Tag Archives: internet

The Washington Post reports: There’s a tactic spreading across the Web named after treatment usually reserved for criminals: fingerprinting. At least a third of the 500 sites Americans visit most often use hidden code to run an identity check on your computer or phone. Websites from CNN and Best Buy to porn site Xvideos and WebMD are dusting your digital …

The Daily Beast reports: ThinkProgress, the influential news site that rose to prominence in the shadow of the Bush administration and helped define progressivism during the Obama years, is shutting down. The outlet, which served as an editorially independent project of the Democratic Party think tank Center for American Progress, will stop current operations on Friday and be converted into …

The Verge reports: You’ve had the ability since October, and in June they made it official, but it’s only today that Mozilla’s Firefox web browser will protect your privacy by blocking third-party tracking software for all its users by default — theoretically keeping companies from keeping tabs on your online activity and potentially selling it to others. That’s because with …

Reuters reports: Amazon.com Inc has a promotion for U.S. shoppers on Prime Day, the 48-hour marketing blitz that started Monday: Earn $10 of credit if you let Amazon track the websites you visit. The deal is for new installations of the Amazon Assistant, a comparison-shopping tool that customers can add to their web browsers. It fetches Amazon’s price for products …

Yahoo Finance reports: Two months ago, Amazon.com Inc. halted orders from thousands of suppliers with no explanation. Panic ensued — until the orders quietly resumed weeks later, with Amazon suggesting the pause was part of a campaign to weed out counterfeit products. Suppliers breathed a sigh of relief. Now a larger, more permanent purge is coming that will upend the …

Hello, old friends. Let’s try this again, shall we? Rather obviously, the last couple of days have been a nightmare on wheels as your beleaguered host and his tireless tech team have battled a malicious malware attack that essentially forced a rewrite of this here website thingy. As I may have made clear in the past, my knowledge of coding …

NPR reports: Grumpy Cat — the blue-eyed cat whose permafrown made it seem as if she was perpetually irritated — has died, her family announced early Friday. Grumpy Cat died of complications from a urinary tract infection, her owners said. “Some days are grumpier than others,” Tabatha Bundesen wrote in announcing her cat’s death. Born in 2012, Grumpy Cat became …

The Verge reports: Walmart will offer free one-day delivery on up to 220,000 items on its online store with orders over $35. Walmart is currently offering the new service in Phoenix and Las Vegas, and will come to Southern California in the coming days. The retailer expects the service to be available to 75 percent of the US by the …

CNN reports: Russia is one step closer to creating its own, independent internet—at least legally speaking. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law new measures that would enable the creation of a national network, able to operate separately from the rest of the world, according to documents posted on a government portal on Wednesday. For now, the network remains …

Reuters reports: Spotify on Monday announced that it has surpassed 100 million paid subscribers, becoming the first music streaming company to reach that mark. Spotify said it has 217 million monthly active users and 100 million who are premium subscribers. The global leader in the sector, with double the number of subscribers of nearest rival Apple Music, Spotify has launched …

Wired reports: You’ve seen the ads in your email or online: Celebrities supposedly hawking miracle weight loss cures or galaxy brain supplements. They’re at this point endemic to the web, as deeply ingrained as hashtags and puppies. But even though plenty of people fall for them, no one ever really does anything about it. Of all the security threats online, …

Roll Call reports: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already declared the Democratic net neutrality bill, which passed the House on Wednesday, “dead on arrival” in the upper chamber. Democrats likely never gave their legislation, sponsored by Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Doyle, much of a chance of advancing beyond the House. But while Republicans have spent weeks shaping their message …

The Hill reports: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Monday that Democrats will introduce a net neutrality bill to replace the open internet rules that were repealed in 2017. In a letter to her Democratic colleagues, Pelosi said a bill called the Save the Internet Act will be unveiled Wednesday and will be introduced in the Senate as well. Democrats have …

CNBC reports: Gap Inc. said Thursday it will split into two independent publicly traded companies — one comprised of its Old Navy brand, and the second a yet-to-be-named company that includes its other brands like Banana Republic and Athleta. Its shares surged more than 20 percent in after-hours trading on the news. Following a review by Gap’s board of directors, …

USA Today reports: Payless ShoeSource confirmed Saturday that it will close its 2,100 stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico and start liquidation sales Sunday. The company is also shuttering its e-commerce operations. The closings mark the biggest by a single chain this year and nearly doubles the number of retail stores set to close in 2019. “We expect all …

The BBC reports: Russia is considering whether to disconnect from the global internet briefly, as part of a test of its cyber-defences. The test will mean data passing between Russian citizens and organisations stays inside the nation rather than being routed internationally. A draft law mandating technical changes needed to operate independently was introduced to its parliament last year. The …

TechCrunch reports: The number of U.S. households without a traditional cable or satellite TV subscription that instead receive broadcast stations using a digital antenna has jumped by nearly 50 percent over the past 8 years to reach 16 million homes, according to a new report from Nielsen. Today, 14 percent of all U.S. TV households are watching television over the …

Unshocking. The Associated Press reports: Sharing false information on Facebook is old. People over 65 and ultra conservatives shared about seven times more fake information masquerading as news on the social media site than younger adults, moderates and super liberals during the 2016 election season, a new study finds. The first major study to look at who is sharing links …

Bloomberg reports: Google’s battle against French proponents of a worldwide “right to be forgotten” enters a decisive phase at the European Union’s top court on Thursday, in a case that highlights the growing tensions between privacy, freedom of speech and state censorship. Ahead of a ruling later this year, an adviser at the EU Court of Justice will on Jan. …

CNBC reports: Sears has rejected Chairman Eddie Lampert’s bid to save the company, setting the storied retailer on a path to liquidation, people familiar with the situation tell CNBC. Sears plans to announce its liquidation plans this morning, the people said. Lampert had put forward a $4.4 billion bid to save Sears and 50,000 jobs by buying it out of …