MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Government of Canada launches review of Telecommunications and Broadcasting Acts
- Broadcasting And Telecommunications Legislative Review: Terms of Reference
- The CRTC’s fundamental mistake: It thinks it can regulate the internet (Michael Geist)
- The CRTC’s Fundamental Flaw: Broadcasting May Be the Internet, but the Internet is Not Broadcasting (Michael Geist)
- Canadian Government Responds to Parliamentary Committee’s Recommended Changes and Clarifications to Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)
- Ajit Pai’s FCC lied about “DDoS” attack, ex-chair’s statement indicates
- Senators Wyden and Schatz Wants To Know Why The FCC Made Up A DDOS Attack
- Oddly The Trump FCC Doesn’t Much Want To Talk About Why It Made Up A DDOS Attack
- ‘Transparent’ FCC Doesn’t Want To Reveal Any Details About Ajit Pai’s Stupid Reese’s Mug
- Ajit Pai says you’re going to love the death of net neutrality
- What Ajit Pai Should Have Said About Killing Net Neutrality… And Why It Still Would Have Been Wrong
- Net neutrality will be repealed Monday unless Congress takes action
- Net Neutrality Rules Die Today, But The Backlash Is Just Getting Started
- First state net neutrality law took effect today, countering FCC repeal
- AT&T Defeats DOJ In Merger Fight, Opening The Door To Some Major Competitive Headaches
- Trump administration fails to block AT&T/Time Warner merger
- AT&T Cleared to Buy Time Warner in Blow to Trump Administration
- AT&T wins: Judge clears $85 billion bid for Time Warner with no conditions
- AT&T imposes another $5 price hike on grandfathered unlimited data plans
- AT&T/Time Warner Merger Could Create Giant Player for Sports Rights
- Comcast, AT&T, Verizon say they have no paid prioritization plans
- Comcast offers $65 billion for Fox, says government won’t stop merger
- Comcast disabled throttling system, proving data cap is just a money grab
- FTC Files Lawsuit for Widespread Telemarketing Law Violations
DIGITAL
- Mobile Viewing to Overtake TV Viewing by Next Year
- That Merkel Photo Is More Like a Meme Than a Renaissance Painting
- OFAC sanctions Russian entities and individuals for cyber activities connected to FSB
- Cambridge Analytica director ‘met Assange to discuss US election’: Brittany Kaiser also claims to have channeled payments and donations to WikiLeaks
- Apple bans developers from creating, selling user Contacts databases
- Facebook privacy goof makes posts by 14 million users readable to anyone
- Facebook let select companies have “special access” to user data, per report
- Facebook Answered Congress’s Questions About Data Privacy. Here Are 5 Surprising Ways They Track You
- Facebook Announces New Feature That Aggregates Old Memories
- Latest Privacy Fracas Drops Facebook In The Middle Of Anti-Huawei Hysteria
- Facebook may now ban bad businesses from advertising
- Insights: It’s Game On As Facebook Takes On Twitch And YouTube For Live-Streaming Primacy
- Mueller checks witnesses’ phones for secure messaging apps, per report
- How Pro-Eating Disorder Posts Evade Filters On Social Media
- UKSC judgment in Cartier – who pays for website blocking orders?
- Confirmed: ZTE to reopen after $1 billion fine, new leadership
- Republican senators move to block Trump’s deal to revive ZTE
- Top German Publisher Says: ‘You Wouldn’t Steal A Pound Of Butter… So We Need A Snippet Tax’
- Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain
- Hey Google: Stop Trying To Patent A Compression Technique An Inventor Released To The Public Domain
- Encyclopædia Britannica Wants To Fix False Google Results
- Google: JK, We’re Going To Keep Working With The Military After All
- New law forces Google to suspend political ads in Washington state
- YouTube Takes Down Anti-LGBTQ Ad After Multiple Creator Complaints
- YouTube Complicit In Copyright Infringement Of News Station’s Content
- Austrian court ruling could hold YouTube liable for copyright infringing content
- YouTube’s World Cup coverage includes near-live highlights in Spanish
- Reggaeton Singer Ozuna Is Most Viewed Artist On YouTube This Year
- During The Upcoming World Cup, YouTube Will Be Stocked With Highlights And Athlete Vlogs
- YouTube Stars Joe Sugg, Caspar Lee Form IMG-Backed Digital Talent Management Agency
- Ad Standards Introduces New Influencer Disclosure Guidelines
- Walking the Line with Influencers: How to Satisfy the FTC without Your Influencers Becoming Employees in California
- Appeals Court Curbs FTC’s Enforcement of Security Standards–LabMD v. FTC
- IoT Device Companies: The FTC is Monitoring Your COPPA Data Deletion Duties and More
- Yet Another Study Shows The Internet Of Things Is A Privacy And Security Dumpster Fire
- Circuit Court of Cook County Upholds City of Chicago’s Imposition of Amusement Tax on Internet-Based Streaming Services
- Unpublished Censorship Guidelines Lay Bare The Deepest Fears Of The Chinese Government
- Snapchat Wants To Help Popular Music Artists Make AR Lenses
- Instagram Rolls Out Ecommerce In Stories, As Snapchat Tests Shoppable Ads
- Snapchat’s Speed Filter Not Protected by Section 230–Maynard v. Snapchat (Eric Goldman)
- Reddit Announces Native Auto-Play Video Ads For Select Brands
- Amazon Prime Video Secures Premier League Streaming Rights
- Twitter is putting more live news events in your timeline and notifications
- Twitter Isn’t a Shopping Mall for First Amendment Purposes (Duh)–Johnson v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Musical.ly To Fold Live Streaming Service Live.ly Into Its Primary App
- Canadian Music Industry Wants Government to Pay Copying Fee for Every Smartphone Sold in Canada (Michael Geist)
- Microsoft’s plan for GitHub: “Make GitHub better at being GitHub”
- Three Takes On Microsoft Acquiring Github
- IAB Says U.S. Podcast Ads Generated $314 Million Last Year, Pegs 2020 Tally At $659 Million
- The EU’s Copyright Proposal is Extremely Bad News for Everyone, Even (Especially!) Wikipedia
- EU Publishers Freak Out Now That People Are Realizing Just How Messed Up Their Link Tax Really Is
- EU Commission Violates GDPR; Claims That It’s Exempt From The Law For ‘Legal Reasons’
- EU Explores Making GDPR Apply To EU Government Bodies… But With Much Lower Fines
- UK Security Minister Says Only A Drivers Licence For The Internet Can Bring Back Online Civility
- America should borrow from Europe’s data-privacy law: The GDPR’s premise, that consumers should be in charge of their own personal data, is the right one
- GDPR’s Impact on the Use of Blockchain to Facilitate International Trade
- Blockchain: Game changer or game over?
- The rise of the “Crypto Czar,” the fall of a “blockchain evangelist,” and other crypto developments
- Bitcoin has lost more than half its value since last year’s all-time high
- Bitcoin Price Plunges After Hack of South Korean Exchange, Down 53 Percent Since December
- Bitcoin prices continue to fall as yet another exchange reports a breach
- Bitcoin’s 2017 Surge Was the Result of Manipulation, Experts Say
- Another SEC Enforcement Action against Allegedly Fraudulent ICO
- Recent Virtual Currency Actions by the CFTC and State Regulators
- Brain-Based Circuitry Just Made Artificial Intelligence A Whole Lot Faster
- AI is a very surprising tech, which makes its future hard to predict: Bruce Schneier
- This wild, AI-generated film is the next step in “whole-movie puppetry”: Results are admittedly limited due to a 48-hour crunch—but hint at a wild future.
- Artificial intelligence and human development
- People Are Paying Insane Amounts of Real Money for “Virtual Real Estate”
- Tech Addiction And The Paradox Of Apple’s ‘Screen Time’ Tools
- Apple No Longer Allows Crypto Mining On Its Devices. That’s Good For Users.
- Apple just banned cryptocurrency mining on iOS devices
- Apple clamps down on developers sharing data on users’ friends: “When someone shares your info as part of their address book, you have no say in it, and you have no knowledge of it,” says privacy expert
- For almost 11 years, hackers could easily bypass 3rd-party macOS signature checks
- Popular Spanish Soccer Mobile App Has Been Turning Users Into Piracy-Spotters Via Mobile Devices
- Ordering Food via Touchscreen Is so Fun You Spend More Money When You Do It
- White nationalists, Nazis find new space for racism
- Dark Web vendor “OxyMonster” turns out to be a Frenchman with luscious beard
- In a blow to e-voting critics, Brazil suspends use of all paper ballots
- How emoji can kill: As gangs move online, social media fuel violence
- Options for Reacting to Negative Online Comments, Reviews, and Defamation
- SCC Stays Internet Defamation Case, Urges Fairness and Efficiency
- Canada’s Supreme Court Is Preserving Every Website Mentioned In Its Rulings: The country’s top court is publicly archiving every single hyperlink in its decisions, so they aren’t lost.
CREATIVITY
- Trump Admits He Calls All Negative News ‘Fake’
- French President Pushing ‘Fake News’ Bill That Would Demand Decisions From Judges In 48 Hours
- Unsettling Comments from the Ontario Courts re the Settled Law of Trademarks and Parallel Importation (Howard Knopf)
- Off the Rails: How the Canadian Heritage Copyright Hearings Have Veered Badly Off-Track (Michael Geist)
- Ending The Memes: EU Copyright Directive Is No Laughing Matter
- Illegal memes? Weak Safe Harbor? Unpacking the proposed EU copyright overhaul
- CJEU rules that Louboutin red sole mark does NOT fall within absolute ground for refusal (Eleonora Rosati)
- Viacom Possesses Trademark Rights in ‘Krusty Krab’ Based on Its Central Role in the SpongeBob Universe – Viacom v. IJR
- Stephen Colbert Cut a Star Wars Trailer to Dunk on Kelly Marie Tran’s Harassers
- FBI Hoovered Up Two Years Of A Journalist’s Phone And Email Records To Hunt Down A Leaker
- Fahmy v. Jay-Z
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- NY Times reporter’s email records seized by Justice Dept. in leak case
- China Hacked a Navy Contractor and Stole 600GB of Data
- A Chip in the Windshield: China’s Surveillance State Will Soon Track Cars
- Global Russian-Linked Router Malware Even Worse Than Originally Stated
- Backdoored images downloaded 5 million times finally removed from Docker Hub
- Court Says German Intelligence Agency Can Continued To Deploy Its Dragnet On World’s Largest Internet Hub
- New Data Breach Notification Laws Spring 2018: What You Need to Know
- Stymied by browsers, attackers embed Flash 0-day inside MS Office document
- Security Companies Want To Use Facial Recognition To Stop School Shootings
- It’s Now Scary to Be A White Hat Hacker Thanks to the US Government
- How did hacker Adrian Lamo die? Medical examiner couldn’t figure it out
- Vermont Takes Aim at Data Brokers
GAMES
- Valve removes AIDS Simulator, other controversial games from Steam Store: Games taken down offer slight clarification on what company means by “straight up trolling”
- AIDS Simulator kicked off Steam as Valve grapples with “trolling” definition
- Valve clarifies what games count as ‘straight up trolling,’ sort of
- Op-ed: Valve takes a side by not “taking sides” in curation controversy
- Valve Decides To Get Out Of The Curation Business When It Comes To ‘Offensive’ Games
- Itch.io founder brands Valve’s open-door Steam policy ‘ridiculous’
- Valve’s new policy on Steam games splits opinions among devs
- By 2019, Steam will no longer run on Windows XP or Vista
- Valve launching Steam China with Perfect World: Partnership likely means leading PC marketplace will be free from the threat of long-rumoured government block
- Valve partners with Perfect World to bring Steam to China
- Battletech developer let go after sexual harassment allegations
- Cyberpunk dev: QA can absolutely help your team prevent offensive moments
- Harebrained Schemes parts ways with designer accused of sexual harassment: Battletech developer conducted internal investigation after multiple women came forward
- ‘This is not okay’: EA minces no words on backlash against women in Battlefield
- EA CEO’s damage control speech: “We want to be better”: Andrew Wilson stresses that publisher does not want to give paying players unfair advantages following last year’s loot box fiasco
- EA touts “profound impact” of streaming and subscription, announces Origin Access Premier: New PC service gives players instant access to Battlefield and FIFA 19 at launch, with publisher promising streaming option in future
- EA adds new releases to Origin Access via $100 Premier membership tier
- EA’s Impressive New PC Subscription Service Won’t Degrade Its Old One
- EA’s Patrick Soderlund talks Anthem, loot boxes, and women in Battlefield
- Anthem deep dive, Jedi: Fallen Order and EA Originals lead publisher’s E3 2018 showcase – Surprise launch of Unravel Two and tease for Respawn’s long-awaited Star Wars project break up usual round of sports titles
- FIFA 18 tops European charts with combined digital and retail sales: Results are in for Europe’s first sales charts to include digital data
- EA at E3: BioWare confirms Anthem in Feb 2019, Madden returns to PC
- We Are initiative hopes to connect and inspire women in games
- Game Advocacy introduces ’50 Over 50′ list to combat industry ageism
- ESA Foundation launches “We Are” diversity initiative: Red Bull Media House is partner on an initiative that will launch at E3 and continue into 2019
- Cool Event Alert: Loot Boxes: Video Game Gambling, Paying to Win, and the Question of Game Design, Talk by Drs. Mark R. Johnson and Tom Brock
- E3 Roundtable: Microsoft’s first-party intent, EA’s loot box lament – Microsoft’s flurry of studio acquisitions lit up E3’s opening weekend, Bethesda showed every ace in its hand, and EA promised to do better
- E3 Roundtable: PlayStation disappoints on a day short on surprises – Known quantities were front and centre at Sony and Ubisoft’s briefings, but Beyond Good & Evil 2 and Ghost of Tsushima still managed to delight
- E3 Roundtable: E3 2018 showed an industry on the brink of change – Games-as-a-service drained life out of the show floor, while the major publishers all gestured toward streaming and the next generation
- Ubisoft CEO: Cloud gaming will replace consoles after the next generation
- This app in Google Play wants to use phone mics to enforce copyrights
- Nintendo Direct shows off packed release schedule for 2018: Super Smash Bros. takes focus, but publisher offers up host of exclusive, third-party, and downloadable content
- Fortnite comes to Switch, though with slightly limited cross-platform play
- One day in, Fortnite attracts 2 million downloads on Switch
- Fortnite to launch for Nintendo Switch today: Epic’s battle royale shooter will be free to everyone, and is now on every major gaming platform
- PlayStation 4 owners can’t access Fortnite accounts on Switch
- Playing Fortnite on PS4 blocks players from logging in on Switch
- Fortnite uses the Switch hardware for voice chat, not the Switch mobile app
- Super Mario Party introduces a mode that links two Switch displays together
- Epic Games announces 2019 Fortnite World Cup as game reaches 125m players
- Ninja And Marshmello Win $1 Million For Charity At Fortnite’s First Celeb Pro-Am Tournament
- Fortnite has attracted 125M players in under a year
- Analyst report: Xbox One install base at 39M as of March 2018
- Xbox has everything to prove at E3: The E3 playing field has rarely been so uneven; Sony’s strong position means it needs to do very little, while Microsoft arrives in LA with a heavy weight of expectation
- Microsoft’s next-gen gaming plan: A new Xbox, and streaming for everyone else
- Microsoft “Andromeda” this year, new HoloLens in 2019, and the next Xbox in 2020
- Report: Microsoft to launch next Xbox console in 2020
- Microsoft teases Halo Infinite at E3 2018
- Halo Infinite, Gears trio and Cyberpunk 2077 lead Xbox’s E3 2018 line-up
- Microsoft pushes exclusives, premieres at pre-E3 press conference
- Microsoft adds five game studios to first-party stable
- Microsoft super-sizes first-party studio system: Xbox One maker acquires Ninja Theory, Playground Games, Compulsion Games, and Undead Labs, establishes new studio The Initiative
- Xbox’s evolving first-party strategy: Chief marketing officer Mike Nichols explains Microsoft’s “forward-leaning pivot” in how it has viewed its game studios this generation, and why it just added five more to the operation
- Ninja Theory bosses explain decision to join Microsoft Studios: “We want to take bigger creative risks, and create genre-defining games without constant threat of annihilation,” says creative lead Tameem Antoniades
- Ninja Theory joined Microsoft to ‘fly without the threat of falling down’
- Playground Games: “Our best is yet to come” thanks to Microsoft acquisition – Creative director Ralph Fulton believes transition from third-party to first-party studio can empower his team to do more
- Phil Spencer on Microsoft’s commitment to the traditional console experience: It’s important to support players of old games on new hardware, says Xbox head
- Xbox using machine learning to load Game Pass titles ‘twice as fast’
- Microsoft boosts Xbox Game Pass with better third-party support – Phoenix Point and Warhammer: Vermintide 2 will hit the service day-and-date, all games to launch “twice as fast” through machine learning
- Xbox Boasts Investment in Future Tech, But Still Silent on VR After Backpedaling
- PlayStation E3 Keynote Puts Blockbusters Center Stage, Relegating VR to the Sidelines
- Ethics Emerging: the Story of Privacy and Security Perceptions in Virtual Reality
- Even Assassin’s Creed is a live service now
- The Elder Scrolls VI, Starfield close out Bethesda E3 briefing: Doom and Wolfenstein sequels, Elder Scrolls: Blades for mobile, new VR efforts added to evening anchored by Fallout 76
- Bethesda at E3: Elder Scrolls VI, Starfield confirmed for “next generation”
- With Tencent’s help, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot opens new game studio
- Bad Robot, Tencent team up to open new dev studio: Bad Robot Games will create ‘large and indie-scale original games’ for PC, consoles, mobile; WBIE on board as minority investor
- Two weeks in, Detroit: Become Human surpasses 1M sold
- Detroit: Become Human hits one million sales faster than any Quantic Dream game – Co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière confirms Detroit reached the milestone after two weeks
- Quantic Dream patches over one of Detroit’s most emotional moments
- Devs say no Friday the 13th DLC due to copyright dispute
- Facebook Is Launching A Video Destination Dedicated To Its Gaming Content
- Facebook launches new program for gaming streamers just starting out
- No Fuchs Given: Christian Fuchs Starts First EPL Player-Backed Esports Team
- New Jersey bans esports betting with new, unclear legislation
- E-Sports: A football World Cup with 20 million participants
- EON Foundation raises $5 million for blockchain game publishing: Cherubic Ventures among the investors for startup with goal to be “the number one blockchain game publisher in the world”
- Trendy Entertainment eyeing blockchain-based rewards for Dungeon Defenders II
- Supercell invests $5M in Redemption Games, marking its first US investment
- Blog: Making video game worlds in Yellowknife
- Sunset for LawBreakers as shooter prepares to go offline after only a year
- LawBreakers shutting down in September following Boss Key closure
- VidCon Organizers Insist Event Won’t Differ For Attendees After Viacom Acquisition
- VidCon 2018 vs. VidCon 2010: How The Convention Has Evolved Over The Years
- Telltale is bringing Minecraft: Story Mode to Netflix
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