The Federal Trade Commission and 17 states on Tuesday sued Amazon, alleging the online retailer illegally wields monopoly power that keeps prices artificially high, locks sellers into its platform and harms its rivals. WSJ: The FTC's lawsuit, filed in Seattle federal court, marks a milestone in the Biden administration's aggressive approach to enforcing antitrust laws and has been anticipated for months. The agency's chair, Lina Khan, is a longtime critic of Amazon who wrote in the Yale Law Journal in 2017 that earlier generations of competition cops and courts abandoned the law's concerns over conglomerates such as Amazon. The FTC and states alleged that Amazon violated antitrust laws by using anti-discounting measures that punished merchants for offering lower prices elsewhere. The government also said sellers on Amazon were compelled to use its logistics service if they want their goods to appear in Amazon Prime, the subscription program whose perks include faster shipping times, the FTC said.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google is discontinuing its Pixel Pass subscription service that allowed people to get a Pixel phone combined with premium services including YouTube Premium, Google Play Pass, and YouTube Premium for a monthly fee. The company said on its support page that it will stop offering purchases or renewals for the Pixel Pass.

According to research firm Antenna, Netflix had 2.6 million gross subscriber additions in July. "The company also saw the highest percentage of new sign-ups going to its advertising tier since the $7-a-month offering hit the market last November," reports Deadline. "About 23% of new subscribers opted for the ad tier, a gain of four percentage points over June levels." From the report: The overall July gains represented a 26% downturn from June's record-breaking numbers, but they still show momentum stretching back to the May 23 introduction of paid password sharing in the U.S. From May 24 to 27, Netflix had its four biggest single days of sign-ups in the four-and-a-half years since Antenna has began tracking its subscribers, outpacing even the 2020 Covid boom.

The new password scheme followed last fall's debut of the cheaper, ad-supported subscription tier, with the combination of the two providing a potent boost. In the second quarter ending June 30, the company reported that it doubled projections by adding 5.9 million subscribers, reaching 238.3 million worldwide.

The Council of the EU has adopted new rules intended to make it much easier for EV owners to travel across Europe, while simultaneously helping to reduce the output of harmful greenhouse gases. From a report: The new regulation is set to benefit owners of electric cars and vans in three ways: It reduces range anxiety by expanding the EV charging infrastructure along Europe's main highways, it makes payments "at the pump" easier without requiring an app or subscription, and ensures pricing and availability is clearly communicated to avoid surprises. From 2025 onward, the new regulation requires fast charging stations offering at least 150kW of power to be installed every 60km (37mi) along the EU's Trans-European Transport Network, or (TEN-T) system of highways, the bloc's main transport corridor. The fast charging network along European highways is already pretty robust, I discovered on a recent 3,000km (2,000 mile) roadtrip with a VW ID Buzz. This new law could all but eliminate range anxiety for those sticking to TEN-T roads.

Disney, Netflix, and other media and entertainment giants are pushing back against the FTC's "click to cancel" proposal (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) that would make it easier for people to cancel streaming, gaming, and other services. Insider reports: Companies of all stripes have angered consumers by making services all too easy to sign up for but often confoundingly difficult to cancel, with gyms and news outlets considered among the worst offenders. The FTC has gone after individual companies; it recently sued Amazon, alleging the etailer "tricked" people into signing up for Amazon Prime. That followed the FTC's proposal in March for a regulation that's intended "to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up." The policy would cover providers of both digital and physical subscriptions, from streamers and gym memberships to phone companies and cable TV distributors. The new rule would require companies to offer a simple mechanism for users to cancel subscriptions the same way they signed up. For example, you wouldn't have to cancel a service in person or over the phone if you signed up for it online. "I can't tell you how much time I've spent trying to cancel subscriptions I never wanted, let alone the cost!" one person wrote in a comment to the FTC.

The Internet & Television Association, which counts Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery as members, said in its public comment that the proposed reg is so vague, it would lead marketers to be excessive in their disclosures, leaving consumers "inundated" and "confused." The reg would even infringe on its members' freedom of speech, the association argued. "The proposal would also severely curtail or, in some cases, even prohibit companies from communicating with their customers, in violation of the First Amendment," the association wrote. Sirius XM wrote in its comments that one proposed requirement -- that companies maintain records of phone calls with customers -- would cost the company "several million" dollars a year to comply with. The Entertainment Software Association, the video gaming trade organization, noted that the FTC's proposed disclosure requirements "would interfere with game play and customer enjoyment." The ESA wrote that "most consumers understand autorenewal offers and are knowing and willing participants in the marketplace" and that letting customers cancel immediately would prevent member companies from offering them alternative plans or discounts. The ESA was joined in its comments by the Digital Media Association and Motion Picture Association, whose members include Netflix, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Universal Pictures. The FTC will examine the feedback it's received through public comment before considering a final rule.

Spotify is planning a more expensive subscription option that's expected to include high-fidelity audio in an effort to drive more revenue and placate investors who've been saying the company should raise its prices. From a report: Dubbed "Supremium" internally, according to people familiar with the strategy, the new tier will be Spotify's most expensive plan and likely offer a HiFi feature the company first announced it was working on in 2021. Spotify delayed that product's rollout after two of its competitors, Apple Music and Amazon Music, began offering the feature for free as part of their standard plans. The new tier will launch this year in non-US markets first.

To augment its current "Premium" tier, Spotify will give subscribers expanded access to audiobooks, either through a specific number of hours free per month or a specific number of titles. There will be an option to purchase more. Currently, the company only sells audiobooks a la carte through its app. Spotify plans to introduce that feature in the US in October, after first launching in markets abroad.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Amazon is preparing to launch an ad-supported tier of Prime Video. The Verge reports: Amazon currently offers Prime Video as part of its $14.99 per month Prime membership or for $8.99 per month as a standalone subscription. Subscribers can tack on other ad-free subscriptions to services like Max, Paramount Plus, and Showtime through Prime Video Channels. As noted by the WSJ, Amazon is currently weighing several ways it could implement ads in Prime Video, such as showing more ads to existing Prime subscribers and then offering an "option to pay more for an ad-free alternative and other features." The ad breaks will reportedly be "short," but there's still no word on whether it will beat Max's promised three to four minutes of ads per hour or how much the tier will cost.

Additionally, the WSJ reports that Amazon is in talks with Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount to start offering the ad-supported versions of Max and Paramount Plus within its Prime Video Channels. The company could also place a bid for the streaming rights to the National Basketball Association games when they expire in 2025, potentially bolstering its sports streaming lineup, which currently includes Thursday Night Football.

MoviePass is back thanks to MoviePass co-founder Stacy Spikes, who was fired from the company in 2018 for questioning the sustainability of its business model. "Under the company's new points-based system, you can pay $10 per month to watch one to three movies at any of the 4,000 participating theaters throughout the US," reports The Verge. From the report: In addition to the $10 / month Basic plan, MoviePass offers three more expensive subscription options: a $20 / month Standard plan for three to seven movies per month, a $30 / month Premium plan for five to 11 movies per month, and a $40 / month Pro for up to 30 movies per month. There's a separate, more expensive subscription for customers in Southern California and the New York metro area. The reason why each tier includes a range of movies you can watch has to do with the way MoviePass' new credits system works. Every tier offers a different number of credits that you can redeem on movies each month, with Basic having the least number of credits and the Pro plan having the most.

According to MoviePass, a film's credit value can fluctuate depending on a number of factors, including the time of day and day of the week you want to watch it. Based on tweets from customers who tested the service, credit costs have changed without warning and can vary significantly across showings. If you don't use up all your credits, MoviePass says it will roll them over to the next month, allowing you to have a maximum of two months' worth of unused credits in your account to use at a later date. Once you sign up for the service, you'll receive a MoviePass card within 10 to 15 business days that you'll need to use at supported theaters. The sustainability of MoviePass started to crumble in 2017 when it began offering customers unlimited movie-watching for just $9.95 per month. The seemingly too-good-to-be-true pricing ultimately resulted in the company's bankruptcy two years later.

Additionally, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against MoviePass, alleging that the company had misled investors about the viability of its business model.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against DoorDash, alleging that the company uses deceptive and fraudulent practices to charge higher delivery fees to iPhone users compared to Android users. Ars Technica reports: The lawsuit (PDF), filed May 5 in the District of Maryland, came in hot. Plaintiff Ross Hecox, in addition to his two children and a presumptive class of similarly situated customers, briefly defines DoorDash as an online marketplace with 32 million users and billions of dollars in annual revenue. "Yet, DoorDash generates its revenues not only through heavy-handed tactics that take advantage of struggling merchants and a significant immigrant driver workforce, but also through deceptive, misleading, and fraudulent practices that illegally deprive consumers of millions, if not billions, of dollars annually," the suit adds. "This lawsuit details DoorDash's illegal pricing scheme and seeks to hold DoorDash accountable for its massive fraud on consumers, including one of the most vulnerable segments of society, minor children."

Specifically, the suit claims that DoorDash misleads and defrauds customers by

- Making its "Delivery Fee" seem related to distance or demand, even though none of it goes to the delivery person.
- Offering an "Express" option that implies faster delivery, but then changing the wording to "Priority" in billing so it is not held to delivery times.
- Charging an "Expanded Range Delivery" fee that seems based on distance but is really based on a restaurant's subscription level and demand.
- Adding an undisclosed 99 cent "marketing fee," paid by the customer rather than the restaurant, to promote menu items that customers add to their carts.
- Obscuring minimum order amounts attached to its "zero-fee" DashPass memberships and coupon offers.
- Generally manipulating DashPass subscriptions to appear like substantial savings, when the company is "engineering" fees to seem reduced.

One of the more interesting and provocative claims is that DoorDash's fees, based in part on "other factors," continually charge iPhone users of its app more than Android users placing the same orders. The plaintiffs and their law firm conducted a few tests of DoorDash's system, using different accounts to order the same food, from the same restaurant, at almost the same exact time, delivered to the same address, with the same account type, delivery speed, and tip. [...] The plaintiffs are asking for $1 billion in damages for those who "fell prey to DoorDash's illegal pricing" over the past four years. The suit also includes allegations that DoorDash improperly allows children to enter into contract with the company without proper vetting. "The claims put forward in the amended complaint are baseless and simply without merit," said a DoorDash spokesperson in a statement. "We ensure fees are disclosed throughout the customer experience, including on each restaurant storepage and before checkout. Building this trust is essential, and it's why the majority of delivery orders on our platform are placed by return customers. We will continue to strive to make our platform work even better for customers, and will vigorously fight these allegations."

General Motors plans to phase out widely-used Apple CarPlay and Android Auto technologies that allow drivers to bypass a vehicle's infotainment systems, shifting instead to built-in infotainment systems developed with Google for future electric vehicles. Reuters reports: GM's decision to stop offering those systems in future electric vehicles, starting with the 2024 Chevrolet Blazer, could help the automaker capture more data on how consumers drive and charge EVs. GM is designing the on-board navigation and infotainment systems for future EVs in partnership with Alphabet's Google. GM has been working with Google since 2019 to develop the software foundations for infotainment systems that will be more tightly integrated with other vehicle systems such as GM's Super Cruise driver assistant. The automaker is accelerating a strategy for its EVs to be platforms for digital subscription services.

GM would benefit from focusing engineers and investment on one approach to more tightly connecting in-vehicle infotainment and navigation with features such as assisted driving, Edward Kummer, GM's chief digital officer, and Mike Hichme, executive director of digital cockpit experience, said in an interview. "We have a lot of new driver assistance features coming that are more tightly coupled with navigation," Hichme told Reuters. "We don't want to design these features in a way that are dependent on person having a cellphone."

Buyers of GM EVs with the new systems will get access to Google Maps and Google Assistant, a voice command system, at no extra cost for eight years, GM said. GM said the future infotainment systems will offer applications such as Spotify's music service, Audible and other services that many drivers now access via smartphones. "We do believe there are subscription revenue opportunities for us," Kummer said. GM Chief Executive Mary Barra is aiming for $20 billion to $25 billion in annual revenue from subscriptions by 2030.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Meta announced a new $11.99-a-month subscription service on Sunday (or $14.99-a-month for Android and iOS). For your money you mainly get the privilege of authenticating your own account with a government ID, so that it can then display the official "verified" badge. (Accounts must have a prior posting history, with account holders verified to be at least 18 years old.)

Meta promises they won't change already-verified Facebook and Instagram accounts — at least, not "as we test and learn." But they immediately follow that sentence by warning that in the longer-term they're "evolving the meaning" of verification, aiming to making everyone want to subscribe. Meta calls this "expanding access."

Paying subscribers will also get:

— Protection from account impersonation (at a higher level that's apparently not made available to non-paying members), including "proactive account monitoring".

— "Help when you need it with access to a real person for common account issues."

— Exclusive "stickers" for Facebook and Instagram Stories and Facebook Reels, plus 100 free Facebook "stars" each month "so you can show your support for other creators."


But most importantly, Meta is also promising to grant "increased visibility and reach" to paying members, promising "prominence" in parts of the service (including search, recommendations, and in comments). Although a footnote warns this may vary — depending on what you're trying to post about — and all content "will be treated according to our existing guidelines for recommendations on Instagram or Facebook and our Content Guidelines."

George Takei once calculated roughly 80% of your friends never see the things you post on Facebook. But now Facebook is deliberately evolving into a two-tiered system where some will always be relegated to less-likely-to-be-seen status, always outshined by wealthier friends with $144 a year to spend on upgrading their Facebook accounts.

The internet already has a two-tiered system for news, where the best news articles are only available to those with the funds to climb over multiple paywalls. But now even the lower tier of discourse — all that non-journalistic content floating around Facebook — will transform from a pool of burbling anger and misinformation into something worse. It's like Facebook's algorithm went from promoting just the most divisive content to promoting content from whoever most desires to foist their ideas onto other people. This may not end well.

Is it just me, or does this seem like a desperate grab for money?

— They're monetizing Meta's inability to stop account impersonators.

— Their announcement admits that "access to account support" remains a top request of their creators. Yet paying members are apparently more likely to get it than non-paying members. Maybe that can be their new marketing slogan. "Help when you need it — sold separately."

— This is happening. It becomes available for purchase this week on Instagram or Facebook in Australia and New Zealand.

Amazon said on Tuesday it is offering a $5 monthly subscription plan for U.S. Prime members that will cover a range of generic drugs and their doorstep delivery, furthering the ecommerce giant's push into healthcare. From a report: The program, named RxPass, includes more than 50 medications addressing over 80 chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, anxiety, diabetes and male pattern baldness, Vin Gupta, Amazon Pharmacy's chief medical officer, told Reuters. However, customers enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid or any other government healthcare program will not be able to enroll in Amazon Pharmacy's RxPass service.

The average Prime member would save about $100 per year with RxPass, John Love, vice president of Amazon Pharmacy, said in an interview. Amazon Prime members in most U.S. states can sign up for the program from Tuesday. The flat $5 charge would be without insurance and on top of the Prime membership fee, which costs $139 per year in the United States.

An anonymous reader shares a report: BMW is expanding the number of feature subscriptions it is offering in the United States. The marque has revealed that five vehicle features are now available through its subscription service, consisting of Remote Engine Start, Drive Recorder, Traffic Camera, Driving Assistance Plus with Stop&Go, and Parking Assistant Professional.

Most of these features are available through either a 1-month, 1-year, or 3-year subscription, or can be purchased outright for a one-time fee. Motorauthority reached out to BMW USA and found that the Remote Engine Start costs $10 for 1 month, $105 for 1 year, $250 for 3 years, or can be purchased for $330 for the life of the vehicle. As for the Driver Recorder, it is available for $39 for 1 year, $99 for 3 years, and $149 for a one-time payment. Driving Assistant Plus with Stop&Go can be added for $20 for 1 month, $210 for 1 year, $580 for 3 years, and $950 with a one-time payment. As for Parking Assistant Professional, it is available for $5 for 1 month, $50 for 1 year, $130 for 3 years, or a one-time fee of $220.

Telegram Premium has amassed over 1 million subscribers, less than six months after the popular instant messaging app launched the paid offering and began a serious effort to monetize the business. From a report: Pavel Durov shared the update on his Telegram channel Tuesday, calling the milestone "one of the most successful examples of a social media subscription plan ever launched." The subscription, however, still "represents just a fraction of Telegram's overall revenue," he shared in the same update, optimistically hoping that one day Premium will rake in just as much money as ads.

Prime Video has supplanted Netflix as the No. 1 subscription streaming outlet in the U.S. in an annual ranking compiled by research firm Parks Associates. Deadline reports: The company didn't disclose its methodology for how it isolates the number of Prime Video subscribers, a metric long cloaked in secrecy due to Amazon's general reluctance to disclose statistics about its Prime business. Still, Parks has been a reputable tracker of the streaming space for more than a decade. For many years in the 2010s, its rankings looked consistent, with the former "Big 3" of Netflix, Prime Video and Hulu sharing the top three spots, always with Netflix at the top. Today, the rankings are much more fragmented given how many new players have entered the scene. The list reflects total subscribers through September 2022, via the OTT Video Market Tracker, a Parks offering described by the firm as "an exhaustive analysis of market trends and profiles of the nearly 100 over-the-top video service providers in the U.S. and Canada."

Amazon said last year it has more than 200 million Prime members, with Prime Video among the program's benefits. Several weeks ago, the company also recently said The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been viewed by more than 100 million Prime subscribers worldwide. [...] Netflix, meanwhile, has hit a plateau in the U.S., even shedding a small amount of subscribers over recent quarters. The company reported 73.4 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada as of September 30, up 100,000 from the previous quarter but below levels in 2021 and earlier this year.

On a global basis, of course, Netflix continues to lead the field with a bit more than 223 million subscribers. Disney has been hot on its heels, with Disney+ now at 164.2 million and the company overall reaching 235.7 million across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. The rest of the 2022 chart looks relatively similar to the 2021 edition, though NBCUniversal's Peacock broke through to take the No. 10 spot as Showtime dropped out of the picture.

Kaspersky is stopping the operation and sales of its VPN product, Kaspersky Secure Connection, in the Russian Federation, with the free version to be suspended as early as November 15, 2022. BleepingComputer reports: As the Moscow-based company informed on its Russian blog earlier this week, the shutdown of the VPN service will be staged, so that impact on customers remains minimal. Purchases of the paid version of Kaspersky Secure Connection will remain available on both the official website and mobile app stores until December 2022. Customers with active subscriptions will continue to enjoy the product's VPN service until the end of the paid period, which cannot go beyond the end of 2023 (one-year subscription).

Russian-based users of the free version of Kaspersky Secure Connection will not be able to continue using the product after November 15, 2022, so they will have to seek alternatives. BleepingComputer emailed Kaspersky questions regarding its decision to stop offering VPN products in Russia, but a spokesperson has declined to provide more information. Russia's telecommunications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, announced VPN bans in June 2021 and then again in December 2021. "The reason for banning 15 VPNs in the country was because their vendors refused to connect their services to the FGIS database, which would apply government-imposed censorship in VPN connections, and would also make user traffic and identity subject to state scrutiny," reports BleepingComputer.

"Ever-increasing controls are strangling VPN usage in Russia. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Digital Transformation requested all state-owned companies to declare what VPN products they use, for what purposes, and in what locations."

Remember Amazon's announcement Tuesday that Prime members would get free access to ad-free podcasts and a library of 100 million songs?

It made Slashdot reader ayjaym cancel their Amazon Prime subsciption. Because despite the upgrade to 100 million tracks, "all of these — including the albums that were available on Prime Music previously — can only be played in random order!" You can't skip forward or back while playing a song either. And, if you like to listen to classical music you now have the travesty of having great works chopped up and reshuffled into a random play order.
A headline at Inc. magazine says Amazon's change "Is Making Everyone Angry." "Hey Alexa, play Taylor Swift's Anti-Hero," used to be a simple thing you might say. When you did, your Echo would do exactly that. It would play Taylor Swift's newest song as long as it was in the catalog of songs available. Now, however, that's not what happens at all. If you're lucky, Alexa will start playing songs from Midnights, Swift's latest album. That, however, is not a given. It might play some of her older songs. It might start playing songs from other artists instead. Why does Amazon think anyone wants this?

Here's why: It's cheaper for a streaming service to not let you choose the song you want, but to let you give it an input and start playing similar music. Also, because Amazon clearly sees Amazon Music as a thing you use in the background when you just want music playing as you do other things.... If what you want to do is listen to Taylor Swift's latest album, you're going to have to choose Apple Music or Spotify Premium, both of which charge more than $10 a month, or Amazon Music Unlimited, which is $8.99 per month.

According to Amazon, 80 percent of people will never do that. They will never pay $10 a month to stream music. They will, however, use a free streaming service even if it means giving up the ability to actually choose the song they want to listen to. Okay, fine, except that's not the thing Amazon had made before.
Inc's conclusion? "If you give someone a thing as a benefit because they gave you money for your $140 a year subscription membership, it's not great if you suddenly make that thing dramatically worse and expect them to pay you more to make it a better experience."

So if you're not going to pay extra to upgrade to Amazon's "Unlimited Music" service, Fast Company explains that "It's probably better to think of Music Prime as a Pandora-like service wherein you pick an artist or genre you like and let Amazon sort out which songs are going to be played for you." The only catch there is that if you're streaming Music Prime to an Amazon Echo device — which we do non-stop around my house — it'll time out after an hour of inactivity. So if you're thinking of throwing a party and asking Alexa to spin up '80s music all night, you're going to have to keep asking every hour.

Another sticking point for some: Music Prime sound quality is available in "standard" definition, whereas Music Unlimited subscribers get access to "HD" and "Ultra HD" tracks depending on how each album is mastered.

Some Music Unlimited tracks can also be played in "spatial audio" — which is touted as "a multidimensional audio experience, adding space, clarity, and depth that is not achievable with traditional stereo music." Far out, man.
Deep in the fine print of the Amazon Music FAQ, you'll find a couple more options. There's also a $4.99-a-month "single device" plan, and a "Family Plan" offering six accounts for $14.99 a month. But Amazon is apparently offering its biggest savings to students enrolled in a degree-granting college or university, with a sharply discounted "Amazon Music Unlimited for Students" program.

Two state legislators in New Jersey are proposing a bill that would ban car companies from "[offering consumers] a subscription service for any motor vehicle feature" that "utilizes components and hardware already installed on the motor vehicle at the time of purchase." The Drive reports: The bill has one stipulation, however. The subscription would only be unlawful if there was no "ongoing expense to the dealer, manufacturer, or any third-party service provider." In other words, if an automaker or other associated party can prove that it costs money to maintain the feature and/or service in question, then it'd be legally allowed. This would include services like OnStar and such.

The way "ongoing expense" is interpreted is going to be key here, assuming the bill makes it into law. This, obviously, is not guaranteed. In theory, a car company could claim that over-the-air updates and their associated data costs constitute an ongoing expense. That means anything to do with connected features could theoretically be charged for. Since a car needs an internet connection in order to purchase subscriptions, well, that might make this particular piece of legislation worthless. On the other hand, if the core value of the subscription is derived from the pre-installed hardware as opposed to the data connection itself, then there is probably a case to be made.

Besides heated seats, the bill also mentions "driver assistance." That could be a problem for systems like Tesla's autopilot or General Motors' Super Cruise, both of which are going to a subscription model. Both of these systems cost money to maintain, though, especially Super Cruise. The system requires enabled highways to be scanned with Lidar. Tesla's AutoPilot and "Full Self-Driving" are also actively updated and maintained, which costs money. If automakers don't comply, they risk "civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation," notes the report.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: California's roads just got a little smarter with the passage of a bill that paves the way for the sale of digital license plates across the state. The technology allows for emergency messaging like marking the car stolen or indicating an Amber Alert, and can be personalized through an app with touts like "Go Warriors" or "Go Lakers" to cheer on the local sports teams. The pesky task of car registration also will become easier with DMV auto-renewals, eliminating the need for registration cards and stickers. California-based startup Reviver is the only company offering digital license plates right now, and they're expensive, costing up to $1,100 for four years for a hard-wired version. (The cost for a traditional license plate, registration card and sticker totals $69, according to state's DMV.) A battery-powered version is available for an about $20 per month subscription, or $215 a year, for four years. Privacy advocates have concerns that the devices could be hacked and tracked. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has also been "fighting for years to restrict police from using automated license plate readers to surveil neighborhoods for location data that can detect travel patterns of targeted vehicles," reports Bloomberg.

Despite this, Reviver has continued to expand to Arizona and Michigan, where digital license plates are already approved.

"Starting with the Ubuntu 16.04 edition and including the later LTS versions, Canonical will offer expanded security coverage for critical, high, and medium Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) to all of Ubuntu's open-source applications and toolchains for ten years," reports ZDNet.

"Yes, you read that right, you get security patches not just for the operating system, but for all of Ubuntu's open-source applications for a decade." Most of these are server programs, such as Ansible, Apache Tomcat, Drupal, Nagios, Redis, and WordPress. But, it also includes such developer essentials as Docker, Node.js, phpMyAdmin, Python 2, and Rust. Altogether, Canonical is supporting more than 23,000 packages. Indeed, it's now offering security for, as Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical's CEO, said, "Security coverage to every single package in the Ubuntu distribution."

Canonical isn't doing this on its own. It's offering free, improved security in partnership with the security management company Tenable. Robert Huber, Tenable's Chief Security Officer, said, "Ubuntu Pro offers security patch assurance for a broad spectrum of open-source software. Together, we give customers a foundation for trustworthy open source."

Beyond ordinary security, Canonical is backporting security fixes from newer application versions. This enables Ubuntu Pro users to use the Ubuntu release of their choice for long-term security without forced upgrades. Happy to keep using Ubuntu 20.04? No problem. You can run it until April 2030. Knock yourself out....

Users can obtain a free personal Ubuntu Pro subscription at ubuntu.com/pro for up to five machines. This free tier is for personal and small-scale commercial use.
Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Ubuntu's parent company company Canonical, explains in a new video that Ubuntu "is now the world's most widely used Linux..."

"What makes most proud, though, is that we have found a way to make this available free of charge to anybody for their personal and for small-scale commercial use.... full commercial use for you, and any business you own, on up to five machines."