policy

Obey the law, or else. California cracks down on app developers for privacy

Making good on her promise, California Attorney General Kamala Harris has continued her crackdown on mobile-app developers and companies for not doing more to ensure users' privacy. She announced today that she'll be sending letters to 100 app developers and companies to formally notify them that they're violating California's privacy laws.

"Protecting the privacy of online consumers is a serious law enforcement matter," Harris said in a statement today. "We have worked hard to ensure that app developers are aware of their legal obligations to respect the privacy of Californians, but it is critical … Read more

EU will tell Google to change privacy policy tomorrow, report says

The European Union, led by the French data protection commission, will take aim at Google's controversial privacy policy tomorrow, a new report claims.

France's CNIL will hold a press conference tomorrow to charge Google with violating EU law with this year's privacy policy change, the Guardian is reporting today, citing sources. Google's move, which effectively combined all of its privacy policies into one, violates EU law because it doesn't offer an opt-out to customers, the Guardian's sources say.

Google caught heat earlier this year for consolidating its many services under one privacy policy. In … Read more

Obama, Romney outline policies toward tech startups

With the U.S. presidential election drawing nearer, a New York-based tech group sent both President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney a letter asking how his policies would benefit tech startups, and both candidates have provided outlines in response.

Among other things, Romney mentions raising visa caps for highly skilled foreign workers; lowering the corporate tax rate to 25 percent and strengthening the R&D tax credit; and requiring that all major regulations receive congressional approval.

President Obama mentions having created the position of U.S. Chief Technology Officer and pursuing open data initiatives (an unlocking of data … Read more

Facebook: 'No plans' to enter China anytime soon

A Facebook executive has said at a social media conference in Hong Kong that there are no plans for the social network to hit the Chinese market.

Facebook's North Asia director, Jayne Leung, told conference attendees that the social network would not launch in the region any time soon, according to Meld Magazine editor Karen Poh on Twitter.

That statement comes nearly a year after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg expressed similar sentiments. Of course, at that time Zuckerberg also said that Facebook was in no hurry to make a bid for the stock exchange.

Less than six months later, … Read more

U.K. aims for the fastest broadband in Europe by 2015

The U.K.'s culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, wants Britain to have the fastest broadband in Europe by 2015.

Hunt reaffirmed the government's ambition for the U.K. to top the broadband league tables in a matter of years at an event yesterday in Google's London offices, the Guardian reports. The offices are close to Silicon Roundabout -- an area of the city home to a number of technology startups.

The culture secretary told attendees at the event:

"To really be the best you need to be the fastest. I am today announcing an ambition to be … Read more

Google, eBay, Facebook, Amazon form lobbying group

The country's top Internet companies have formed a lobbying group to strengthen the industry's voice in Washington when it comes to Internet regulation, according to a press release announcing the head of the new organization.

Google, eBay, Facebook, and Amazon are among the members of the group, the Washington Post reported, citing a person familiar with the group's plans.

The group has appointed Michael Beckerman as its president and CEO. Beckerman is former deputy staff director to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees telecommunications and Internet policy, and was a longtime advisor to … Read more

Facebook users have a week to vote on privacy policy changes

Beginning today, Facebook users will have one week to vote on whether the company should adopt proposed changes to its privacy and user rights policies.

Facebook allows people to vote on revised policies if a revised policy gets more than 7,000 comments, which both its proposed Data Use policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities documents have in recent months.

To be binding, more than 30 percent of Facebook's 900 million-strong base of active monthly users (people who have either logged in or taken some action on the site in the last month) will need to cast votes. … Read more

Google offers tips to help Chinese steer clear of the Great Firewall

Chinese Internet users have long grappled with frequent disconnections and service interruptions, thanks to China's Great Firewall -- often immediately after doing a Google query. Today, the search giant has come up with some workarounds that could help users avoid that electric fence.

"Over the past couple years, we've had a lot of feedback that Google Search from mainland China can be inconsistent and unreliable," Google wrote in a blog post today. "It depends on the search query and browser, but users are regularly getting error messages like 'This webpage is not available' or 'The … Read more

Apple's Korea after-sales policy the world's best, regulator says

Apple has updated its after-sales policy in South Korea, making it the world's best, according to a regulator in that country.

According to the Korea Herald, citing a statement from the country's Fair Trade Commission (FTC), Apple will now replace all defective products in that country with new devices within the first month of purchase. The company will even replace devices that become defective after the first month with a new model if the issue is obviously caused by a manufacturing issue. Apple had previously offered the policy to Korean customers with its iPhone last year, but has … Read more