Enlarge / El Salvador now says both US dollars and bitcoin are legal tender. (credit: Thomas Trutschel / Getty Images News) On Wednesday, El Salvador’s president signed into law a proposal to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, making the Central American nation the first in the world to officially use the cryptocurrency. The new law […]
Enlarge / Googleplex office in Palo Alto, California in January 2018. (credit: Getty Images | Ingus Kruklitis) The state of Ohio sued Google today in an unusual complaint that seeks a legal declaration that Google is a common carrier and public utility under Ohio law. “Google uses its dominance of Internet search to steer Ohioans […]
Enlarge / A digital Trojan horse. (credit: Getty Images | posteriori) The Federal Bureau of Investigation created a company that sold encrypted devices to hundreds of organized crime syndicates, resulting in 800 arrests in 16 countries, law-enforcement authorities announced today. The FBI and agencies in other countries intercepted 27 million messages over 18 months before […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty | George Frey) Amazon and Walmart are ramping up their efforts to grab market share in the $360 billion prescription drug market in the US. Today, Amazon announced that Prime members can receive a six-month supply of several widely prescribed drugs, starting at $6. Many drugs are pricier but are still discounted […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) The FBI said it has seized $2.3 million paid to the ransomware attackers who paralyzed the network of Colonial Pipeline and touched off gasoline and jet fuel supplies up and down the East Coast last month. In dollar amounts, the sum represents about half of the $4.4 million that Colonial Pipeline […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Bosca78) A billion-dollar judgment in a piracy lawsuit involving a major Internet service provider could force ISPs to terminate more customer accounts and “punish the innocent and guilty alike,” advocacy groups have warned. Urging an appeals court to overturn the ruling, the groups wrote that “upholding this verdict would result […]
Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Getty Images) Google is paying a $268 million fine and, in a first, has agreed to overhaul its advertising platform to settle an antitrust probe in France. After a two-year investigation, the French Competition Authority found that Google had used its ad-management platform for publishers to bolster its ad marketplace, where […]
Enlarge (credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Facebook has given politicians extreme leeway with what they can post, essentially treating them as a special class of user. Now, that policy will reportedly change, perhaps as early as today. The impetus for the change seems to be a looming deadline that Facebook’s Oversight Board gave the company […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) The Justice Department has created a task force to centrally track and coordinate all federal cases involving ransomware or related types of cybercrime, such as botnets, money laundering, and bulletproof hosting. “To ensure we can make necessary connections across national and global cases and investigations … we must enhance and centralize […]
Enlarge / In April 2013, more than 120 people attended a rally in Boston to remember Aaron Swartz and call for reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. (credit: Getty Images | Boston Globe) The Supreme Court issued a ruling today that imposes a limit on what counts as a crime under the Computer […]