Smartphone
Amazon To Pay $31 Million In Privacy Violation Penalties For Alexa Voice Assistant And Ring Camera
Washington, D.C. Amazon has agreed to settle charges from the Federal Trade Commission that it violated a statute protecting children’s privacy and misled parents by retaining for years the voice and location data of children recorded by its well-known Alexa voice assistant by paying a $25 million civil penalty.
In a separate agreement, the business acknowledged that its doorbell camera Ring may have violated customers’ privacy and agreed to pay them $5.8 million in refunds.
The Alexa-related action requires Amazon to revise its data deletion procedures and implement tougher, more lucid privacy controls. Additionally, it requires the tech giant to remove certain information gathered by its web-connected personal assistant, which users use to do everything from playing games and queueing up music to checking the weather.
Samuel Levine, the FCT’s director of consumer protection, said in a statement that Amazon’s history of misleading parents, retaining children’s recordings indefinitely, and disobeying deletion orders infringed on COPPA (the Child Online Privacy Protection Act) and compromised privacy for money. The 1998 law was created to protect kids from the dangers of the internet.
According to a statement by FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, “when parents asked Amazon to delete their kids’ Alexa voice data, the company did not delete all of it.”
The organization mandated that specific voice and geolocation data, as well as dormant child accounts, be deleted by the corporation.
Amazon has agreed to settle charges from the Federal Trade Commission that it violated a statute protecting children’s privacy.
According to Bedoya, Amazon stored the children’s data to improve the voice recognition algorithm that powers Alexa, the artificial intelligence that runs Echo and other smart speakers. According to him, the FTC case sends a message to other tech firms that are “sprinting to do the same” in the face of intense competition when creating AI datasets.
The father of two young children, Bedoya, stated on Twitter that “nothing is more visceral to a parent than the sound of their child’s voice.”
More than half a billion Alexa-enabled gadgets have been sold internationally, according to Amazon, which also said that usage of the service rose 35% in 2016.
According to the FTC, in the Ring case, Amazon’s subsidiary for home security cameras gave employees and contractors access to customers’ private recordings and used insufficient security procedures that enabled hackers to take over certain accounts.
Many of the FTC’s claims of violations against California-based Ring’s operations date before Amazon’s 2018 acquisition of the company. The ring is compelled by the FTC’s decision to pay $5.8 million, which will be used for consumer refunds.
Amazon denied breaking the law and disagreed with the FTC’s allegations on Alexa and Ring. Nevertheless, it stated that the agreements “put these matters behind us.”
The Seattle-based business claimed that its “devices and services are built to protect customers’ privacy and to give customers control over their experience.”
The proposed order forbids Amazon from using deleted voice and geolocation data to develop or enhance any data products, in addition to the penalty in the Alexa case. Amazon must also develop a privacy program for using geolocation data by the court’s judgment.
Federal judges must approve the proposed orders.
The FTC commissioners unanimously made the decision to charge Amazon in both cases.
SOURCE – (AP)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)— Unionized workers at Samsung Electronics went on indefinite strike Wednesday to urge South Korea’s largest firm to fulfill their demands for increased pay and other benefits.
On Monday, thousands of members of the National Samsung Electronics Union went on strike for three days. However, on Wednesday, the union announced an indefinite strike, accusing management of refusing to discuss. According to Samsung Electronics, no manufacturing disruptions have occurred.
“Samsung Electronics will ensure that no disruptions occur in the production lines,” according to a Samsung statement. “The company remains committed to engaging in good faith negotiations with the union.”
Samsung | AP news Image
Samsung Electronics Workers Announce ‘Indefinite’ Strike
However, in a statement put on its website, the union stated that it had participated in specific disturbances on the company’s production lines in order to eventually bring management to the bargaining table if the strikes continue.
“We are confident of our victory,” the union statement read.
The union statement did not specify how many of its members would join the extended walkout. It previously stated that 6,540 of its union members had agreed to join in the prior three-day strike.
This would only account for a small portion of Samsung Electronics’ global workforce, which is estimated to be around 267,860. Approximately 120,000 of them are in South Korea.
Earlier this year, union members and management met several times to discuss the union’s demand for increased wages and better working conditions, but they were unable to strike an agreement. In June, some union members used their annual leave to stage a one-day walkout, which observers described as Samsung Electronics’ first labor strike.
According to reports, some 30,000 Samsung employees are members of the company’s major union, the National Samsung Electronics Union, while others belong to smaller unions.
In 2020, Samsung CEO Lee Jae-Yong, then the company’s vice chairman, stated that he would no longer repress employee attempts to form unions, expressing sorrow for his suspected involvement in a large 2016 corruption scandal that resulted in the country’s president’s removal from power.
Samsung | AP News Image
Samsung Electronics Workers Announce ‘Indefinite’ Strike
Activists have long condemned the company’s union-busting activities despite the fact that labor actions in other industries and sectors of society are frequent in South Korea.
Thousands of South Korean medical interns and residents have been on strike since February, opposing the government’s proposal to dramatically boost medical school enrollment.
SOURCE | AP
Smartphone
Chad Daybell Sentenced To Death For Killing Wife And Girlfriend’s 2 Children In Jury Decision
BOISE, Idaho – After a tragic trial that started in 2019 with a search for two missing children, an Idaho jury on Saturday unanimously decided that convicted killer Chad Daybell should be executed for the horrific murders of his wife and her two youngest children.
Daybell, 55, sat at the defense table with his hands in his lap while sporting a formal shirt and tie. When he found out that he would be executed for the killings of Tammy Daybell, 16, Tylee Ryan, and 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow, he displayed no emotion.
Lori Vallow Daybell, whom Chad Daybell married soon after his wife passed away, is the children’s mother. After being found guilty of the three murders last year, Vallow Daybell is currently awaiting trial in Arizona on charges of murder about the shooting death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow. JJ’s father was Charles Vallow.
2019 saw the start of the case when a family member called the police. After quickly realizing both kids were gone, investigators launched a multistate search. Their corpses were discovered and buried on Chad Daybell’s land about a year later. Prosecutors claim that Tylee’s DNA was later discovered on a pickaxe and shovel in a shed on the property and that JJ’s body was covered with duct tape and trash bags.
Prosecutors claimed that throughout Chad Daybell’s nearly two-month trial, the self-published author of fiction tinged with doomsday propagated strange spiritual beliefs such as tales of evil spirits possessing people and apocalyptic prophecies to excuse the crimes.
Chad Daybell | Fox News Image
Chad Daybell Sentenced To Death For Killing Wife And Girlfriend’s 2 Children In Jury Decision
During the trial, Daybell’s defense lawyer, John Prior, contended that there was insufficient evidence linking Daybell to the murders and proposed that Alex Cox, Vallow Daybell’s older brother, was the murderer. Vallow Daybell was found guilty last year and given a life sentence without the possibility of release, while Cox passed away in late 2019 without ever being charged.
Prior asked the jury to evaluate Daybell on his life before meeting Vallow Daybell during the sentencing hearing, characterizing her as a bomb that blasted him off the trajectory of an otherwise wholesome existence. However, Daybell neglected to present any mitigating circumstances at the sentencing hearing. Evidence aimed at mitigating the case is frequently used to persuade jurors that a life sentence would be a more fitting punishment than the death penalty.
Chad Daybell | CBS News Image
Chad Daybell Sentenced To Death For Killing Wife And Girlfriend’s 2 Children In Jury Decision
The victims’ relatives addressed the jury in tearful words. Kay Woodcock, JJ Vallow’s grandmother, spoke movingly about how the 7-year-old would constantly inquire about the well-being of individuals in his immediate vicinity and demonstrate understanding and compassion with gentle touches. She added that Tylee was a loving big sister and that watching them together made her heart smile.
Colby Ryan, the eldest child of Vallow Daybell, talked about what it was like to lose his whole family. Years have passed since his father’s death.
“JJ’s quirky and wacky personality and Tylee’s goodness of heart will never be known to my three kids… “I can only compare the effect of their deaths to the detonation of a nuclear bomb,” he remarked. “To say that I lost everything is not an exaggeration.”
Chad Daybell | NBC News image
Chad Daybell Sentenced To Death For Killing Wife And Girlfriend’s 2 Children In Jury Decision
The jury had to come to a unanimous decision that Daybell fit the definition of at least one of the “aggravating circumstances” under state law to carry out the death penalty. Additionally, they had to concur that no mitigating circumstances would have reduced his guilt or called for a lesser punishment that exceeded those aggravating circumstances.
Although firing squad executions have never been carried out in the state, Idaho law permits both lethal injection and firing squad methods of execution.
SOURCE – (AP)
Bumble, a dating app that revolutionized the industry a decade ago by introducing the concept of women initiating talks, is now allowing males to engage in chats on its platform.
Bumble is introducing a new tool dubbed “opening moves” that allows female users to establish a prompt for male suitors to reply to to start a conversation. The function overturns the app’s long-standing mandate that women initiate the first message to their matches. Bumble claims this change empowers women by granting them greater control over their dating experiences.
Tech Crunch – VOR news Image
Dating App Bumble Will No Longer Require Women To Make The First Move
Lidiane Jones, the new CEO of Bumble, unveiled the new feature on Tuesday as part of a comprehensive app redesign. Jones took over the reins from creator Whitney Wolfe Herd earlier this year. This decision comes at a time when dating apps are striving to maintain their relevance as some users are feeling fatigued from online dating and are craving more in-person interactions.
“There is an increasing demand for genuine human connections,” Jones stated in an interview with CNN before to the launch. “I expect that the number of people using online dating will increase rather than decrease, but there is a higher standard…” Therefore, focusing our attention on our objective is a significant call to action.
According to Jones, adding the new “opening moves” feature is a means by which Bumble is progressing while remaining faithful to its initial objective of empowering women. Now, female users can either keep starting discussions with their matches or establish an initial move, such as asking a question about their match’s ideal dinner guest, to indicate that they prefer their match to make the first contact. (Non-binary users or those interested in same-gender pairings have the option for either person to initiate and reply to an initial action.)
Bumble’s makeover incorporates enhanced “dating intentions” badges that enable users to specify on their profiles whether they are seeking a “life partner” or simply “fun, casual dates.” Bumble has implemented a new policy mandating members to provide more photographs in their biographies.
Medium – VOR News Image
Dating App Bumble Will No Longer Require Women To Make The First Move
The application will prioritize and emphasize shared interests at the beginning of potential matches’ profiles to facilitate connections between individuals and increasing the likelihood of finding compatible companions.
The modifications have the potential to be crucial in restoring Bumble’s profitability, as the company, which also possesses dating applications Badoo and Fruitz, recorded a net loss of $1.9 million in the previous year. The company’s stock price has experienced a significant decline of 86% since its first public offering in February 2021.
According to Wall Street experts, Bumble is projected to profit $12 million for the first quarter of this year when it releases its earnings on May 8. This is a significant improvement from the $2.3 million loss recorded during the same time last year. The company anticipates a 14% increase in paying consumers, reaching over 3.9 million.
bumble – VOR News Image
Dating App Bumble Will No Longer Require Women To Make The First Move
“We are extremely fortunate to possess robust financials that enable us to invest in the company’s expansion while also ensuring profitability for our shareholders,” Jones stated. “We are currently at a significant turning point where we have achieved a substantial level of growth and have ample opportunities for further expansion. At this juncture, we can effectively pursue both objectives simultaneously.”
SOURCE – (CNN)
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