An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters spoke out against a European proposal to make streaming providers and other online firms pay for ISPs' network upgrades. "Some of our ISP partners have proposed taxing entertainment companies to subsidize their network infrastructure," Peters said in a speech Tuesday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (transcript). The "tax would have an adverse effect, reducing investment in content -- hurting the creative community, hurting the attractiveness of higher-priced broadband packages, and ultimately hurting consumers," he argued. [...] "ISPs claim that these taxes would only apply to Netflix. But this will inevitably change over time as broadcasters shift from linear to streaming," Peters said at MWC. Sandvine data suggests that nearly half of global Internet traffic is sent by Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, Netflix, and Microsoft. Online video accounts for 65 percent of all traffic, and Netflix recently passed YouTube as the top video-traffic generator.

Peters cited Nielsen data showing that "Netflix accounts for under 10 percent of total TV time" in the US and UK while "traditional local broadcasters account for over half of all TV time." Live sports account for much of that. "As broadcasters continue the shift away from linear to streaming, they will start to generate significant amounts of Internet traffic too -- even more than streamers today based on the current scope and scale of their audiences," Peters said. "Broadband customers, who drive this increased usage, already pay for the development of the network through their subscription fees. Requiring entertainment companies -- both streamers and broadcasters -- to pay more on top would mean ISPs effectively charging twice for the same infrastructure." Telcos that receive new payments wouldn't be expected to lower the prices charged to home Internet users, Peters said. "As the consumer group BEUC has pointed out, there is no suggestion these levies would be passed onto consumers in the form of 'lower prices or better infrastructure,'" he said.

Peters said Netflix's "operating margins are significantly lower than either British Telecom or Deutsche Telekom. So we could just as easily argue that network operators should compensate entertainment companies for the cost of our content -- exactly as happened under the old pay-TV model." While telcos claim companies like Netflix don't pay their "fair share," Peters pointed out that Netflix has spent a lot building its own network that reduces the amount of data sent over traditional telecom networks. "We've spent over $1 billion on Open Connect, our own content delivery network, which we offer for free to ISPs," he said. "This includes 18,000 servers with Netflix content distributed across 6,000 locations and 175 countries. So when our members press play, instead of the film or TV show being streamed from halfway around the world, it's streamed from around the corner -- increasing efficiency for operators while also ensuring a high-quality, no-lag experience for consumers." Peters also touted Netflix's encoding technology that cut bit rates in half between 2015 and 2020. While Internet traffic has increased about 30 percent a year, "ISPs have managed this increased consumer usage efficiently while their costs have remained stable," Peters said. "Regulators have highlighted this, too, calling out that infrastructure costs are not sensitive to traffic and that growing consumption will be offset by efficiency gains."

Online counseling company BetterHelp has agreed to pay $7.8 million to settle charges from the Federal Trade Commission that it improperly shared customers' sensitive data with companies like Facebook and Snapchat, even after promising to keep it private. The Verge reports: The proposed order, announced by the FTC on Thursday, would ban the same behavior in the future and require BetterHelp to make some changes to how it handles customer data. According to the regulator, the sign-up process for the company's service "promised consumers that it would not use or disclose their personal health data except for limited purposes." However, the FTC alleges that the company instead "used and revealed consumers' email addresses, IP addresses, and health questionnaire information to Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo, and Pinterest for advertising purposes."

The FTC also says that the company gave customer service agents false scripts to try and reassure users that it wasn't sharing personally identifiable or personal health information after a February 2020 report from Jezebel exposed some of its practices. The commission's complaint (PDF) accuses the company of misleading customers by putting a HIPAA seal on its website, despite the fact that "no government agency or other third party reviewed [BetterHelp]'s information practices for compliance with HIPAA, let alone determined that the practices met the requirements of HIPAA."

If the FTC's order ends up going through, the $7.8 million would go to customers who signed up for the service between August 1st, 2017, and December 31st, 2020. Here are some of the other things BetterHelp would be required to do:

- Stop sharing individually identifiable information about consumer's mental health with any third parties
- Stop misrepresenting its data collection and use policies
- Alert customers who created accounts before January 1st, 2021, that their personal info may have been used for advertising
- Obtain "affirmative express consent" from a customer before sharing information with a third party
- Reach out to third parties that received customer information and ask that it be deleted
- Establish a "comprehensive privacy program" and have an independent third party carry out privacy assessments

The packaged-goods giant aims to cut its environmental impact and retailers' electric bills. From a report: Unilever wants to warm up its ice cream freezers in convenience stores without turning its products into puddles, part of a broader effort to pursue green goals and potentially boost sales in the process.The consumer packaged goods giant, which sells ice cream brands including Ben & Jerry's and Magnum, is testing the performance of its products in freezers that are set to temperatures of roughly 10 degrees Fahrenheit, up from the industry standard of zero. Unilever owns most of the 3 million chest-like freezers that house its ice-cream tubs and treats in bodegas and corner stores, and the energy used to power them accounts for around 10% of Unilever's greenhouse gas footprint, according to the London-based firm. Keeping ice cream at 10 degrees as opposed to zero will reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 20% to 30% per freezer, it said.

It might also help sales with sustainability-minded consumers and even keep stores' ice-cream selling season going longer. Unilever's out-of-home ice cream sales declined slightly during the fourth quarter of 2022 because, the company said, some stores unplugged their freezers sooner in the year than usual. "What was happening was that shopkeepers in some markets responded to fears about rising energy costs by switching off their cabinets earlier than they otherwise would have done," departing Chief Executive Alan Jope said in discussing the results earlier this month. Unilever in January said Hein Schumacher would take over as CEO in July. [...] But the strategy has required Unilever to reformulate some of its ice creams so they can withstand higher temperatures without melting, losing structural integrity or forfeiting what the company calls their distinctive mouthfeel. Higher temperatures can lead to softer ice creams that stick to wrappers and slide off ice cream sticks, for example, said Andrew Sztehlo, chief research and development officer for Unilever's ice cream division. Other ingredients such as wafer cones can turn soggy in warmer temperatures, he said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Back in the simpler times of 2018 -- before the US Food and Drug Administration had to grapple with emergency authorizations in a deadly pandemic, before it scrambled to address a scandalous baby formula shortage, and before it largely bungled oversight of vaping products -- the regulator dove into a sour struggle over dairy labeling. [...] With the issue simmering in 2018, the FDA stepped in to extract some truths and skim the fat. In a particularly clarifying statement, then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb noted that the FDA, in fact, has a definition for the "standard of identity" of milk -- and it appears to exclude liquids squeezed from plants. To be precise, the FDA appetizingly defined milk back in 1973 as "the lacteal secretion, practically free from colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows." Colostrum, in case you were wondering, is a milky fluid produced immediately after birth before full milk production kicks in.

Gottlieb conceded at the time that he couldn't swiftly or unilaterally wipe "milk" from almond- and soy-juice cartons nationwide. Instead, the agency would have to pore over the topic, hold focus groups, and work up new guidance. But, based on Gottlieb's adherence to the bovine-based definition, the outcome seemed like a foregone conclusion. That is, much like blood from a stone, milk from a nut would be an unattainable secretion -- or so it seemed. In an about-face, the FDA on Wednesday released the long-awaited draft guidance with a spit-take pronouncement: Plant-based milk alternatives can keep using the term "milk." The agency did, however, recommend -- though not require -- that makers of non-milked milks note on their packaging if their product has differing nutrient contents than cow's milk.

In the guidance, the FDA acknowledged that, by its own definition of milk, plant-based milk can't be called milk. "[T]hey are made from plant materials rather than the lacteal secretion of cows," the FDA clarified. But, the regulator argued, essentially, that plant-based milks aren't sold as just "milk," they're sold as distinct plant-based milks -- and there's no confusion about it. "Although many plant-based milk alternatives are labeled with names that bear the term "milk" (e.g., "soy milk"), they do not purport to be nor are they represented as milk," the FDA concluded. "The comments and information we reviewed indicate that consumers understand plant-based milk alternatives to be different products than milk. [C]onsumers, generally, do not mistake plant-based milk alternatives for milk." Further, the FDA's years' worth of focus groups, surveys, and research revealed that many consumers purposefully buy plant-based milks "because they are not milk," often for reasons like allergies, an intolerance, or a vegan diet. Plant-based milk alternatives fall into a distinct food category from milk that lacks its own "standard of identity," adds Ars. "FDA regulations stipulate that plant-based milks would be considered a 'non-standardized food,' which are required to bear a common or usual name that will be known to the American public."

"'The names of some plant-based milk alternatives appear to be established by common usage, such as 'soy milk' and 'almond milk,' the FDA wrote. Thus, by law, they can and should keep their names, the agency concluded."

The Linux Foundation's European off-shoot has formally launched the OpenWallet Foundation (OWF), a new collaborative effort designed to support interoperability between digital wallets through open source software. From a report: The launch comes some five months after the Linux Foundation first revealed plans to set up the OWF, shortly before it spun out a region-specific entity called the Linux Foundation Europe which is where the OWF will now officially reside. While the likes of PayPal, Google, and Apple are among the most recognized digital wallet providers, allowing consumers to conduct financial transactions in-store or online, digital wallets are increasingly being used to store all manner of virtual goods from student ID to driving licenses. On top of that, burgeoning technologies such as the metaverse and crypto are giving rise to greater use-cases for digital wallets.

But one thing all these various environments have in common is that the incumbent digital wallets, for the most part, don't play nicely with each other: an Apple Pay die-hard can't send money to their Google Pay brethren. And that is why the OWF is setting out to create an "open source engine" that can power interoperable digital wallets across myriad use-cases including identity, payments, and storing personal credentials such as employment and education certification.

Mozilla researchers find discrepancies between Google Play Store's Data Safety labels and privacy policies of nearly 80 percent of the reviewed apps. From the report: Google Play Store's Data Safety labels would have you believe that neither TikTok nor Twitter share your personal data with third parties. The apps' privacy policies, however, both explicitly state that they share user information with advertisers, Internet service providers, platforms, and numerous other types of companies. These are two of the most egregious examples uncovered by Mozilla's *Privacy Not Included researchers as part of a study looking at whether Google Play Store's new Data Safety labels provide consumers with accurate information about apps collect, use, and share personal data. In nearly 80 percent of the apps reviewed, Mozilla found that the labels were false or misleading based on discrepancies between the apps' privacy policies and the information apps self-reported on Google's Data Safety Form. Researchers concluded that the system fails to help consumers make more informed choices about their privacy before purchasing or downloading one of the store's 2.7 million apps.

The study -- "See No Evil: How Loopholes in the Google Play Store's Data Safety Labels Leave Companies in the Clear and Consumers in the Dark," -- uncovers serious loopholes in the Data Safety Form, which make it easy for apps to provide false or misleading information. For example, Google exempts apps sharing data with "service providers" from its disclosure requirements, which is problematic due to both the narrow definition it uses for service providers and the large amount of consumer data involved. Google absolves itself of the responsibility to verify whether the information is true stating that apps "are responsible for making complete and accurate declarations" in their Data Safety labels. In a statement Google said: "This report conflates company-wide privacy policies that are meant to cover a variety of products and services with individual Data safety labels, which inform users about the data that a specific app collects. The arbitrary grades Mozilla Foundation assigned to apps are not a helpful measure of the safety or accuracy of labels given the flawed methodology and lack of substantiating information."

Subway said on Tuesday it plans to add charging parks to select restaurants. "Dubbed Subway Oasis, the EV parks will be outfitted with 'charging canopies with multiple ports, picnic tables, Wi-Fi, restrooms, green space, and even playgrounds,'" reports Insider. From the report: Subway is working with EV tech startups GenZ EV Solution and RED E Charging to open these parks. Additionally, the company said that Subway is opening smaller fast-charging EV stations at new or newly remodeled restaurants across the US this year. "On average, the smaller-format, fast EV chargers will offer a 120-mile charge in 17 minutes for approximately $20," the company said. Once open, EV customers might also get the added perk of receiving Subway discounts while waiting for their cars to charge, the company said. Subway did not specify how much it would cost consumers to charge their cars at their new charging stations, nor did they mention where and when the first Subway Oasis would be built.

"Microsoft has struck a 10-year deal to bring "Call of Duty" and other Activision games to Nvidia's gaming platform, if the Xbox maker is allowed to complete its much-contested $69 billion acquisition of Activision," reports Reuters. It comes hot on the heels of a 10-year deal with Nintendo that guarantees Nintendo players will get Activision games on the same day as Xbox, with full feature and content parity. Reuters reports: Regulators and competitors like Sony have come out hard against the proposed Microsoft-Activision tie-up, and a Nvidia deal could allay concerns by ensuring more ways for consumers to get games controlled by Microsoft. [...] Microsoft President Brad Smith told a news conference on Tuesday he was now more optimistic of getting the Activision acquisition done after the Nvidia deal and a similar arrangement with Nintendo.

Phil Eisler, vice president and general manager of Nvidia's GeForce Now segment, said that titles such that "Call of Duty" will not be available on Nvidia's service unless Microsoft acquires Activision but that other Microsoft-owned titles such as "Minecraft" are covered immediately under the 10-year license agreement. "We were a little concerned about it at the beginning," Eisler said of the Microsoft-Activision deal. "But then we reached out to Microsoft, and they were very open about wanting to enable cloud gaming and work with us on a 10-year license agreement. So over time, they made us more and more comfortable with it."

Eisler said Nvidia is not paying Microsoft for access to the titles, which has been the chip company's practice with other gaming companies such as "Fortnite" maker Epic Games. Instead, Nvidia's 25 million customers will need to pay Nvidia for access to its cloud gaming platform and pay Microsoft for its games. Nvidia said it now supports the Xbox maker's bid to purchase Activision, but the deal could still be a hard sell with regulators. Smith said he hoped that rival Sony will consider doing the same type of deal with Nvidia.

America's Federal Trade Commission "has long been dwarfed by Silicon Valley titans like Google and Apple, each staffed with thousands of engineers and technologists," notes the Washington Post.

"But FTC leaders are hoping combining and expanding their forces into a dedicated tech unit will help them keep up with the rapid advancements across the industry — and to keep it in check." The creation of the office will increase the number of technologists on staff by roughly a dozen, up from the current 10 — more than doubling the agency's capacity, officials said. In an exclusive interview announcing the move, FTC Chief Technology Officer Stephanie Nguyen said the unit will work with teams across the agency's competition and consumer protection bureaus to investigate potential misconduct and bring cases against violators. "Actually being able to have staff internally to approach these matters and help with subject matter expertise is critical," said Nguyen, who will lead the office.

The announcement arrives at a critical juncture. Federal regulators are dialing up investigations into tech behemoths like Amazon and waging blockbuster legal battles against Microsoft and Facebook parent company Meta. While Nguyen declined to discuss specific probes or cases, she said the new technology office will work directly on both the agency's investigative and enforcement efforts to "strengthen and support our attorneys" as they look to tackle alleged abuses across the economy. "The areas ... we will focus on is to work on cases," she said.... Nguyen said, the new team of technologists could help the agency refine the subpoenas it issues companies to get at the heart of their business models, or to strike a settlement that gets closer to "the root cause of the harm" taking place.
Republican Commissioner Christine Wilson, who Tuesday announced plans to resign "soon," voted in favor of creating the office, joining with the other commissioners in a unanimous vote.

The office's core mission will have three key areas, reports FedScoop: "strengthening and supporting law enforcement investigations, advising commission staff on policy and research initiatives, and highlighting market trends."

"For more than a century, the FTC has worked to keep pace with new markets and ever-changing technologies by building internal expertise," FTC Chair Lina Khan said. "Our office of technology is a natural next step in ensuring we have the in-house skills needed to fully grasp evolving technologies and market trends as we continue to tackle unlawful business practices and protect Americans."

Read on for more details about the new office.

"Moderna will keep its COVID vaccine on the market at no cost to consumers," reports ABC News, "even after the federal government stops paying for it, the company announced Wednesday." "Everyone in the United States will have access to Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine regardless of their ability to pay," the company said in a statement.

Last month, the vaccine maker was slammed for reportedly considering a dramatic price increase for the shot, which it had developed with the help of the federal government. The proposal was also bad timing: The Biden administration was moving toward ending its designation of a public health emergency on May 11, which meant that federal funding for vaccines would soon dry up and uninsured Americans would have to pay out of pocket for their boosters....

Now, Moderna will be the sole manufacturer of COVID vaccines offering its shot for free to the uninsured. Under federal regulation, insurance companies are already required to foot the bill for COVID vaccines.

President Biden's Department of Justice has formally made its position known on a class action filed against John Deere over farmers' right to repair their tractors. From a report: John Deere owns 53 percent of the market share for tractors in the U.S. and has become notorious among farm workers for using monopolistic practices when it comes to repairs. Last month, Forest River Farms launched a class action lawsuit against John Deere accusing them of violating antitrust laws with its repair policies, including putting software locks on their tractors and restricting access to repair tools. In a "Statement of Interest" filed Monday, the DOJ sided with plaintiffs and forcefully disagreed with Deere's analysis of antitrust law.

"I'm thrilled that the Department of Justice is weighing in on this issue," said Willie Cade, a board member at Repair.org whose grandfather served as a board member at John Deere for 30 years. "I'm sure he would be pleased that there is support being garnered for farmers and ranchers," Cade said of his grandfather. In its statement, the DOJ argued that because of Deere's practices, when tractors break, "repair markets function poorly, agriculture suffers. Crops waste. Land lies fallow." It expressed concern that "repair restrictions can drive independent repair shops out of business by raising their costs or denying them key inputs, which, in turn, leaves consumers with fewer choices." Further reading: 11 states consider right to repair for farming equipment.

President Biden's long-stalled nominee to the Federal Communications Commission fired back at her critics today, saying that the telecom industry shouldn't be allowed to choose its own regulators. From a report: "I believe deeply that regulated entities should not choose their regulator," Sohn said in prepared testimony for a Senate Commerce Committee nomination hearing today. "Unfortunately, that is the exact intent of the past 15 months of false and misleading attacks on my record and my character. My industry opponents have hidden behind dark money groups and surrogates because they fear a pragmatic, pro-competition, pro-consumer policymaker who will support policies that will bring more, faster, and lower-priced broadband and new voices to your constituents."

Biden first nominated Sohn, a longtime consumer advocate and former FCC official, on October 26, 2021. The full Senate never voted on whether to confirm Sohn as an FCC commissioner, and Biden renominated her last month. With the FCC deadlocked at two Democrats and two Republicans, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel hasn't been able to pursue any major regulation of an industry that was deregulated during the Trump era. "The FCC has been without a majority for the entirety of the Biden administration -- over two years -- at a time when closing the digital divide is front and center," Sohn's testimony said. "There are too many important issues in front of the commission to lack a full complement of members, including improving the broadband maps, fixing the Universal Service Fund, closing the homework gap, ensuring fair access to broadband, and protecting consumers' privacy. Americans deserve a full FCC where I could play a critical role in addressing every one of these, but time is of the essence."

The European Parliament on Tuesday formally approved a law to effectively ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the European Union from 2035, aiming to speed up the switch to electric vehicles and combat climate change. From a report: The landmark rules will require that by 2035 carmakers must achieve a 100% cut in CO2 emissions from new cars sold, which would make it impossible to sell new fossil fuel-powered vehicles in the 27-country bloc. The law will also set a 55% cut in CO2 emissions for new cars sold from 2030 versus 2021 levels, much higher than the existing target of a 37.5%. "The operating costs of an electric vehicle are already lower than the operating costs of a vehicle with an internal combustion engine," Jan Huitema, the parliament's lead negotiator on the rules, said, adding that it was crucial to bring more affordable electric vehicles to consumers.

Digital asset platform Bakkt is to discontinue its two-year-old consumer-facing app as its focus shifts toward business-to-business (B2B) tech services. From a report: Consumers will be able to continue to managing assets over the web after the app officially closes on March 16, Bakkt said Monday. The app went live in March 2021 with the aim of integrating crypto holdings with other digital assets such as airline miles, gift cards and loyalty points. Partnerships with firms including Starbucks, Best Buy and Choice Hotels accompanied the app's launch.

Despite the absence of cryptocurrency ads, this year's Super Bowl still managed some geek-friendly advertisements. There was even a riff on "the classic intro from the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, the live-action series that ran from 1989-1991," according to Kotaku: the infamous Mario Rap, which advertised Mario's plumbing business (and in its 2023 version featured the URL for a website).

[T]hat website is indeed up and running, and is everything you would hope it would be from a struggling small business servicing the Brooklyn and Queens areas. There's excessive animation, broken image links, a careers page (still under construction, sadly) and even a novelty mouse cursor.
Kotaku's article includes both versions of the rap, along with reactions from Twitter. (Apparently the phone number in the advertisement really works).

There were also several ads from major tech companies. Google purchased a long ad touting their Pixel phone's ability to remove people from photos (starring Amy Schumer, Doja Cat, and Giannis Antetokounmpo), while Workday drew attention to its enterprise-grade finance and HR software with an ad in which actual rock stars like Ozzy Osbourne, Joan Jett, blues player Gary Clark and members of KISS all urged the software's corporate users to stop calling themselves "rock stars".

Other tech-company ads aired from E*Trade, SquareSpace, and a star-studded Uber One ad in which rapper Puff Daddy auditions singers for their new jingle.

There were also the obligatory celebrity reunions — like Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, or the actors from Breaking Bad. But for comic book geeks, a trailer for D.C.'s new movie The Flash included a surprise appearance by Batman — play by both Ben Affleck and by a 71-year-old Michael Keaton, a full 34 years after Keaton played the caped crusader in Tim Burton's 1989 movie Batman. "Worlds collide in The Flash when Barry uses his superpowers to travel back in time in order to change the events of the past," according to a press release cited by People. James Gunn, director of Guardians of the Galaxy and new co-CEO of DC Studios, recently said, according to Deadline, that The Flash "is probably one of the greatest superhero movies ever made." He added that the film's storyline "resets everything" for the franchise.
The last Blockbuster video rental store in America played its own advertising prank during the Super Bowl. They announced their own ad which could only be viewed on their Instagram feed during halftime -- or in person at their store in Bend, Oregon. But, as CNN points out, "the store is also renting VHS copies of it for $2."

And for those geeks concerned about the drawbacks of climate change-fighting vehicles, RAM trucks ran an ad about "Premature Electrification" — for consumers excited about electric vehicles but "lacking the confidence about getting and being able to keep a charge." (Although a disclaimer printed at the bottom of the ad warned "Get excited, but not too excited. Pre-production model shown. Availability in the U.S. expected late 2024. Range lengthening technology to come later.")

Two non-profit news site, the Markup and Grist, have co-published their investigation into how big tech rewrote America's first cellphone repair law.

"That New York passed any electronics right-to-repair bill is 'huge,' Repair.org executive director Gay Gordon-Byrne told Grist. But 'it could have been huger' if not for tech industry interference." The passage of the Digital Fair Repair Act last June reportedly caught the tech industry off guard, but it had time to act before Governor Kathy Hochul would sign it into law. Corporate lobbyists went to work, pressing for exemptions and changes that would water the bill down. They were largely successful: While the bill Hochul signed in late December remains a victory for the right-to-repair movement, the more corporate-friendly text gives consumers and independent repair shops less access to parts and tools than the original proposal called for. (The state Senate still has to vote to adopt the revised bill, but it's widely expected to do so.)

The new version of the law applies only to devices built after mid-2023, so it won't help people to fix stuff they currently own. It also exempts electronics used exclusively by businesses or the government. All those devices are likely to become electronic waste faster than they would have had Hochul, a Democrat, signed a tougher bill. And more greenhouse gases will be emitted manufacturing new devices to replace broken electronics....

Jessa Jones, who founded iPad Rehab, an independent repair shop in Honeoye Falls, about 20 miles south of Rochester, New York, says the original bill included provisions that would have made it far easier for independent shops like hers to get the tools, parts, and know-how needed to make repairs. She pointed to changes that allow manufacturers to release repair tools that only work with spare parts they make, while at the same time controlling how those spare parts are used... "If you keep going down this road, allowing manufacturers to force us to use their branded parts and service, where they're allowed to tie the function of the device to their branded parts and service, that's not repair," Jones said. "That's authoritarian control."
The bill's sponsor believes it could create momentum for dozens of other states trying to pass similar laws, the article points out, possibly leading ultimately to one national agreement between electronics manufacturers and the repair community. A lawmaker from another state argued that New York's law "gives us something to work from. We're going to take that now and try to do a better piece of legislation."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Z00L00K for submitting the article.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Stalkers and domestic abusers in the US for years have been able to access the kind of surveillance tools typically associated with foreign spies. That's all because of a pervasive industry that promises to help people who want to secretly monitor their family members. Now, because of an action brought by the New York Attorney General, one player in the so-called stalkerware industry has agreed to notify the people who were infected with its spyware. But it was required to pay just $410,000 in civil penalties, in part because rather than taking issue with the harmful nature of the technology, state prosecutors cited only the companies' use of deceptive marketing.

A detailed legal filing provides a glimpse into the pernicious capabilities that stalkerware firms provide to consumers -- enabling buyers to collect victims' texts, photos, emails, direct messages, you name it. The case is the latest evidence that such apps are more popular than previously understood. The New York investigation determined that one Florida man owned 16 companies, distributing apps with names such as PhoneSpector and AutoForward Data Services that promoted mobile surveillance software. Once installed on a device, some of the apps would be invisible on a user's home screen and allow a stalker to remotely activate an individual's camera or microphone without their knowledge, according to the legal filing.

India's push to ban over 90 lending apps has sent shockwaves to the fintech industry as many scramble to understand why they have been impacted. The Ministry of Electronics and IT's move is reportedly aimed at protecting the nation's integrity and curb China's influence in the South Asian market, the state-owned broadcaster Prasar Bharti said on Sunday. In meetings with fintech associations on Tuesday, officials from the IT Ministry and influential think tank Niti Aayog offered broader explanations about the decision. From a report: The IT Ministry is concerned about the past and current presence of Chinese investors on the cap tables of some lending apps in India, the officials said, according to a source familiar with the matter. Another concern is the rising reports of cybercrimes that are linked to China. The officials said the Ministry of Home Affairs has received reports of criminal activities involving Chinese firms that are tapping APIs to access Indian lending apps and obtaining and storing data of Indian consumers outside of the country, the source said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Many people in the United States would like to control the information that companies can learn about them online. Yet when presented with a series of true-or-false questions about how digital devices and services track users, most Americans struggled to answer them, according to a report published (PDF) on Tuesday by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. The report analyzed the results of a data privacy survey that included more than 2,000 adults in the United States. Very few of the respondents said they trusted the way online services handled their personal data. The survey also tested people's knowledge about how apps, websites and digital devices may amass and disclose information about people's health, TV-viewing habits and doorbell camera videos. Although many understood how companies can track their emails and website visits, a majority seemed unaware that there are only limited federal protections for the kinds of personal data that online services can collect about consumers.

Seventy-seven percent of the participants got nine or fewer of the 17 true-or-false questions right, amounting to an F grade, the report said. Only one person received an A grade, for correctly answering 16 of the questions. No one answered all of them correctly. Seventy-nine percent of survey respondents said they had "little control over what marketers" could learn about them online, while 73 percent said they did not have "the time to keep up with ways to control the information that companies" had about them. "The big takeaway here is that consent is broken, totally broken,"Joseph Turow, a media studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania who was the lead author of the report, said in an interview. "The overarching idea that consent, either implicit or explicit, is the solution to this sea of data gathering is totally misguided -- and that's the bottom line."

The survey results challenge a data-for-services trade-off argument that the tech industry has long used to justify consumer tracking and to forestall government limits on it: Consumers may freely use a host of convenient digital tools -- as long as they agree to allow apps, sites, ad technology and marketing analytics firms to track their online activities and employ their personal information. But the new report suggests that many Americans aren't buying into the industry bargain. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they didn't think it was fair that a store could monitor their online activity if they logged into the retailer's Wi-Fi. And 61 percent indicated they thought it was unacceptable for a store to use their personal information to improve the services they received from the store. Only a small minority -- 18 percent -- said they did not care what companies learned about them online. "When faced with technologies that are increasingly critical for navigating modern life, users often lack a real set of alternatives and cannot reasonably forgo using these tools," Lina M. Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, said in a speech (PDF) last year.

In the talk, Ms. Khan proposed a "type of new paradigm" that could impose "substantive limits" on consumer tracking.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Consumers could be using a new digital pound as an alternative to cash by the end of the decade under plans being drawn up by the Bank of England and the Treasury. The government is speeding up its response to the rise of privately issued cryptocurrencies and stable coins with a four-month public consultation process on a "Britcoin" starting on Tuesday. After the volatility of cryptocurrencies and the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX, the Bank and the Treasury will seek to reassure the public that a state-backed digital currency would be as safe as cash. Officials will explore the technical issues involved in creating a central bank digital currency before a final decision is taken by the middle of the decade.

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the exchequer, and Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England governor, say the government could still decide against going ahead but momentum is building behind the idea. The consultation paper argues that a digital pound will be needed at some point in the future. Assuming the go-ahead is given, the earliest date cash could be held in digital wallets offered to consumers by the private sector through smartphones or smartcards would be the end of the 2020s, the Bank and the Treasury say. Bailey said: "As the world around us and the way we pay for things becomes more digitalized, the case for a digital pound in the future continues to grow. A digital pound would provide a new way to pay, help businesses, maintain trust in money and better protect financial stability. However, there are a number of implications which our technical work will need to carefully consider. This consultation and the further work the Bank will now do will be the foundation for what would be a profound decision for the country on the way we use money."

If introduced, the digital pound would be issued by the Bank of England and could be used to make payments in person or online. It would be interchangeable with cash and bank deposits, and -- as with the current system of notes -- be issued in denominations of pounds sterling. No interest would be paid on pounds held in digital form. The Bank and the Treasury say a digital pound would be subject to rigorous standards of privacy and data protection. "Like current digital payments and bank accounts, the digital pound would not be anonymous because the ability to identify and verify users is necessary to prevent financial crime," they said. "This is essential for trust and confidence in money and therefore wide use of the digital pound." Hunt added: "While cash is here to stay, a digital pound issued and backed by the Bank of England could be a new way to pay that's trusted, accessible and easy to use."

"That's why we want to investigate what is possible first, while always making sure we protect financial stability."