Gerry Shih

An order by Indian regulators requiring Internet companies to store their users’ real names and track their usage history has alarmed digital privacy advocates and virtual private network providers, which have begun to pull out of the country in protest. ExpressVPN, a leading virtual private network firm based in the British Virgin Islands, said that it would shut down its servers in India.

Chinese phone maker Huawei said it has never collected or stored Facebook user data, after the social media giant acknowledged it shared such data with Huawei and other manufacturers. Huawei, a company flagged by US intelligence officials as a national security threat, was the latest device maker at the center of a fresh wave of allegations over Facebook’s handling of private data. Chinese firms Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo and TCL were among numerous handset makers that were given access to Facebook data in a “controlled” way approved by Facebook, according to Facebook.

China's Lenovo Group said first-quarter profit jumped 23 percent, beating estimates, as a surge in smartphone sales showed how quickly the world's biggest personal computer maker is transforming itself into a major player in mobile technology.

Xiaomi said it had upgraded its operating system to ensure users knew it was collecting data from their address books after a report by a computer security firm said the Chinese budget smartphone maker was taking personal data without permission.

The privately held company said it had fixed a loophole in its cloud messaging system that had triggered the unauthorized data transfer and that the operating system upgrade had already been launched.