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Alphabet : revenue soars for Google owner as Covid lockdown boom continues - 28 avril 2021
Tech firm beat Wall Street forecasts with $55bn in revenue, even as it faced antitrust lawsuits
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, more than doubled its profits to a record $17.9bn (£12.9bn) in the first quarter, as the lockdown-enforced surge in the use of digital services fuels an advertising boom for the Silicon (...)
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Facebook allows advertisers to target children interested in smoking, alcohol and weight loss - 28 avril 2021
Social media giant gave organisation behind a page for Australian 13- to 17-year-olds option to run alcohol, smoking and gambling ads for as little as $3
Facebook is allowing businesses to advertise to children as young as 13 who express an interest in smoking, extreme weight loss and gambling for as little as (...)
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Ministers urged to give UK home-workers a ‘right to disconnect’ - 13 avril 2021
Addition to employment bill would help people switch off and protect mental health, says union
Ministers are being urged to tackle the “dark side” of remote working by giving employees a legal “right to disconnect” to improve their mental health.
After a year of disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the (...)
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Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin join $100bn club - 12 avril 2021
Surge in share price of parent company Alphabet moved pair on to eight-man list
The Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have joined the $100bn club of super-rich people with 12-digit fortunes after a surge in the share price of the tech firm’s parent company, Alphabet.
Page and Brin, who co-founded (...)
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Seeing stones : pandemic reveals Palantir’s troubling reach in Europe - 10 avril 2021
Covid has given Peter Thiel’s secretive US tech company new opportunities to operate in Europe in ways some campaigners find worrying
The 24 March, 2020 will be remembered by some for the news that Prince Charles tested positive for Covid and was isolating in Scotland. In Athens it was memorable as the day the (...)
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How US Capitol attack surveillance methods could be used against protesters - 9 avril 2021
The FBI has relied on a variety of technologies to track down rioters – and watchdogs are concerned those technologies could impede protesters exercising their first amendment rights
Over the past months, federal law enforcement has used a wide variety of surveillance technologies to track down rioters who (...)
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China-based hackers used Facebook to target Uighurs abroad with malware - 27 mars 2021
Company says hackers used malware to infect devices and enable surveillance after setting up fake profiles to build trust
Facebook has blocked a group of hackers in China who used the platform to target Uighurs living abroad with links to malware that would infect their devices and enable surveillance.
The (...)
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Facebook leak underscores strategy to operate in repressive regimes - 25 mars 2021
Exclusive : users are allowed to praise mass killers and ‘violent non-state actors’ in certain situations
Facebook users are permitted to praise mass murderers and “violent non-state actors” in certain situations, according to internal guidelines that underline how the tech corporation is striving to operate in (...)
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Facebook guidelines allow users to call for death of public figures - 25 mars 2021
Exclusive : public figures considered to be permissible targets for otherwise-banned abuse, leaked moderator guidelines show
Facebook’s bullying and harassment policy explicitly allows for “public figures” to be targeted in ways otherwise banned on the site, including “calls for [their] death”, according to a tranche (...)
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Police raids across Europe after encrypted phone network shut down - 13 mars 2021
Belgian, Dutch and French police ‘looked over shoulders’ of gangs after hacking Sky ECC network
Police in Belgium and the Netherlands have arrested at least 80 people and carried out hundreds of raids after shutting down an encrypted phone network used by organised crime groups.
Belgian, Dutch and French police (...)
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14-hour days and no bathroom breaks : Amazon’s overworked delivery drivers - 13 mars 2021
Drivers report being underpaid and having to urinate in bottles in their vehicles to keep up with delivery rates
James Meyers worked as a driver for several Amazon delivery service providers in Austin, Texas, for about one year until he quit in October 2020 citing the immense workloads and poor working (...)
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Facebook faces US investigation for ’systemic’ racial bias in hiring - 9 mars 2021
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission indicates it suspects company policies may fuel broad discrimination
A US agency investigating Facebook for racial bias in hiring and promotions has designated its inquiry as “systemic”, meaning it suspects company policies may be contributing to widespread discrimination. (...)
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‘They track every move’ : how US parole apps created digital prisoners - 5 mars 2021
Is smartphone tracking a less intrusive reward for good behaviour or just a way to enrich the incarceration industry ?
In 2018, William Frederick Keck III pleaded guilty in a court in Manassas, Virginia, to possession with intent to distribute cannabis. He served three months in prison, then began a three-year (...)
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Zoom sees revenues soar 326% year-over-year as office life remains on hold - 5 mars 2021
Company announces revenues of $2.6bn with little sign of slowing, but vaccines could change picture
A year of working from home may have driven many of us to the brink but it’s been great news for Zoom, the video conferencing business.
On Monday, the company announced its revenues had soared 326% year-over-year (...)
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Uber accused of using ’loaded questions’ in survey of drivers - 4 mars 2021
Uber accused of using ’loaded questions’ in survey of drivers
Unions say questions are designed to help get sympathetic changes in employment law
Uber has been accused of using “loaded questions” in a consultation with drivers, after a landmark court ruling handed workers rights to improved conditions.
The firm may (...)
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Smile for the camera : the dark side of China’s emotion-recognition tech - 3 mars 2021
Xi Jinping wants ‘positive energy’ but critics say the surveillance tools’ racial bias and monitoring for anger or sadness should be banned
Ordinary people here in China aren’t happy about this technology but they have no choice. If the police say there have to be cameras in a community, people will just have to live (...)
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How Facebook plans to take over the world - 25 février 2021
Social network went from digital directory for college kids to communications behemoth – and it’s planning for prosperity with its global takeover
It’s late afternoon on a blustery spring day on the waterfront at San Francisco’s Fort Mason, a former military base that’s now hired out for corporate functions. Vast (...)
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The inside story of Facebook’s biggest setback - 25 février 2021
The social network had a grand plan to connect millions of Indians to the internet. Here’s how it all went wrong
Until Mark Zuckerberg arrived in a bright orange helicopter in October 2014, Chandauli had never seen a celebrity visitor. One of 44,795 villages in the state of Rajasthan, Chandauli is only three or (...)
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’We deserve more’ : an Amazon warehouse’s high-stakes union drive - 23 février 2021
Workers in Bessemer, Alabama, are pushing for a union – and experts say if they triumph, it could pave the way to organizing fulfillment centers in other states
Darryl Richardson was delighted when he landed a job as a “picker” at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. “I thought, ‘Wow, I’m going to work for (...)
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Google fires Margaret Mitchell, another top researcher on its AI ethics team - 22 février 2021
The dismissal comes after prominent Black researcher Timnit Gebru was fired in December ; both had called for more diversity among research staff
Google has fired one of its top artificial intelligence researchers, Margaret Mitchell, escalating internal turmoil at the company following the departure of Timnit (...)
