Guardian, The

The Trump Administration’s decision to allow internet service providers (ISPs) to sign away their customers’ privacy and sell the browsing habits of their customers is “disgusting” and “appalling”, according to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web. Speaking in an interview, as he was declared recipient of the prestigious Association for Computing Machinery’s AM Turing award, Berners-Lee expressed mounting concerns about the direction of the internet he did so much to promote.

Berners-Lee expressed particular concern for the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to scrap an Obama-era rule that would have prevented ISPs from harvesting their customers web logs. “That bill was a disgusting bill, because when we use the web, we are so vulnerable,” he said. Berners-Lee also discussed Republican politicians’ plans to roll back the so-called net neutrality protections that are the backbone of an open internet, how his own legacy intersects with the great Alan Turing’s, and the astonishing progress of the web since he launched the very first website on 1 August 1991.

Acting Federal Trade Commission Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen said that the agency is “not primarily a regulator” and called for wait-and-see approach to enforcement.

She also defended the use of big data to offer consumers different prices for the same good and said she wanted manufacturers of internet-connected household devices to decide best practices among themselves. “We’re saying not ‘Let’s speculate about harm five years out,’ but ‘Is there something happening that harms consumers right now or is likely to cause harm to consumers,’” said Chairman Ohlhausen. If there is potential harm to consumers in a new technology, the FTC should not act until that harm manifests, she said: “We don’t know if that risk will materialize. It may well materialize, but a solution may materialize at the same time.”

[Commentary] March 11 marks 28 years since I submitted my original proposal for the worldwide web. I imagined the web as an open platform that would allow everyone, everywhere to share information, access opportunities, and collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries. In many ways, the web has lived up to this vision, though it has been a recurring battle to keep it open. But over the past 12 months, I’ve become increasingly worried about three new trends, which I believe we must tackle in order for the web to fulfill its true potential as a tool that serves all of humanity.

1) We’ve lost control of our personal data
2) It’s too easy for misinformation to spread on the web
3) Political advertising online needs transparency and understanding

[Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He founded and Directs the World Wide Consortium (W3C) the forum for technical development of the Web. He founded the Web Foundation whose mission is that the WWW serves Humanity, and co-founded the Open Data Institute in London]

The tech industry has long had a substantial rightwing streak. And outside of the spotlight, a cadre of powerful and well-connected industry figures with ties to Peter Thiel and some of tech’s most prominent companies are embedding themselves in the Trump administration.

Thiel’s unusual support for Trump’s candidacy made him seem like the loneliest man in Silicon Valley during the 2016 campaign, but like any industry that accumulates massive amounts of capital in the hands of a select few, tech has its fair share of old-school Republicans. But none of them embraced Trump’s brand of conservatism the way Thiel did, and now the idiosyncratic billionaire is poised to exert significant influence on the government.

A CNN editor has filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s travel ban, after being detained at Atlanta’s (GA) airport recently because of the controversial executive order. Mohammed Tawfeeq, an Iraqi citizen and US green card holder since 2013, was returning from Iraq on Sunday following a CNN assignment in his role as manager for CNN’s international desk. Officials at Atlanta Hartsfield/Jackson international airport told him he could be refused entry because of the executive order, questioned him on why he was in Iraq and then “told Mr Tawfeeq to wait because they needed to seek ‘an email’ concerning whether he would be allowed into the United States”, according to the lawsuit filed in the northern district of Georgia federal court.

[Commentary] It’s a fact: while Americans have countless tools with which to connect with one another, we are also watching fragmentation, polarization, and de-diversification happen en masse. The American public is self-segregating, tearing at the social fabric of the country. Many in the tech world imagined that the internet would connect people in unprecedented ways, allow for divisions to be bridged and wounds to heal – a Kumbaya dream of sorts.

Today, those same dreamers find it quite unsettling to watch as the tools that were designed to bring people together are used by people to magnify divisions and undermine social solidarity. These tools were built in a bubble, and that bubble has burst.

[Danah Boyd is the founder of Data & Society]

Messaging services such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Gmail will face tough new rules on the tracking of users under a revision to the ePrivacy Directive proposed by the European Commission.

The new legislation seeks to reinforce the right to privacy and control of data for European citizens, with messaging, email and voice services – such as those provided by Facebook, Google and Microsoft – forced to guarantee the confidentiality of conversations and metadata around the time, place and other factors of those conversations. Listening to, tapping, intercepting, scanning or the storing of communications will not be allowed without the consent of the user, unless it is critical for billing or other purposes. Companies will have to ask for the explicit consent of users before being able to use their data for advertising purposes, which most use to fund services provided for free to end-users.

Andrus Ansip, vice-president for the digital single market said: “Our proposals will deliver the trust in the Digital Single Market that people expect. I want to ensure confidentiality of electronic communications and privacy. Our draft ePrivacy Regulation strikes the right balance: it provides a high level of protection for consumers, while allowing businesses to innovate.”

The European Commission (EC) has filed charges against Facebook for providing “misleading” information in the run-up to the social network’s acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp after its data-sharing change in August.

The charges will not have an affect on the approval of the $22 billion merger and is being treated completely separately to other European cases against Facebook, but could lead to Facebook being fined up to 1% of its global turnover in 2014 when the merger was approved, which was greater than $10 billion for the first time. The European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said, “Our timely and effective review of mergers depends on the accuracy of the information provided by the companies involved. In this specific case, the commission’s preliminary view is that Facebook gave us incorrect or misleading information during the investigation into its acquisition of WhatsApp. Facebook now has the opportunity to respond.” The commission said that Facebook informed regulators that it would not be able to perform automated matching between user-held Facebook accounts and WhatsApp accounts. However, Facebook’s privacy policy change for WhatsApp in August, for which the EC was notified in January, specifically enabled automated matching and data sharing after technical changes, including one for Apple and its iOS, allowed the matching of the majority of accounts not using a phone number with Facebook.''

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler came to the position after leading two separate lobbying instruments for the cable industry: the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), where he was president and CEO, respectively. Both groups, representing AT&T, Comcast, and dozens of other telecommunication companies, sued the FCC over net neutrality during Chairman Wheeler’s leadership. The regulator passed broad rules reclassifying internet service under the same category as telephone service, preventing web providers from forcing subscribers into “slow lanes” unless they paid more. The industry groups lost the lawsuit in June.

Tech-savvy rightwingers have been able to ‘game’ the algorithms of internet giants and create a new reality where Hitler is a good guy, Jews are evil and… Donald Trump becomes president.