Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan reports that she has received a worrying email, ostensibly from Apple, revealing that law enforcement has demanded and gained access to her account data. The email indicates an FBI investigation although the precise nature of any inquiry remains unclear. From a report: In a message posted to her personal Twitter account, which is not currently subject to a suspension, Elbakyan draws attention to an email she received to one of her accounts operated by Google. "At first I thought it was spam and was about to delete the email, but it turned out to be about FBI requesting my data from Apple," she writes. As the email reveals, the apparent request to access the data from Elbakyan's account dates back more than two years but due to its nature, Apple has only just been able to reveal its existence to the Sci-Hub founder. What this is about, however, remains unclear but perhaps the more pressing question is whether it is a genuine email from Apple.

A few days ago, Disney added a new anti-piracy patent to its arsenal: a blockchain-based distribution system that aims to make it harder for pirates to intercept films being distributed to movie theaters. TorrentFreak reports: The patent in question, titled "Blockchain configuration for secure content delivery," focuses on the distribution of content to movie theaters. This is a vulnerable process where pirates with the right connections can make copies during or after delivery. There are already several security mechanisms in place to prevent leaks from happening. Theaters have to adhere to strict rules, for example, and movies are all watermarked. Nevertheless, Disney believes that this isn't sufficient to stop pirates. "[S]uch security mechanisms are often reactive rather than preventative. For example, watermarking configurations insert a watermark into content to track piracy after the piracy has already occurred. As a result, current configurations do not adequately prevent piracy," the company explains.

Disney argues that by implementing a secure blockchain-based system, the distribution process can be more tightly controlled. Among other things, it will make it impossible for a movie to be played before it arrives at the intended location. "In contrast with previous configurations, the blockchain configuration verifies that the content is received at the intended destination prior to allowing playback of the content at that destination," the patent reads.

The system can also be configured with other anti-piracy features. For example, it can track the number of times a movie is played to prevent bad actors from showing it more often than they should. "Further, the blockchain configuration has an automated auditing mechanism that tracks playback of the content at the destination to ensure that the quantity of playbacks is accurately recorded. Therefore, piracy by the intended recipient, in the form of a greater quantity of actual playbacks than reported playbacks, is prevented.' While Disney regularly refers to movie theaters and projectors, it specifically states that the patent also applies to other 'playback environments.' For example, when Disney content is sent to other streaming providers, which will need the proper credentials to play the content. There are several possible practical implementations but whether Disney has concrete plans to use these in the real world is unknown.

The beauty and misery of private RSS feeds. An anonymous reader shares a report: There's only supposed to be one way to hear exclusive podcast content from sports host Scott Wetzel: by paying $5 a month to subscribe to his Patreon. But the show's also been available on a smaller podcasting app for free. In fact, leaked podcast feeds from dozens of subscription-only shows, including Wetzel's and The Last Podcast On The Left, are available to stream through Castbox, a smaller app for both iOS and Android, just by searching for them.

Two people in the podcast space tell me they've reached out to Castbox multiple times, only for the company to remove a show and then have it pop up again, an infuriating cycle for someone trying to charge for their content. "It's a little bit like playing whack-a-mole with them," says one source, who asked to remain anonymous because of their ongoing work in the space. Podcast subscriptions have existed for years, but they've gained wider attention this past month. Apple, which makes the dominant podcasting app, introduced in-app subscriptions with a button that lets people directly subscribe to a show from the app. Spotify announced its own subscription product, too, but with caveats -- the main one being there's no actual in-app button.

FlatEric521 shares a report: Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of the popular encrypted chat app Signal claims to have hacked devices made by the infamous phone unlocking company Cellebrite, which has famously worked with cops to circumvent encryption such as Signal's. In a blog post Wednesday, Marlinspike not only published details about the new exploits for Cellebrite devices but seemed to suggest that Signal's code could be theoretically altered to hack Cellebrite devices en masse. "We were surprised to find that very little care seems to have been given to Cellebrite's own software security. Industry-standard exploit mitigation defenses are missing, and many opportunities for exploitation are present," Marlinspike wrote in the post. "Any app could contain such a file, and until Cellebrite is able to accurately repair all vulnerabilities in its software with extremely high confidence, the only remedy a Cellebrite user has is to not scan devices."

Marlinspike claims (whether you believe this portion of the post or not is up to you) that while he was on a walk he happened to find a Cellebrite phone unlocking device: "By a truly unbelievable coincidence, I was recently out for a walk when I saw a small package fall off a truck ahead of me. As I got closer, the dull enterprise typeface slowly came into focus: Cellebrite. Inside, we found the latest versions of the Cellebrite software, a hardware dongle designed to prevent piracy (tells you something about their customers I guess!), and a bizarrely large number of cable adapters." Along with his colleagues, Marlinspike analyzed the device and found that it included several vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to include an "otherwise innocuous file in an app" that when it gets scanned by a Cellebrite device exploits it and tampers with the device and the data it can access.

The file-sharing blog TorrentFreak reports: Google was asked to remove a TorrentFreak article from its search results this week. The article in question reported that "The Mandalorian" was the most pirated TV show of 2020.

This notice claims to identify several problematic URLs that allegedly infringe the copyrights of Disney's hit series The Mandalorian. This is not unexpected, as The Mandalorian was the most pirated TV show of last year, as we reported in late December. However, we didn't expect to see our article as one of the targeted links in the notice. Apparently, the news that The Mandalorian is widely pirated — which was repeated by dozens of other publications — is seen as copyright infringement?

Needless to say, we wholeheartedly disagree. This is not the way.
TorrentFreak specifies that the article in question "didn't host or link to any infringing content." (TorrentFreak's article was even linked to by major sites including CNET, Forbes, Variety, and even Slashdot.)

TorrentFreak also reports that it wasn't Disney who filed the takedown request, but GFM Films... At first, we thought that the German camera company GFM could have something to do with it, as they worked on The Mandalorian. However, earlier takedown notices from the same sender protected the film "The Last Witness," which is linked to the UK company GFM Film Sales. Since we obviously don't want to falsely accuse anyone, we're not pointing fingers.
So what happens next? We will certainly put up a fight if Google decides to remove the page. At the time of writing, this has yet to happen. The search engine currently lists the takedown request as 'pending,' which likely means that there will be a manual review. The good news is that Google is usually pretty good at catching overbroad takedown requests. This is also true for TorrentFreak articles that were targeted previously, including our coverage on the Green Book screener leak.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The popular and entirely legal Steam Database has found itself in a precarious position following two erroneous DMCA notices from SEGA. Steam Database's host is being asked to suspend the platform due to a claimed lack of response to the first notice. This prompted the site to take down entirely legal content in an effort to address the problem. [...]

TorrentFreak was able to review the notice sent by SEGA to SteamDB's host and it pulls no punches. SEGA doubles down by stating that SteamDB is illegally distributing the game Yakuza: Like a Dragon, noting that it has tried to inform SteamDB but was "not able" to resolve the issue. Worryingly, it then implies that legal action might be taken against SteamDB for non-compliance, adding that the host should "immediately suspend" SteamDB due to the alleged ongoing infringement. Which, of course, is not taking place.

This puts SteamDB's host in a tough position. Failure to act against an allegedly infringing customer can put the host at risk in terms of liability but disabling a customer's website can cause a whole new set of problems, especially when that customer has not infringed anyone's rights. In an effort to sort the problem out, SteamDB's host asked for additional input from the operators of SteamDB but nevertheless warned that if that information was not received, it may still block the SteamDB server within 24 hours, as demanded in the SEGA takedown notice. In order to defuse the situation, SteamDB took down the allegedly-infringing page which as far as SEGA goes (and at least in theory) should solve the disconnection threat problem. However, the entire situation has proven counterproductive for SEGA too.

Police have warned students in the UK against using the Sci-Hub website, which they say lets users "illegally access" millions of scientific research papers. Specifically, the police say the website could "pose a threat to their personal information and data." The BBC reports: The police are concerned that users of the "Russia-based website" could have information taken and misused online. The Sci-Hub says its website "removes all barriers" to science. It offers open access to more than 85 million scientific papers and claims that copyright laws should be abolished and that such material should be "knowledge to all." It describes itself as "the first pirate website in the world to provide mass and public access to tens of millions of research papers."

But Max Bruce, the City of London Police's cyber protection officer, has urged universities to block the website on their network because of the "threat posed by Sci-Hub to both the university and its students." "If you're tricked into revealing your log-in credentials, whether it's through the use of fake emails or malware, we know that Sci-Hub will then use those details to compromise your university's computer network in order to steal research papers," he said. "Students should be aware that accessing such websites is illegal, as it hosts stolen intellectual property," said Det Insp Kevin Ives. He warned that visitors to the website, whose Twitter account has been suspended, are "very vulnerable to having their credentials stolen."

"Adobe doesn't want third-parties to pirate its software, so the company regularly sends out DMCA notices to remove infringing copies," reports TorrentFreak. In a recent tweet, F-Secure researcher Mikko Hypponen mentioned that the software company removed one of his tweets that linked to an old copy of Acrobat Reader for MS-DOS, which came out more than 27-years ago, shortly after the PDF was invented. From the report: The security researcher posted the tweet five years ago and at the time there were no issues. The message was copied a few weeks ago by his own Twitter bot, which reposts all his original tweets five years later. "They sent a DMCA notice to my bot (@mikko__2016) when it posted that tweet on the tweet's 5th anniversary. The original tweet is fine," Hypponen notes. While the original tweet is still up, the reposted message was swiftly removed by Twitter. Not just that, the bot's account was locked as well, which is standard practice nowadays.

Looking more closely at the takedown notice, we see that it was sent by the "brand protection analyst" at Incopro, which is one of Adobe's anti-piracy partners. It doesn't provide any further details on the reasons for taking it down, other than an alleged copyright infringement. Things get even more curious when we look at the full DMCA notice, posted by the Lumen database. This shows that the tweet was listed among other links, which all point to "infringing' copies of more recent software. Intriguingly, the notice also reveals that Hypponen's original tweet was targeted as well, albeit indirectly. The takedown notice lists t.co/tbAT0CH25o, which still points to the 2016 tweet today, so Twitter decided not to take action there.

We wonder if the DMCA notice is intentional at all. Over the years we have seen many bizarre takedown claims, which are often the result of automated filters. That may be a plausible explanation here as well. In that case, it shows that DMCA takedown process is far from perfect. However, if Adobe seriously has a problem with the fact that a 27-year-old copy of Acrobat Reader is being shared on an external site, it's more effective to target the site where it's hosted. Not the person who links to it in a tweet.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Peter Sunde is one of the original Pirate Bay founders, but in recent years he's mostly known for his role in various Internet-related startups. This includes domain registrar Sarek, for which Sunde tried to get ICANN accreditation. However, this request was denied, apparently due to Sunde's "uncomfortable" background. Needless to say, Sunde was disappointed with the decision and he took his frustration to Twitter a few days ago. Initially, he assumed that the application was denied because ICANN concluded that he 'lied' about his background.

The accreditation form requires applicants to tick a box if they have been convicted for fraud or something similar. Sunde didn't tick this box, as he was convicted for criminal copyright infringement. This 'error' was swiftly noticed by ICANN, which is also uneasy with other parts of the Pirate Bay founder's history. "After the background check I get a reply that I've checked the wrong boxes," Sunde wrote. "Not only that, but they're also upset I was wanted by Interpol." The Twitter thread didn't go unnoticed by ICANN who contacted Sunde over the phone to offer clarification. As it turns out, the 'wrong box' issue isn't the main problem, as he explains in a follow-up Twitter thread.

"I got some sort of semi-excuse regarding their claim that I lied on my application. They also said that they agreed it wasn't fraud or similar really. So both of the points they made regarding the denial were not really the reason," Sunde clarifies. Over the phone, ICANN explained that the matter was discussed internally. This unnamed group of people concluded that the organization is 'not comfortable' doing business with him. "They basically admitted that they don't like me. They've banned me for nothing else than my political views. This is typical discrimination. Considering I have no one to appeal to except them, it's concerning, since they control the actual fucking center of the internet." Making matters worse, ICANN will also keep the registration fee, so this whole ordeal is costing money as well.

The United States Navy is liable for a mass copyright infringement. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with the German software company Bitmanagement, which accused the Navy of copying software without permission. Bitmanagement claimed more than $500 million in damages, but the final amount has yet to be determined. From a report: The dispute started when the US Navy decided that it would like to run the software across its entire network. This meant that it would be installed on hundreds of thousands of computers, with "Flexera" software keeping track of the number of simultaneous users. Bitmanagement didn't offer such a license by default, so the Navy requested this option separately. These requests took place through a reseller, Planet 9 Studios, which complicated matters. After several back and forths, the Navy was convinced that it had permission, but Bitmanagement later disagreed. The problem for the Court was that the Navy and Bitmanagement didn't sign a contract, so there was no direct permission given. This meant that the Court had to review the conversations and exchanges that took place, to determine which side was right.

After reviewing all evidence, the Federal Claims court eventually sided with the US Navy, dismissing the copyright infringement claim. However, this wasn't the end of it. Bitmanagement maintained that the Navy clearly committed mass copyright infringement and the company took the matter to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, with success. In an order issued a few days ago, the Appeals Court agrees with pretty much all conclusions of the Federal Claims Court. The evidence indeed shows that Bitmanagement 'authorized' the U.S. Navy's copying of BS Contact Geo across its network. While this wasn't formalized in an official contract, the Navy had an "implied license."

Inside.com's developer newsletter spotted this code repository story: GitHub posted a DMCA notice it received from the Motion Picture Association (MPA) last week asking the platform to take down a repository associated with NYAA.si, a popular torrent site specializing in anime content. The DMCA captured attention as the code doesn't belong to the MPA. Rather, the MPA argues the code is used for the development of the site, which allows for copyright infringement, while the repo also makes it possible to create NYAA clones.

The news comes a few months after GitHub restored the youtube-dl repository and created a $1m legal defense fund to help open source developers fight unwarranted DMCA Section 1201 takedown claims. At the same time, the platform also announced it will be improving its Section 1201 claim review process to make it harder to take down repos.
But the next day, the newsletter reported GitHub had reversed the takedown: The company explains the notice didn't meet its DMCA Takedown Policy requirements as it failed to "establish that the code is preconfigured to infringe." GitHub adds that it also restored any content that was disabled because of the notice.
Some context from TorrentFreak: This isn't the first time the MPA has gone after the anime torrent site. Last November we reported that the anti-piracy group sent cease and desist letters to several people who are allegedly connected to the site, describing it as an "Anime Cartel".
TorrentFreak's latest update: A few weeks ago, the Motion Picture Association tried to shut the project down by going after several people who are allegedly linked to the site. Framing NYAA as an "Anime Cartel", the movie group demanded a total shutdown and tens of thousands of dollars in settlements...

This takedown request initially succeeded as GitHub disabled the repository earlier this week. Before doing so, the platform reached out to the developers and gave them the option to respond or make changes, but that request went unanswered. Without a response from the developers, this is usually where things end. In this case, however, GitHub decided to carry out another review after the project was taken down, perhaps in part motivated by the news coverage. "While we didn't hear back from the maintainers, we chose to do another review ourselves to proactively see how we could resolve the issue," a GitHub spokesperson informs TorrentFreak...

[A]t the time of writing the NYAA repository is up and running again. The MPA still has the option to provide additional information about the allegedly-infringing nature of the code, which would then trigger another review.

GitHub stresses that it's their purpose to make sure that developers can host code within the boundaries of the law. Unless the entire repository is infringing, it's standard policy to allow developers to respond to DMCA claims before any content is removed.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: As one of the original co-founders of The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi knows a little something about keeping controversial services online. Kolmisoppi and his colleagues spent decades battling a global coalition of corporations, governments, and law enforcement agencies intent on wiping the file sharing website from the face of the internet. Unsuccessfully. Kolmisoppi took to Twitter this week to share some thoughts on Parler's recent deplatforming for failing to seriously police death threats and illegal content before and after the fatal Capitol riots.

"The Pirate Bay, the most censored website in the world, started by kids, run by people with problems with alcohol, drugs and money, still is up after almost two decades," Kolmisoppi said. "Parlor and gab etc have all the money around but no skills or mindset. Embarrassing." [...] Platforming white supremacy and hate speech is a tougher proposition than serving users pirated copies of the Prince discography. But Kolmisoppi was quick to laugh at the fact that despite being backed by billionaires and parts of the US government, Parler didn't seem remotely prepared for the justified firestorm it found itself at the center of. "The most ironic thing is that The Pirate Bay's enemies include not just the US government but also many European and the Russian one," he said. "Compared to gab/parlor which is supported by the current president of the US and probably liked by the Russian one too."

"In all honesty, the reason we did The Pirate Bay was to bring freedom and take back control from a centralised system," Kolmisoppi said. "The reason that Gab et al will fail is because they're just whining bitches that have only one ideology: egotism. Sharing is caring y'all." In more recent years, Kolmoisoppi has moved on to fund Njalla, a privacy-centric domain name registration service. One he says was already asked to host Parler, and refused. "Of course we wouldn't," Kolmisoppi said. "We're pro human rights, which includes the right to not be killed by extreme right wing terrorists."

CNET reveals 2020's most popular show among video pirates: It probably won't come as a surprise that Disney Plus smash hit series The Mandalorian has won the (unfortunate) title of most-pirated TV show of 2020 — using popular torrenting site BitTorrent. According to analysis from TorrentFreak (via IndieWire), Game of Thrones was the most-pirated TV show seven years running. But the HBO series ended in 2019, leaving The Mandalorian to improve its ranking from third to No. 1.
The rest of the list, from IndieWire: Prime Video's irreverent superhero series "The Boys" is at number two, HBO's "Westworld" is number three, Prime Video's "Vikings" is number four, CBS' "Star Trek: Picard" is five, followed by Adult Swim's "Rick and Morty," AMC's "The Walking Dead," HBO's "The Outsider," CW's "The Arrow," and CW's "The Flash."

A few hours ago and after years of preparation, amendments to Japan's copyright law came into effect, aiming to criminalize those who download unlicensed manga, magazines, and academic texts from the Internet. From a report: While uploading pirated content has always been illegal, the new law is quite specific in that it criminalizes the downloading of unlicensed content. While that could take place in a simultaneous upload environment such as BitTorrent, it seems most likely that people will obtain content from websites instead. That presents some roadblocks to enforcement so we asked Ina how, from a technical perspective, will the authorities track, obtain evidence, and prosecute people who simply download content (comics, movies, music etc) to their machines but don't distribute? "The authorities shall use digital forensic technologies to track suspects' activities and collect evidence. The details of such technologies have not been publicly available," Masaharu Ina from Japan-based anti-piracy group CODA explained. "There are certain special units specialized in cyber crimes in each prefecture. For example, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police has its own Cyber Crime Control Unit. But the police do not investigate unless the person commits the crime repeatedly, intentionally and maliciously, i.e. innocent light downloaders shall not be prosecuted."

Leaked Nintendo documents have revealed a frightening surveillance operation carried out against a hacker who was researching exploits for the 3DS handheld. TorrentFreak reports: During the past 24 hours, various Twitter accounts (1,2) have been posting snippets from documents that were recently leaked from Nintendo. While there are numerous items of interest, the most shocking revelations involve Neimod, a hacker who several years ago developed exploits for the 3DS handheld console. [T]he scale of the operation, which is revealed in detail in the leaked documents, shows just how far the gaming giant was prepared to go to stop his work. For example, the leak reveals personal profiling that dug deeply into Neimod's education status, listed details of his working life, while offering evidence of physical snooping on his daily lifestyle. What time he could be found at home, who came to see him there, and even when he visited places like banks and restaurants are all included. While this kind of surveillance is creepy in its own right, additional documents reveal a detailed plan to use the gathered intelligence to physically confront Neimod in order to pressurize him into complying with the company's demands.

According to Nintendo's planning, the operation would begin around April 15, 2013, with its team meeting at a local hotel to discuss and finalize their plans. Following a review of Neimod's movements of the previous week, the team would then decide where and when contact would be made -- after work or at home, for example. With an undercover investigator monitoring Neimod to discover what time he left work, Neimod was to be approached by a 'contact team,' who were instructed to approach their target "in a friendly, non-threatening, professional, and courteous manner." "Provide a business card," the instructions read. After Neimod had been engaged in conversation, the team was instructed to flatter the hacker by "acknowledging his engineering/programming aptitude." They were also told to reference his stated aim of not "facilitating piracy" with his hacks but point out Nintendo's concerns that a release of his hack could do just that.

Whether Neimod complied or resisted, Nintendo prepared for both eventualities. The following slide, posted to Twitter by Eclipse-TT, shows a flow chart that begins with instructions for the "Knock and Talk Team," details a staging area, rules of engagement, and plans for what should happen when things go to plan -- or otherwise. The Nintendo "Final Enforcement Proposal" document describes a "carrot and stick" approach, with the stick being a laundry list of potential offenses committed by Neimod under Belgian law and the carrot representing a number of sweeteners that might be of interest to the hacker. If cooperation was achieved, Nintendo suggested it could refrain from filing a criminal complaint. It may also enter into a "bounty" contract with Neimod with payments made for finding and documenting exploits. Within certain parameters, his discoveries could still be announced to the public, allowing him to retain "bragging rights." This could help Nintendo's image, the company wrote.

Nintendo of America has filed a lawsuit against an Amazon Nintendo Switch hack reseller -- the sort of litigation it's taken on in similar cases in the past. Nintendo's lawyers allege the Amazon seller, Le Hoang Minh, circumvents Nintendo's copyright measures in selling an RCM Loader, used to "jailbreak" the Nintendo Switch. From a report: The lawsuit was filed in a Seattle court last week, according to court documents obtained by Polygon. In the lawsuit, Nintendo outlines what it calls a "serious, worsening international problem" with video game software piracy. It details Nintendo's security systems, and how the RCM Loaders bypass those systems. The RCM Loader (which is essentially a USB device that plugs into the Nintendo Switch) allows the user to play so-called "pirated" or unauthorized games. According to the lawsuit, Nintendo sent a DMCA notice to the seller, to which a counterclaim was issued. Because of the counterclaim, Amazon was required to relist the RCM Loader, unless Nintendo filed an infringement lawsuit. And that's what it did. The company is looking for the courts to stop the seller, and award it $2,500 in damages for each infringement.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Documents obtained by TorrentFreak dated September reveal the MPA, acting through legal representatives, attempting to pressure individuals who they believe are important at [anime site Nyaa] and could have the ability to shut the site down. Information suggests that several people in North America, Europe, and Australia have all received similar correspondence. The letters allege massive copyright infringement via the Nyaa site and include a sample of copyrighted works, to which the MPA's members hold the rights, that were allegedly infringed via the platform.

The MPA clearly states that none of its cited members (Disney, Paramount, Universal, Columbia, Warner Bros, and Netflix, in addition to Amazon) have granted their permission for the works to be made available via Nyaa or the BitTorrent network(s) that underpin it. As a result, "significant, irreparable damage" has already been caused to the copyright owners by the site's activities. While emailed threats are still a common anti-piracy strategy, we are informed that at least two of the individuals were personally served with legal documents at their homes. Others were served with similar documents via regular mail. We are currently unable to determine exactly how many people were served in total. At the moment the suggestion is around five but that may not be the full picture. What we do know is that some or all stand accused of being part of the mysterious 'Anime Cartel' supposedly behind Nyaa. "With immediate effect, recipients have been told to take all necessary steps to ensure that Nyaa is completely shut down," the report adds. "The MPA also wants to take control of the site's domain -- Nyaa.si -- a common tactic in other anti-piracy actions. Overall, recipients are warned that they must cease-and-desist any and all of their activities related to the site, including making available the copyrighted works of the MPA's members."

"In addition to receiving settlements, it appears that the MPA also wants information on the Nyaa service and its operations. The MPA also wants the rights to the Nyaa site and any technologies connected to it, wherever the recipient has the ability to transfer those rights. The MPA also demands that those entering into a settlement agreement should never infringe its members' rights again."

The Motion Picture Association says that circumvention services such as VPNs, DNS masks and Tor networks can pose a direct threat to legitimate streaming services. In comments submitted to the US Trade Representative, the movie industry group highlights PDF various other piracy challenges around the globe.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The RIAA is ramping up the pressure on a wide range of platforms allegedly involved in music piracy. Two DMCA subpoenas obtained against Cloudflare and Namecheap require the companies to hand over all information they hold on more than 40 torrent sites, streaming portals and YouTube-ripping services. Also included in the mix are several file-hosting platforms.

Amazon and Apple face German antitrust scrutiny over a policy that excludes independent sellers of brand products on the online market place. From a report: Germany's Federal Cartel Office, the country's antitrust regulator, is probing both companies over a policy at Amazon called "brandgating," the authority said in an emailed statement. The policy allows makers of branded products such as iPhones to have independent sellers removed from the platform as long as Amazon can sell the items, according to the statement. "Brandgating agreements can help to protect against product piracy," the Cartel Office said. "But such measures must be proportionate to be in line with antitrust rules and may not result in eliminating competition." Amazon and Apple are among the tech giants under intense scrutiny by regulators across the world, including in the European Union, which is poised to propose sweeping new laws to rein in Silicon Valley. Authorities are wrestling with how to act against companies that critics say run a rigged game when they set the rules for platforms that also host their rivals.