Technology
FTC and DOJ sue TikTok for alleged violations of children’s privacy
US Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice are suing TikTok and ByteDanceTikTok’s parent company, violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The law requires digital platforms to notify and obtain parental consent before collecting and using personal information from children under 13.
IN press release In a filing Friday, the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection found that TikTok and ByteDance “allegedly knew” they’d to comply with COPPA but spent “years” knowingly allowing thousands and thousands of children under 13 to make use of their platform. TikTok did so, the FTC alleges, even after reaching a settlement with the FTC in 2019 over COPPA violations; as part of that settlement, TikTok agreed to pay $5.7 million and implement steps to forestall children under 13 from signing up for the platform.
“Since 2020, TikTok had a policy of keeping accounts of children it knew were under 13 years old alive unless the child had explicitly admitted their age and other strict conditions had been met,” the FTC wrote in a press release. “TikTok reviewers allegedly spent an average of five to seven seconds reviewing each account to determine whether it belonged to a child.”
TikTok and ByteDance maintained and used underage user data, including for ad targeting, even after employees raised concerns and TikTok reportedly modified its policy to not require explicit age disclosure, in accordance with the FTC. More devastatingly, TikTok continued to permit users to enroll for third-party accounts like Google and Instagram without verifying they were over 13, the FTC added.
The FTC also found an issue with TikTok Kids Mode, TikTok’s supposedly more COPPA-compliant mobile experience. The FTC alleges that Kids Mode collected “significantly more data” than was obligatory, including details about users’ activities on the app and identifiers that TikTok used to create profiles (and shared with third parties) to forestall user churn.
The FTC found that when parents asked to delete their child’s account, TikTok made it difficult for them to accomplish that and often didn’t comply with their requests.
“TikTok has knowingly and repeatedly violated children’s privacy, endangering the safety of millions of children across the country,” FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan said in a press release. “The FTC will continue to use the full scope of its authority to protect children online — especially as companies deploy increasingly sophisticated digital tools to surveil children and profit from their data.”
TikTok shared the next with TechCrunch in an email: “We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are untrue or have already been addressed. We pride ourselves on our efforts to protect children and will continue to update and improve the platform. To that end, we offer age-appropriate experiences with rigorous safeguards, proactively remove suspicious underage users, and have voluntarily launched features like default screen time limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors.”
The FTC and DOJ are proposing to impose civil fines on TikTok and ByteDance of as much as $51,744 per violation, per day, and to issue a everlasting injunction to forestall future violations of COPPA.
Technology
Department of Justice: Google must sell Chrome to end its monopoly
The U.S. Department of Justice argued Wednesday that Google should sell its Chrome browser as part of a countermeasure to break the corporate’s illegal monopoly on online search, according to a filing with the Justice Department. United States District Court for the District of Columbia. If the answer proposed by the Department of Justice is approved, Google won’t have the option to re-enter the search marketplace for five years.
Ultimately, it’ll be District Court Judge Amit Mehta who will determine what the ultimate punishment for Google might be. This decision could fundamentally change one of the most important firms on the planet and alter the structure of the Internet as we understand it. This phase of the method is anticipated to begin sometime in 2025.
In August, Judge Mehta ruled that Google constituted an illegal monopoly since it abused its power within the search industry. The judge also questioned Google’s control over various web gateways and the corporate’s payments to third parties to maintain its status because the default search engine.
The Department of Justice’s latest filing says Google’s ownership of Android and Chrome, that are key distribution channels for its search business, poses a “significant challenge” to remediation to ensure a competitive search market.
The Justice Department has proposed other remedies to address the search engine giant’s monopoly, including Google spinning off its Android mobile operating system. The filing indicated that Google and other partners may oppose the spin-off and suggested stringent countermeasures, including ending the use of Android to the detriment of search engine competitors. The Department of Justice has suggested that if Google doesn’t impose restrictions on Android, it must be forced to sell it.
Prosecutors also argued that the corporate must be barred from stepping into exclusionary third-party agreements with browser or phone firms, resembling Google’s agreement with Apple to be the default search engine on all Apple products.
The Justice Department also argued that Google should license its search data, together with ad click data, to competitors.
Additionally, the Department of Justice also set conditions prohibiting Google from re-entering the browser market five years after the spin-off of Chrome. Additionally, it also proposed that after the sale of Chrome, Google mustn’t acquire or own any competing ad text search engine, query-based AI product, or ad technology. Moreover, the document identifies provisions that allow publishers to opt out of Google using their data to train artificial intelligence models.
If the court accepts these measures, Google will face a serious setback as a competitor to OpenAI, Microsoft and Anthropic in AI technology.
Google’s answer
In response, Google said the Department of Justice’s latest filing constitutes a “radical interventionist program” that may harm U.S. residents and the country’s technological prowess on the planet.
“The Department of Justice’s wildly overblown proposal goes far beyond the Court’s decision. “It would destroy the entire range of Google products – even beyond search – that people love and find useful in their everyday lives,” said Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer Kent Walker. blog post.
Walker made additional arguments that the proposal would threaten user security and privacy, degrade the standard of the Chrome and Android browsers, and harm services resembling Mozilla Firefox, which depends upon Google’s search engine.
He added that if the proposal is adopted, it could make it tougher for people to access Google search. Moreover, it could hurt the corporate’s prospects within the AI race.
“The Justice Department’s approach would lead to unprecedented government overreach that would harm American consumers, developers and small businesses and threaten America’s global economic and technological leadership at precisely the moment when it is needed most,” he said.
The company is to submit a response to the above request next month.
Wednesday’s filing confirms earlier reports that prosecutors were considering getting Google to spin off Chrome, which controls about 61% of the U.S. browser market. According to to the StatCounter web traffic service.
Technology
Snowflake acquires data management company Datavolo
Cloud giant Snowflake has agreed to take over Datavoloa company managing the data pipeline, for an undisclosed amount.
Snowflake announced the deal on Wednesday after the market bell closed, while reporting its third-quarter 2025 earnings. The purchase has not yet closed and is subject to customary closing conditions, Snowflake noted wa release.
Joseph Witt and Luke Roquet, who met while working together at Hortonworks, founded Datavolo in 2023. Witt was previously a vp at Cloudera, and Roquet was Cloudera’s chief marketing officer and, before that, director of business development at AWS.
Datavolo uses Apache NiFi, an open source data processing project developed by the NSA, to power a platform to automate data flow between disparate enterprise data sources. Data “processors” extract, cleanse, transform and enrich data, including for generative use of artificial intelligence.
With Datavolo having raised $21 million in enterprise capital from investors including Citi Ventures and General Catalyst prior to the acquisition, Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy envisions creating more comprehensive data pipelines for Snowflake customers. For example, he says Datavolo can enable users to interchange single-use data connectors with flexible pipelines that allow them to maneuver data from cloud and on-premises sources to Snowflake’s data cloud.
“By bringing Datavolo to Snowflake, we are increasing the amount of data captured by Snowflake over the lifecycle, providing our customers with both simplicity and cost savings, without sacrificing data extensibility,” Ramaswamy said in a press release. “We are thrilled to have the Datavolo team join Snowflake as we accelerate the best platform for enterprise data – unstructured and structured, batch and streaming – and committed to the success of the open source community.”
Witt says Snowflake will support and help manage the Apache NiFi project after the acquisition closes. “Data engineering at scale can be extremely expensive and complex, and our goal has always been to simplify our customers’ experiences so they can realize value faster,” he added within the press release. “By joining forces with Snowflake, we can deliver the massive scale and radical simplicity of the Snowflake platform to our customers, ultimately unlocking data engineering for more users.”
Thanks partly to artificial intelligence, demand for data management technologies has increased. Fortune’s business insights estimates that the worldwide enterprise data management market could possibly be price $224.87 billion by 2032.
However, data management has been a challenge for enterprises long before the substitute intelligence boom. According to in a 2022 survey by Great Hopetions, a data quality platform, 91% of organizations said data quality issues impact their performance.
Against this backdrop, it isn’t surprising that firms like Datavolo are gaining prominence.
Today was a giant day for Snowflake who reported better-than-expected earnings sent the company’s shares up 19%. In addition to the acquisition of Snowflake, the company announced a multi-year partnership with Anthropic to integrate the startup’s AI models into Snowflake’s Cortex AI, Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Analyst products.
Technology
Federal prosecutors have charged another Forbes 30 Under 30 alum with fraud
FBI yesterday he unveiled the indictment which accused Joanna Smith-Griffin, founding father of the bogus intelligence startup AllHere Education, of engaging in “securities fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in connection with defrauding investors” of nearly $10 million. The FBI alleges that from a minimum of November 2020 through June 2024, she misrepresented her company’s revenue, customer base and money to investors.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the corporate is in Chapter 7 bankruptcy. If convicted, Smith-Griffin faces prison sentences that include a maximum sentence of 20 years for securities fraud, a maximum sentence of 20 years for wire fraud, and a compulsory sentence two years for a professional identity thief. Smith-Griffin couldn’t be reached for comment.
The Forbes 30 Under 30 list has change into a meme over the past few years as several winners have been accused of fraud. The The Forbes-for-scam pipeline includes FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, co-CEO of (*30*) Research; Fintech founder Frank, Charlie Javice, and “Pharma bro” Martin Shkreli.
-
Press Release8 months ago
CEO of 360WiSE Launches Mentorship Program in Overtown Miami FL
-
Business and Finance6 months ago
The Importance of Owning Your Distribution Media Platform
-
Press Release7 months ago
U.S.-Africa Chamber of Commerce Appoints Robert Alexander of 360WiseMedia as Board Director
-
Business and Finance8 months ago
360Wise Media and McDonald’s NY Tri-State Owner Operators Celebrate Success of “Faces of Black History” Campaign with Over 2 Million Event Visits
-
Ben Crump7 months ago
Another lawsuit accuses Google of bias against Black minority employees
-
Fitness7 months ago
Black sportswear brands for your 2024 fitness journey
-
Theater8 months ago
Applications open for the 2020-2021 Soul Producing National Black Theater residency – Black Theater Matters
-
Ben Crump8 months ago
Henrietta Lacks’ family members reach an agreement after her cells undergo advanced medical tests