Policy

patents-for-software-and-genetic-code-could-be-revived-by-two-bills-in-congress

Patents for software and genetic code could be revived by two bills in Congress

EFF, Gene patents, Linux Foundation, patents, pera, Policy, prevail, software patents, Tech / /

Patently retro —

PERA and PREVAIL want to re-enable patents struck down by Supreme Court rulings.

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Image from the patent office of a patent for

Enlarge / An image from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, where in 1874, the newest thing was not software or genetic compositions, but shutter fastenings from H.L. Norton.

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider two bills Thursday that would effectively nullify the Supreme Court’s rulings against patents on broad software processes and human genes. Open source and Internet freedom advocates are mobilizing and pushing back.

The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (or PERA, S. 2140), sponsored by Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), would amend US Code such that “all judicial exceptions to patent eligibility are eliminated.” That would include the 2014 ruling in which the Supreme Court held, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing, that simply performing an existing process on a computer does not make it a new, patentable invention. “The relevant question is whether the claims here do more than simply instruct the practitioner to implement the abstract idea of intermediated settlement on a generic computer,” Thomas wrote. “They do not.”

That case also drew on Bilski v. Kappos, a case in which a patent was proposed based solely on the concept of hedging against price fluctuations in commodity markets.

Open source groups hunker down

Software and Internet advocates have taken notice. This week, the Linux Foundation, working with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), announced an expanded partnership with Unified Patents, intended to defend open source software against what it gamely calls “non-practicing entities” (NPEs), but most people would term patent trolls. “As the risk and volume of frivolous litigation against open source projects grows, the need to provide accessible protection from NPEs has become crucial,” the Linux Foundation writes.

In interviews with The Register, leaders at CNCF and Unified Patents described patent trolls as actively chasing any widespread technology, aiming for settlements over the cost of trials. Nearly 98 percent of NPE claims are settled, according to Unified Patents, but NPE claims challenged at the US Patent and Trademark Appeals Board lose 67 percent of the time.

Challenging patent claims, however valid, could get tougher under the PREVAIL Act, the other bill being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. PREVAIL would, among other changes, limit patent challenge petitions to 14,000 words, hampering attempts to debunk complex patents. The Act would also eliminate clearance patents, which companies can use to clear any infringement claims prior to their own products’ release.

Clearing the way for genome patents

Another wrinkle in the PERA bill involves genetic patents. The Supreme Court ruled in June 2013 that pieces of DNA that occur naturally in the genomes of humans or other organisms cannot, themselves, be patented. Myriad Genetics had previously been granted patents on genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer, BRCA1 and BRCA2, which were targeted in a lawsuit led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The resulting Supreme Court decision—this one also written by Thomas—found that information that naturally occurs in the human genome could not be the subject to a patent, even if the patent covered the process of isolating that information from the rest of the genome. As with broad software patents, PERA would seemingly allow for the patenting of isolated human genes and connections between those genes and diseases like cancer.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) describes PERA and PREVAIL as “a huge gift to patent trolls, a few tech firms that aggressively license patents, and patent lawyers. For everyone else, it will be a huge loss.” The EFF maintains a collection of stories of people claiming their jobs or avocations were “Saved by Alice” (the Supreme Court ruling).

The Judiciary Committee is set to debate and potentially amend or rewrite PREVAIL and PERA (i.e. mark up) on Thursday. Tillis told Axios that the bills are necessary for “Biotech, a number of emerging sectors [needing] relief, or we’re just going to stifle innovation.” Most Judiciary Committee members have not indicated their votes on the bills. Pharmaceutical trade group PhRMA supports the bills, while numerous advocates for lower-cost drugs and biosimilars oppose them.

Patents for software and genetic code could be revived by two bills in Congress Read More »

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ISPs tell Supreme Court they don’t want to disconnect users accused of piracy

broadband, copyright infringement, Policy / /
The US Supreme Court building is seen on a sunny day. Kids mingle around a small pool on the grounds in front of the building.

Enlarge / The Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, DC, in May 2023.

Getty Images | NurPhoto

Four more large Internet service providers told the US Supreme Court this week that ISPs shouldn’t be forced to aggressively police copyright infringement on broadband networks.

While the ISPs worry about financial liability from lawsuits filed by major record labels and other copyright holders, they also argue that mass terminations of Internet users accused of piracy “would harm innocent people by depriving households, schools, hospitals, and businesses of Internet access.” The legal question presented by the case “is exceptionally important to the future of the Internet,” they wrote in a brief filed with the Supreme Court on Monday.

The amici curiae brief was filed by Altice USA (operator of the Optimum brand), Frontier Communications, Lumen (aka CenturyLink), and Verizon. The brief supports cable firm Cox Communications’ attempt to overturn its loss in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by Sony. Cox petitioned the Supreme Court to take up the case last month.

Sony and other music copyright holders sued Cox in 2018, claiming it didn’t adequately fight piracy on its network and failed to terminate repeat infringers. A US District Court jury in the Eastern District of Virginia ruled in December 2019 that Cox must pay $1 billion in damages to the major record labels.

Cox won a partial victory when the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit vacated the $1 billion verdict, finding that Cox wasn’t guilty of vicarious infringement because it did not profit directly from infringement committed by users of its cable broadband network. But the appeals court affirmed the jury’s finding of willful contributory infringement and ordered a new damages trial.

Future of Internet at stake, ISPs say

The Altice/Frontier/Lumen/Verizon brief said the 4th Circuit ruling “imperils the future of the Internet” by “expos[ing] Internet service providers to massive liability if they do not carry out mass Internet evictions.” Cutting off a subscriber’s service would hurt other residents in a home “who did not infringe and may have no connection to the infringer,” they wrote.

The automated processes used by copyright holders to find infringement on peer-to-peer networks are “famously flawed,” ISPs wrote. Despite that, the appeals court’s “view of contributory infringement would force Internet service providers to cut off any subscriber after receiving allegations that some unknown person used the subscriber’s connection for copyright infringement,” the brief said.

Under the 4th Circuit’s theory, “an Internet service provider acts culpably whenever it knowingly fails to stop some bad actor from exploiting its service,” the brief said. According to the ISPs, this “would compel Internet service providers to engage in wide-scale terminations to avoid facing crippling damages, like the $1 billion judgment entered against Cox here, the $2.6 billion damages figure touted by these same plaintiffs in a recent suit against Verizon, or the similarly immense figures sought from Frontier and Altice USA.”

Potential liability for ISPs is up to $150,000 in statutory damages for each work that is infringed, the brief said. “Enterprising plaintiffs’ lawyers could seek to hold Internet service providers liable for every bad act that occurs online,” they wrote. This threat of financial liability detracts from the ISPs’ attempts “to fulfill Congress’s goal of connecting all Americans to the Internet,” the ISPs said.

ISPs tell Supreme Court they don’t want to disconnect users accused of piracy Read More »

backlash-over-amazon’s-return-to-office-comes-as-workers-demand-higher-wages

Backlash over Amazon’s return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

Amazon, minimum wage, Policy, unfair labor practices, warehouse workers / /
Warehouse workers at the STL8 Amazon Fulfillment Center marched on the boss Wednesday to demand a $25 an hour minimum wage for all workers.

Enlarge / Warehouse workers at the STL8 Amazon Fulfillment Center marched on the boss Wednesday to demand a $25 an hour minimum wage for all workers.

via Justice Speaks

Amazon currently faces disgruntled workers in every direction.

Office workers are raging against CEO Andy Jassy’s return to office mandate, Fortune reported—which came just as a leaked document reportedly showed that Amazon is also planning to gut management, Business Insider reported. Drivers by the hundreds are flocking to join a union to negotiate even better work conditions, CNBC reported, despite some of the biggest concessions in Amazon’s history. And hundreds more unionized warehouse workers are increasingly banding together nationwide to demand a $25 an hour minimum wage. On Wednesday, workers everywhere were encouraged to leave Jassy a voicemail elevating workers’ demands for a $25 minimum wage.

Putting on the pressure

This momentum has been building for years after drivers unionized in 2021. And all this collective fury increasingly appears to be finally pressuring Amazon into negotiating better conditions for some workers.

Just last week, Amazon ponied up $2.1 billion—its “biggest investment yet”—to improve driver safety and increase drivers’ wages.

Unionizing warehouse workers told Ars that they’re seeking a similar investment from Amazon, which currently pays on average a $20.50 minimum wage.

“We work at a breakneck pace,” Christine Manno, an Amazon Fulfillment Center worker at Amazon site STL8 in St. Louis, Missouri, who was injured and never expects to work again, told Ars. “We put smiles on the billionaire’s faces, and we feel it’s prime time for a real raise for the employees. There’s too many of us struggling with food and housing, yet Andy Jassy took home over $14,000 an hour last year and Amazon is making billions in profit.”

On Wednesday, Amazon seemed to finally bend to the warehouse workers’ pressure, announcing a compromise on wage increases. The company said it was investing $2.2 billion to raise the base salaries of hourly fulfillment workers to “more than $22 an hour, and more than $29 an hour including benefits,” Reuters reported. Amazon’s spokesperson told Ars that STL8 workers’ starting wage “increased to $19 per hour coupled with our industry-leading benefits” and claimed that the company’s “biggest ever investment” in fulfillment workers was simply “part of an annual process where we review wages and benefits to ensure they stay competitive—and in many cases industry-leading.”

But while workers claimed the victory, they’re not going to sit back and take the pay bump. An STL8 worker on the organizing committee with Manno, Ash Judd, told Ars that workers “made this $1.50 raise happen through our tireless organizing, and we’ll keep fighting until we reach $25.”

Because of recent gains and the increasingly dire economic plight of workers, Amazon workers likely won’t be easing off the e-commerce giant any time soon. Some office workers told Fortune they are seeking other remote work to avoid returning to the office, threatening to “soft quit” and claiming that Amazon is going “backwards” with a stricter office policy than pre-COVID times. “This is a layoff in disguise,” one apparent worker complained on Reddit. “Return to the office or you’re fired and we don’t have to pay any severance or unemployment.”

With so many workers upset, it could now be a question of when Amazon will cave to their growing demands—not if—according to Beth Gutelius, the research director of the University of Illinois Chicago’s Center for Urban Economic Development.

“Research shows that the presence of collective bargaining agreements creates upward pressure on wages and working conditions, both in facilities that are unionized and those that are not,” Gutelius told Ars. “Based on that evidence, I would expect working conditions at Amazon to improve.”

Gutelius co-authored a May report documenting the financial insecurity of Amazon warehouse workers by surveying more than 1,400 across 42 states.

Backlash over Amazon’s return to office comes as workers demand higher wages Read More »

amazon-“tricks”-customers-into-buying-fire-tvs-with-false-sales-prices:-lawsuit

Amazon “tricks” customers into buying Fire TVs with false sales prices: Lawsuit

Amazon, fire tv, Policy, Tech, TVs / /

Fire TV pricing under fire —

Lawsuit claims list prices only available for “extremely short period” sometimes.

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A promotional image for Amazon's 4-Series Fire TVs.

Enlarge / A promotional image for Amazon’s 4-Series Fire TVs.

A lawsuit is seeking to penalize Amazon for allegedly providing “fake list prices and purported discounts” to mislead people into buying Fire TVs.

As reported by Seattle news organization KIRO 7, a lawsuit seeking class-action certification and filed in US District Court for the Western District of Washington on September 12 [PDF] claims that Amazon has been listing Fire TV and Fire TV bundles with “List Prices” that are higher than what the TVs have recently sold for, thus creating “misleading representation that customers are getting a ‘Limited time deal.'” The lawsuit accuses Amazon of violating Washington’s Consumer Protection Act.

The plaintiff, David Ramirez, reportedly bought a 50-inch 4-Series Fire TV in February for $299.99. The lawsuit claims the price was listed as 33 percent off and a “Limited time deal” and that Amazon “advertised a List Price of $449.99, with the $449.99 in strikethrough text.” As of this writing, the 50-inch 4-Series 4K TV on Amazon is marked as having a “Limited time deal” of $299.98.

A screenshot from Amazon taken today.

Enlarge / A screenshot from Amazon taken today.

Camelcamelcamel, which tracks Amazon prices, claims that the cheapest price of the TV on Amazon was $280 in July. The website also claims that the TV’s average price is $330.59; the $300 or better deal seems to have been available on dates in August, September, October, November, and December of 2023, as well as in July, August, and September 2024. The TV was most recently sold at the $449.99 “List Price” in October 2023 and for short periods in July and August 2024, per Camelcamelcamel.

The 50-inch 4-Series Fire TV's Amazon price history, according to Camelcamelcamel.

Enlarge / The 50-inch 4-Series Fire TV’s Amazon price history, according to Camelcamelcamel.

Amazon’s website has an information icon next to “List Prices” that, when hovered over, shows a message stating: “The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product’s prevailing market price.”

The lawsuit against Amazon alleges that Amazon is claiming items were sold at their stated List Price within 90 days but were not:

… this representation is false and misleading, and Amazon knows it. Each of the Fire TVs in this action was sold with advertised List Price that were not sold by Amazon at or above those prices in more than 90 days, making the above statement, as well as the sales prices and percentage discounts, false and misleading. As of September 10, 2024, most of the Fire TVs were not sold at the advertised List Prices since 2023 but were instead consistently sold well below (often hundreds of dollars below) the List Prices during the class period.

When contacted by Ars Technica, an Amazon spokesperson said that the company doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation.

The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages and an injunction against Amazon.

“Amazon tricks its customers”

The lawsuit claims that “misleading” List Prices harm customers while also allowing Amazon to create a “false” sense of urgency to get a discount. The lawsuit alleges that Amazon has used misleading practices for 15 Fire TV models/bundles.

The lawsuit claims that in some cases, the List Price was only available for “an extremely short period, in some instances as short as literally one day.“

The suit reads:

Amazon tricks its customers into buying Fire TVs by making them believe they are buying Fire TVs at steep discounts. Amazon omits critical information concerning how long putative “sales” would last, and when the List Prices were actually in use, which Plaintiff and class members relied on to their detriment. Amazon’s customers spent more money than they otherwise would have if not for the purported time-limited bargains.

Further, Amazon is accused of using these List Price tactics to “artificially” drive Fire TV demand, putting “upward pressure on the prices that” Amazon can charge for the smart TVs.

The legal document points to a similar 2021 case in California [PDF], where Amazon was sued for allegedly deceptive reference prices. It agreed to pay $2 million in penalties and restitution.

Other companies selling electronics have also been scrutinized for allegedly making products seem like they typically and/or recently have sold for more money. For example, Dell Australia received an AUD$10 million fine (about $6.49 million) for “making false and misleading representations on its website about discount prices for add-on computer monitors,” per the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission.

Now’s a good time to remind friends and family who frequently buy tech products online to use price checkers like Camelcamelcamel and PCPartPicker to compare products with similar specs and features across different retailers.

Amazon “tricks” customers into buying Fire TVs with false sales prices: Lawsuit Read More »

at&t-fined-$13m-for-data-breach-after-giving-customer-bill-info-to-vendor

AT&T fined $13M for data breach after giving customer bill info to vendor

AT&T, Policy / /
A man with an umbrella walking past a building with an AT&T logo.

AT&T agreed to pay a $13 million fine because it gave customer bill information to a vendor in order to create personalized videos, then allegedly failed to ensure that the vendor destroyed the data when it was no longer needed. In addition to the fine, AT&T agreed to stricter controls on sharing data with vendors in a consent decree announced today by the Federal Communications Commission.

In January 2023, years after the data was supposed to be destroyed, the vendor suffered a breach “when threat actors accessed the vendor’s cloud environment and ultimately exfiltrated AT&T customer information,” the FCC said. Information related to 8.9 million AT&T wireless customers was exposed.

Phone companies are required by law to protect customer information, and AT&T should not have merely relied on third-party firms’ assurances that they destroyed data when it was no longer needed, the FCC said.

“AT&T used the vendor to generate and host personalized video content, including billing and marketing videos, for AT&T customers,” an FCC press release said. “Under AT&T’s contracts, the vendor should have destroyed or returned AT&T customer information when no longer necessary to fulfill contractual obligations, which ended years before the breach occurred. AT&T failed to ensure the vendor: (1) adequately protected the customer information, and (2) returned or destroyed it as required by contract.”

The data “remained in the vendor’s cloud environment for many years after it should have been deleted or returned to AT&T and was ultimately exposed” in the January 2023 breach, an FCC Enforcement Bureau order said.

Data should have been deleted in 2018

AT&T told the FCC that it shared customer data with the vendor between 2015 and 2017, and that data was supposed to be “securely destroyed or deleted” by 2018. The exposed data included “line count for all impacted customers, and bill balance and payment information and rate plan name and features for approximately one percent of impacted customers,” the FCC said.

AT&T told Ars today that the data “did not contain credit card information, Social Security Numbers, account passwords or other sensitive personal information.” AT&T said it notified customers of the breach in March 2023.

“AT&T stated that it monitored impacted customer accounts following the incident and identified no evidence of AT&T account-related fraud or other unlawful or unauthorized activity tied to the Breach,” the consent decree said. “According to AT&T, porting, SIM swap, and equipment fraud rates for impacted customers following the incident were consistently less than the rates for the general population of AT&T Mobility customers across all account types.”

When contacted by Ars, AT&T did not respond directly to the FCC’s allegation that it failed to ensure the vendor protected customer information. AT&T provided us with a statement saying, “A vendor we previously used experienced a security incident last year that exposed data pertaining to some of our wireless customers. Though our systems were not compromised in this incident, we’re making enhancements to how we manage customer information internally, as well as implementing new requirements on our vendors’ data management practices.”

AT&T fined $13M for data breach after giving customer bill info to vendor Read More »

zynga-owes-ibm-$45m-after-using-1980s-patented-technology-for-hit-games

Zynga owes IBM $45M after using 1980s patented technology for hit games

ibm, intellectual property, ip infringement, mobile games, online games, patent infringement, Policy, take two interactive, Zynga / /

A bountiful harvest awaits —

Zynga plans to appeal and confirms no games will be affected.

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Zynga owes IBM $45M after using 1980s patented technology for hit games

Zynga must pay IBM nearly $45 million in damages after a jury ruled that popular games in its FarmVille series, as well as individual hits like Harry Potter: Puzzles and Spells, infringed on two early IBM patents.

In an SEC filing, Zynga reassured investors that “the patents at issue have expired and Zynga will not have to modify or stop operating any of the games at issue” as a result of the loss. But the substantial damages owed will likely have financial implications for Zynga parent company Take-Two Interactive Software, analysts said, unless Zynga is successful in its plans to overturn the verdict.

A Take-Two spokesperson told Ars: “We are disappointed in the verdict; however, believe we will prevail on appeal.”

For IBM, the win comes after a decade of failed attempts to stop what it claimed was Zynga’s willful infringement of its patents.

In court filings, IBM told the court that it first alerted Zynga to alleged infringement in 2014, detailing how its games leveraged patented technology from the 1980s that came about when IBM launched Prodigy.

But rather than negotiate with IBM, like tech giants Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook have, Zynga allegedly dodged accountability, delaying negotiations and making excuses to postpone meetings for years. In that time, IBM alleged that rather than end its infringement or license IBM’s technologies, Zynga “expanded its infringing activity” after “openly” admitting to IBM that “litigation would be the only remaining path” to end it.

This left IBM “no choice but to seek judicial assistance,” IBM told the court.

IBM argued that its patent, initially used to launch Prodigy, remains “fundamental to the efficient communication of Internet content.” Known as patent ‘849, that patent introduced “novel methods for presenting applications and advertisements in an interactive service that would take advantage of the computing power of each user’s personal computer (PC) and thereby reduce demand on host servers, such as those used by Prodigy,” which made it “more efficient than conventional systems.”

According to IBM’s complaint, “By harnessing the processing and storage capabilities of the user’s PC, applications could then be composed on the fly from objects stored locally on the PC, reducing reliance on Prodigy’s server and network resources.”

The jury found that Zynga infringed that patent, as well as a ‘719 patent designed to “improve the performance” of Internet apps by “reducing network communication delays.” That patent describes technology that improves an app’s performance by “reducing the number of required interactions between client and server,” IBM’s complaint said, and also makes it easier to develop and update apps.

The company told the court that licensing these early technologies helps sustain the company’s innovations today.

As of 2022, IBM confirmed that it has spent “billions of dollars on research and development” and that the company vigilantly protects those investments when it discovers newcomers like Zynga seemingly seeking to avoid those steep R&D costs by leveraging IBM innovations to fuel billions of dollars in revenue without paying IBM licensing fees.

“IBM’s technology is a key driver of Zynga’s success,” IBM argued back in 2022, and on Friday, the jury agreed.

“IBM is pleased with the jury verdict that recognizes Zynga’s infringement of IBM’s patents,” IBM’s spokesperson told Ars.

Cost of pre-Internet IBM licenses

In its defense, Zynga tried and failed to argue that the patents were invalid, including contesting the validity of the 1980s patent—which Zynga claimed never should have been issued, alleging it was due to “intent to deceive” the patent office by withholding information.

It’s currently unclear what licensing deal IBM offered to Zynga initially or how much Zynga could have paid to avoid damages awarded this week. IBM did not respond to Ars’ request to further detail terms of the failed deal.

But the 1980s patent in particular has been at the center of several lawsuits that IBM has raised to protect its early intellectual property from alleged exploitation by Internet companies. Back in 2006, when IBM sued Amazon, IBM executive John Kelly vowed to protect the company’s patents “through every means available.” IBM followed through on that promise throughout the 2010s, securing notable settlements from various companies, like Priceline and Twitter, where terms of the subsequent licensing deals were not disclosed.

However, IBM’s aggressive defense of its pre-Internet patents hasn’t dinged every Internet company. When Chewy pushed back on IBM’s patent infringement claims in 2021, the pet supplier managed to beat IBM’s claims by proving in 2022 that its platform was non-infringing, Reuters reported.

Through that lawsuit, the public got a rare look into how IBM values its patents, attempting to get Chewy to agree to pay $36 million to license its technologies before suing to demand at least $83 million in damages for alleged infringement. In the end, Chewy was right to refuse to license the tech just to avoid a court battle.

Now that some of IBM’s early patents have become invalid, IBM’s patent-licensing machine may start slowing down.

For Zynga, the cost of fighting IBM so far has not restricted access to its games or forced Zynga to redesign its platforms to be non-infringing, which were remedies sought in IBM’s initial prayer for relief in the lawsuit. But overturning the jury’s verdict to avoid paying millions in damages may be a harder hurdle to clear, as a jury has rejected what may be Zynga’s best defense, and the jury’s notes and unredacted verdict remain sealed.

According to Take-Two’s SEC filing, the jury got it wrong, and Take-Two plans to prove it: “Zynga believes this result is not supported by the facts and the law and intends to seek to overturn the verdict and reduce or eliminate the damages award through post-trial motions and appeal.”

Zynga owes IBM $45M after using 1980s patented technology for hit games Read More »

russian-state-media-outlet-rt-banned-by-facebook-“for-foreign-interference”

Russian state media outlet RT banned by Facebook “for foreign interference”

meta rt ban, Policy, russian state media / /

Still on X, though —

US said Russian media worked with Kremlin to influence election, foment unrest.

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Russia President Vladimir Putin hands a bouquet of flowers to editor-in-chief of Russian broadcaster RT Margarita Simonyan.

Enlarge / Russia President Vladimir Putin presents flowers to editor-in-chief of Russian broadcaster RT Margarita Simonyan after awarding her with the “Order of Alexander Nevsky” during a ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow on May 23, 2019.

Getty Images | Evgenia Novozhenina

Meta yesterday announced a ban on Russian state media outlets RT (formerly Russia Today) and Rossiya Segodnya, taking action three days after the US government imposed sanctions on the outlets for covert influence activities.

“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets: Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” Meta said in a statement provided to Ars. Meta is the owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads.

Meta already blocked RT and Rossiya Segodnya’s Sputnik network across Europe in March 2022, following a ban imposed by European Union government officials. YouTube blocked the channels worldwide. At the time, Vladimir Putin’s government was telling Russian media outlets not to call the invasion of Ukraine “an attack,” “invasion,” or “declaration of war.”

Although Meta didn’t block RT worldwide in 2022, it did impose worldwide restrictions on Russian state media. Meta said today that those restrictions prevented Russian state media from running ads, placed the state media content lower in people’s feeds, and added “nudges” asking users to confirm that they want to share or navigate to content from those outlets.

US says RT worked with Kremlin to foment unrest

Meta’s new worldwide ban comes after the US State Department said on Friday that it was designating Russian state media outlets “for their connection to Russia’s destabilizing actions abroad.” The US said it obtained new information from employees of RT and other sources showing that RT has “engaged in information operations, covert influence, and military procurement. These operations are targeting countries around the world, including in Europe, Africa, and North and South America.”

The US State Department said the government is “not taking action against these entities and individuals for the content of their reporting, or even the disinformation they create and spread publicly. We are taking action against them for their covert influence activities. Covert influence activities are not journalism.”

The US alleged that “RT and employees, including Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, have directly coordinated with the Kremlin to support Russian government efforts to influence the October 2024 Moldovan election. Specifically, in coordination with the Kremlin, Simonyan leverages the state-funded platforms for which she serves in leadership positions… to attempt to foment unrest in Moldova, likely with the specific aim of causing protests to turn violent. RT is aware of and prepared to assist Russia’s plans to incite protests should the election not result in a Russia-preferred candidate winning the presidency.”

The US also said that people “affiliated with Rossiya Segodnya coordinated with the Kremlin to attempt to foment unrest in Moldova, likely with the specific aim of causing protests to turn violent.” While RT is funded by Russia, Rossiya Segodnya is both state-owned and state-funded, the US said.

The US action blocks most transactions involving the designated entities, and “all property and interests in property of the designated persons described above that are in the United States or in possession or control of US persons are blocked and must be reported to the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control,” the US said. The designation applies to Rossiya Segodnya and TV-Novosti, the latter of which is a federally funded organization that is “associated with Rossiya Segodnya and controls the RT media channel,” the US said. The US also designated Dmitry Konstantinovich Kiselev, the director general of Rossiya Segodnya.

RT: “We’ve been broadcasting straight out of the KGB”

RT has issued sarcastic responses to the US government and Meta actions. “RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan joked that RT had learned from the Americans, rather than from Russian intelligence officers,” an RT article on the Meta ban said today.

When contacted by Ars today, RT’s press office gave us a statement saying the organization will “find the cracks to crawl through” despite the Meta ban. RT’s statement read in full:

It’s cute how there’s a competition in the West—who can try to spank RT the hardest, in order to make themselves look better. Meta/Facebook already blocked RT in Europe two years ago, now they’re censoring information flow to the rest of the world. Don’t worry, where they close a door, and then a window, our ‘partisans’ (or in your parlance, guerrilla fighters) will find the cracks to crawl through—as by Biden administration’s admission we are apt at doing.

After the State Department action last week, “RT responded with a mocking email that read in part: ‘We’ve been broadcasting straight out of the KGB headquarters all this time,'” according to CNN.

RT is still active on X, formerly Twitter. “On behalf of our team: Silence us all you want, but there’s no way to silence the truth,” the organization said.

We contacted Rossiya Segodnya today and will update this article if it provides comment.

Russian state media outlet RT banned by Facebook “for foreign interference” Read More »

us-can’t-ban-tiktok-for-security-reasons-while-ignoring-temu,-other-apps

US can’t ban TikTok for security reasons while ignoring Temu, other apps

bytedance, china, data privacy, Data Security, national security, Policy, tiktok, TikTok ban / /
Andrew J. Pincus, attorney for TikTok and ByteDance, leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman US Court House with members of his legal team as the U.S. Court of Appeals hears oral arguments in the case <em>TikTok Inc. v. Merrick Garland</em> on September 16 in Washington, DC. ” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/GettyImages-2172424134-800×620.jpg”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / Andrew J. Pincus, attorney for TikTok and ByteDance, leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman US Court House with members of his legal team as the U.S. Court of Appeals hears oral arguments in the case TikTok Inc. v. Merrick Garland on September 16 in Washington, DC.

The fight to keep TikTok operating unchanged in the US reached an appeals court Monday, where TikTok and US-based creators teamed up to defend one of the world’s most popular apps from a potential US ban.

TikTok lawyer Andrew Pincus kicked things off by warning a three-judge panel that a law targeting foreign adversaries that requires TikTok to divest from its allegedly China-controlled owner, ByteDance, is “unprecedented” and could have “staggering” effects on “the speech of 170 million Americans.”

Pincus argued that the US government was “for the first time in history” attempting to ban speech by a specific US speaker—namely, TikTok US, the US-based entity that allegedly curates the content that Americans see on the app.

The government justified the law by claiming that TikTok may in the future pose a national security risk because updates to the app’s source code occur in China. Essentially, the US is concerned that TikTok collecting data in the US makes it possible for the Chinese government to both spy on Americans and influence Americans by manipulating TikTok content.

But Pincus argued that there’s no evidence of that, only the FBI warning “about the potential that the Chinese Communist Party could use TikTok to threaten US homeland security, censor dissidents, and spread its malign influence on US soil.” And because the law carves out China-owned and controlled e-commerce apps like Temu and Shein—which a US commission deemed a possible danger and allegedly process even more sensitive data than TikTok—the national security justification for targeting TikTok is seemingly so under-inclusive as to be fatal to the government’s argument, Pincus argued.

Jeffrey Fisher, a lawyer for TikTok creators, agreed, warning the panel that “what the Supreme Court tells us when it comes to under-inclusive arguments is” that they “often” are “a signal that something else is at play.”

Daniel Tenny, a lawyer representing the US government, defended Congress’ motivations for passing the law, explaining that the data TikTok collects is “extremely valuable to a foreign adversary trying to compromise the security” of the US. He further argued that a foreign adversary controlling “what content is shown to Americans” is just as problematic.

Rather than targeting Americans’ expression on the app, Tenny argued that because ByteDance controls TikTok’s source code, the speech on TikTok is not American speech but “expression by Chinese engineers in China.” This is the “core point” that the US hopes the appeals court will embrace, that as long as ByteDance oversees TikTok’s source code, the US will have justified concerns about TikTok data security and content manipulation. The only solution, the US government argues, is divestment.

TikTok has long argued that divestment isn’t an option and that the law will force a ban. Pincus told the court that the “critical issue” with the US government’s case is that the US does not have any evidence that TikTok US is under Chinese control. Because the US is only concerned about some “future Chinese control,” the burden that the law places on speech must meet the highest standard of constitutional scrutiny. Any finding otherwise, Pincus warned the court, risked turning the First Amendment “on its head,” potentially allowing the government to point to foreign ownership to justify regulating US speech on any platform.

But as the panel explained, the US government had tried for two years to negotiate with ByteDance and find through Project Texas a way to maintain TikTok in the US while avoiding national security concerns. Because every attempt to find a suitable national security arrangement has seemingly failed, Congress was potentially justified in passing the law, the panel suggested, especially if the court rules that the law is really just trying to address foreign ownership—not regulate content. And even though the law currently only targets TikTok directly, the government could argue that’s seemingly because TikTok is so far the only foreign adversary-controlled company flagged as a potential national security risk, the panel suggested.

TikTok insisted that divestment is not the answer and that Congress has made no effort to find a better solution. Pincus argued that the US did not consider less restrictive means for achieving the law’s objectives without burdening speech on TikTok, such as a disclosure mechanism that could prevent covert influence on the app by a foreign adversary.

But US circuit judge Neomi Rao pushed back on this, suggesting that disclosure maybe isn’t “always” the only appropriate mechanism to block propaganda in the US—especially when the US government has no way to quickly assess constantly updated TikTok source code developed in China. Pincus had confirmed that any covert content manipulation uncovered on the app would only be discovered after users were exposed.

“They say it would take three years to just review the existing code,” Rao said. “How are you supposed to have disclosure in that circumstance?”

“I think disclosure has been the historic answer for covert content manipulation,” Pincus told the court, branding the current law as “unusual” for targeting TikTok and asking the court to overturn the alleged ban.

The government has given ByteDance until mid-January to sell TikTok, or else the app risks being banned in the US. The appeals court is expected to rule by early December.

US can’t ban TikTok for security reasons while ignoring Temu, other apps Read More »

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Brazil judge seizes cash from Starlink to cover fine imposed on Elon Musk’s X

elon musk brazil, Policy, starlink brazil / /

Forced withdrawal —

Starlink and X treated as one economic group, forcing both to pay X fines.

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A supporter of former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro holds a sign that has a picture of Elon Musk and the text,

Enlarge / Supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro participate in an event in the central area of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on September 7, 2024. Bolsonaro backers called for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

Getty Images | NurPhoto

Brazil seized about $2 million from a Starlink bank account and another $1.3 million from X to collect on fines issued to Elon Musk’s social network, the country’s Supreme Court announced Friday.

Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes previously froze the accounts of both companies, treating them as the same de facto economic group because both are controlled by Musk. The Starlink and X bank accounts were unfrozen last week after the money transfers ordered by de Moraes.

Two banks carried out orders to transfer the money from Starlink and X to Brazil’s government. “After the payment of the full amount that was owed, the justice (de Moraes) considered there was no need to keep the bank accounts frozen and ordered the immediate unfreezing of bank accounts/financial assets,” the court said, as quoted by The Associated Press.

The suspension of X’s social platform, formerly named Twitter, remains in place. The dispute began several months ago when Musk said he would disobey an order from de Moraes to suspend dozens of accounts accused of spreading disinformation. De Moraes later ordered the X social platform to be blocked by Internet service providers. X closed its office in Brazil and did not pay the fines.

Starlink initially said it would refuse to block X on its broadband service until the government unfroze its assets. Starlink quickly backtracked, agreeing to block X, but said it would fight the asset freeze in court. The Brazil Supreme Court’s announcement of the money transfers said that Starlink and X missed a deadline to appeal the finding that they are part of the same de facto economic group.

Shotwell accused justice of “harassing Starlink”

Starlink has called the order to freeze its assets “an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied—unconstitutionally—against X.” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell accused de Moraes of “harassing Starlink.”

X has said that de Moraes targeted the platform “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.” X also argued that it is not defying Brazilian law.

“We are absolutely not insisting that other countries have the same free speech laws as the United States. The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that,” X’s Global Government Affairs account wrote.

As noted by CNBC, Brazilian news agency UOL reported last week “that some of the accounts de Moraes ordered Musk to suspend at X belong to users who allegedly threatened federal police officers involved in a probe of former right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.”

Bolsonaro was accused of instigating the January 8, 2023, attack on the Brazilian Congress that occurred after Bolsonaro’s election loss. Bolsonaro and his supporters praised Musk in April of this year after Musk’s decision to defy the orders to block X accounts associated with Bolsonaro supporters.

Brazil judge seizes cash from Starlink to cover fine imposed on Elon Musk’s X Read More »

“fascists”:-elon-musk-responds-to-proposed-fines-for-disinformation-on-x

“Fascists”: Elon Musk responds to proposed fines for disinformation on X

australia, disinformation, elon musk, misinformation, Policy, syndication, Twitter, X / /

Being responsible is so hard —

“Elon Musk’s had more positions on free speech than the Kama Sutra,” says lawmaker.

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A smartphone displays Elon Musk's profile on X, the app formerly known as Twitter.

Getty Images | Dan Kitwood

Elon Musk has lambasted Australia’s government as “fascists” over proposed laws that could levy substantial fines on social media companies if they fail to comply with rules to combat the spread of disinformation and online scams.

The billionaire owner of social media site X posted the word “fascists” on Friday in response to the bill, which would strengthen the Australian media regulator’s ability to hold companies responsible for the content on their platforms and levy potential fines of up to 5 percent of global revenue. The bill, which was proposed this week, has yet to be passed.

Musk’s comments drew rebukes from senior Australian politicians, with Stephen Jones, Australia’s finance minister, telling national broadcaster ABC that it was “crackpot stuff” and the legislation was a matter of sovereignty.

Bill Shorten, the former leader of the Labor Party and a cabinet minister, accused the billionaire of only championing free speech when it was in his commercial interests. “Elon Musk’s had more positions on free speech than the Kama Sutra,” Shorten said in an interview with Australian radio.

The exchange marks the second time that Musk has confronted Australia over technology regulation.

In May, he accused the country’s eSafety Commissioner of censorship after the government agency took X to court in an effort to force it to remove graphic videos of a stabbing attack in Sydney. A court later denied the eSafety Commissioner’s application.

Musk has also been embroiled in a bitter dispute with authorities in Brazil, where the Supreme Court ruled last month that X should be blocked over its failure to remove or suspend certain accounts accused of spreading misinformation and hateful content.

Australia has been at the forefront of efforts to regulate the technology sector, pitting it against some of the world’s largest social media companies.

This week, the government pledged to introduce a minimum age limit for social media use to tackle “screen addiction” among young people.

In March, Canberra threatened to take action against Meta after the owner of Facebook and Instagram said it would withdraw from a world-first deal to pay media companies to link to news stories.

The government also introduced new data privacy measures to parliament on Thursday that would impose hefty fines and potential jail terms of up to seven years for people found guilty of “doxxing” individuals or groups.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government had pledged to outlaw doxxing—the publication of personal details online for malicious purposes—this year after the details of a private WhatsApp group containing hundreds of Jewish Australians were published online.

Australia is one of the first countries to pursue laws outlawing doxxing. It is also expected to introduce a tranche of laws in the coming months to regulate how personal data can be used by artificial intelligence.

“These reforms give more teeth to the regulation,” said Monique Azzopardi at law firm Clayton Utz.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

“Fascists”: Elon Musk responds to proposed fines for disinformation on X Read More »

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Biden moves to crack down on Shein and Temu, slow shipments into US

Biden, china, Consumer protection, e-commerce, online e-commerce, Policy, shein, temu, trade act / /
Biden moves to crack down on Shein and Temu, slow shipments into US

The Biden administration has proposed rules that could make it more costly for Chinese e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu to ship goods into the US.

In his announcement proposing to crack down on “unsafe, unfairly traded products,” President Joe Biden accused China-founded e-commerce platforms selling cheap goods of abusing the “de minimis exemption” that makes shipments valued under $800 duty-free.

Platforms taking advantage of the exemption can share less information on packages and dodge taxes. Biden warned that “over the last 10 years, the number of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimis exemption has increased significantly, from approximately 140 million a year to over 1 billion a year.” And the “majority of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimis exemption originate from several China-founded e-commerce platforms,” Biden said.

As a result, America has been flooded with “huge volumes of low-value products such as textiles and apparel” that compete in the market “duty-free,” Biden said. And this “makes it increasingly difficult to target and block illegal or unsafe shipments” presumably lost in the flood.

Allowing this alleged abuse to continue would not just hurt US businesses like H&M and Zara that increasingly struggle to compete with platforms like Shein and Temu, Biden alleged. It would also allegedly make it “more challenging to enforce US trade laws, health and safety requirements, intellectual property rights, consumer protection rules, and to block illicit synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and synthetic drug raw materials and machinery from entering the country.”

Raising duties could make cheap goods shipped from China more expensive, potentially raising prices for consumers who clearly flocked to Shein and Temu to fulfill their shopping needs as the pandemic strained families’ wallets and the economy.

Specifically, Biden has proposed to exclude from the de minimis exemption all shipments “containing products covered by tariffs imposed under Sections 201 or 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, or Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.” That would include, Biden specified, “some e-commerce platforms and other foreign sellers” that currently “circumvent these tariffs by shipping items from China to the United States” and “claiming the de minimis exemption.”

New rules would also require e-commerce platforms to share more information on shipments, “including the 10-digit tariff classification number and the person claiming the de minimis exemption.” That would help weed out unlawful de minimis shipments, Biden suggested.

Shein and Temu defend business models

Neither Shein nor Temu seem ready to let the proposed guidance slow down their rapid growth.

“Since Temu’s launch in September 2022, our mission has been to offer consumers a wider selection of quality products at affordable prices,” Temu’s spokesperson told Ars. “We achieve this through an efficient business model that cuts out unnecessary middlemen, allowing us to pass savings directly to our customers.”

Temu’s spokesperson told Ars that the company is currently reviewing the new rule proposals and remains “committed to delivering value to consumers.”

“Temu’s growth does not depend on the de minimis policy,” Temu’s spokesperson told Ars.

Shein similarly does not seem fazed by the announcement. Starting this year, Shein began voluntarily sharing additional information on its low-value shipments into the US as part of a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) pilot program. That change came after CBP expanded the pilot last year in its mission to test out ways to “identify and target high-risk shipments for inspection while expediting clearance of legitimate trade flows.”

Shein’s spokesperson told Ars that “Shein makes import compliance a top priority, including the reporting requirements under US law with respect to de minimis entries.”

Last year, Shein executive vice chairman Donald Tang proposed what he thought would be good de minimis reforms “to create a level, transparent playing field.” In a letter to an American trade association representing more than 1,000 famous brands, the American Apparel and Footwear Association, Tang called for applying the same rules evenly, no matter where a company is based or ships from.

This would enhance consumer trust, Tang suggested, while creating “an environment that allows companies to compete on the quality and authenticity of their product, the caliber of their business models, and the performance of their customer service, which has always been at the heart of American enterprise.”

Biden moves to crack down on Shein and Temu, slow shipments into US Read More »

boeing-risks-losing-billions-as-33,000-workers-vote-to-strike

Boeing risks losing billions as 33,000 workers vote to strike

Boeing, Boeing strike, national labor relations board, Policy, unfair labor practices / /
Union members cheer during a news conference following a vote count on the union contract at the IAM District 751 Main Union Hall in Seattle, Washington, US, on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024.

Enlarge / Union members cheer during a news conference following a vote count on the union contract at the IAM District 751 Main Union Hall in Seattle, Washington, US, on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024.

More than 33,000 unionized Boeing workers went on strike Friday, rejecting what they say were unfair terms of a deal the embattled aerospace company tentatively reached with their union.

The rejected deal tried and failed to win over workers by offering a 25 percent wage increase and promised to build Boeing’s next jet in the Puget Sound region in Washington, which Boeing claimed offered “job security for generations to come.”

But after International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 751 president Jon Holden urged the union to accept the deal—which Boeing said was the “largest-ever general wage increase” in the company’s history—hundreds of Boeing employees immediately began resisting ahead of a Thursday vote that ultimately doomed the deal.

Instead of agreeing to a deal that compromised the desired 40 percent wage increases and eliminated workers’ annual bonuses, about 96 percent of workers voted to strike, The Washington Post reported. Rather than take what Boeing offered, workers seized rare leverage amid Boeing’s financial and production woes to pursue better terms.

“We’ve got a lot of leverage—why waste that?” Joe Philbin, a structures mechanic, told the Post ahead of the vote in a Seattle union hall Thursday. Philbin has only been with Boeing for six months but already wants changes in mandatory overtime rules.

An overwhelming majority of the union agreed that the deal was not good enough, so Holden told the gathered workers, “We strike at midnight.”

The statement incited loud cheers from workers who chanted, “Strike! Strike! Strike!”

Boeing workers have not walked out since 2008, when a 57-day strike cost Boeing about $1.5 billion, the Post reported. Analysts told Bloomberg that the current strike is estimated to last about 50 days, too, potentially costing Boeing between $3 billion and $3.5 billion.

The aerospace company cannot afford any work stoppage—let alone a strike from workers playing “a key role in assembling some of the company’s best-selling aircraft,” which the Post said could be the company’s “most disrupting challenge yet.” Analysts told the Post that on top of assembly delays in critical plants in Washington, an extended strike could hurt Boeing suppliers and Boeing’s market share.

Boeing’s spokesperson told Ars that the company is eager to get back to the bargaining table.

“The message was clear that the tentative agreement we reached with IAM leadership was not acceptable to the members,” Boeing’s spokesperson said. “We remain committed to resetting our relationship with our employees and the union, and we are ready to get back to the table to reach a new agreement.”

Why did Boeing workers reject the deal?

Boeing likely anticipated that the deal wasn’t good enough after Holden told The Seattle Times on Wednesday that workers would probably vote to strike.

Two days before that, Holden posted a message to workers after receiving “hundreds of messages and emails” expressing concerns about the tentative deal that he recommended that they accept.

“Emotions are high,” Holden acknowledged.

Holden told workers that it would have been impossible to respond to everyone individually and reassured them that the tentative deal was not binding.

“A Tentative Agreement is not certain or fixed, and it’s certainly not final,” Holden told workers. He further clarified that the deal simply represented the best terms that the union could get Boeing to agree to without a strike.

Boeing risks losing billions as 33,000 workers vote to strike Read More »