldn’t track their internet activities while using incognito mode. The suit argued …

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Britain May Ban Rumble Platform Under Coming Law

The Times Of London reports: The “free speech” website that hosts Russell Brand could be forced out of the UK under new online safety laws, experts have said. Rumble, a video-sharing platform based in North America, has become home to Brand and other figures with extreme views, including Andrew Tate and Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist. It also hosts extreme …

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Yelp Names Businesses Caught Buying Fake Reviews

Engadget reports: Since 2012, Yelp has caught nearly 5,000 businesses engaging in shady tactics, like paying customers for favorable ratings or hiring people to write phony reviews. Now, the company has a new tool to help people — and maybe the feds — track businesses that have tried to manipulate their standing on the review platform. Yelp is releasing a …

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Las Vegas Cyber Attack Continues Into Third Day

NBC News reports: MGM Resorts on Wednesday said that a cyber incident that has significantly disrupted properties across the United States for the past three days represents a material risk to the company. At the same time, the major credit rating agency Moody’s warned that the cyberattack could negatively affect MGM’s credit rating, saying the attack highlighted “key risks” within …

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Major Newspaper Chain Deletes All Comments Sections

Axios reports: MediaNews Group, the local newspaper company owned by Alden Global Capital, has shut down all of its comment sections as of July 1st, due to difficulties in moderating them, executives told Axios. MediaNews Group, also known as Digital First Media, is home to hundreds of weekly newspapers and dozens of daily newspapers, including major regional outlets such as …

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FTC Proposes $50,000 Fines For Fake Online Reviews

The Washington Post reports: Fake reviews are ruining the web. But there’s some new hope to fight them. The Federal Trade Commission on Friday proposed new rules to take aim at businesses that buy, sell and manipulate online reviews. If the rules are approved, they’ll carry a big stick: a fine of up to $50,000 for each fake review, for …

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TikTok Attempts To Limit Screen Time For Teen Users

The Verge reports: TikTok has announced a batch of new features intended to reduce screen time and improve the well-being of its younger users. In the coming weeks, a daily screen time limit of 60 minutes will be automatically applied to every TikTok user under 18 years old. Teens that hit this limit will be asked to enter a passcode …

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Record $9.1B Spent Online By Black Friday Shoppers

Axios reports: A record $9.12 billion was spent online for Black Friday, with electronics driving much of the growth compared to last year, according to new Adobe Analytics data. These record-breaking sales happened amid rising concerns about inflation and the cost of living. Purchases on electronics led the way, soaring by 221% compared to an average day in October. Smart …

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Fox News Columnist Calls For Banning “Online Porn”

Davis Marcus writes for Fox News: In 1994, when then-mayor Rudy Giuliani began the transformation of crime and poverty ridden New York City, one of his first actions was to kick the porn theaters out of Times Square. It was not a minor policy, what he understood was that those coursing avenues are the public square, and porn was choking …

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Cosmetics Giant Revlon Files For Bankruptcy

Reuters reports: Revlon Inc has filed for bankruptcy after the U.S cosmetics firm buckled under debts it built up in a bid to compete with online-focused upstarts. Known for its nail polishes and lipsticks, the 90-year-old company listed assets and liabilities of between $1 billion and $10 billion in a court filing on Wednesday. Revlon has in recent years lost …

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Microsoft To Shut Down Internet Explorer After 27 Years

People Magazine reports: After first announcing the decision last year, Microsoft will shut down Internet Explorer on Wednesday. The move comes about 27 years after the company first debuted the browser. Starting Wednesday, most people who try to open the application will be directed to Microsoft Edge — the company’s newer browser. Although the browser is nowhere near as popular …

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Top Political Site “The Hill” Removes Comments Section

From the editor in chief of The Hill: You’ve likely noticed some changes to our digital experiences. We’ve upgraded The Hill’s website, video player, newsletters, and mobile apps. These updates provide a solid foundation for our mission to provide free, relevant, trusted, and actionable information about policy and politics to more Americans. Our new website is responsive, which means it …

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Creator Of The GIF Dies Of COVID At Age 74

The Independent reports: The man who created the GIF has died from Covid-19 at the age of 74, his family has confirmed. Stephen Wilhite came up with Graphics Interchange Format, which are now used for animated internet memes and jokes, when he worked for CompuServe in the 1980s. “Even with all his accomplishments, he remained a very humble, kind, and …

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Multiple Diller Magazines To Cease Print Editions

The New York Times reports: Six magazines operated by the media mogul Barry Diller through his Dotdash Meredith group will immediately stop publishing in print and move online. The move, which affects Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, EatingWell, Health, Parents and People en Español, will lead to 200 job cuts, according to a memo sent to employees on Wednesday. The cuts amount …

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TikTok Dethrones Google For Highest Traffic In 2021

Protocol reports: TikTok has dethroned Google as the most popular domain in 2021, according to Cloudflare’s 2021 Year in Review for internet traffic. In 2020, the video-sharing platform was ranked No. 7 while Google came in at No. 1. This year, TikTok came in first, followed by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple, in that order Read the full article. TikTok …

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Another Amazon Outage Brings Down Many Major Sites

The Data Center reports: Amazon Web Services is down again, in its third outage this month. There is a problem with AWS at its US-East-1 (Virginia) cloud region, impacting a number of customers and users. Among those impacted are Coinbase, Fortnite, Hulu, Instacart, Rocket League, Acadly, Peloton, Hinge, Quora, the Epic Games Store, Slack, GitHub rival Bitbucket, Samsung Smart Lights, …

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