November 5, 2026
It’s been a confusing 24 hours at the US Postal Service (USPS) after the Trump administration imposed new tariffs on China that eliminated a loophole allowing low-value Chinese packages into the US duty-free. On Tuesday, the USPS abruptly stopped accepting all inbound packages from Hong Kong and China. This briefly halted personal shipments from China,
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The United Kingdom issued a secret order requiring Apple to create a backdoor for government security officials to access encrypted data, The Washington Post reported today, citing people familiar with the matter. UK security officials “demanded that Apple create a backdoor allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to
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Microsoft declined to comment, but allegedly the DOGE employees are “using AI software accessed through Microsoft’s cloud computing service Azure to pore over every dollar of money the department disburses, from contracts to grants to work trip expenses,” one source told the Post. The lawsuit noted that several DOE employees have tried to block DOGE’s
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But while the national security concerns require a solution, Curtis said his priority is maintaining “a really productive relationship with China.” He pushed Lutnick to address how he plans to hold DeepSeek—and the CCP in general—accountable for national security concerns amid ongoing tensions with China. Lutnick suggested that if he is confirmed (which appears likely),
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Emails discussing torrenting prove that Meta knew it was “illegal,” authors alleged. And Bashlykov’s warnings seemingly landed on deaf ears, with authors alleging that evidence showed Meta chose to instead hide its torrenting as best it could while downloading and seeding terabytes of data from multiple shadow libraries as recently as April 2024. Meta allegedly
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Robocallers posing as employees of the Federal Communications Commission made the mistake of trying to scam real employees of the FCC, the FCC announced yesterday. “On the night of February 6, 2024, and continuing into the morning of February 7, 2024, over a dozen FCC staff and some of their family members reported receiving calls
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Elez reports to Tom Krause, another Treasury Department special government employee, but Krause doesn’t have direct access to the payment system, Humphreys told the judge. Krause is the CEO of Cloud Software Group and is also viewed as a Musk ally. But when the judge pressed Humphreys on Musk’s alleged access, the DOJ lawyer only
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Republicans and ISPs have objected to the NTIA’s enforcement of the legal mandate that Internet providers receiving federal funds offer at least one “low-cost broadband service option for eligible subscribers.” Although this requirement is part of the law that created BEAD, Republicans and ISPs say the Biden NTIA went too far when it urged states
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“These data are public and they are ours,” Rasmussen posted. “Deletion disobedience is one way to fight back.” As Rasmussen sees it, deleting CDC data is “theft” from the public domain and archiving CDC data is simply taking “back what is ours.” But at the same time, her team is also taking steps to be
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Given new urgency to launch the probe, SAMR regulators visited Google’s Beijing office in January before Trump came into office and demanded related information to be handed over, according to the people. The outgoing Biden administration also used its final months to step up export controls on advanced chips, seeking to curb China’s growing AI
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Artemiy Pavlov, the founder of a small but mighty music software brand called Sinesvibes, spent more than 15 years building a YouTube channel with all original content to promote his business’ products. Over all those years, he never had any issues with YouTube’s automated content removal system—until Monday, when YouTube, without issuing a single warning,
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Lest any of these worries seem extreme, we’ll note that the new administration has labeled the soon-to-be-revoked automotive fuel economy standards as meant to “push a radical Green New Deal agenda.” Money concerns For grants that typically run three to five years, a hold that runs a few weeks may not seem like that big
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Broadband program still in doubt As we’ve previously reported, US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Republicans want to overhaul the BEAD funding plans. Cruz accused the NTIA of “technology bias” because the agency decided that fiber networks should be prioritized over other types of technology, and Republicans objected to the Biden administration’s enforcement of
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On Thursday, OpenAI announced that it is deepening its ties with the US government through a partnership with the National Laboratories and expects to use AI to “supercharge” research across a wide range of fields to better serve the public. “This is the beginning of a new era, where AI will advance science, strengthen national
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In a statement to Ars, Dell’s PR team said: “We continually evolve our business so we’re set up to deliver the best innovation, value, and service to our customers and partners. That includes more in-person connections to drive market leadership.” The road to full RTO After Dell allowed employees to work from home two days
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“This is a mechanical job—they pay Social Security benefits, they pay vendors, whatever. It’s not one where there’s a role for nonmechanical things, at least from the career standpoint. Your whole job is to pay the bills as they’re due,” Mazur was quoted as saying. “It’s never been used in a way to execute a
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The Federal Communications Commission demanded that CBS provide the unedited transcript of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that is the subject of a complaint to the FCC and a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump. CBS News on Wednesday received a letter of inquiry in which the FCC requested “the full, unedited transcript
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The US Copyright Office issued AI guidance this week that declared no laws need to be clarified when it comes to protecting authorship rights of humans producing AI-assisted works. “Questions of copyrightability and AI can be resolved pursuant to existing law, without the need for legislative change,” the Copyright Office said. More than 10,000 commenters
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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS in a move that Democrats described as an attempt to intimidate the media. “I am writing to inform you that I have asked the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau to open an investigation regarding the airing of NPR and PBS programming across your
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Despite these ongoing threats to job security that might push some to resign, the OPM repeatedly emphasized that any choice to accept a buyout and resign was “voluntary.” Additionally, OPM explained that employees could rescind resignations; however, if an agency wants to move quickly to reassign their roles, that “would likely serve as a valid
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US Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) today proposed a law that would let copyright owners obtain court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to foreign piracy websites. The bill would also force DNS providers to block sites. Lofgren said in a press release that she “work[ed] for over a year with the tech, film,
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The Cruz resolution to nullify the FCC rule was co-sponsored by Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), John Curtis (R-Utah), Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.). The FCC’s plan Under the
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Currently, Aaron predicts that Nepenthes might be most attractive to rights holders who want AI companies to pay to scrape their data. And many people seem enthusiastic about using it to reinforce robots.txt. But “some of the most exciting people are in the ‘let it burn’ category,” Aaron said. These people are drawn to tools
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A source familiar with Perplexity AI’s proposal confirmed to Ars that the reporting from CNBC and AP News is accurate. Trump denied Oracle’s involvement in talks Over the weekend, there was also a lot of speculation about Oracle’s involvement in negotiations. NPR reported that two sources with direct knowledge claimed that Trump was considering “tapping
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Lobby groups thank new FCC chair Housing industry lobby groups praised Carr in a press release issued by the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), National Apartment Association (NAA), and Real Estate Technology and Transformation Center (RETTC). “His decision to withdraw the proposal will ensure that millions of consumers—renters, homeowners and condominium owners—will continue to reap
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On Truth Social, Trump confirmed that he called Ulbricht’s mother to let her know that her son’s “full and unconditional” pardon was “in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly.” “It was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross,” Trump wrote. “The
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Last week, the CMA opened its first such case, reviewing Google’s dominance in search and advertising. The CMA is already in the process of probing Google and Apple in a separate investigation into mobile web browsers and cloud gaming, which has provisionally found the two companies were “holding back competition” in browsers. “Android’s openness has
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Carr has made it clear that he wants the FCC to punish news broadcasters that he perceives as being unfair to Trump or Republicans in general. He claimed that NBC putting Harris on Saturday Night Live before the election was “a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule,” even though NBC
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“Certainly, the Court can imagine situations where obtaining a warrant might frustrate the purpose of querying, particularly where exigency requires immediate querying,” DeArcy Hall wrote. “This is why the Court does not hold that querying Section 702-acquired information always requires a warrant.” Ruling renews calls for 702 reforms While digital rights groups like the EFF
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“Our materials have been updated, including all internal documents and trainings, in addition to our external website,” Optimum told us on Wednesday this week. Law was in the works for years Broadband lobby groups convinced a federal judge to block the New York affordability law in 2021, but a US appeals court reversed the ruling
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To further the alleged scheme, he “often described non-existent revenue, inflated cash balances,” and “otherwise exaggerated customer relationships,” the US Attorney’s Office said, to convince investors to spend millions. As Beckman’s accomplice, Lau allegedly manipulated documents, including documents allegedly stolen from the venture capital firm that employed her while supposedly hiding her work for GameOn.
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TikTok owner ByteDance is reportedly still searching for non-sale options to stay in the US after the Supreme Court upheld a national security law requiring that TikTok’s US operations either be shut down or sold to a non-foreign adversary. Last weekend, TikTok briefly went dark in the US, only to come back online hours later
READ MORESeverance Pay in a Termination Agreement If you’re laid off from your job, a severance package may provide you with financial stability until you find another position. However, some employers may limit or decrease your severance pay calculator depending on the circumstances and the company’s existing policies. Fortunately, you can try to negotiate these terms
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Exceptions may be granted Ezell’s memo expanded criticism of the Biden administration’s approach to remote work, suggesting that it enabled federal unions’ alleged attempts “to abuse the collective-bargaining process to guarantee full-time telework into the indefinite future and forestall any requirement to return to the office.” Suspecting that the “rampant use of telework is likely
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“Effective immediately, the Department of Homeland Security will no longer tolerate any advisory committee[s] which push agendas that attempt to undermine its national security mission, the President’s agenda or Constitutional rights of Americans,” the DHS statement said. The Cyber Safety Review Board operates under the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which has been
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While some of Apple’s defense was deemed “demonstrably inaccurate” and most of its arguments “insufficient,” Apple did successfully argue against efforts to seize back pay for former female employees no longer working for Apple who were seemingly also impacted by allegedly sexist policies implemented in 2020. That claim must be dropped as the proposed class
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Since retiring, Fauci has been under federal protection due to death threats on his life and the life of his family. In issuing the pardon, Biden emphasized that Fauci is not guilty of any wrongdoing. He justified the uncommon pardon by arguing that it is, essentially, a good-conscience effort to protect from a political witch
READ MOREOccupation Orders Be Granted For Family Members A family home is often the most emotional place for a victim of domestic violence, particularly if they are living with their abuser. The Family Court can offer a number of protection mechanisms that allow victims to feel secure in their own homes. This includes occupation orders which
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Trump said in November that DOGE “will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” Yesterday’s executive order said the department will focus on “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” Federal agencies will have to collaborate with DOGE.
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The United States noticed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2020 due to the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member
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At a rally Sunday, he did not clarify if this meant a US-based business or the government itself. “So they’ll have a partner, the United States, and they’ll have a lot of bidders … And there’s no risk, we’re not putting up any money. All we’re doing is giving them the approval without which they
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Just a few days after more than 700 million new users flooded RedNote—which Time noted is “the most apolitical social platform in China”—rumors began swirling that RedNote may soon start segregating American users and other foreign IPs from the app’s Chinese users. In the “TikTokCringe” subreddit, a video from a RedNote user with red eyes,
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Earlier in the week, Germany’s defence ministry and foreign ministry said they were suspending their activity on X, with the defence ministry saying it had become increasingly “unhappy” with the platform. When asked if the expanded probe was a response to a discussion Musk conducted last week with AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, in which she
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TikTok has lost its Supreme Court appeal in a 9–0 decision and will likely shut down on January 19, a day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, unless the app can be sold before the deadline, which TikTok has said is impossible. During the trial last Friday, TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco warned SCOTUS that upholding the Biden
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This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. There is renewed talk of a coal power comeback in the United States, inspired by Donald Trump’s return to the presidency and forecasts of soaring electricity demand. The evidence
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The FTC said its complaint alleged that “GM used a misleading enrollment process to get consumers to sign up for its OnStar connected vehicle service and the OnStar Smart Driver feature.” Lina Khan, who is in her final week as FTC chair, said that “GM monitored and sold people’s precise geolocation data and driver behavior
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Late last year, California passed a law against the possession or distribution of child sex abuse material (CSAM) that has been generated by AI. The law went into effect on January 1, and Sacramento police announced yesterday that they have already arrested their first suspect—a 49-year-old Pulitzer-prize-winning cartoonist named Darrin Bell. The new law, which
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Rejecting all four, Rosenworcel said “the facts and legal circumstances in each of these cases are different. But what they share is that they seek to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment. To do so would set a dangerous precedent. That is
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Cell phones are magnets for our attention, but you can, of course, face significant legal jeopardy for giving them that attention. Just ask the “safety driver” of an Uber self-driving vehicle, which hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona in 2018. According to authorities, the driver was watching The Voice on Hulu just before the
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The lawsuit was filed in the waning days of the Biden administration, and the next administration is less likely to aggressively pursue a charge against Musk. President-elect Donald Trump picked Musk to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE,” as part of a plan to eliminate regulations and restructure federal agencies. New SEC
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“You can use VPNs, the click of a button, to make it seem like you’re not in Texas,” Shaffer argued. “You can go through the search engines, you can go through social media, you can access the same content in the ways that kids are likeliest to do.” Texas attorney Aaron Nielson argued that the
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The FBI said today that it removed Chinese malware from 4,258 US-based computers and networks by sending commands that forced the malware to use its “self-delete” function. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government paid the Mustang Panda group to develop a version of PlugX malware used to infect, control, and steal information from victim
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Anticipating that 2025 will be an “intense year” requiring rapid innovation, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly announced that Meta would be cutting 5 percent of its workforce—targeting “lowest performers.” Bloomberg reviewed the internal memo explaining the cuts, which was posted to Meta’s internal Workplace forum Tuesday. In it, Zuckerberg confirmed that Meta was shifting its strategy to
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1.7 million New York households lost FCC discount The order said quick implementation of the law is important because of “developments at the federal level impacting the affordability of broadband service.” About 1.7 million New York households, and 23 million nationwide, used to receive a monthly discount through an FCC program that expired in mid-2024
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And perhaps in a nod to Meta’s recent changes, Mastodon also vowed to “invest deeply in trust and safety” and ensure “everyone, especially marginalized communities,” feels “safe” on the platform. To become a more user-focused paradise of “resilient, governable, open and safe digital spaces,” Mastodon is going to need a lot more funding. The blog
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Plaintiffs contend that “Google should be disgorged of all its profits derived from serving any ads to (s)WAA-off users. Google “denies that any (s)WAA-off data is saved to a user’s marketing profile, which precludes it from personalizing advertising to a WAA-off users.” Google says the data is “intended to be shared with only developers through
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At the end of 2024, a US court authorized the Department of Justice to sell 69,370 bitcoins from “the largest cryptocurrency seizure in history.” At bitcoin’s current price, just under $92,000, these bitcoins are worth nearly $6.4 billion, and crypto outlets are reporting that DOJ officials have said they’re planning to proceed with selling off
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Musk, who founded his own AI startup xAI in 2023, has recently stepped up efforts to derail OpenAI’s conversion. In November, he sought to block the process with a request for a preliminary injunction filed in California. Meta has also thrown its weight behind the suit. In legal filings from November, Musk’s team wrote: “OpenAI
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A British judge ruled against a man who wants to excavate a landfill where he says a hard drive with access to thousands of bitcoins was mistakenly dumped over 11 years ago. Since 2013, James Howells has been hoping to recover a laptop hard drive that he says contains the private key for cryptocurrency which
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Microsoft and others forbid using their generative AI systems to create various content. Content that is off limits includes materials that feature or promote sexual exploitation or abuse, is erotic or pornographic, or attacks, denigrates, or excludes people based on race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability status, or similar
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Meta has reportedly ended diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs that influenced staff hiring and training, as well as vendor decisions, effective immediately. According to an internal memo viewed by Axios and verified by Ars, Meta’s vice president of human resources, Janelle Gale, told Meta employees that the shift was due to “legal and policy
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A backstop That said, the team behind the analysis argues that, depending on other factors, the rules could play a significant role. Trump has suggested he will target all of Biden’s energy policies, and that would include the IRA itself. Its repeal could significantly slow the growth of renewable energy in the US, as could
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When X CEO Linda Yaccarino took the stage as a keynote speaker at CES 2025, she revealed that “90 percent of the advertisers” who boycotted X over brand safety concerns since Elon Musk’s 2022 Twitter acquisition “are back on X.” Yaccarino did not go into any further detail to back up the data point, and
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“All voice and 5G data services for AT&T wireless customers were unavailable, affecting more than 125 million devices, blocking more than 92 million voice calls, and preventing more than 25,000 calls to 911 call centers,” the Federal Communications Commission said in a report after a months-long investigation into the incident. The FCC report said the
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In just 20 minutes this morning, an automated license-plate-recognition (ALPR) system in Nashville, Tennessee, captured photographs and detailed information from nearly 1,000 vehicles as they passed by. Among them: eight black Jeep Wranglers, six Honda Accords, an ambulance, and a yellow Ford Fiesta with a vanity plate. This trove of real-time vehicle data, collected by
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The Justice Department says that landlords did more than use RealPage in the alleged pricing scheme. “Along with using RealPage’s anticompetitive pricing algorithms, these landlords coordinated through a variety of means,” such as “directly communicating with competitors’ senior managers about rents, occupancy, and other competitively sensitive topics,” the DOJ said. There were “call arounds” in
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Meta announced today that it’s ending the third-party fact-checking program it introduced in 2016, and will rely instead on a Community Notes approach similar to what’s used on Elon Musk’s X platform. The end of third-party fact-checking and related changes to Meta policies could help the company make friends in the Trump administration and in
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Waymo says the problem only caused a delay of just over five minutes and that Johns was not charged for the trip. A spokesperson for Waymo, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet, told Ars today that the “looping event” occurred on December 9 and was later addressed during a regularly scheduled software update. Waymo
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It’s January, and for people in the US, that means the same thing it’s meant every January since 2019: a new batch of previously copyrighted works have entered the public domain. People can publish, modify, and adapt these works and their characters without needing to clear rights or pay royalties. This year’s introductions cover books,
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Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its voice assistant Siri routinely recorded private conversations that were then shared with third parties and used for targeted ads. In the proposed class-action settlement—which comes after five years of litigation—Apple admitted to no wrongdoing. Instead, the settlement refers to “unintentional” Siri
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The US government finally got its metaphorical hands on Do Hyeong Kwon, the 33-year-old Korean national who built a financial empire on the cryptocurrency Luna and the “stablecoin” TerraUSD, only to see it all come crashing down in a wipeout that cost investors $40 billion. As private investors filed lawsuits, and as the governments of
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Anthropic did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment on how guardrails currently work to prevent the alleged jailbreaks, but publishers appear satisfied by current guardrails in accepting the deal. Whether AI training on lyrics is infringing remains unsettled Now, the matter of whether Anthropic has strong enough guardrails to block allegedly harmful outputs
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“The key here is not whether Broadband Internet Service Providers utilize telecommunications; it is instead whether they do so while offering to consumers the capability to do more,” Griffin wrote, concluding that “they do.” “The FCC exceeded its statutory authority,” Griffin wrote, at one point accusing the FCC of arguing for a reading of the
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It’s getting harder to access popular adult sites in the US South. On Wednesday, Pornhub’s owner, Aylo, kicked off the new year by blocking two more states that implemented age verification laws requiring ID to access porn, Florida and South Carolina. According to 404 Media, these states are now among 16 states where Aylo sites, including
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But Russia presumably gets no taxes on illegal crypto mining, and power outages can be costly for everyone in a region. So next year, Russia will ban crypto mining in 10 regions for six years and place seasonal restrictions that would disrupt some crypto mining operations during the coldest winter months in regions like Irkutsk,
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Several members of Congress— Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—filed a brief agreeing that “the TikTok ban does not survive First Amendment scrutiny.” They agreed with TikTok that the law is “illegitimate.” Lawmakers’ “principle justification” for the ban—”preventing covert content manipulation by the Chinese government”—masked a “desire”
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John Lopatka, a former consultant to the FTC who now teaches antitrust law at Penn State, told ProPublica that the Microsoft actions detailed in the news organization’s recent reporting followed “a very familiar pattern” of behavior. “It does echo the Microsoft case” from decades ago, said Lopatka, who co-authored a book on that case. In
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It feels like tech workers have caught very few breaks over the past several years, between ongoing mass layoffs, stagnating wages amid inflation, AI supposedly coming for jobs, and unpopular orders to return to office that, for many, threaten to disrupt work-life balance. But in 2024, a potentially critical mass of tech workers seemed to
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Defending his livelihood, Neumayer started asking questions. At first, that led to his videos being reinstated. But that victory was short-lived, as the supposed Nintendo lawyer only escalated his demands, spooking the YouTuber into voluntarily removing some videos, The Verge reported, while continuing to investigate the potential troll. Reaching out directly to Nintendo helped, but
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OpenAI has finally shared details about its plans to shake up its core business by shifting to a for-profit corporate structure. On Thursday, OpenAI posted on its blog, confirming that in 2025, the existing for-profit arm will be transformed into a Delaware-based public benefit corporation (PBC). As a PBC, OpenAI would be required to balance
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“While not yet ready for full commercial service, T-Mobile Starlink was turned on temporarily to provide a critical communication option for those without any other means to reach emergency responders and loved ones during Hurricanes Helene and Milton,” the carrier said. “Even without the full constellation in place, customers with capable devices were able to
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In his report, Sanders noted that Amazon is much too big to be held accountable by current maximum penalties for workplace safety violations, which are just over $16,000. Penalties for 50 violations for one two-year period were just $300,000, Sanders said, which was “approximately 1 percent of Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s total compensation in 2023.”
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Hackers trying to extort the Rhode Island government infiltrated the state’s public benefits system, causing state officials to shut down online services that let residents apply for Medicaid and other assistance programs. “As part of this investigation today, we discovered that within the Rhode Island Bridges system, a cybercriminal had installed dangerous malware that constituted
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TikTok: Ban is slippery slope to broad US censorship According to TikTok, the government’s defense of the ban to prevent China from wielding a “covert” influence over Americans is a farce invented by lawyers to cover up the true mission of censorship. If the lower court’s verdict stands, TikTok alleged, “then Congress will have free
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Under Joe Biden’s direction, the US Trade Representative (USTR) launched a probe Monday into China’s plans to globally dominate markets for legacy chips—alleging that China’s unfair trade practices threaten US national security and could thwart US efforts to build up a domestic semiconductor supply chain. Unlike the most advanced chips used to power artificial intelligence
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For every illegal drug, there is a combination of emojis that dealers and consumers use to evade detection on social media and messaging platforms. Snowflakes, snowfall, and snowmen symbolize cocaine. Love hearts, lightning bolts, and pill capsules mean MDMA, or molly. Brown hearts and dragons represent heroin. Grapes and baby bottles are the calling cards
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Chinese hackers use botnet of TP-Link routers Microsoft warned on October 31 that hackers working for the Chinese government are using a botnet of thousands of routers, cameras, and other Internet-connected devices for attacks on users of Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. Microsoft said that “SOHO routers manufactured by TP-Link make up most of this network,”
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While the controversial US law doesn’t necessarily ban TikTok, it does seem designed to make TikTok “go away,” Greene said, and such a move to interfere with a widely used communications platform seems “unprecedented.” “The TikTok ban itself and the DC Circuit’s approval of it should be of great concern even to those who find
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Amazon workers at seven warehouses walked out Thursday morning, launching a strike ahead of the holidays after Amazon failed to meet a bargaining deadline set by the Teamsters union representing the workers. In a press release, Teamsters declared it “the largest strike against Amazon in US history.” Teamsters general president, Sean O’Brien, warned shoppers of
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Yesterday, US Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Joshua Hawley (R-MO) sent letters to the heads of Ford, General Motors, and Tesla, as well as the US heads of Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Stellantis, Subaru, Toyota, and Volkswagen, excoriating them over their opposition to the right-to-repair movement. “We need to hit the brakes on
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Wright’s lawsuit names a defendant he calls “BTC Core,” which apparently doesn’t exist. Wright alleges that BTC Core “partners” include 122 corporate entities and 22 individuals who contributed to bitcoin development and research. Wright also named BTC Core as a defendant in a 2022 lawsuit. This week’s court ruling said that “COPA (and others) say
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The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily banned drones over parts of New Jersey yesterday and said “the United States government may use deadly force against” airborne aircraft “if it is determined that the aircraft poses an imminent security threat.” The FAA issued 22 orders imposing “temporary flight restrictions for special security reasons” until January 17, 2025.
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“I’m fighting with Google now,” Townsend told Ars. “I don’t expect any real answers from them.” How YouTubers can avoid being targeted As YouTube appears evasive, Townsend has been grateful for long-time subscribers commenting to show support, which may help get his videos amplified more by the algorithm. On YouTube, he also said that because
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An AT&T customer who switched to the company’s FirstNet service for first responders got quite the shock when his bill came in at $6,223.60, instead of the roughly $260 that his four-line plan previously cost each month. The Texas man described his experience in a now-deleted Reddit post three days ago, saying he hadn’t been
READ MOREworkplace harassment be resolved through negotiation Often, the best way to resolve workplace harassment is through negotiations. However, the process is not always easy for victims of sexual assault and abuse who may be dealing with feelings of fear, anxiety, and retaliation as they pursue their rights. It is also a challenge for managers who
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Concern about RTO planning is underscored by Amazon reportedly lacking enough space for its current in-office policy. Bloomberg said that “in recent interviews, employees complained of working from shared desks, crowded corporate canteens, and a lack of conference rooms for confidential calls or team meetings.” The publication also pointed to employee displeasure with having to
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The Supreme Court petition was filed by the New York State Telecommunications Association, CTIA-The Wireless Association, NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association, USTelecom, ACA Connects-America’s Communications Association, and the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association. Cable lobby group NCTA filed a brief supporting the petition. New York Attorney General Letitia James defended the state law in a Supreme
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Still, the study provides insight into how employees respond to RTO mandates and the effect it has on corporations and available talent at a time when entities like Dell, Amazon, and the US government are getting stricter about in-office work. Higher turnover rates The researchers concluded that the average turnover rates for firms increased by
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President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, wants the FCC to crack down on news broadcasters that he perceives as being unfair to Trump or Republicans in general. Carr’s stated goals would appear to mark a major shift in the FCC’s approach to broadcasters. Carr’s predecessors, including outgoing Chairwoman Jessica
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Matthew Decker is the former chief information officer for Penn State University’s Applied Research Laboratory. As of October, he’s also $250,000 richer. In his Penn State position, Decker was well placed to see that the university was not implementing all of the cybersecurity controls that were required by its various contracts with NASA and the
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The US is prepared to fight the injunction. In a letter, the US Justice Department argued that the court has already “definitively rejected petitioners’ constitutional claims” and no further briefing should be needed before rejecting the injunction. If the court denies the injunction, TikTok plans to immediately ask SCOTUS for an injunction next. That’s part
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A loss could lead to heavy fines for Character Technologies and possibly Google, as the families have asked for punitive damages. They also seek money to cover their families’ past and future medical expenses, mental pain and suffering, impairment to perform everyday activities, and loss of enjoyment of life. C.AI bots accused of grooming, inciting
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A bitcoin investor who went to increasingly great lengths to hide $1 million in cryptocurrency gains on his tax returns was sentenced to two years in prison on Thursday. It seems that not even his most “sophisticated” tactics—including using mixers, managing multiple wallets, and setting up in-person meetings to swap bitcoins for cash—kept the feds
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An SEC spokesperson told Ars today that the commission’s policy is “to conduct investigations on a confidential basis to preserve the integrity of its investigative process. The SEC therefore does not comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation.” A Reuters source confirmed the settlement offer. “The SEC sent Musk a settlement offer
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Telecom companies aren’t required to notify customers about every breach. A Federal Communications Commission order in December 2023 adopted a “harm-based notification trigger” in which “notification of a breach to consumers is not required in cases where a carrier can reasonably determine that no harm to customers is reasonably likely to occur as a result
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Following a pair of lawsuits alleging that chatbots caused a teen boy’s suicide, groomed a 9-year-old girl, and caused a vulnerable teen to self-harm, Character.AI (C.AI) has announced a separate model just for teens, ages 13 and up, that’s supposed to make their experiences with bots safer. In a blog, C.AI said it took a
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Google reportedly wants the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to end Microsoft’s exclusive cloud deal with OpenAI that requires anyone wanting access to OpenAI’s models to go through Microsoft’s servers. Someone “directly involved” in Google’s effort told The Information that Google’s request came after the FTC began broadly probing how Microsoft’s cloud computing business practices
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Photobucket was sued Wednesday after a recent privacy policy update revealed plans to sell users’ photos—including biometric identifiers like face and iris scans—to companies training generative AI models. The proposed class action seeks to stop Photobucket from selling users’ data without first obtaining written consent, alleging that Photobucket either intentionally or negligently failed to comply
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The intake form “was included in an email thread between a Fog representative and Bryan Kimbell, chief human trafficking investigator at the Office of the Attorney General in Georgia,” according to 404 Media. Services like Fog Data Science have triggered concerns about how police might use location tracking to prosecute abortions. “For several thousand dollars
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Advocates: Micron needs to explain what a “good job” is But while Neuffer joined Harris’ and the Commerce Department’s chorus, praising the award for creating “high-paying American jobs,” bolstering US national and economic security, and fueling “innovation for years to come,” communities are raising questions. Advocates with Jobs to Move America (JMA)—who are organizing ahead
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“Commenters have clearly demonstrated how fees and overage charges, unclear information about data caps, and throttling or caps in the midst of public crises such as natural disasters negatively affect consumers, especially consumers in the lowest income brackets,” the filing said. The groups said that “many low-income households have no choice but to be limited
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When Apple devices are used to spread CSAM, it’s a huge problem for survivors, who allegedly face a range of harms, including “exposure to predators, sexual exploitation, dissociative behavior, withdrawal symptoms, social isolation, damage to body image and self-worth, increased risky behavior, and profound mental health issues, including but not limited to depression, anxiety, suicidal
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But while Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said that these new curbs would help prevent “China from advancing its domestic semiconductor manufacturing system” to modernize its military, analysts and “several US officials” told The Post that they pack “far less punch” than the prior two rounds of export controls. Analysts told The Wall Street Journal that
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Oh, Enron, I thought—hoped and dreamed?—you were long, long gone, confined to the dustbin of history reserved for seriously fraudulent companies. But apparently not. More than two decades after Enron’s bankruptcy in December 2001, the company is back. Well, at least an entity using the website Enron.com went public on Monday, announcing Enron’s relaunch as
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The ongoing rally has begun to make some of the earliest purchases using crypto appear a little ill-advised—like when Laszlo Hanyecz spent 10,000 bitcoins on two pizzas in 2010, then worth $40 but now worth $1 billion, the Times noted. But for those who have held tight to bitcoins while enduring crypto winters, bitcoin’s rise
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On the evening of November 19, art adviser Adam Biesk was finishing work at his California home when he overheard a conversation between his wife and son, who had just come downstairs. The son, a kid in his early teens, was saying he had made a ton of money on a cryptocurrency that he himself
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For Booking.com, it’s essential that users can book travel for other users by adding their email addresses to a booking because that’s how people frequently book trips together. And if it happens that the email address added to a booking is also linked to an existing Booking.com user, the trip is automatically added to that
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“What the Act targets is the PRC’s ability to manipulate that content covertly,” the ruling said. “Understood in that way, the Government’s justification is wholly consonant with the First Amendment.” TikTok likely to appeal to Supreme Court TikTok is unsurprisingly frustrated by the ruling. In a statement provided to Ars, TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes confirmed
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AT&T planned to hit that milestone by 2025 but achieved it this year, she said. But as Johnson stressed, AT&T wants to get rid of copper in the remaining 500,000 square miles. “This is really good progress… however, without the full discontinuance of services across an entire wire center geography, we’re unable to stop the
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The compliance monitor is supposed to ensure that “Boeing implements a program designed to prevent and detect violations of US fraud laws,” O’Connor wrote. Failing to retain a monitor would violate Boeing’s probation, but O’Connor said that Boeing wouldn’t actually have to comply with the monitor’s recommendations. “[T]he plea agreement prohibits imposing as a condition
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In a statement to Ars, Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said that claims that Amazon’s “business practices are somehow discriminatory or deceptive” are “categorically false.” Nantel said that Amazon started using third-party services to deliver to these areas to “put the safety of delivery drivers first.” “In the ZIP codes in question, there have been specific
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An unnamed FBI official was quoted in the same report as saying that phone users “would benefit from considering using a cellphone that automatically receives timely operating system updates, responsibly managed encryption, and phishing-resistant” multifactor authentication for email accounts, social media, and collaboration tools. The FBI official reportedly said the hackers obtained metadata showing the
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Although China’s response to the latest curbs was swift and seemingly strong, experts told Ars that China’s response to Biden’s last round of tariffs was relatively muted. It’s possible that this week’s ban on exports into the US could also be a response to President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to increase tariffs on all Chinese goods
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Plan unlikely to survive Trump administration CFPB Director Rohit Chopra touted the proposed rule, saying it targets brokers who sell “our most sensitive personal data without our knowledge or consent” and “profit by enabling scamming, stalking, and spying.” But whether the proposal ever becomes a rule is doubtful because of the impending leadership change in
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The new stockholder vote could shift the burden of proof, but only if the vote is “fully informed and uncoerced,” McCormick wrote. Shareholder Richard Tornetta, the plaintiff who launched the lawsuit that got Musk’s pay rescinded, “has demonstrated that the vote was not fully informed,” today’s ruling said. The January ruling in which McCormick voided
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OpenAI provided a statement to Ars today saying that “Elon’s fourth attempt, which again recycles the same baseless complaints, continues to be utterly without merit.” OpenAI referred to a longer statement that it made in March after Musk filed an earlier version of his lawsuit. The March statement disputes Musk’s version of events. “In late
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The world’s most important climate talks were pulled back from the brink of collapse after poorer countries reluctantly accepted a finance package of “at least” $300 billion a year from wealthy nations after bitter negotiations. Fears about stretched budgets around the world and the election of Donald Trump as US president, who has described climate
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The US Supreme Court will hear appeals of a 5th Circuit ruling that called Universal Service fees on phone bills an illegal tax. The US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled in July that the Federal Communications Commission’s Universal Service Fund is unconstitutional and that the fees on phone bills are a “misbegotten
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One of the fastest monopoly trials on record wound down Monday, as US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema heard closing arguments on Google’s alleged monopoly in a case over the company’s ad tech. Department of Justice lawyer Aaron Teitelbaum kicked things off by telling Brinkema that Google “rigged” ad auctions, allegedly controlling “multiple parts” of
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Trump had in particular targeted Mexico on the campaign trail, threatening to impose “whatever tariffs are required—100 percent, 200 percent, 1,000 percent” to stop Chinese cars from crossing the southern border. He has also warned Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, he would impose tariffs of 25 percent if she did not crack down on the “onslaught
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Prior authorization Elsewhere in the over 700-page proposal, the administration lays out policy that would bar Medicare Advantage plan providers from reopening and reneging on paying claims for inpatient hospital admission if those claims had already been granted approval through prior authorization. The proposal also wants to make criteria for coverage clearer and help ensure
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Additionally, the DOJ wants Mehta to stop Google from any potential self-preferencing, such as making an AI product mandatory on Android devices Google controls or preventing a rival from distribution on Android devices. The government seems very concerned that Google may use its ownership of Android to play games in the emerging AI sector. They’ve
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Eliminating cellular dead zones Starlink says it will offer texting service this year as well as voice and data services in 2025. Starlink does not yet have FCC approval to exceed certain emissions limits, which the company has said will be detrimental for real-time voice and video communications. For the operations approved yesterday, Starlink is
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On Tuesday, the Biden-Harris administration finalized a CHIPS award of up to $7.865 billion to help fund the expansion of Intel’s commercial fabs in the US. By the end of the decade, these fabs are intended to decrease reliance on foreign adversaries and fill substantial gaps in America’s domestic semiconductor supply chain. Initially, Intel was
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If the FCC leadership wasn’t changing hands, the Notice of Inquiry could be the first step toward a rulemaking. “We cannot ignore these complaints, especially not when we know that it is possible to do better… We want to help improve the customer experience, understand what tools we have to do so, and what gaps
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Record labels vs. ISPs Cox has said that letting the piracy ruling stand “would force ISPs to terminate Internet service to households or businesses based on unproven allegations of infringing activity, and put them in a position of having to police their networks.” Cox said that ISPs “have no way of verifying whether a bot-generated
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Once OpenAI figured out what happened, data was restored, OpenAI said. But the NYT alleged that the only data that OpenAI could recover did “not include the original folder structure and original file names” and therefore “is unreliable and cannot be used to determine where the News Plaintiffs’ copied articles were used to build Defendants’
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Many Internet users filed comments asking the FCC to ban data caps. A coalition of consumer advocacy groups filed comments saying that “data caps are another profit-driving tool for ISPs at the expense of consumers and the public interest.” “Data caps have a negative impact on all consumers but the effects are felt most acutely
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For years, hashing technology has made it possible for platforms to automatically detect known child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) to stop kids from being retraumatized online. However, rapidly detecting new or unknown CSAM remained a bigger challenge for platforms as new victims continued to be victimized. Now, AI may be ready to change that. Today,
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Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced today that she will leave the agency on January 20, 2025, the day of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. “Serving at the Federal Communications Commission has been the honor of a lifetime, especially my tenure as chair and as the first woman in history to be confirmed to lead
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US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York have called on government bodies to investigate what they allege is the “predatory pricing” of .com web addresses, the Internet’s prime real estate. In a letter delivered today to the Department of Justice and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a branch
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The law also says the NTIA may not “regulate the rates charged for broadband service,” and Republicans claim the NTIA is violating this restriction. A July 23 letter sent by over 30 broadband industry trade groups also alleged that the administration is illegally regulating broadband prices. ISPs pointed to NTIA guidance that “strongly encouraged” states
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DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow indicated his company wasn’t willing to change the deal to satisfy Dish bondholders. “We have terminated the transaction because the proposed Exchange Terms were necessary to protect DirecTV’s balance sheet and our operational flexibility,” Morrow said. AT&T still selling DirecTV stake AT&T owns 70 percent of DirecTV but plans to sell
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Parents’ other claims rejected The Harrises also claim that school officials engaged in a “pervasive pattern of threats, intimidation, coercion, bullying, harassment, and intimation of reprisals.” But Levenson concluded that the “plaintiffs provide little in the way of factual allegations along these lines.” While the case isn’t over, the rejection of the preliminary injunction shows
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Hepner expects that the DOJ plan may be measured enough that the court may only “be interested in a nip-tuck, not a wholesale revision of what plaintiffs have put forward.” Kamyl Bazbaz, SVP of public affairs for Google’s more privacy-focused rival DuckDuckGo, released a statement agreeing with Hepner. “The government has put forward a proposal
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Comcast today announced plans to spin off NBCUniversal cable TV networks such as USA, CNBC, and MSNBC into a new publicly traded company. Comcast is trying to complete the spinoff in one year, effectively unwinding part of the NBCUniversal acquisition it completed in 2011. The entities in the planned spinoff generated about $7 billion of
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“The public interest in the preservation of intellectual property rights weighs heavily against the injunction sought here, which would force Apple to distribute an app over the repeated and consistent objections of non-parties who allege their rights are infringed by the app,” Apple argued. Musi fans vow loyalty For Musi fans expressing their suffering on Reddit,
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The Starlink waitlist is back in certain parts of the US, including several large cities on the West Coast and in Texas. The Starlink availability map says the service is sold out in and around Seattle; Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon; San Diego; Sacramento, California; and Austin, Texas. Neighboring cities and towns are included in the
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Preferred by 61 percent of Internet users, Google’s Chrome browser plays too big a role in maintaining the tech giant’s search monopoly, the US Department of Justice has reportedly decided. On Monday, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that top antitrust officials are planning to ask the court on Wednesday to order Google to
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An AI-generated nude photo scandal has shut down a Pennsylvania private school. On Monday, classes were canceled after parents forced leaders to either resign or face a lawsuit potentially seeking criminal penalties and accusing the school of skipping mandatory reporting of the harmful images. The outcry erupted after a single student created sexually explicit AI
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The AISI is supposed to protect the US from risky AI models by conducting safety testing to detect harms before models are deployed. Testing should “address risks to human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties, such as those related to privacy, discrimination and bias, freedom of expression, and the safety of individuals and groups,” President
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The FTC also highlighted fees charged on users transferring data out of certain cloud systems and minimum spend contracts, which offer discounts to companies in return for a set level of spending. Microsoft has also attracted scrutiny from international regulators over similar matters. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is investigating Microsoft and Amazon after
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“We’re essentially creating a microgrid at the port,” she said. Improving the air for disadvantaged communities The Clean Ports funding will also be a boon for people like Garcia, who live near a US shipping port. Shipping ports are notorious for their diesel pollution, which research has shown disproportionately affects poor communities of color. And
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X has continued to make interest payments on the debt, even with its business challenges. Bankers as recently as September had given up on the prospect of convincing Musk to use his Tesla or SpaceX stock as collateral for a margin loan to pay down a portion of X’s loans. Bolstering X’s flailing business will
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FBI Director Christopher Wray said that his sentence should serve as “a stark warning to all those entrusted with protecting national defense information: betray that trust, and you will be held accountable.” FBI vows to watch for more leaks After Teixeira’s crimes were exposed, the now-22-year-old’s former classmates came out, suggesting that Teixeira had always
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President-elect Donald Trump today announced that a new Department of Government Efficiency—or “DOGE”—will be led by Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk and Ramaswamy, who founded pharma company Roivant Sciences, “will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,”
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Bitcoin hit a new record high late Monday, its value peaking at $89,623 as investors quickly moved to cash in on expectations that Donald Trump will end a White House crackdown that intensified last year on crypto. While the trading rally has now paused, analysts predict that bitcoin’s value will only continue rising following Trump’s
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The big three record labels notched another court victory against a broadband provider last month, but the music publishing firms aren’t happy that an appeals court only awarded per-album damages instead of damages for each song. Universal, Warner, and Sony are seeking an en banc rehearing of the copyright infringement case, claiming that Internet service
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A Nigerian man living in the United Kingdom has been sentenced to 10 years for his role in a phishing scam that snatched more than $20 million from over 400 would-be home buyers in the US, including some savers who lost their entire nest eggs. Late last week, the US Department of Justice confirmed that
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The lawsuit further claims that while FTX was “in freefall, Zhao sent additional false tweets calculated, in part, to prevent FTX from seeking and obtaining alternative financing to cauterize the run on the institution by customers deceived by the tweets. Collectively and individually, these false public statements destroyed value that would have otherwise been recoverable
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Universal Music Group yesterday sued a music firm that allegedly distributes pirated songs on popular streaming services under misspelled versions of popular artists’ names—such as “Kendrik Laamar,” “Arriana Gramde,” “Jutin Biber,” and “Llady Gaga.” The UMG Recordings lawsuit against the French company Believe and its US-based subsidiary, TuneCore, alleges that “Believe is fully aware that
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That’s not the only uncertainty at play. Just last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson—a staunch Trump supporter—said that Republicans “probably will” repeal the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which is a Biden initiative to spur domestic semiconductor chip production, among other aims. Trump has previously spoken out against the bill. After getting some pushback on
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The company is understood to be particularly wary of being targeted as unreliable or uncooperative as Donald Trump is set to become the next US president. This year, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” the US chip industry, and suggested TSMC could move its production back home after pocketing billions of dollars in subsidies from Washington
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Meta has defeated a lawsuit—for now—that attempted to invoke Section 230 protections for a third-party tool that would have made it easy for Facebook users to toggle on and off their news feeds as they pleased. The lawsuit was filed by Ethan Zuckerman, a professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst. He feared that Meta might
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Densmore likely motivated by fame Online, Densmore was known in so-called “Sewer” communities under the alias “Rabid.” During their investigation, the FBI found that Densmore kept a collection of “child pornography and bloody images of ‘Rabid,’ ‘Sewer,’ and ‘764’ carved into victims’ limbs, in some cases with razor blades and boxcutters nearby.” He also sexually
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Supreme Court ruling could hurt FCC case Both AT&T and Verizon cite the Supreme Court’s June 2024 ruling in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, which held that “when the SEC seeks civil penalties against a defendant for securities fraud, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant to a jury trial.” The Supreme Court ruling, which
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The chair does not have unlimited power, of course. Congress can expand or reduce the FCC’s authority by passing new laws or eliminating existing ones. FCC decisions are routinely challenged in court, and a recent Supreme Court ruling limited the regulatory authority of federal agencies. Carr wants the FCC to regulate less, at least when
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“Had Intel disclosed the defect, including through advertising, press releases, the Product packaging, or the initial setup process, Plaintiff and class members would not have purchased a Product, or would have paid substantially less for it,” Vanvalkenburgh’s complaint said. According to Tom’s Hardware, “Intel’s 13th Generation Raptor Lake processors have a return rate four times
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It would be unusual for Trump to meddle with the DOJ’s ongoing litigation, antitrust expert George Hay told Business Insider, but then again, “Trump is a bit more of a wild card.” “It’s very rare that, at the presidential level, there’s any attempt to influence the course of cases which have already been filed. Those
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Any costs of new tariffs “would be passed on to consumers, and consumers would purchase less of those products,” Brzytwa said. “In our view, that is not supportive of innovation when people are not purchasing the latest technologies that might be more capable, more energy-efficient, and might have new features in them that allow us
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is accusing Grindr of using a return-to-office (RTO) mandate in an attempt to block employee efforts to form a union. On July 20, 2023, employees at the LGBTQ+ dating app announced plans to unionize. On August 3, 2023, Grindr told employees that they had two weeks to decide if
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But Freeman ruled that “May suffered economic harm because of third-party scammers’ fraudulent inducement, not Google’s omission or misrepresentation.” Additionally, May failed to show that Google had any duty to refund customers after Google cited Target and Walmart policies to show that it’s common to refuse refunds. Scam victims did not use gift card “as
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According to Facebook, news broke about the Cambridge Analytica data breach in 2015, and its business wasn’t immediately harmed. Following that logic, the social media company hopes that SCOTUS will agree that Facebook was only required to disclose the data breach in its SEC filing if Facebook knew its business would likely be harmed from
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X, formerly Twitter, is now letting blocked users see posts made by the people who blocked them. “We’re starting to launch the block function update,” X’s engineering team wrote yesterday. X previously said that after the change, “If your posts are set to public, accounts you have blocked will be able to view them, but
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Project 2025 did not mention NOAA’s work with wildfires. Its authors did not respond to questions about whether firefighters and people living in wildfire-prone areas would need to pay for access to wildfire weather information under their privatization proposals. Partnering with academia To execute some of its climate research, NOAA partners with universities across the
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Russia has fined Google an amount that no entity on the planet could pay in hopes of getting YouTube to lift bans on Russian channels, including pro-Kremlin and state-run news outlets. The BBC wrote that a Russian court fined Google two undecillion rubles, which in dollar terms is $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The amount “is far greater than
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More than 500 Amazon workers reportedly signed a letter to Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) CEO this week, sharing their outrage over Amazon’s upcoming return-to-office (RTO) policy that will force workers into offices five days per week. In September, Amazon announced that starting in 2025, workers will no longer be allowed to work remotely twice a
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Gillespie told Ars that local communities are hampered by “archaic 1950’s regulations. We are being left behind when it comes to the modern advancements in public safety and personal communications.” He said that “absent some relief in a timely fashion, we will explore taking our plight to the FCC seeking waivers.” The Pendleton County Commission
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The department also cited “strict chain of custody requirements that track when a voting systems component has been accessed and by whom,” and it said that each “Colorado voter votes on a paper ballot, which is then audited during the Risk Limiting Audit to verify that ballots were counted according to voter intent.” Goal is
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Earlier this week, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. used a Zoom call to tell his supporters that Donald Trump had promised him “control” of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal agency that includes the Centers for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, as well as the Department of
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In July, an international NGO that monitors human rights abuses and corruption, Global Witness, found 45 “bot-like accounts that collectively produced around 610,000 posts” in a two-month period this summer on X, “amplifying racist and sexualized abuse, conspiracy theories, and climate disinformation” ahead of the UK general election. Those accounts “posted prolifically during the UK
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Repeatedly in the course of the documentary, Todd confesses to being Satoshi, before retreating from the admission. “By the way, everyone is Satoshi,” says Todd, after one such confession. “I was trolling the shit out of him,” Todd says, of the moment Hoback confronts him with the theory that he is Satoshi. In the time
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AT&T improperly obtained money from a government-run broadband discount program by submitting duplicate requests and by claiming subsidies for thousands of subscribers who weren’t using AT&T’s service. AT&T obtained funding based on false certifications it made under penalty of perjury. AT&T on Friday agreed to pay $2.3 million in a consent decree with the Federal
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Nelson in August admitted to creating and selling bespoke images of child sexual abuse tailored to customers’ specific requests. He generated digital models of the children using real photographs that his customers had submitted. Police also said he further distributed the images he had created online, both for free and for payment. It comes as
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“Microsoft continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding the CrowdStrike incident to understand why other airlines were able to fully restore business operations so much faster than Delta, including American Airlines and United Airlines,” Cheffo wrote. “Our preliminary review suggests that Delta, unlike its competitors, apparently has not modernized its IT infrastructure, either for the benefit of
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On Monday, Microsoft came out guns blazing, posting a blog accusing Google of “dishonestly” funding groups conducting allegedly biased studies to discredit Microsoft and mislead antitrust enforcers and the public. In the blog, Microsoft lawyer Rima Alaily alleged that an astroturf group called the Open Cloud Coalition will launch this week and will appear to
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AI is giving scammers a more convincing way to impersonate police, reports show. Just last week, the Salt Lake City Police Department (SLCPD) warned of an email scam using AI to convincingly clone the voice of Police Chief Mike Brown. A citizen tipped off cops after receiving a suspicious email that included a video showing
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The FTC declined to comment on the lawsuits today. The agency’s rule is not enforced yet, as it is scheduled to take full effect 180 days after publication in the Federal Register. Cable firms don’t want canceling to be easy The NCTA cable lobby group, which represents companies like Comcast and Charter, have complained about
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X Payments unlikely to launch without New York It seems possible that X has gone silent on X Payments because there is no timeline currently. A global payments expert for tech consultancy Capco, Daniela Hawkins, told Ars that, as an outsider going just off a “gut check,” if X has withdrawn its application from New
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In an odd footnote, the Register also notes that emulation of classic game consoles, while not infringing in its own right, has been “historically associated with piracy,” thus “rais[ing] a potential concern” for any emulated remote access to library game catalogs. That footnote paradoxically cites Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) founder and director Frank Cifaldi’s
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As Boeing’s latest chief executive, Kelly Ortberg’s job was never going to be easy. On Wednesday, it got harder still. That morning, Ortberg had faced investors for the first time, telling them that ending a debilitating strike by Boeing’s largest union was the first step to stabilizing the plane maker’s business. But as the day
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Manufacturers opposed the exemption, but it received support from the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, the Federal Trade Commission, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. “The Register recommends adopting a new exemption covering diagnosis, maintenance, and repair of retail-level commercial food preparation equipment because proponents sufficiently showed, by a preponderance of the evidence, adverse
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In 2022, the Republican National Committee sued Google with claims that it intentionally used Gmail’s spam filter to suppress Republicans’ fundraising emails. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in August 2023, ruling that Google correctly argued that the RNC claims were barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. In January 2023, the Federal
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One way to look at how problematic this is would be to think in terms of a carbon budget. We can estimate how much carbon can be put into the atmosphere before warming reaches 1.5° C. Subtract the emissions we’ve already added, and you get the remaining budget. At this point, the remaining budget for
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It’s been just a week since US telecom regulators announced a formal inquiry into broadband data caps, and the docket is filling up with comments from users who say they shouldn’t have to pay overage charges for using their Internet service. The docket has about 190 comments so far, nearly all from individual broadband customers.
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Character.AI could also update chatbots to protect kids further, the lawsuit said. For one, the chatbots could be designed to stop insisting that they are real people or licensed therapists. But instead of these updates, the lawsuit warned that Character.AI in June added a new feature that only heightens risks for kids. Part of what
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One of them, Rhode Island resident Kathleen Odean, told us that she had several recent conversations with a T-Mobile employee who “seems to have been appointed to contact people who filed complaints with the FCC and/or their state attorney general. During our contacts, her argument kept changing and finally settled on telling me that the
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Rupert Murdoch’s Dow Jones and the New York Post have accused artificial intelligence start-up Perplexity of a “brazen scheme” to rip off their journalism for its AI-driven search engine in a lawsuit filed in New York on Monday. The publishers, both subsidiaries of News Corp, alleged the AI start-up, which is seeking to raise up
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AT&T enables unlocking of paid-off phones after 60 days for postpaid users and after six months for prepaid users. AT&T lodged similar complaints as T-Mobile, saying in an October 7 filing that the FCC’s proposed rules would “mak[e] handsets less affordable for consumers, especially those in low-income households,” and “exacerbate handset arbitrage, fraud, and trafficking.
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Vice President Kamala Harris will likely continue Biden’s war on “junk fees” if elected, Reuters reported, and Holyoak claimed that Khan pushed for the rule’s adoption to help follow “through on a campaign pledge made by the Chair’s favored presidential candidate.” According to Holyoak, the final rule is deeply flawed, “improperly generalizing” unfair and deceptive
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