News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Facebook Threatens News Blackout in California
over ‘Journalism Preservation Act’

Facebook (now known as Meta) has threatened to block all news articles in California from its main platform and Instagram if a proposed law known as the California Journalism Preservation Act is passed, sparking the latest standoff between tech giants and the news industry.
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This legislation aims to impose a tax on the advertising revenue that tech platforms generate from the distribution of news articles, with the majority of the money going toward supporting local newsrooms.

Essentially, the California Journalism Preservation Act would tax the advertising revenue that platforms generate from disseminating news content. The so-called “usage fee” would fund newsrooms across the state to the tune of about 70 percent of the money collected.

Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, a Democrat who represents Oakland and is sponsoring the bill, commented: “As news consumption has moved online, community news outlets have been downsized and closing at an alarming rate.”

Facebook claims that local news publishers would not benefit as much from the legislation as out-of-state websites would. “If the Journalism Preservation Act passes, we will be forced to remove news from Facebook and Instagram, rather than pay into a fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers,” said spokesman Andy Stone.

Amazon to Pay $30 Million Settlement for Violating Privacy of Children

Amazon has reached an agreement to pay more than $30 million to resolve claims of privacy violations involving its voice assistant Alexa and doorbell camera Ring.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charged the tech giant with violating privacy laws by holding onto children’s data, including voice and geolocation information, despite parental requests for its deletion. According to reports, this information was used to improve Amazon’s algorithms, which is against the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

“Amazon’s history of misleading parents, keeping children’s recordings indefinitely, and flouting parents’ deletion requests violated COPPA and sacrificed privacy for profits,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “COPPA does not allow companies to keep children’s data forever for any reason, and certainly not to train their algorithms.”

Amazon will pay a $25 million civil fine as part of the settlement and will not be allowed to use data that has been asked to be deleted. Additionally, the business will be required to delete children’s inactive Alexa accounts and notify its clients of the FTC’s actions.

In a separate lawsuit, Amazon was accused of allowing its Ring employees to watch customers’ camera recordings without their permission, resulting in a $5.8 million fine. The FTC claimed that Amazon failed to implement adequate security measures, which allowed for harassment and hacking incidents.
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Despite these accusations, Amazon insists that it has always taken precautions to protect customer privacy and has never broken any laws. According to the company, all child profiles must have parental consent, clear privacy disclosures are provided, and child recordings and transcripts can be removed from the Alexa app.