Archives: News
Archive of News from WirelessEd, in reverse chronological order.
- Headlines | Biden choices for CFPB, SEC pivot to robust enforcement. President-elect Joe Biden is set to nominate Rohit Chopra, the former student loan ombudsman for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to lead the consumer finance…
- Headlines | Millions flock to Telegram and Signal apps. Over the past week, tens of millions of people have downloaded Signal and Telegram, making them the two hottest apps in the world. Signal allows…
- Headlines | Ford is researching tech for bikes, e-scooters to ‘talk’ to cars. If bicycles and e-scooters could “talk” to cars on the road, riders would be safer — at least in theory. That’s the idea behind a…
- Headlines | Supreme Court limits abortion pill access (during a pandemic). The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday granted a Trump administration request to reinstate restrictions for patients seeking to obtain a drug used to terminate early…
- Headlines | Citing ‘censorship,’ internet provider blocks Facebook, Twitter. A North Idaho internet provider, Your T1 WIFI, confirmed it is blocking Facebook and Twitter from its WIFI service for some customers due to censorship…
- Headlines | Millions to get Internet access rebates under new stimulus plan. A massive coronavirus aid package approved by Congress late Monday sets aside $7 billion to help Americans connect to high-speed Internet and pay their monthly bills, marking…
- Headlines | How will the Biden administration treat FinTech companies?. Regulation and governance have not kept up with the FinTech explosion domestically or globally. The challenges for US regulators are well chronicled. How will the…
- Headlines | Zoom to lift time limit on free calls during Christmas holiday. Zoom has a gift for families this holiday season. The video conferencing platform will drop its 40-minute time limit on calls from free accounts starting…
- Headlines | Should you upgrade to a 5G phone?. In the ads, 5G means blazing fast speeds—download a movie in mere seconds!—and more reliable service. The wireless carriers all have maps showing how many…
- Headlines | State, federal authorities to file antitrust lawsuits against Facebook. The filings from more than 40 attorneys general and the U.S. government will allege the tech giant engaged in unlawful tactics to buy or kill…
- Headlines | Fix bad WiFi without spending a dime. Our five-step guide will help you speed up your Internet connection and eliminate wireless ‘dead zones’ while you’re stuck at home.
- Headlines | Biden has the power to make the CFPB more aggressive thanks to Trump. Analysts expect the CFPB under Biden to follow a similar model to what the agency pursued under Obama and Cordray in terms of calling out…
- Headlines | Four online safety myths that parents should know. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, children are spending more time online than ever before, chatting on gaming platforms, posting selfies on Instagram and making TikTok videos for…
- Headlines | How private Is my pay app?. Virtual peer-to-peer payments are the currency of the pandemic. Pay apps say they need access to certain personal information, including names, Social Security, and bank…
- Headlines | Biden faces economic mess and plans emergency cleanup. The Democratic president-elect pledged to begin repair work immediately. On a newly launched website — buildbackbetter.com — he said he will move to provide emergency…
- Headlines | FCC forces T-Mobile to pay $200 million fine for Sprint’s fraud. T-Mobile has agreed to pay a $200 million fine to resolve an investigation into subsidiary Sprint, which was caught taking millions of dollars in government…
- Headlines | How to make sense of your (dozens of) credit scores. Businesses pay Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to provide them with your credit scores—based on your credit history—to decide whether you're a good credit risk. But…
- Headlines | Recession’s silver lining: Households are doing better than expected. Despite the pandemic’s economic devastation, which has tipped millions of people into unemployment, many American households are in relatively good shape. Since April, consumer savings…
- Headlines | To limit tech, some say a new regulator is needed. Even as the Justice Department filed an antitrust suit against Google for unlawfully maintaining a monopoly in search and search advertising, a growing number of…
- Headlines | The police can probably break into your phone. At least 2,000 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states now have tools to get into locked, encrypted phones and extract their data, according to…
- Headlines | Google antitrust case centers on consumer choice. The suit likely won’t result in a big breakup of Google, but it could change how you search the Web on your phone.
- Headlines | ‘Fast fraud’ surges on payment apps. People are getting defrauded as they turn to Square’s Cash App and PayPal’s Venmo to do more online banking in the pandemic.
- Headlines | Teachers can look inside students’ homes now. Remote learning has brought school home for students during the pandemic, turning a living room or bedroom into a makeshift classroom. But many families worry…
- Headlines | Congress accuses four tech giants of monopoly tactics. Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google engaged in anti-competitive, monopoly-style tactics to evolve into four of the world’s most powerful corporate behemoths, according to congressional investigators…
- Headlines | Ransomware attacks take on new urgency. Attacks against small towns, big cities and the contractors who run their voting systems have federal officials fearing that hackers will try to sow chaos…
- Headlines | Cleaners demand safeguards from booking service Handy. Workers for a home services company say they face sexual harassment and unfair fees. A civil rights group is asking California regulators to step in.
- Headlines | Telehealth expansion eyed beyond pandemic. During the coronavirus pandemic the use of telehealth visits has taken off after Medicare temporarily relaxed restrictions that predated the smartphone era. But permanently expanding…
- Headlines | CFPB penalties decline as enforcement actions go small. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s enforcement actions, under Director Kathy Kraninger, have slowed down compared to former Director Richard Cordray’s tenure. Monetary penalties and consumer…
- Headlines | Privacy concerns about cellphone apps designed to track Covid-19. A global wave of experimentation in using smartphones to combat the spread of covid-19 has stumbled over privacy concerns, security glitches and slow program rollouts,…
- Headlines | Start-up culture collides with mental health concerns. The therapy-by-text company made burner phones available for fake reviews and doesn’t adequately respect client privacy, former employees say.
- Headlines | Why robocalls are still a thing—and why there’s hope they’ll end. Efforts to end the scourge of unwanted robocalls have been ongoing for years, but they have ramped up in recent months. The FCC last year…
- Headlines | Going cashless during COVID makes life even more difficult for the unbanked. The coronavirus pandemic has caused people to shift away from cash transactions for fear of coming in contact with coronavirus on the surface of dollar…
- Headlines | The Coronavirus will ruin your credit score. Banking interests have sought to block a measure that would temporarily ban negative items from appearing on credit reports for the duration of the pandemic.…
- Headlines | Facebook, Google absorb U.S. lawmakers’ jabs in rare Big Tech hearing. Google and Facebook took the sharpest jabs for alleged abuse of their market power from Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday in a much-anticipated congressional hearing…
- Headlines | Misinformation on the virus is proving highly contagious. As the world races to find a vaccine and a treatment for COVID-19, there is seemingly no antidote in sight for the burgeoning outbreak of…
- Headlines | Uber-Postmates merger will be bad for restaurants, consumers. The $2.65 billion deal, like previous high-tech mergers, will stifle innovation and competition, not enhance it.
- Headlines | How to make your smartphone last longer. Start thinking about your device batteries as if they were car tires and replace accordingly. Because batteries can be charged only a finite number of…
- Headlines | When healthcare moves online, many are left behind. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, more of the nation’s medical care is being delivered by telephone or videoconference, as in-person care becomes a last resort for…
- Headlines | Now you can delete old Facebook posts without deleting Facebook. Facebook’s new Manage Activity setting helps batch delete old posts—and keep stalkers, employers and police from nosing around your past.
- Headlines | Suit claims Google’s tracking violates federal wiretap law. The complaint said Google tracked and collected users’ browsing history even if they took steps to maintain their privacy.
- Headlines | Nearly half of accounts tweeting about coronavirus are likely bots. Nearly half of the Twitter accounts spreading messages on the social media platform about the coronavirus pandemic are likely bots, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University…
- Headlines | In financial trouble? Track everything companies tell you. One unfortunate lesson from recessions past is that companies and consumers often disagree about what help they settled on and under what terms. Can you…
- Headlines | Parking lots have become a digital lifeline. With cafes and libraries closed, Americans without internet access are sitting outside them to get free and fast connections.
- Headlines | You can check your credit files once a week for free. The three major credit-reporting agencies are making it easy for you to track what’s happening to your credit history in real time. You can now…
- Headlines | A superb smartphone for a humble price. Apple’s recently introduced $399 iPhone SE marks a turning point in consumer technology. It’s a smartphone that delivers all the tech that we care about,…
- Headlines | Europe’s privacy law hasn’t shown its teeth. Europe’s rules have been a victim of a lack of enforcement, poor funding, limited staff resources and stalling tactics by the tech companies, according to…
- Headlines | Companies join governments in rush to launch coronavirus tracking apps. Companies including the global consultancy PwC are preparing to launch apps that track employees as they move through offices and factories, as the Financial Times…
- Headlines | Amid criticism, Treasury Dept. reviews seizures of $1,200 relief checks. Earlier this month, the Trump administration began directly depositing stimulus checks in the bank accounts of 80 million Americans to help them survive the economic…
- Headlines | Governments’ latest weapon against coronavirus: Your smartphone. When California officials wanted to see how closely people were following social distancing guidelines last month, they tapped a powerful new data set — a…
- Headlines | IRS launching new tool to track $1,200 stimulus payments. The tool is based on the Free File Fillable forms available on the IRS website. By April 17, the IRS plans to launch “Get My…
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