Cloud computing helps power strong Microsoft quarter

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Microsoft on Tuesday reported strong quarterly earnings, powered by demand for cloud computing.

The tech titan said it made a profit of $16.7 billion on revenue of $49.4 billion in the first three months of this year, eight percent and 18 percent, respectively, more than in the period a year earlier.

"Going forward, digital technology will be the key input that powers the world's economic output," said Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella.

"Across the tech stack, we are expanding our opportunity and taking share as we help customers differentiate, build resilience, and do more with less."

Microsoft shares rose more than four percent to $282.44 on the earnings figures, which came with an optimistic outlook for the current financial quarter.

Revenue in the company's "intelligent cloud" unit that meshes datacenter-hosted software with artificial intelligence surged from the same period a year earlier, Microsoft reported.

"Continued customer commitment to our cloud platform and strong sales execution drove better-than-expected commercial bookings growth" along with cloud computing revenue, Microsoft chief financial officer Amy Hood said in the earnings release.

The pandemic accelerated a shift to relying on the internet for work, education, shopping, socializing and entertainment, with Microsoft seemingly positioned to benefit from lifestyle changes that will remain even as people return to being out and about.

A business and productivity unit at Microsoft that includes its online suite of Office 365 software saw revenue grow with the help of a 34 percent increase in money taken in by career-focused online social network LinkedIn, the earnings report showed.

"Growth for LinkedIn was the most surprising," CFRA equity research vice president John Freeman told AFP.

"LinkedIn continued to be Microsoft's lower profile success story. That acquisition is looking better and better every year and every quarter."

Microsoft bought LinkedIn for slightly more than $26 billion in 2016.

Money taken in for content and services at Microsoft's Xbox video game division rose four percent in the recently ended quarter as the company works to beef up its cloud-based games subscription offering.

Microsoft is seeking regulatory approval for its $69 billion deal to buy video game powerhouse Activision Blizzard.

Merging with troubled Activision will make Microsoft the third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony, it said, a major shift in the booming world of games.

Activision, the California-based maker of "Candy Crush," has been hit by employee protests, departures, and a state lawsuit alleging it enabled toxic workplace conditions and sexual harassment. 

"Acquiring Activision will help jump start Microsoft's broader gaming endeavors and ultimately its move into the metaverse with gaming the first monetization piece of the metaverse in our opinion," Wedbush analysts said after the news broke.

Agence France-Presse

'Metaverse' hype fuels booming digital property market

PARIS, France - The idea of spending millions on non-existent land may sound ludicrous -- but feverish predictions of a virtual reality future are pushing investors to bet big on digital real estate.

This week, New York-based company Republic Realm announced it had spent a record-breaking $4.3 million on digital land through The Sandbox, one of several "virtual world" websites where people can socialise, play games and even attend concerts.

That came hot on the heels of a $2.4-million land purchase in late November on a rival platform, Decentraland, by Canadian crypto company Tokens.com. And days before that, Barbados announced plans to open a "metaverse embassy" in Decentraland. 

Such websites bill themselves as a prototype of the metaverse, a future internet where online experiences like chatting to a friend would eventually feel face-to-face thanks to virtual reality (VR) headsets. 

"Metaverse" has been a Silicon Valley buzzword for months, but interest soared in October after Facebook's parent company renamed itself "Meta" as it shifts its focus towards VR. 

The Facebook rebrand "introduced the term 'metaverse' to millions of people a lot faster than I would have ever imagined," said Cathy Hackl, a tech consultant who advises companies on entering the metaverse. 

According to crypto data site Dapp, land worth more than $100 million has sold in the past week across the four largest metaverse sites, The Sandbox, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels, and Somnium Space.

For Hackl, it's unsurprising that the market is booming, spawning an entire ecosystem around virtual real estate, from rents to land developers. 

"We're trying to translate the way we understand physical goods into the virtual world," she told AFP. 

And while it may be some time before these sites operate as true metaverses, transporting us elsewhere with VR goggles, digital land is already functioning as an asset just like real land, said Hackl.

"They can build on it, they can rent it out, they can sell it," she said.

'Fifth Avenue of the metaverse' 

Tokens.com has bought a prime patch in Decentraland's Fashion Street district, which the platform hopes to develop as a home for luxury brands' virtual stores.

"If I hadn't done the research and understood that this is valuable property, it would seem absolutely crazy," admitted Tokens.com CEO Andrew Kiguel.

Kiguel spent 20 years as an investment banker focused on real estate. He insists the Decentraland plot makes exactly the same kind of business sense as it would in the real world: it's in a trendy area with high footfall.

"That is advertising and event space where people are going to congregate," he explained, pointing to a recent virtual musical festival in Decentraland which attracted 50,000 visitors.

Luxury brands are already venturing into the metaverse -- a Gucci handbag sold on the Roblox platform in May for more than the real version -- and Kiguel hopes Fashion Street will become a shopping destination akin to New York's Fifth Avenue.

As for how the land could be used to make money, "it can be as simple as having a billboard, or it can be as complex as having a storefront with an actual employee," he said.

"You could walk in with your avatar and have 3D digital representations of a shoe that you can hold, and ask questions."

Second Life, rebooted 

As far back as 2006, a real estate developer made headlines after making $1 million from land sold on the virtual world site Second Life.

While Second Life remains active, proponents of its next-generation rivals point out a key difference.

In Decentraland, everything from land to virtual artwork comes in the form of a non-fungible token, or NFT. 

Some people have spent tens of thousands of dollars on these digital items, and the concept has generated scepticism as well as excitement. 

But Kiguel predicts this form of digital ownership will become widespread in the coming years, because the blockchain technology behind it creates trust and transparency when making transactions.

"I can see the ownership history, what's been paid for it and how it's been transferred around," he said. 

But the investment is not without its risks -- particularly given the volatility of the cryptocurrencies used to buy NFTs. 

And while virtual concerts on sites like Roblox and Fortnite have drawn tens of millions of viewers, the sparse data available suggests traffic on metaverses like Decentraland lags far behind that of established social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.

Ultimately the value of the land investments depends on whether people start flocking to these sites. 

"I know it all sounds quite ludicrous," said Kiguel. "But there's a vision behind it."

Agence France-Presse

Google to invest over $7B in US, create 10,000 jobs – CEO

Washington, United States — Google will invest more than $7 billion in the United States this year and create thousands of jobs, the tech giant’s CEO said Thursday.

“We plan to invest over $7 billion in offices and data centers across the US and create at least 10,000 new full-time Google jobs in the US this year,” Sundar Pichai said in a statement.

Pichai said Google “wants to be a part” of America’s economic recovery from the pandemic and is investing in some communities that are new to the company, as well as expanding in others across 19 states.

The announcement comes as Google faces pressure from dozens of US states that accuse the internet giant of abusing its search dominance to eliminate competition.

Google will spend $1 billion in its home state of California.

Outside of the San Fransisco Bay Area, Google said it would add thousands of jobs in Atlanta, Washington DC, Chicago, and New York.

“This will help bring more jobs and investment to diverse communities as part of our previously announced racial equity commitments,” Pichai said.

Google’s parent company Alphabet last month reported a 50-percent jump in quarterly profit to $15.2 billion as its digital ad business thrived.

Agence France-Presse

Key points from Facebook-Zuckerberg hearings

WASHINGTON, United States — Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg testified for nearly 10 hours over two days on Facebook's privacy and data protection issues before committees of the Senate and House on Tuesday and Wednesday (Wednesday and Thursday, Manila time).

Here are key points:

Protecting the platform

"It's clear now we didn't do enough," Zuckerberg said on the protection of private user data and to prevent the hijacking of data on millions by Cambridge Analytica.

Zuckerberg said Facebook was built as "an idealistic and optimistic company" to help people connect but failed "to prevent these tools from being used for harm... that goes for fake news, for foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy."


He said that by the end of the year Facebook would have 20,000 people working on security and content review and would also step up use of artificial intelligence to weed out fake accounts and inappropriate content.

Regulation

Zuckerberg said regulation of social media companies is inevitable, but warned that rules could also hamper the industry's growth.

"The internet is growing in importance around the world in people's lives, and I think that it is inevitable that there will need to be some regulation," he told lawmakers.

"But I think you have to be careful about putting regulation in place. A lot of times regulations put in place rules that a company that is larger, that has resources like ours, can easily comply with, but that might be more difficult for a smaller startup company."

Zuckerberg said the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to come into effect on May 25 was more stringent than what was currently in place at Facebook and suggested it could serve as a rough model for US rules in the future.

Facebook is implementing the GDPR standards for European users next month, and some of its rules will be extended to US and other users later, he confirmed.

"The GDPR requires us to do a few more things and we are going to extend that to the world," he said.

Facebook model

Zuckerberg maintained that Facebook users deserve protection of private data but appeared to argue that its controls make it possible to determine how information is shared.

He claimed that "there's a very common misperception... that we sell data to advertisers," adding that "we do not sell data to advertisers. We don't sell data to anyone."

But he maintained that advertising enables Facebookto offer a free service and that targeted ads based on user categories were more acceptable to users, even if they could opt out.

Zuckerberg also said the company believed in an ad-supported business model, but appeared to leave open the possibility of a paid version.

"There will always be a version of Facebook that is free," Zuckerberg told the hearing.

Russian manipulation

The 33-year-old CEO said Facebook was in a constant struggle to guard against Russian manipulation of the Facebook platform to influence elections in the US and elsewhere.

"There are people in Russia whose job it is to try to exploit our systems and other internet systems and other systems as well," he said.

"So this is an arms race. They're going to keep getting better and we need to invest in getting better at this too."

Zuckerberg has previously acknowledged the social network failed to do enough to prevent the spread of disinformation during the last US presidential race.

"One of my greatest regrets in running the company is that we were slow in identifying the Russian information operations in 2016," he said.

"We expected them to do a number of more traditional cyber attacks, which we did identify and notify the campaigns that they were trying to hack into them. But we were slow at identifying the type of — of new information operations."

He added that Facebook is cooperating with the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

"Our work with the special counsel is confidential. I want to make sure in an open session I don't reveal something that's confidential," he said.

source: philstar.com

China’s Xi says country will not close door to global internet

WUZHEN, CHINA — Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Sunday the country will not close its door to the global internet, but that cyber sovereignty is key in its vision of internet development.

Xi’s comments were read by Huang Kunming, head of the Chinese Communist Party’s publicity department at the country’s largest public cyber policy forum in the town of Wuzhen in eastern China.

“The development of China’s cyberspace is entering a fast lane…China’s doors will only become more and more open,” said Xi in the note.

Cyber sovereignty is the idea that states should be permitted to manage and contain their own internet without external interference.

China’s Communist Party has tightened cyber regulation in the past year, formalizing new rules that require firms to store data locally and censor tools that allow users to subvert the Great Firewall.

In June, China introduced a new national cybersecurity law that requires foreign firms to store data locally and submit to data surveillance measures.

Cyber regulators say the laws are in line with international rules, and that they are designed to protect personal privacy and counter attacks on core infrastructure. Business groups say the rules unfairly target foreign firms.

China has advocated strongly for a larger role in global internet governance under Xi.

“China stands ready to develop new rules and systems of internet governance to serve all parties and counteract current imbalances,” said Wang Huning, a member of the Communist Party standing committee at the event on Sunday.

The conference, which is overseen by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) invited foreign executives, Apple Inc’s CEO Tim Cook and Google Inc chief Sundar Pichai as well as a Facebook Inc executive.

Google and Facebook are banned in China, along with Twitter Inc and most major western news outlets.

Top executives from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Tencent Holdings Ltd and Baidu Inc also attended the forum.

source: interaksyon.com

Cyberattack sweeps globe, researchers see ‘WannaCry’ link

MOSCOW/KIEV/WASHINGTON — A major global cyberattack on Tuesday disrupted computers at Russia’s biggest oil company, Ukrainian banks and multinational firms with a virus similar to the ransomware that last month infected more than 300,000 computers.

The rapidly spreading cyber extortion campaign underscored growing concerns that businesses have failed to secure their networks from increasingly aggressive hackers, who have shown they are capable of shutting down critical infrastructure and crippling corporate and government networks.

It included code known as “Eternal Blue,” which cyber security experts widely believe was stolen from the U.S. National Security Agency and was also used in last month’s ransomware attack, named “WannaCry.”

“Cyberattacks can simply destroy us,” said Kevin Johnson, chief executive of cyber security firm Secure Ideas. “Companies are just not doing what they are supposed to do to fix the problem.”

The ransomware virus crippled computers running Microsoft Corp’s Windows by encrypting hard drives and overwriting files, then demanded $300 in bitcoin payments to restore access. More than 30 victims paid into the bitcoin account associated with the attack, according to a public ledger of transactions listed on blockchain.info.

Microsoft said the virus could spread through a flaw that was patched in a security update in March.

“We are continuing to investigate and will take appropriate action to protect customers,” a spokesman for the company said, adding that Microsoft antivirus software detects and removes it.

Russia and Ukraine were most affected by the thousands of attacks, according to security software maker Kaspersky Lab, with other victims spread across countries including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United States. The total number of attacks was unknown.

Security experts said they expected the impact to be smaller than WannaCry since many computers had been patched with Windows updates in the wake of WannaCry last month to protect them against attacks using Eternal Blue code.

Still, the attack could be more dangerous than traditional strains of ransomware because it makes computers unresponsive and unable to reboot, Juniper Networks said in a blog post analyzing the attack.

Researchers said the attack may have borrowed malware code used in earlier ransomware campaigns known as “Petya” and “GoldenEye.”

Following last month’s attack, governments, security firms and industrial groups aggressively advised businesses and consumers to make sure all their computers were updated with Microsoft patches to defend against the threat.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was monitoring the attacks and coordinating with other countries. It advised victims not to pay the extortion, saying that doing so does not guarantee access will be restored.

In a statement, the White House National Security Council said there was currently no risk to public safety. The United States was investigating the attack and determined to hold those responsible accountable, it said.

The NSA did not respond to a request for comment. The spy agency has not publicly said whether it built Eternal Blue and other hacking tools leaked online by an entity known as Shadow Brokers.

Several private security experts have said they believe Shadow Brokers is tied to the Russian government, and that the North Korean government was behind WannaCry. Both countries’ governments deny charges they are involved in hacking.

WATCH THE REUTERS TV REPORT:


The first attacks were reported from Russia and Ukraine.

Russia’s Rosneft, one of the world’s biggest crude producers by volume, said its systems had suffered “serious consequences,” but added oil production had not been affected because it switched over to backup systems.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Pavlo Rozenko said the government’s computer network went down and the central bank reported disruption to operations at banks and firms including the state power distributor.

Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk said it was among the victims, reporting outages at facilities including its Los Angeles terminal.

WPP, the world’s largest advertising agency, said it was also infected. A WPP employee who asked not to be named said that workers were told to shut down their computers: “The building has come to a standstill.”

A Ukrainian media company said its computers were blocked and it was asked to pay $300 in the crypto-currency bitcoin to regain access.

“Perhaps you are busy looking for a way to recover your files, but don’t waste your time. Nobody can recover your files without our decryption service,” the message said, according to a screenshot posted on Ukraine’s Channel 24.

Russia’s central bank said there were isolated cases of lenders’ IT systems being infected. One consumer lender, Home Credit, had to suspend client operations.

Other companies that identified themselves as victims included French construction materials firm Saint Gobain, U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co.  and Mars Inc.’s Royal Canin pet food business.

India-based employees at Beiersdorf, makers of Nivea skin care products, and Reckitt Benckiser, which owns Enfamil and Lysol, told Reuters the ransomware attack had impacted some of their systems in the country.

Western Pennsylvania’s Heritage Valley Health System’s entire network was shut down by a cyber attack on Tuesday, according to local media reports.

Last’s month’s fast-spreading WannaCry ransomware attack was crippled after a 22-year-old British security researcher Marcus Hutchins created a so-called “kill switch” that experts hailed as the decisive step in slowing the attack.

Security experts said they did not believe that the ransomware released on Tuesday had a kill switch, meaning that it might be harder to stop.

Ukraine’s cyber police said on Twitter that a vulnerability in software used by MEDoc, a Ukrainian accounting firm, may have been an initial source of the virus, which researchers including cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint said could have infected victims via an illegitimate software update.

In a Facebook post, MEDoc confirmed it had been hacked but denied responsibility for originating the attack.

An adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister said earlier in the day that the virus got into computer systems via “phishing” emails written in Russian and Ukrainian designed to lure employees into opening them.

According to the state security agency, the emails contained infected Word documents or PDF files as attachments.

Following is a list of companies and organizations that have reported being hit by cyberattacks:

ROSNEFT

Russia’s top oil producer Rosneft said its servers had been hit been a large-scale cyberattack but its oil production was unaffected.

A.P. MOLLER-MAERSK

Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk, which handles one out of seven containers shipped globally, said a cyberattack had caused outages at its computer systems across the world.

Maersk’s port operator APM Terminals was also hit. Dutch broadcaster RTV Rijnmond reported that 17 shipping container terminals run by APM Terminals had been hacked, including two in Rotterdam and 15 in other parts of the world.

WPP

Britain’s WPP, the world’s biggest advertising company, said computer systems within several of its agencies had been hit by a suspected cyberattack.

MERCK & CO

Pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. said in a tweet its computer network was compromised as part of a global hack.

RUSSIAN BANKS

Russia’s central bank said there had been “computer attacks” on Russian banks and that in isolated cases their IT systems had been infected.

All Russian branches of Home Credit consumer lender are closed because of a cyberattack, an employee of a Home Credit call center in Russia said.

UKRAINIAN BANKS, POWER GRID

A number of Ukrainian banks and companies, including the state power distributor, were hit by a cyberattack that disrupted some operations, the Ukrainian central bank said.

UKRAINIAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Yevhen Dykhne, director of the capital’s Boryspil Airport, said it had been hit. “In connection with the irregular situation, some flight delays are possible,” Dykhne said in a post on Facebook.

SAINT GOBAIN

French construction materials company Saint Gobain said it had been a victim of a cyberattack, and it had isolated its computer systems to protect data.

DEUTSCHE POST

German postal and logistics company Deutsche Post said systems of its Express division in the Ukraine have in part been affected by a cyberattack.

METRO

Germany’s Metro said its wholesale stores in the Ukraine had been hit by a cyberattack and the retailer was assessing the impact.

MONDELEZ INTERNATIONAL

Food company Mondelez International said employees in different regions were experiencing technical problems but it was unclear whether this was due to a cyberattack.

TNT EXPRESS

The Netherlands-based shipping company said it was experiencing interference with some of its systems, following a global ransomware attack.

EVRAZ

Russian steelmaker Evraz said its information systems had been hit by a cyberattack but its output was not affected.

NORWAY

A ransomware cyberattack is taking place in Norway and is affecting an unnamed international company, the Nordic country’s national security authority.

MARS INC

A unit of candy manufacturer Mars Inc. has been targeted by cyber attackers, and the company has isolated the issue, a spokeswoman for the company said.

BEIERSDORF AG

India-based employees at Beiersdorf AG, the maker of Nivea skincare products, told Reuters the ransomware attack had impacted some of the company’s systems in the country. The extent of the impact was unclear and Beiersdorf, which is based in Germany, could not be reached immediately for comment in India.

RECKITT BENCKISER

The Indian unit of British consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc, which owns brands such as Enfamil, Dettol and Lysol, was also hit by the ransomware attack, employees in India told Reuters. The extent of the impact on its systems was not immediately clear and the company could not be reached for comment in India.

source: interaksyon.com

Google faces hefty EU fine in shopping case by August: sources

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM | EU antitrust regulators aim to slap a hefty fine on Alphabet unit Google over its shopping service before the summer break in August, two people familiar with the matter said, setting the stage for two other cases involving the U.S. company.

The European Commission’s decision will come after a seven-year investigation into the world’s most popular internet search engine triggered by scores of complaints from both U.S. and European rivals.

The EU competition authority accused Google in April 2015 of distorting internet search results to favor its shopping service, harming both rivals and consumers.

The Commission and Google declined to comment. The U.S. company has in the past rejected the charges, saying that regulators ignored competition from online retailers Amazon and eBay Inc.

Fines for companies found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules can reach 10 percent of their global turnover, which in Google’s case could be about $9 billion of its 2016 turnover.

Apart from the fine, the Commission will tell Google to stop its alleged anti-competitive practices but it is not clear what measures it will order the company to adopt to ensure that rivals get equal treatment in internet shopping results.

The regulator could set out general principles or specific instructions for Google to follow, said an observer.

The Commission’s tough line is in sharp contrast with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission which settled its own web search case with the company in 2013 by requiring Google to stop “scraping” reviews and other data from rival websites for its own products.

Google made three unsuccessful attempts to settle the case with the previous European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia in a bid to stave off a possible fine and a finding of wrongdoing.

May’s lead falls to 3 percentage points, YouGov poll shows a week before election
Almunia’s successor Margrethe Vestager, however, has shown no willingness to settle with Google.

The company has also been charged with using its Android mobile operating system to squeeze out rivals and with blocking competitors in online search advertising related to its “AdSense for Search” platform.

The platform allows Google to act as an intermediary for websites such as online retailers, telecoms operators or newspapers. The Commission has warned of massive fines in both cases.

source: interaksyon.com

China arrests 44 in $140-M online scam

China’s police have arrested 44 people over a scam which saw many as 93,000 people contribute start-up capital to “unfreeze” assets smuggled overseas when the Nationalist government was overthrown in 1949, police authorities said late on Thursday.

The criminal network used Wechat and other communication tools to encourage people to pay 10 yuan ($1.46) for membership in a scheme which promised returns of as much as 50,000 yuan ($7,280) once the assets were unfrozen, the Ministry of Public Security said in a notice on its website.

The ministry said that it had busted a total of 15 criminal groups involved in the scam since investigations began in October 2016. The fraud involved more than 950 million yuan ($138.34 million).

The public security ministry said earlier this month that it had already set up 32 provincial and 206 city centers dedicated to cracking down on online and telecom fraud. It said it uncovered 83,000 cases last year, up 49.6 percent compared to 2016.

source: interaksyon.com

Facebook still accessible in Thailand as government deadline passes

The Facebook social media site was still available in Thailand on Tuesday after concerns arose that authorities would shut it down if Facebook did not take down content deemed threatening to national security.

Thailand’s telecoms regulator said last week it would give Facebook Thailand until Tuesday to take down 131 web addresses with content deemed threatening to security or which violated strict lese majeste laws.

The threat prompted a flurry of concern in the Southeast Asian country – one of the most Facebook-active countries in Asia – that Facebook would be blocked.

Morakot Kulthamyothin, president of the Thai Internet Service Provider Association (TISPA), which includes 19 landline and mobile ISPs, as well as major international internet gateway operators covering 90% of the country, said there was no plan to block access to Facebook in Thailand yet.

“We haven’t discussed that action to shutdown Facebook,” Morakot told reporters.

On Tuesday, Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the telecoms commission, went to the TISPA head office to inspect whether all 131 sites authorities had asked Facebook to remove had been taken down.

He is expected to speak to reporters later on Tuesday.

Days after a May 2014 coup by the military, Thailand’s Information Communications Technology Ministry temporarily blocked access to Facebook saying it had received orders to do so by the military in order to suspend content critical of the military.

The junta denied it had ordered the action.

Thailand’s military government has ramped up online censorship, particularly perceived insults to the monarchy, since seizing power in a 2014 coup.

Last month Thailand also banned its citizens from making any online contact with three vocal critics of the monarchy.

Last week the secretary-general of The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission of Thailand said the Ministry of Digital Economy would file a complaint with police this week to press charges against Facebook Thailand under the Computer Crime Act and commerce ministry regulations.

source: beta.interaksyon.com

Trump signs repeal of US broadband privacy rules

WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump on Monday signed a repeal of Obama-era broadband privacy rules, the White House said, a victory for internet service providers and a blow to privacy advocates.

Republicans in Congress last week narrowly passed the repeal of the privacy rules with no Democratic support and over the strong objections of privacy advocates.

The signing, disclosed in White House statement late on Monday, follows strong criticism of the bill, which is a win for AT&T Inc., Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc.

The bill repeals regulations adopted in October by the Federal Communications Commission under the Obama administration requiring internet service providers to do more to protect customers' privacy than websites like Alphabet Inc.'s Google or Facebook Inc.

The rules had not yet taken effect but would have required internet providers to obtain consumer consent before using precise geolocation, financial information, health information, children's information and web browsing history for advertising and marketing.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai praised the repeal in a statement late on Monday for having “appropriately invalidated one part of the Obama-era plan for regulating the internet." Those flawed privacy rules, which never went into effect, were designed to benefit one group of favored companies, not online consumers."

Pai said the FCC would work with the Federal Trade Commission, which oversees websites, to restore the "FTC’s authority to police internet service providers’ privacy practices."

Republican FCC commissioners have said the Obama rules would unfairly give websites the ability to harvest more data than internet service providers.

The action is the latest in a string of reversals of Obama administration rules. On Monday, the FCC reversed a requirement that Charter Communications Inc extend broadband service to 1 million homes that already have a high-speed provider.

On Friday, Comcast, Verizon AT&T Inc. said they would voluntarily not sell customers’ individual internet browsing information.

Verizon does not sell personal web browsing histories and has no plans to do so but the company said it has two advertising programs that use "de-identified" customer browsing data, including one that uses "aggregate insights that might be useful for advertisers and other businesses."

The American Civil Liberties Union said last month Congress should have opposed "industry pressure to put profits over privacy" and added "most Americans believe that their sensitive internet information should be closely guarded."

Trade group USTelecom Chief Executive Jonathan Spalter in a statement praised Trump for "stopping rules that would have created a confusing and conflicting consumer privacy framework."

Last week, 46 Senate Democrats urged Trump not to sign the bill, arguing most Americans "believe that their private information should be just that."

Republicans later this year are expected to move to overturn net neutrality provisions that in 2015 reclassified broadband providers and treated them like a public utility - a move that is expected to spark an even bigger fight.

source: interaksyon.com

Yahoo to be named Altaba, Mayer to leave board after Verizon deal

Yahoo Inc said Monday that it would rename itself Altaba Inc and Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer would step down from the board after the closing of its deal with Verizon Communications Inc.

Yahoo has a deal to sell its core internet business, which includes its digital advertising, email and media assets, to Verizon for $4.83 billion.

The terms of that deal could be amended - or the transaction may even be called off - after Yahoo last year disclosed two separate data breaches; one involving some 500 million customer accounts and the second involving over a billion.

Verizon executives have said that while they see a strong strategic fit with Yahoo, they are still investigating the data breaches.

Five other Yahoo directors would also resign after the deal closes, Yahoo said in a regulatory filing on Monday.

The remaining directors will govern Altaba, a holding company whose primary assets will be a 15 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo Japan.

The new company also named Eric Brandt chairman of the board, effective Jan. 9.

source: interaksyon.com

Thai PM defends cyber controls as censorship concerns rise

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Thursday defended a decision to amend a cyber-crime law to increase the military government’s ability to remove online content as authorities seeks to tighten control on dissent.

A royal transition this month saw new King Maha Vajiralongkorn ascend the throne following the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, on Oct. 13.

Thailand has some of the world’s toughest laws against royal insult, which has curtailed public discussion about the monarchy’s role following the death of King Bhumibol, who was seen as a unifying figure.

Since King Bhumibol’s death, authorities have cracked down on what they consider to be insults to the royal family and have shut down hundreds of websites.

The government is also sensitive about what it sees as criticism of the military’s role in politics, and opposition to its seizure of power in a 2014 coup.

Prayuth’s comments came a day before parliament will decide whether to pass amendments to a 2007 Computer Crime Act which critics say could result in more extensive online monitoring.

Amendments to the law, seen by Reuters on Friday, would allow state officials to obtain user and traffic data from service providers without court approval.

Any website that is seen as a threat to national security or “offends people’s good morals” can also be removed or suspended.

The current law says officials need court approval to remove content.

“This law is for when anyone posts something that is poisonous to society so that we know where it comes from,” Prayuth told reporters.

“Don’t think this is a rights violation. This isn’t what we call a rights violation … this is what we call a law to be used against those who violate the law,” he said.

Critics say parliament is likely to approve the amendments.

Since taking power, Prayuth’s military government has made increasing state control over cyberspace a priority.

In September, it launched a Ministry of Digital Economy and Society. One of its tasks is to block and delete what it considers to be inappropriate online.

Some 342,000 people have signed a petition calling for a reconsideration of the amendments, highlighting opposition to what critics, including civil society groups, say is a threat to internet freedom.

Arthit Suriyawongkul of the Thai Netizen Network said the amendments were problematic.

“It’s not the law itself that is a rights violation, but the authorities’ extensive power when monitoring and censoring online content, which could raise privacy concerns,” he said.

source: interaksyon.com

Social media ads to hit $50 billion by 2019 — Zenith

The amount of money spent on advertising on social media is set to catch up with newspaper ad revenues by 2020, a leading forecaster said on Monday.

The rapid expansion of social media platforms on mobile devices, as well as faster internet connectivity and more sophisticated technology, has triggered a huge shift in the way many people get their news.

Advertising agency Zenith Optimedia, owned by France’s Publicis, predicts global advertising expenditure on social media will account for 20 percent of all internet advertising in 2019, hitting $50 billion (39 billion pounds) and coming in just one percent smaller than newspaper ads. It expects social media to overtake newspapers comfortably by 2020.

“Social media and online video are driving continued growth in global ad spend, despite political threats to the economy,” Jonathan Barnard, head of forecasting at Zenith, said.

The media industry has been convulsed by the rapid shift in advertising trends in recent years, with firms moving their ad budgets from traditional sources such as newspapers to websites found on computers and mobile phones.

Marketers are increasingly directing their spending to social media sites where ads blend into users’ newsfeeds on platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat proving more effective than interruptive banner formats.

Zenith’s report forecasts that global advertising expenditure will grow 4.4 percent in 2017, the same rate as in 2016, which it said would be a strong performance given that big events like the Olympic Games, Britain’s EU referendum and the U.S. presidential election boosted advertising this year.

Online video advertising is also rapidly growing and set to total $35.4 billion across the world by 2019, fractionally ahead of the amount spent on radio advertising but still far less than television.

Global spending on advertising has been stable since 2010 the report showed, although growth has declined in the Middle East and North Africa. It was expected to continue to grow strongly in China and much of Asia.

source: interaksyon.com

WATCH | ‘PPAP’ singer Pikotaro unveils extended version of viral song

Japanese social media star Pikotaro unveiled a new, extended version of his internet hit “Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen” (PPAP) on Friday.

The original video quickly went viral after being uploaded in early September, with Canadian singer Justin Bieber helping boost viewing numbers by labeling it his “favorite video on the internet” in a Twitter post on Thursday.

“Yesterday my head was full of white hair, but now it has all turned black,” said Pikotaro, overwhelmed by the attention he has received, including a Guinness World Record for the shortest song to make it into the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Pikotaro, whose real name is Kazuhito Kosaka, wore a gold animal print outfit complete with scarf and sunglasses as he performed the new two-minute version of what was a 45 second song to journalists in Tokyo.

The video — which has racked up over 131 million views on YouTube — features Pikotaro miming the joining of an imaginary apple and pineapple with an imaginary pen, lyrics he said were inspired by items he found on the table when he began writing.

Watch the long version of “Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen” here:

source: interaksyon.com

Radiohead releases single under cloud of intrigue

British rockers Radiohead returned to the Internet on Tuesday with a new music video, after the band stumped fans by deleting all posts on their Twitter account over the weekend.

The critically acclaimed band previewed the release of the new single “Burn the Witch” early Tuesday, posting short bursts of footage from the video on Instagram.

Both “Burn the Witch” and “Radiohead” quickly became two of the top 10 trending terms on Twitter in the United States Tuesday after the video was unveiled.

UK film director Edgar Wright (@edgarwright) tweeted on Tuesday, “Love the Trumpton / Camberwick Green style video for Radiohead’s ‘Burn The Witch’.”

It was unclear when Radiohead might release a new full-length album, though the group is scheduled to begin its next world concert tour later this month, according to a schedule that was linked to the band’s website.

Adding to the intrigue, the group appeared to have scrubbed its Twitter account of any posts that appeared previously to those published Monday that related to the new single.

“‘Sorry I can’t come to work tomorrow. Radiohead just deleted all their tweets, so something Earth changing is about to happen,’” tweeted D.D. Walker (@desmondalan) on Sunday.

“Radiohead just deleted all of their tweets + their website and profile pictures are completely blank,” tweeted Peter Sharkey (@iPeterSharkey) on Sunday. “They sure do know how to build hype.”

Over the weekend, music review website Pitchfork reported that several Radiohead fans in the UK had received cryptic leaflets in the mail that read, in part, “BURN THE WITCH/WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.”

Radiohead, an alternative rock group, is best known for hits like “Creep” and “Paranoid Android.”

source: interaksyon.com

Yahoo extends deadline for opening bids: report

SAN FRANCISCO, California – Yahoo has given prospective buyers an added week to make preliminary bids for the company’s core assets, tech news website Re/Code reported on Friday.

The struggling Internet pioneer has been briefing prospective buyers, according to US media reports that indicated the list of suitors included telecommunications titan Verizon, Google-parent Alphabet, and Time Inc.

The deadline for initial offers was reportedly extended from Monday to April 18, a day before California-based Yahoo releases earnings figures for the first three months of this year.

Re/Code attributed the information to unnamed sources close to the situation and “blabby bankers they talk to.”

Yahoo declined to comment on the report.

In letters to potential suitors, the troubled Internet company asked them what assets they were interested in, how they would finance such acquisitions and what terms would have to be met on their end, the Wall Street Journal reported last month, quoting people familiar with the matter.

The paper said some buyers might be interested in Yahoo’s core web business or parts of it, while others might bid for stakes in Alibaba or Yahoo Japan.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who took over in 2012 with the mission of boosting growth, is in an increasingly difficult position.

Although Yahoo is one of the best-known names on the Internet and is used by around one billion people, it has fallen behind Google in Internet searches and has been steadily losing ground in online advertising.

Ironically, Mayer joined Yahoo as chief executive from Google a result of a proxy war launched by an activist investor group.

While Mayer has injected some energy and glamor into the company, Yahoo’s finances have failed to improve and its core operations are valued in the market as worthless, with the company’s valuation propped up by its stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan.

In February, Yahoo said it was cutting 15 percent of its workforce and narrowing its focus as it explores “strategic alternatives.”

The California company reported a loss of $4.43 billion in the final three months of last year, due mostly to lowering the value of its US, Canada, Europe, Latin America and Tumblr units.

source: interaksyon.com

Facebook founder Zuckerberg calls for universal access to Internet

BARCELONA -- Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said on Monday the "whole world deserves to have access to the Internet," to a packed crowd at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.

Zuckerberg's appearance was one of the most eagerly expected event of the opening day of the congress, which began Monday and runs until Thursday.

"Everyone deserves access to the Internet and I don't understand how we can still be like this in 2016... if there are more and more people with Internet access, it is a business model which works," said Zuckerberg, who highlighted that more clients for Internet providers would then lead to "investment in infrastructure."

He also spoke about the move towards 5G, questioning why the industry was moving so quickly to this level of connectivity when the important thing is that all the world can afford an Internet connection, "not just those who have money to pay for expensive connections."

source: interaksyon.com

Jim Ayson, PH Internet champion, logs off at 53

MANILA, Philippines — Local Internet pioneer, startup advocate, and prolific chronicler of the Philippine IT history Jim Ayson has succumbed to heart attack evening of November 9, at age 53.

His wife Chette Soriano-Ayson confirmed on Tuesday morning the news on her Facebook page saying: “My husband, my best friend and love of my life Jim Ayson joined our creator last night.”

Local social media communities lit up up with shock and grief after news spread of the unexpected passing of Ayson, who is an active and outspoken voice online and has forged various digital partnerships, both local and foreign, in his work for Smart DevNet.

Ayson’s record of the pivotal moments in local IT history, such as the time when the Philippines first went online, is often cited in various publications as key source material.

A man of many hats, Ayson also championed the cause of Original Pilipino Music (OPM) and was partial in particular to Pinoy Rock and alternative independent musicians. To this end, he founded PhilMusic.com, a website devoted to articles about emerging and established OPM acts.

PhilMusic was a strong online presence in the pre-social media days and later embraced social media network sites like Facebook and Twitter which Ayson tirelessly maintained until his death.

Ayson personally covered several musical events armed with his laptop and handheld cameras as he immediately uploaded photos to PhilMusic just shortly after taking them. A musician himself who played drums, Jim was also invited to write about both music and technology for several online and print publications, most notably the now defunct, The Reviewer where he was a columnist and music editor.

Ayson is survived by his wife Chette and their baby daughter Gabby.

More from NEWSBYTES.PH

source: interaksyon.com

Third teen arrested over cyber attack on UK’s TalkTalk

LONDON — British police said Tuesday they had arrested a third teenager in connection with a cyber attack on Internet and telephone provider TalkTalk that put millions of customers’ data at risk.

The 16-year-old boy was arrested in the east England city of Norwich on Tuesday evening and taken to a police station while the property was searched, according to a statement from the Metropolitan Police.

It comes after the arrests last week of a 16-year-old boy from west London, a 15-year-old boy in Northern Ireland, and a 20-year-old man in Staffordshire in central England. All three have since been released on bail.

The personal data of some four million customers of TalkTalk are feared to have been breached in the hack, which was the third cyber attack on the firm in eight months in which customers’ data was stolen.

TalkTalk has said that it is not sure how many customers were affected but that data including names, bank details and addresses could be at risk.

The company has said that not all information on customers was encrypted, and described the attack as “significant and sustained”.

Police are working together with serious organised crime body the National Crime Agency and cyber crime detectives on the case.

Investigators are examining a ransom demand sent to TalkTalk and purporting to be from the hacker, though the company is not sure if the demand was genuine.

source: interaksyon.com

Internet freedom falls for fifth year in row — survey

WASHINGTON — Global online freedom declined for a fifth consecutive year as more governments stepped up electronic surveillance and clamped down on dissidents using blogs or social media, a survey showed Wednesday.

The annual report by non-government watchdog Freedom House said the setbacks were especially noticeable in the Middle East, reversing gains seen in the Arab Spring.

Freedom House found declines in online freedom of expression in 32 of the 65 countries assessed since June 2014, with “notable declines” in Libya, France and Ukraine.

The researchers found 61 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where criticism of the government, military or ruling family has been subject to censorship.

And 58 percent live in countries where bloggers or others were jailed for sharing content online on political, social and religious issues, according to the “Freedom on the Net 2015″ report.

In a new trend, many governments seeking to censor content from opponents have shifted their efforts to targeting online platforms, pressuring services like Google, Facebook and Twitter to remove content, the report said.

“Governments are increasingly pressuring individuals and the private sector to take down or delete offending content, as opposed to relying on blocking and filtering,” said Sanja Kelly, Freedom House’s project director.

“They know that average users have become more technologically savvy and are often able to circumvent state-imposed blocks.”

Freedom House said governments in 14 of the 65 countries passed laws over the past year to step up electronic surveillance.

Criticizing France

The report said online freedom took a hit in France from new restrictions on online content that could be seen as an “apology for terrorism” and from a new surveillance law.

It also noted France’s “sweeping legislation requiring telecommunications carriers and providers to, among other things, install ‘black boxes’ that enable the government to collect and analyze metadata on their networks.”

In Libya, Freedom House cited “a troubling increase in violence against bloggers, new cases of political censorship, and rising prices for Internet and mobile phone services.”

In Ukraine, the report highlighted “more prosecutions for content that was critical of the government’s policies, as well as increased violence from pro-Russian paramilitary groups against users who posted pro-Ukraine content in the eastern regions.”

The report said most countries in the Middle East and North Africa, where the emergence of the “Arab Spring” in 2010 and 2011 was aided in part by activists’ use of online social media, were cracking down on government critics.

It cited a case in Morocco where police detained 17-year old rapper Othman Atiq for three months after he criticized authorities in online videos and said other regimes in the region resorted to “public flogging” of bloggers.

Overall, 18 countries were rated as “free” online, while 28 were classified as “partly free” and 19 “not free.”

The most free among the 65 countries assessed was Iceland, followed by Estonia, Canada, Germany, Australia, the United States and Japan.

At the bottom of the list was China, worse than runners-up Syria and Iran in terms of a lack of online freedom. Cuba and Ethiopia rounded out the bottom five.

Freedom House voiced special concern in the report about laws and policies, like France’s, requiring Internet firms to keep so-called metadata, which includes the time, origin and destination of online communications.

“While acknowledging that these laws are often intended to assist law enforcement in investigating crimes or security threats, the UN Human Rights Committee, the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, and other entities have recognized that the requirements inherently infringe on the privacy rights of all in a manner that is disproportionate to the stated aim,” the report said.

“Nevertheless, many countries — including democracies — have moved to retain or expand such rules.”

source: interaksyon.com