WELCOME to Connected Rights, your blessing in the disguise of digital rights news and analysis. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to a friend or get them to sign up. I'm David Meyer, aka @superglaze on Twitter and @davidmeyerwrites on Facebook. Don't forget to check out the Connected Rights website and download a copy of my book, Control Shift: How Technology Affects You and … Continue reading Facebook may get a big breach fine, but probably not $1.63 billion
Google, China and InfoWars: Online censorship hits the headlines
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your hadron in the collider of digital rights news and analysis. GOOGLE PULLED OUT OF CHINA EIGHT YEARS AGO over the country's censorship requirements and state-sponsored hacking. But now, according to multiple reports, the company is planning a return, with censor-friendly search and news aggregation apps being developed under a project codenamed … Continue reading Google, China and InfoWars: Online censorship hits the headlines
Good Apple
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your journey through the looking-glass of digital rights news and analysis. APPLE HAS ANNOUNCED THAT THE NEXT VERSION OF SAFARI will tell users when third parties are trying to track them through things like "like" and "share" buttons, and give them a simple way to block the tracking. And which tracker did … Continue reading Good Apple
GDPR special: How was the end of the world for you?
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your ruby slippers on the yellow-brick road of digital rights news and analysis. THE INTRODUCTION OF THE GDPR HAS BEEN nothing if not dramatic, so what the heck, let's focus on that today. (Don't worry, there's a bit of non-GDPR-related stuff towards the end.) The complaints: One of the GDPR's fun bits … Continue reading GDPR special: How was the end of the world for you?
Avoiding and enforcing the GDPR
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your slap in the face of digital rights news and analysis. LAST YEAR I WROTE ABOUT HOW many of Europe's data protection authorities are too underfunded to properly enforce the General Data Protection Regulation. With just a few weeks to go now, that's still the case. Reuters surveyed 24 DPAs and found … Continue reading Avoiding and enforcing the GDPR
Apple makes another worrying China decision
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your pinch on the cheek of digital rights news and analysis. APPLE HAS ALARMED PRIVACY ACTIVISTS by agreeing not only to store its Chinese customers' iCloud data on Chinese servers, but to store the encryption keys for that information in the country too: http://on.wsj.com/2ESetY6 The company claims that the keys will be … Continue reading Apple makes another worrying China decision
How do you know if your rights are violated by mass surveillance?
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your wind in the sails of digital rights news and analysis. PRIVACY SHIELD IS NOT IN THE CLEAR YET. Europe's privacy regulators said on Tuesday that they want to see the US stick to the terms of the transatlantic data-transfer deal by 25 May next year, otherwise they will take the matter … Continue reading How do you know if your rights are violated by mass surveillance?
An Uber-bad way to handle a data breach
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your twist in the tale of digital rights news and analysis. UBER HAS DEMONSTRATED PRECISELY WHAT NOT TO DO when a major data breach happens. Yesterday, the company confessed that around a year ago it paid off hackers who had stolen the personal information of 57 million Uber users and drivers around … Continue reading An Uber-bad way to handle a data breach
State hijacking of social media is getting worse
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your fist in the air of digital rights news and analysis. SOCIAL MEDIA HAS BEEN HIJACKED TO INFLUENCE elections in at least 18 countries over the past year, according to Freedom House's latest Freedom on the Net report: http://bit.ly/2yZcOku "The Chinese and Russian regimes pioneered the use of surreptitious methods to distort online … Continue reading State hijacking of social media is getting worse
Finally, a country’s citizens get to have their say on mass surveillance
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your shot in the dark of digital rights news and analysis. THE DUTCH PEOPLE ARE GOING TO GET A MASS SURVEILLANCE REFERENDUM, probably next March. The country has a law that says if people can gather 300,000 valid signatures calling for a poll on an issue, they get their referendum. And that's … Continue reading Finally, a country’s citizens get to have their say on mass surveillance
