Amid growing spat with Facebook, Apple increases privacy controls

Apple Inc. executives rarely call out Facebook Inc., but they made more moves on Monday to limit the social network’s data collection. In iPhone, iPad, and Mac software updates later this year, Apple’s default Safari web browser will show a pop-up window asking users for permission before loading share buttons from social networks including Facebook. 

These buttons make it easy to share web content, but they also let social networks collect user data -- something Apple has been cracking down on in recent years. This would also apply to tools such as like buttons and the comment sections of social networks, Apple executive Craig Federighi demonstrated during a presentation at the company’s annual developer conference. Apple also showcased a new system that makes it more difficult to gather information about users as they browse across the web. When people visit sites, the characteristics of their device can be used by advertisers to create a “fingerprint” to track them. Safari will share a "simplified" profile to thwart this, Apple said.

Apple Inc. executives rarely call out Facebook Inc., but they made more moves on Monday to limit the social network’s data collection. In iPhone, iPad, and Mac software updates later this year, Apple’s default Safari web browser will show a pop-up window asking users for permission before loading share buttons from social networks including Facebook. 

These buttons make it easy to share web content, but they also let social networks collect user data -- something Apple has been cracking down on in recent years. This would also apply to tools such as like buttons and the comment sections of social networks, Apple executive Craig Federighi demonstrated during a presentation at the company’s annual developer conference. 

Apple also showcased a new system that makes it more difficult to gather information about users as they browse across the web. When people visit sites, the characteristics of their device can be used by advertisers to create a “fingerprint” to track them. Safari will share a "simplified" profile to thwart this, Apple said.

Facebook data beach: Zuckerberg to meet European Parliament next week

Social media networking site Facebook confirms meeting with European parliament to discuss the growing online data-privacy concerns.

As reported by the New York Times, the meeting is scheduled to take place sometime next week where Facebook founder-CEO Mark Zuckerberg will discuss the issue of the data breach by data analytics company Cambridge Analytica.

It is touted be a closed-door meeting to be attended by leaders of the various political groups.

Leaders of the European Parliament's various blocs and the head of the body's civil liberties committee which is holding hearings on the ongoing Facebook data breach case will be the part of the meeting.

Further, Zuckerberg is scheduled to have lunch with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss a range of issues.

By leaving Facebook to play Frisbee, WhatsApp co-founder to lose $1 billion

Jan Koum’s exit from Facebook Inc. could prove costly. A speedy departure may prevent him from collecting as much as $1 billion in stock awards.

The chief executive officer of messaging unit WhatsApp confirmed in a Facebook post-Monday afternoon that he was leaving the company. The announcement comes before the final three vesting dates of restricted stock unit awards tied to Facebook’s $22 billion purchase of WhatsApp in 2014.

Koum, 42, got about 24.9 million restricted shares as part of the deal. The stock vests in increments until late 2018, with 1.9 million shares due to vest in mid-May and mid-August, plus a final tranche of 2.1 million set to be issued in November.

The awards are contingent on him still being employed through those dates. He would forfeit 5.8 million shares, worth $997.5 million as of Monday’s close, if he left before May 15, unless his exit is categorized as an involuntary termination or a good-reason resignation, regulatory filings show.

Facebook trying to weaken WhatsApp privacy? Co-founder Jan Koum quits

The co-founder of WhatsApp, a messaging service owned by Facebook Inc with more than 1 billion daily users, said on Monday he was leaving the company, in a loss of one of the strongest advocates for privacy inside Facebook.

Jan Koum's plan to exit comes after clashing with the parent company over WhatApp's strategy and Facebook's attempts to use its personal data and weaken its encryption, the Washington Post earlier reported, citing people familiar with the internal discussions.

"It's been almost a decade since Brian and I started WhatsApp, and it's been an amazing journey with some of the best people," Koum, WhatsApp's chief executive, said in a post on his Facebook page referring to co-founder Brian Acton.

"But it is time for me to move on." He did not give a date for his departure and could not immediately be reached for comment.

Acton left the messaging service company in September to start a foundation, after spending eight years with WhatsApp.

Six takeaways from Mark Zuckerberg's time in the Senate spotlight

In some ways, Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg might be relieved. He prepared for harder questions than he got during his first testimony before US lawmakers.

No senator asked him, for example, about whether he should resign from Facebook - a question Zuckerberg would have answered by saying he has solved big problems before, according to a snapshot of his notes from the Associated Press. Or about the fact that malicious actors may have abused Facebook’s search feature to scrape data on a majority of its 2 billion users, which, he would have explained, the company has resolved so it doesn’t happen again in the future.

The executive had to clear up a few misconceptions about his product in exchanges with senators that came with a touch of irony, considering how misinformation is known to spread on his social network. No, Zuckerberg said, Facebook doesn’t sell data to advertisers or anyone else. (Instead, it has an ad-targeting system that allows advertisers to reach users based on their interests and activity without ever seeing their names.) Facebook also isn’t listening to people’s conversations via their phones’ microphones, or trying to silence conservative voices, he said.

But there were some hard-hitting questions. And in five hours of testimony before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees, the 33-year-old ducked some, skirted around others, but answered most of them. Here are the top takeaways:

'Who is going to protect us from Facebook?': US lawmakers ask Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg was confronted Wednesday by lawmakers scoffing at his apologies over lapses in protecting user privacy and pledges to do better, with one member asking, “Who’s going to protect us from Facebook?”

The question by Representative Janice Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, was echoed by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee from both parties as the founder of Facebook Inc. was questioned on Capitol Hill for a second consecutive day.

Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, the House panel’s Republican chairman, said Zuckerberg needed to account for “alarming reports of breaches of trust between your company -- one of the biggest and most powerful in the world -- and its users.”

While the criticism was bipartisan, members of the Democratic minority were more assertive in saying expanded government regulation is the answer.

Why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is winning the US Senate hearings

Mark Zuckerberg did just fine in his first turn in the Congressional hot seat. He was confident. He capably tackled many of the queries proposed last week by Bloomberg columnists. The 33-year-old billionaire appeared humble throughout much of the hearing, with only a few smug smiles.

The best news for Facebook Inc. the company was that Zuckerberg ably deflected any challenges to the beating heart of its economic model: its hungry data collection and the fine-tuned targeted advertising based on that data. Zuckerberg's success is a win for anyone primarily concerned with the company's market value. But it's a loss for the rest of us.

Facebook will keep failing users' trust as long as its business is based on unrestrained hoovering of as much user data as possible, and crafting ever-more innovative ways for advertisers to harness that information for commercial goals. It's an arrangement to which Facebook's users agree and can sidestep, technically, but it is hardly informed consent or a real option to avoid. 

Jack Ma urges Zuckerberg to 'fix' Facebook and to 'take it seriously'

Jack Ma, the billionaire co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, urged Mark Zuckerberg to tackle the growing criticism aimed at Facebook Inc. by regulators and users around the world, and “really take it seriously.”

China’s richest man and chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. on Monday weighed in on the controversy, calling on his fellow internet pioneer to “fix” a social network that had grown explosively over the past decade and a half. Asked at the Boao Forum about the Facebook furor, the billionaire started dismissing questions but then couldn’t help opining on the crisis facing the U.S. company.

Facebook’s shares have tumbled since the company disclosed in March that it may have shared the personal data of tens of millions of users with Cambridge Analytica, a research firm that helped elect President Donald Trump. Enraged users launched a #deletefacebook campaign and regulators around the world are investigating its handling of sensitive personal information.

“It is the time to fix it. It is the time for the CEO to really take it seriously. I think the problems will be solved,” Ma told delegates to the annual conference on the sunny island of Hainan.

Need to focus on Facebook privacy, says Senator before Zuckerberg hearings

A Congressional critic of Facebook Inc. said lawmakers may need to consider regulating the social media giant, ahead of two days of high-profile congressional testimony by founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.

Meanwhile, Christopher Wylie, the former employee of Cambridge Analytica who blew the whistle on a data-privacy scandal involving the analytics firm’s role in the 2016 presidential election, said some of the information improperly harvested from tens of millions of Facebook users might be stored in Russia.

Zuckerberg will testify Tuesday and Wednesday before congressional panels investigating the mishandling of its data and other revelations about the social-media giant. On Friday, as the company worked to manage the crisis, Zuckerberg said he supports proposed legislation that would require disclosure of who’s paying for political ads on social media networks.

After Cambridge Analytica row, Facebook to now verify advertiser's identity

Facebook will not allow political ads on its platform until the advertiser's identity is verified and the entity paying for the message is mentioned, the social media giant has announced, in a bid to improve its transparency and accountability around political campaigns.

The social networking platform, under fire over allegations that it was being used for influencing polls, said those who want to buy political or issue ads will have to reveal their identities and verify where they are.

Facebook announced the move as its CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to appear before Congress next week to answer questions about the harvesting of personal data on 87 million users by Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultancy working for President Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

"Advertisers will be prohibited from running political ads electoral or issue-based until they are authorised, Facebook said, announcing plans to make advertisements on its platform more transparent.

BJP calls Rahul tech illiterate; experts say NaMo app data leak dangerous

The Twitter war between the Congress and the BJP on the issue of data 'theft' escalated on Monday, with Congress President Rahul Gandhi dubbing Prime Minister Narendra Modi the "Big Boss who likes to spy on Indians" and the ruling party hitting back, saying even "Chhota Bheem" knows it is not snooping. Apart from the cartoon character, mythological characters from the epic 'Mahabharata' were also used by the two parties to take jibes at each other.

The BJP described Rahul Gandhi’s accusation of “data theft” against Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “a classic case of technological illiteracy” and said the Congress president was rattled after his plan to influence the next Lok Sabha election with the help of Cambridge Analytica was “exposed”. At a press conference, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra lashed out at Gandhi, saying such a technological illiteracy had rarely been seen in Indian politics.Twitter was the battleground as the BJP also accused the Opposition Congress of data "theft", saying it had taken off its app after the allegations came out in the open. The Congress, however, claimed it had not done so. The site was "dysfunctional" and all memberships were done through the party's official website, it said

Facebook scandal: Cambridge Analytica may be probed for breaking poll laws

A top American senator has sought an investigation into potential violations of federal election law by Cambridge Analytica (CA), the scandal-hit communications firm at the heart of the Facebook data scandal.

Whistleblower Christopher Wylie, a founding employee of CA, has accused that the firm, hired by Donald Trump during his primary campaign, illegally mined tens of millions of users' Facebook data and then used it to target potential voters.

In a letter to the FEC, Senator Richard Blumenthal said that Wylie's disclosures have raised significant issues that warrant the attention of the FEC pertaining to the involvement of foreign nationals and political action committees in the management of election campaigns.

"I urge the FEC to take these allegations seriously, open an investigation into possible violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) by Cambridge Analytica and its clients, and take enforcement action as necessary," Blumenthal wrote.

Facebook data breach casts a doubtful shadow on WhatsApp Pay

Facebook on Tuesday gave Indian fintech experts 50 million reasons to doubt the safety of its ongoing experiment in India, WhatsApp Pay. The social media giant is caught in the middle of a data breach controversy. It allegedly shared data of up to 50 million users with a political data analytics company Cambridge Analytica. The data was allegedly used to tilt the results of US elections in favour of Donald Trump.
India’s industry experts as well as fintech firms are voicing their reservations around such company getting access to financial data via WhatsApp. Many believe that these firms should be regulated as well as held accountable.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI) had given its consent for the roll-out of WhatsApp BHIM unified payments interface (UPI) beta with limited user base of one million users and low per transaction limit.

Facebook data scandal: Amid UK probe, Cambridge Analytica audit put on hold

A digital forensic firm enlisted by Facebook Inc. to investigate Cambridge Analytica has put its audit on hold, pending a separate probe by the UK government.
Facebook had said earlier that it enlisted the firm Stroz Friedberg to assess advertising-data provider Cambridge Analytica, whose handling of Facebook user data has embroiled the social networking company in controversy.

“At the request of the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, which has announced it is pursuing a warrant to conduct its own on-site investigation, the Stroz Friedberg auditors stood down,” Facebook said Monday.
At issue is information on millions of Facebook users that Cambridge Analytica obtained from a researcher who shared the data without Facebook’s permission. According to published news reports, Cambridge University researcher Aleksandr Kogan created a personality-analysis app that was used by 270,000 Facebook users, who in turn gave the app permission to access data on themselves and their friends, ultimately exposing a network of 50 million.

Cambridge Analytica data breach: FB reviews political strategist's role

Facebook said on Sunday it was conducting a “comprehensive internal and external review” to determine if the personal data of 50 million users that was reported to be misused by a political consultant still existed.
The company said in a statement that it was trying to determine the accuracy of allegations that a researcher gave the firm Cambridge Analytica inappropriately obtained Facebook user data starting in 2014.
In the statement from Paul Grewal, a Facebook vice president and deputy general counsel, the company said it was committed to “vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s information.”