I wrote a story in 2014 about a digital payments startup called Clinkle. At the time, a source provided me with photo of Clinkle CEO Lucas Duplan burning (fake) money with Richard Branson. It became a metaphor after Clinkle crashed. Now Duplan filed a DMCA takedown to get it removed from Google.

Whoever at the CA bar was responsible for this should be fired immediately.

French scientist denied US entry after officers find phone messages criticizing Trump

I have seen several people argue that Trump has the constitutional right to fire minority commissioners at will (dubious, but I get the argument). Has anyone serious argued that firing Slaughter and Bedoya is good governance or will make the FTC more effective?

WaPo's Ron Charles, in his Book Club newsletter, on Meta's repeated questions about his plans to review Sarah Wynn-Williams's "Careless People": "In my 27 years of reviewing and editing newspaper books sections, no company has ever done this with me."

The CR's effect on DC is a five alarm fire. By treating the DC as a federal agency & compelling the city to return to 2024 spending, Congress is mandating that DC cut its budget--*its own tax dollars*--by almost 20%. None of this $ will be refunded to the fed gov; it was never theirs.

After HP bought Humane AI's assets to salvage the failed company, it left consumers in the lurch. So @justinbrookman.bsky.social and I wrote about how the FTC should crack down on companies that avoid responsibility for their failed connected devices by structuring deals as asset sales.

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin issued the following statement announcing that his office has sued General Motors and its subsidiary OnStar for deceiving Arkansans and selling data collected through OnStar to third parties, who then sold the data to insurance companies.

WOW. The Future of Privacy Forum gets bullied into abandoning their role as convenor of state legislators discussing AI policy. fpf.org/blog/future-...

Wow: City of Clarksdale, Mississippi got a court order yesterday directing a newspaper to delete an editorial criticizing city officials -- without a hearing. Here's the TRO issuing the prior restraint:

Without these employees, I doubt already approved ARPA-H projects will be seeing their grant funding anytime soon. These are ambitious, billion dollar projects to tackle disease and cancer. This amounts to theft of taxpayer dollars. Not to mention the loss of institutional knowledge. 🧪

absolutely wild. i went to youtube to watch a video and the autoplay ad was an AI fake of tom hanks spouting fake diabetes cures. google is making money off this???

Newsom vetoed this bill last year after it had passed the legislature by wide margins. But given Apple's and Google's continued refusal to make these tools available to their user base, it's great to see this bill coming back.

@asmlowenthal.bsky.social has introduced AB 566, sponsored by the CPPA. It requires browsers and mobile operating systems to give users the tools to opt out of the sale or sharing of their personal info in one step with opt-out preference signals. Read more: cppa.ca.gov/announcement...

Clerked for Justice Scalia, member of the Federalist Society, picked by Trump administration last month

One of the many CFPB rules that it's not currently defending in court is the open banking rule, which allows people to easily move their money. The Bank Policy Institute sued to block it. CFPB is standing down. So today, the Financial Technology Association—the fintech lobby—intervened in the suit.

Trump picked Jonathan McKernan, who resigned on Monday from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. board, to lead the consumer bureau, replacing Biden appointee Rohit Chopra, an aggressive regulator who he ousted last month. www.politico.com/news/2025/02...

gritty has seized control of the federal government

It's important to keep emphasizing that what Musk proposes in this tweet is illegal. Congress created the CFPB, just as it created USAID, the DOE, etc. Neither the President nor a billionaire can dissolve them by fiat. Doing so is a violation of the law and the President's constitutional duties.

Today is my birthday, AND the galleys for my book came. I am told that Barnes and Noble is having a sale and A Physical Education is 25% off thru tomorrow with code PREORDER25. Here we are sharing a tender moment www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-physical...

new insane tech job listing just dropped

If you wanted no leaks you should have gone into Settings -> Security -> Configure privacy & security -> Privacy options -> Other -> Configure -> Media interface and clicked “Disallow.” The Leak setting is on by default but we understand your privacy is important so we’ve made it easy to opt out

Crypto executive order establishes a digital assets working group to recommend regulatory changes and advise on a digital asset stockpile, prohibits the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and revokes Biden's crypto EO. 1/5

Commissioner Bedoya goes pretty hard on FTC Chair Ferguson's decision to derail agency inquiries into abusive pricing practices in favor of "canceling DEI." www.ftc.gov/system/files...

FTC's Alvaro Bedoya notes that new @FTC chair Andrew Ferguson has quietly removed five requests for public comment from consideration -- including one that sought comment on “surveillance pricing.” www.ftc.gov/system/files...

Good blog post from @htsuka.bsky.social Texas Is Enforcing Its State Data Privacy Law. So Should Other States. www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

FTC issues settlement with GM alleging that the collection and sale of geolocation and driver behavioral data without express consent is an unfair business practice. www.ftc.gov/news-events/...

This is my periodic rant that Apple Intelligence is so bad that today it got every fact wrong its AI a summary of @washingtonpost.com news alerts. It's wildly irresponsible that Apple doesn't turn off summaries for news apps until it gets a bit better at this AI thing.

FTC and Minnesota/Illinois AGs sue John Deere for restricting right-to-repair www.theverge.com/2025/1/15/24...

Check out @robpegoraro.com’s post about my talk at @shmoocon.bsky.social!

SFGATE finds that online booking sites show considerably higher prices to visitors from the Bay Area than other cities like Phoenix and San Antonio. www.sfgate.com/travel/artic...

First ever lawsuit under a state comprehensive privacy law: Texas sues Allstate for collecting sensitive data (inc geolocation) from third-party apps without permission. This is a big deal as companies have widely skirted consent reqs for sensitive data! www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/release...

New: Meta has deleted trans and nonbinary Messenger themes, as well as the blog posts announcing them. Happens the same week that it has changed its rules to allow users to say LGBTQ+ people are "mentally ill" www.404media.co/meta-deletes...

Ready to go with the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark. Because we all want the internet connected devices we bring into our homes and businesses to be secure. Proud of the work the FCC did to make this happen. techcrunch.com/2025/01/07/u...

Great model, CDT was happy to support it!

This is an interesting fact pattern under state right-of-publicity laws. Generally companies aren't allowed to use your likeness to advertise products without your strict permission. Can Meta co-opt your identity in order to promote itself . . . to you?

so shel silverstein anticipated ai?

I made a list of 5 actually GOOD THINGS that happened in tech this year. None involve AI chatbots or tech gadgets. Progress on privacy (really)! Whole Olympics memes! AI that is designed for the public good! wapo.st/4gJjl3l

"Google itself has previously said that fingerprinting does not meet users’ expectations for privacy, as users cannot easily consent to it as they would cookies....they cannot control how their information is collected. Google's position in 2019: 'We think this subverts user choice and is wrong,'"

Google's had quite the year on privacy! ✅ Slow-walking then killing the commitment to deprecate third-party cookies ✅ Banning uBlock from Chrome ✅ Pressuring Newsom to veto the browser opt-out signal bill ✅ Now embracing previously taboo digital fingerprinting mashable.com/article/goog...

VPN vendors have huge budgets to advertise on your favorite podcasts. We don't have marketing for the IETF, browser and OS security teams, CAs (Let's Encrypt), CDNs, researchers, open source authors, website builders, digital rights activists... We made the web secure and didn't tell anyone.

"Charging for Essential Software Security Features Undermines Digital Safety" Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports is delving deeper into cybersecurity infrastructure that indirectly affects consumers. My colleague @yaelwrites.com explains why enterprise SaaS providers shouldn't charge extra for essential security features. These elements should be like seatbelts in cars.

Spot on 🎯 If it's something they can sell, they benefit from sending you there and claim attribution for the sale. If it's not they benefit from keeping you on their site so you get slop. The point of the slop is just to keep you there. It's just more expensive AMP.

Have been darkly lurking and watching @safety.bsky.app speed run the Great Escape from Content Moderation Game only to realize THERE IS NO ESCAPE.

Blue-state governance, a model unto all the U.S. — the beaming symbol of efficiency and adaptability that delivers cities where, with median home prices at seven figures and residents living in Priuses, a few-dozen apartments can't be built on a parking lot.

FTC's 2 Dems Slaughter and Bedoya to Trump's chair Ferguson: You "promise allowing more mergers, firing civil servants, and fighting something called 'the trans agenda.' Is all of that more important than the cost of healthcare and groceries and gasoline? Or fighting fraud?"