Archives: News
Archive of News from WirelessEd, in reverse chronological order.
- Headlines | Ransomware attacks take on new urgency. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The therapy-by-text company made burner phones available for fake reviews and doesn’t adequately respect client privacy, former employees say.
{/exp:ce_str:ing} - Headlines | Why robocalls are still a thing—and why there’s hope they’ll end. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The $2.65 billion deal, like previous high-tech mergers, will stifle innovation and competition, not enhance it.
{/exp:ce_str:ing} - Headlines | How to make your smartphone last longer. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Facebook’s new Manage Activity setting helps batch delete old posts—and keep stalkers, employers and police from nosing around your past.
{/exp:ce_str:ing} - Headlines | Suit claims Google’s tracking violates federal wiretap law. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The complaint said Google tracked and collected users’ browsing history even if they took steps to maintain their privacy.
{/exp:ce_str:ing} - Headlines | Nearly half of accounts tweeting about coronavirus are likely bots. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
With cafes and libraries closed, Americans without internet access are sitting outside them to get free and fast connections.
{/exp:ce_str:ing} - Headlines | You can check your credit files once a week for free. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
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. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The tool is based on the Free File Fillable forms available on the IRS website. By April 17, the IRS plans to launch “Get…
- Headlines | Gig workers’ new unemployment benefits won’t come quickly. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill makes contractors eligible for unemployment insurance. But states want pay stubs that ride-hail drivers don't have.
{/exp:ce_str:ing} - Headlines | To track coronavirus, Israel moves to tap secret cellphone data. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has authorized the country’s internal security agency to tap into a vast and previously undisclosed trove of cellphone data…
- Headlines | What the T-Mobile and Sprint merger means for you. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Is my phone bill going up? T-Mobile promised phone bills will remain the same for the next three years.
Will my phone still be compatible?…
- Headlines | Judge approves T-Mobile-Sprint merger. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The deal would combine America’s third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers, creating a telecommunications juggernaut able to challenge AT&T and Verizon.
{/exp:ce_str:ing} - Headlines | Forced arbitration: A clause for concern. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Whether you realize it or not, chances are you have agreed to arbitration on dozens of occasions, forfeiting your right to take problems—even serious ones—with…
- Headlines | New rules gutting consumer watchdog from the inside. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
A new enforcement policy at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the most recent example of an agency drifting away from its mission to police…
- Headlines | Facebook will now show you exactly how it stalks you. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The new ‘Off-Facebook Activity’ tool reminds us we’re living in a reality TV program where the cameras are always on. Here are the privacy settings…
- Headlines | USDOJ accuses U.S. companies of being complicit in foreign scams. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal court for restraining orders against three home-based operators of telecommunications companies who, authorities allege, patched hundreds of…
- Headlines | New York City to force stores to accept cash. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
From a cup of coffee to a car ride, mobile devices or plastic cards are becoming the preferred, and sometimes exclusive, methods of payment.
The…
- Headlines | How to navigate a flood of streaming TV subscriptions. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
We wanted à la carte television, and now we have it—and it costs more than cable. Here’s how to watch your favorite shows without overpaying…
- Headlines | ‘Techlash’ hits college campuses. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
College seniors and recent graduates looking for jobs that are both principled and high-paying are doing so in a world that has soured on Big…
- Headlines | Uber changes its app to comply with gig worker law. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Uber Technologies Inc. made changes to its ride-hailing app in California, tweaking fares and features to respond to a new state law designed to reclassify…
- Headlines | California to unveil plan for consumer financial watchdog agency. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
After years of the Trump administration steadily rolling back federal consumer financial protections, California has decided enough is enough.
Details at this point are scant.…
- Headlines | Hidden costs found in delivered food menu prices. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
If you use food delivery services, you know there are a lot of added costs you pay for the convenience. But did you know in…
- Headlines | The tech that will invade our lives in 2020. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Amazon, Apple and Google announced that they were working together on a standard to help make smart home products compatible with one another.
In 2020,…
- Headlines | How we survive the surveillance apocalypse. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
There are lots of ways your data can, and will, be used against you. When we’re sick, we go to a doctor. To keep our…
- Headlines | Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
When Syracuse University freshmen walk into professor Jeff Rubin’s Information Technologies class, seven small Bluetooth beacons hidden around the lecture hall connect with an app…
- Headlines | Twelve million phones, one dataset, zero privacy. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens of…
- Headlines | Bank regulators urge ‘responsible use’ of alternative lending data. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Lenders and regulators are looking at how data beyond a basic credit score could be used to improve underwriting practices, for example by analyzing bank…
- Headlines | 190 million Americans shopped Thanksgiving weekend, mostly online. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
A record 189.6 million Americans went shopping over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, the National Retail Federation said Tuesday, and most of them did their spending…
- Headlines | Holiday scams are heavy on naughty, lacking in nice. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. But for consumers, it’s also the most dangerous. From gift card rackets to online fraud, consumers are…
- Headlines | Cyber Monday is usurping Black Friday, changing retailers’ offers. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
While many brands lock in their Black Friday plans months in advance—and commit to print ads and television spots promoting their predetermined doorbuster deals—Cyber Monday…
- Headlines | Consumer watchdog downplaying a major Obama-era tool. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The director of the country’s primary consumer watchdog, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), downplayed the role of the complaint database in its operations and…
- Headlines | Police can keep Ring camera video forever, share with anyone. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Police officers who download videos captured by homeowners’ Ring doorbell cameras can keep them forever and share them with whomever they’d like without providing evidence…
2020
September
28
11
August
31
18
14
13
06
July
30
29
10
09
June
11
03
May
21
19
12
09
07
April
27
21
17
13
09
March
16
February
13
12
January
30
29
23
15
13
10
09
07
02
2019
December
26
19
06
04
02
November
27
23
20
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