Archives: News
Archive of News from WirelessEd, in reverse chronological order.
- Headlines | US attorneys general discuss social media privacy concerns. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
A meeting between top state law enforcement officials and Attorney General Jeff Sessions about how the government can safeguard the privacy of social media users…
- Headlines | Future of 5G mobile data could hinge on a battle over utility pole fees. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Mobile carriers such as AT&T and Verizon are in a race to build brand-new data networks that can deliver ultrafast downloads and support a fresh…
- Headlines | This company is helping parents track their children. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Designed for family members, a new app called “Mom I Am Ok” will launch this month and allow parents to set agreed-upon “check-ins” with their…
- Headlines | Nearly half of cellphone calls will be scams by 2019. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Nearly half of all cellphone calls next year will come from scammers, according to First Orion, a company that provides phone carriers and their customers…
- Headlines | How (and when) to limit kids’ tech use. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
No one cares more about your child's well-being and success than you do. In today's digitally-fueled times, that means guiding him or her not just…
- Headlines | New iPhones are coming. Here’s how to save on an upgrade.. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
It’s the time of year when smartphone makers introduce their newest wares to tempt you to spend your hard-earned dollars on the latest, priciest devices.
… - Headlines | Google’s location privacy practices are under investigation. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Google's alleged practice of recording location data about Android device owners even when they believe they have opted out of such tracking has sparked an…
- Headlines | What to do when your phone or tablet won’t charge. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Check the Charging Port for Lint or Bent Contacts
It sounds silly, but charging problems can often be something as simple as a dirty charging…
- Headlines | What Jack Dorsey and Sheryl Sandberg taught Congress. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Contrary to much of what is happening in Washington these days, Wednesday’s tech hearings showed a political system earnestly wrestling with issues for which there…
- Headlines | Your credit score may have gone up, but don’t rest easy. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Your credit score may have just gone up. That’s because the big credit agencies have cleaned house a bit, removing outdated info that may have…
- Headlines | Trump says Google is rigged. What do we know about how it works?. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
As the web has grown in size and complexity, the importance of Google Search has grown. A minor tweak to its algorithm can redirect huge…
- Headlines | Google will now help you get a bank loan in India. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Google has partnered with four Indian banks to allow users to get loans via Google Pay.
Customers of those banks who use the Google payment…
- Headlines | Facebook and Twitter to testify to Congress next week. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey are set to face a fresh grilling on Capitol Hill next week as lawmakers probe Silicon Valley’s efforts…
- Headlines | Verizon throttled firefighters’ data as mendocino wildfire raged. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Just days after the massive Mendocino Complex Fire ignited in Northern California, fire officials were getting desperate in their emails to Verizon Wireless. As Santa…
- Headlines | Trump’s pick for consumer agency ‘has no qualifications for this job’. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Now that White House aide Kathy Kraninger has received the blessing of the Senate Banking Committee’s Republican majority to become the nation’s top consumer financial…
- Headlines | Don’t want Google tracking you? You have almost no choice. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Google’s sweeping capability to collect data makes it nearly impossible to escape the tech giant in the course of normal online activity, according to a…
- Headlines | How to block and report spam calls, texts. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Unwanted calls and spam texts are annoying, but you can do something about them. Here’s how to block and report them so they won’t bother…
- Headlines | Want better customer service? Don’t call. Text.. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The biggest shift in customer service since the 1-800 number is underway. Some 20 million businesses now use Facebook Messenger each month to talk with…
- Headlines | How Android Pie could change the way you use your phone. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Google is rolling out Android Pie, the latest version of its operating system, to phones across the globe—starting with its own Pixel devices. As the…
- Headlines | The ‘Mulvaney discount’: Shrinking fines for law-breaking companies. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
There’s a hot new trend in Donald Trump’s Washington: the “Mulvaney discount.”
After pausing enforcement work when Acting Director Mick Mulvaney took over, the Consumer…
- Headlines | The top 10 things consumers complained about in 2017. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
False advertising of new and used cars, shoddy home improvement work, and deceptive retail sales tactics lead the towering list of complaints that consumers submitted…
- Headlines | Facebook says it has uncovered another coordinated disinformation operation. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Facebook has shut down a sophisticated disinformation operation on its platform that engaged in divisive messaging ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, the company said…
- Headlines | The SIM hijackers. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Meet the hackers who flip seized Instagram handles and cryptocurrency in a shady, buzzing underground market for stolen accounts and usernames. Their victims' weakness? Phone…
- Headlines | What Android users should know about Google’s fight with the E.U.. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The European Union slapped Google with a $5 billion fine Wednesday, alleging that the tech giant has acted in an uncompetitive manner by pre-loading apps…
- Headlines | Consumer Bureau nominee could face ‘bumpy ride’ over lack of experience. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
While Ms. Kraninger, an official at the Office of Management and Budget, is expected to take a much more business-friendly approach to consumer protection than…
- Press Releases | Protect the CFPB’s critical complaint process. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Groups representing consumers, students, seniors, servicemembers, homeowners and underserved Americans joined forces today to tell the temporary leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)…
- Headlines | More than 1 million children were victims of ID theft last year. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
We think of identity theft as an “adult” problem, but no one is immune from this crime. More than 1 million children in the U.S.…
- Headlines | For a day, I was one of the millions of Americans without a bank account. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
I was participating in a sort of financial scavenger hunt that aims to replicate how life works for the millions of Americans — about a…
- Headlines | How a few people took Equifax to court over Its data breach and won. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Christina Bernstein’s check finally arrived last week: $7,440 from Equifax for her trouble.
She was one of more than 145 million Americans whose financial information…
- Headlines | Is there a smarter path to artificial intelligence?. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
For the past five years, the hottest thing in artificial intelligence has been a branch known as deep learning. The grandly named statistical technique, put…
- Headlines | iPhones will automatically share location when people dial 911. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Your iPhone will soon be able to share your location data automatically if you ever have to call 911, Apple Inc. announced Monday. The feature…
- Headlines | Credit freezes will soon be free for everyone. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Starting this fall, the big three credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — will be required to let you freeze your credit file…
- Headlines | Apple ending apps’ ability to secretly sell your contacts list. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Apple's recently updated policy for developers on its App Store now prohibits apps from selling information collected from your address book to other people.
The changes, which…
- Headlines | Apple making it harder for police to collect evidence from iPhones. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Apple announced that it would block access to a port that law enforcement uses to break into iPhones during criminal investigations, a move that could…
- Headlines | AT&T wins: Judge clears $85 billion bid for Time Warner with no conditions. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
A federal judge said Tuesday that AT&T's $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner is legal, clearing the path for a deal that gives the pay-TV…
- Headlines | Trump’s consumer agency chief looks to shut down complaint database. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The Trump administration may shut down a federal database of consumer complaints about the financial-services industry. Banks think that’s a swell idea.
“In what world…
- Headlines | More than half of U.S. households have ditched landline phones. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
More than half of U.S. households — 53.9% — rely entirely on cellphones, according to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, an…
- Headlines | Mulvaney fires all 25 members of consumer watchdog’s advisory board. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, fired the agency’s 25-member advisory board, days after some of its members criticized his leadership…
- Headlines | States ask CFPB to keep complaints database public. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Fourteen Democratic state attorneys general are asking the CFPB to keep its consumer complaint database open to the public.
State law enforcers risk losing a…
- Headlines | Facebook may face fines — again — for potentially mishandling users’ data. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Facebook’s arrangements with Amazon.com, Apple, BlackBerry and Samsung allowing their devices to access data from the social network’s users could further expose Facebook to steep…
- Headlines | Hooked on your iPhone? At WWDC, Apple finally offers help. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Apple is trying to make us love our iPhones a little less.
Helping consumers and parents combat addiction and encourage healthier relationships with technology was on…
- Press Releases | Groups tell temporary CFPB director: Hands off the public database!. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Keep the public consumer complaint database open was the clear message sent by scores of groups to the temporary acting director of the Consumer Financial…
- Headlines | Facebook gave device makers access to data on users, friends. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
As Facebook sought to become the world’s dominant social media service, it struck agreements allowing phone and other device makers access to vast amounts of…
- Headlines | How spies can use your cellphone to eavesdrop on your calls, texts. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Surveillance systems that track the locations of cellphone users and spy on their calls, texts and data streams are being turned against Americans as they roam…
- Headlines | You’ll be able to freeze your credit for free — but that won’t end ID theft. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Last week, a new law torched some of the banking rules that were put in place after the financial crisis to protect us. But also…
- Headlines | Hey Alexa, come clean about how much you’re really recording us. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
We’re learning an important lesson about cutting-edge voice technology: Amazon’s Alexa is always listening. So are Google’s Assistant and Apple’s Siri.
These devices are always “awake,” passively…
- Press Releases | If companies can protect user data in Europe, they can protect it everywhere (Advocates release letter urging companies to adopt Europe’s new data protection rules worldwide). {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Washington, D.C. – U.S. companies should adopt essentially the same data protection rules that are poised to go into effect in the European Union on…
- Headlines | Service meant to monitor inmates’ calls could track you, too. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Thousands of jails and prisons across the United States use a company called Securus Technologies to provide and monitor calls to inmates. But the former…
- Headlines | Florida man behind 100 million robocalls hit with huge FCC fine. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Issuing its largest fine to date, the Federal Communications Commission levied a $120 million fine on a massive robocall spoofing operation it deemed a threat to…
- Headlines | Why the Internet is suddenly protesting on net neutrality all over again. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The mostly Democratic senators are pushing forward the resolution under what's known as the Congressional Review Act, a law that permits Congress to review — and reject…
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