Government

President Trump fired off a tweet critical of Amazon, implying that the administration may be mulling some type of regulatory action. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is also the owner of The Washington Post, one of the top newspapers in the U.S. and a major thorn in the president's side. Trump recently has be...

Facebook has introduced a set of changes designed to empower members to protect their account information. The company has been at the center of an unrelenting firestorm following revelations that it allowed Cambridge Analytica to mine private data belonging to 50 million of its users without permis...

GOVERNMENT IT REPORT

FTC Signals Tougher Stance on Mobile Privacy Protection

Mobile device makers and telecom service providers need to make significant privacy protection improvements for their customers, according to a recent report from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The report could become the basis for agency enforcement actions -- not only for smartphones, but als...

The DoJ has charged nine Iranian nationals for engaging in a massive phishing campaign on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The allegations include the theft of $3.4 billion in research and intellectual property from 320 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad, as well as from 47 f...

British lawmakers have demanded that Alexander Nix, the suspended chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, return to Parliament for additional questioning in its fake news inquiry. The Parliament's probe led to disclosures that Facebook had allowed Cambridge Analytica unauthorized access to up to 50 ...

CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday broke Facebook's mysterious silence following news of several investigations into Cambridge Analytica's access to personal data belonging to 50 million Facebook users. Facing the wrath of everyone from U.S. and European regulators to shareholders, customers and emplo...

EU, UK and U.S. officials have ratcheted up the pressure on Facebook over a user data scandal that threatens to engulf the company. The president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, summed up the stakes in a tweet on Tuesday: "Facebook needs to clarify before the representatives of 500 milli...

A California legislator has fleshed out the details in legislation that would provide comprehensive Net neutrality protection. A number of states have taken steps to counter the FCC's rollback of federal regulations governing broadband Internet traffic. Sen. Scott Wiener last week offered an amended...

How far does the long arm of U.S. law enforcement extend when government agencies seek electronically processed information? The U.S. Supreme Court recently addressed that issue in an intriguing session covering global electronic connectivity, the law, and the significance of national borders. The d...

Amazon this week expanded its discounted Prime membership program, already available to EBT card holders, to include Medicaid recipients. Eligible customers can become Prime members for $5.99 a month, less than half the regular $12.99 monthly fee. The move -- another step in Amazon's efforts to reac...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear oral arguments in a landmark case over whether federal law enforcement can force Microsoft to hand over email stored in an overseas data center as evidence in a drug-trafficking case. The case, United States of America v. Microsoft Corporation, which dates...

The FCC has officially published its Net neutrality rollback order in the Federal Register, triggering a flurry of legal actions and Capitol Hill scrambling to stop it before it takes hold. The order reverses an Obama era rule requiring that broadband access be regarded as a utility. Without it, ISP...

GOVERNMENT IT REPORT

Vendors Await $50B ‘Tsunami’ of US Telecom Contracts

The U.S. government has modernized telecom and supporting information technology twice within the last 20 years -- but not without controversy, delays and costly project management. A third modernization currently is under way, under the direction of the federal General Services Administration. The ...

Microsoft has announced a plan to use blockchain technology to develop decentralized identities, or DIDs, supported by Microsoft Authenticator. Microsoft formally joined the ID2020 Alliance last month as a founding member. The Alliance aims to develop a blockchain-based identity system for vulnerabl...

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