James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
House panel votes to pass landmark privacy bill
A 53-2 bipartisan vote today means a privacy bill that could change how tech companies deal with users’ data in the U.S. is closer to coming to fruition. Democrats and Republicans in the House Energy and Commerce Committee greenlit the American Data Privacy and Protection Act in what is being called a giant leap for ...
Netflix says it isn’t concerned about losing almost a million subscribers
The king of streaming didn’t seem overly concerned today when it talked about losing close to 1 million subscribers from April to July on an earnings call. Chief Executive Reed Hastings said the company was prepared to lose more subscribers than that, perhaps even close to 2 million. Still, this is the biggest loss of ...
Meta tries to ascertain its impact on society in its first human rights report
Meta Platforms Inc. today released its first human rights report, an 83-page document that covers the years 2020 and 2021. According to the Facebook parent company, the report includes “insights and actions from our human rights due diligence on products, countries, and responses to emerging crises.” Over the years, the company has been criticized for ...
More than 500 women are suing Uber over sexual assaults by drivers
A complaint was issued with a San Francisco County Superior Court today claiming that more than 550 women riders were sexually assaulted by drivers who works for Uber Technologies Inc. The complaint says that “women passengers in multiple states were kidnapped, sexually assaulted, sexually battered, raped, falsely imprisoned, stalked, harassed, or otherwise attacked.” Attorneys at ...
‘Scarcity breeds clarity’: Google tells staff it will slow hiring next year
Google LLC Chief Executive Sundar Pichai sent a memo to employees today informing them that next year it will cut back on hiring and concentrate on consolidating its investments. Pichai said that doesn’t mean no new hires, but those that do come in will likely work in “engineering, technical and other critical roles.” He added ...
FTC will boost efforts to prevent sharing of sensitive data amid abortion concerns
The Federal Trade Commission today said it’s in the process of cracking down on companies that illegally share data gleaned from consumers, especially health data. In a blog post today, Kristin Cohen, the FTC’s acting associate director in the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, said there remain many “shadowy” brokers who collect people’s data ...
Tesla is being investigated for two new fatal crashes
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today said it has started an investigation into two fatal crashes involving Tesla Inc. cars. One of the crashes happened recently in California. A 2018 Tesla Model 3 hit a pedestrian and killed her, and investigators believe that the reason for the crash could have been the car’s advanced ...
Tech firms might have to pay big fines under UK’s amendment to Online Safety Bill
The U.K. government announced yesterday that it will be making some changes to its Online Safety Bill, something that could leave tech companies looking at huge fines if they haven’t deployed new technologies to police their products. The government will give more power to the U.K.’s communications regulator, Ofcom. The new tools should help the ...
Twitter is suing the Indian government over far-reaching content removal orders
Twitter Inc. said today that it has just begun a lawsuit against the Indian government over what the company sees as unfair standards regarding speech laws. The lawsuit was filed at the Karnataka High Court in Bangalore, a consequence of a recent spat Twitter had with the Indian government over its aggressive speech laws. The ...
The British Army just had its Twitter and YouTube accounts hacked by crypto scammers
The British Army is currently recovering from embarrassment after it acknowledged on Sunday that its Twitter and YouTube accounts were hacked to promote cryptocurrency scams. The scammer, or scammers, changed the bio of the accounts, as well as the cover photos and profile pictures. At first, on Twitter, the profile picture was replaced to look ...