tech policy and law - CybAI news

31 Jul

Amazon Has to Recall More Than 400,000 Dangerous Products

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsamazon, ars technica, retail, safety, tech policy and law

Amazon failed to adequately alert more than 300,000 customers to serious risks—including death and electrocution—that US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) testing found with more than 400,000 products that third parties sold on its platform.The CPSC unanimously voted to hold Amazon legally responsible for third-party sellers' defective products. Now, Amazon must make a CPSC-approved plan to properly recall the dangerous products—including highly flammable children's pajamas, faulty carbon monoxide detectors, and unsafe hair dryers that could cause electrocution—which the CPSC fears may still be widely used in homes across America.While Amazon scrambles to devise a plan, the CPSC summarized the ongoing…

30 Jul

The Affordable Connectivity Program Died—and Thousands of Households Have Already Lost Their Internet

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsars technica, Broadband, fcc, internet, tech policy and law, telecoms

The death of the US government's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is starting to result in disconnection of internet service for Americans with low incomes. On Friday, Charter Communications reported a net loss of 154,000 internet subscribers that it said was mostly driven by customers canceling after losing the federal discount. About 100,000 of those subscribers were reportedly getting the discount, which in some cases made internet service free to the consumer.The $30 monthly broadband discounts provided by the ACP ended in May after Congress failed to allocate more funding. The Biden administration requested $6 billion to fund the ACP through December…

25 Jul

California Supreme Court Rules That Uber and Lyft Drivers Will Remain Independent Contractors

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsgig economy, laws, Lyft, tech policy and law, uber

The California Supreme Court on Thursday ruled unanimously that drivers for app-based companies including Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash will remain independent contractors, as opposed to employees. The decision, upholding a state ballot measure called Proposition 22, was considered a major victory for the gig-economy companies.The question of whether those who drive for the companies should be treated as employees or contractors has spurred a yearslong legal battle in the state. In 2020, California voters approved Proposition 22, allowing app-based companies to continue to treat their workers as independent contractors. That vote reversed an earlier court ruling that found such companies…

17 Jul

RealPage Says Rental Pricing Tech Is Misunderstood, but Landlords Aren’t So Sure

stp2y0 CommentsAIalgorithms, artificial intelligence, regulation, tech policy and law

Yardi Systems, another US property management company, is also facing a class action suit regarding antitrust violations for artificially inflating rent prices. The company has said it did “nothing illegal,” as it does not mandate rent prices through its software or make “collusive pricing decisions.”Typical rental costs in Phoenix have increased by more than about $500 a month from April 2020 to 2024, and by around $400 in Washington, DC, in the same period, according to Zillow.Renters have also filed numerous class action suits against RealPage and property owners that have been consolidated. Some landlords named in those settled claims…

16 Jul

Tiny Texas Village Seeks Billion-Dollar Bitcoin Miner to Pave Potholes, Scare Dogs Away

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsbitcoin, cryptocurrency, enterprise, tech policy and law

In Oak Valley, a sleepy village in rural Navarro County, Texas, there is very little of anything. A potholed road runs through its two square miles of sun-beaten grassland, past a modest prefab community center and a “poor excuse for a park,” as the local mayor describes it.Only around 400 people live in Oak Valley. But despite its diminutive size and few resources, the Texas hamlet is preparing to fold into its borders, through unusual means, an industrial-scale bitcoin mine—a move that could increase its annual budget by as much as fortyfold.Four miles away from Oak Valley on a 265-acre…

08 Jul

Google’s Nonconsensual Explicit Images Problem Is Getting Worse

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsgoogle, privacy, tech policy and law

In early 2022, two Google policy staffers met with a trio of women victimized by a scam that resulted in explicit videos of them circulating online—including via Google search results. The women were among the hundreds of young adults who responded to ads seeking swimsuit models only to be coerced into performing in sex videos distributed by the website GirlsDoPorn. The site shut down in 2020, and a producer, a bookkeeper, and a cameraman subsequently pleaded guilty to sex trafficking, but the videos kept popping up on Google search faster than the women could request removals.The women, joined by an…

24 Jun

US Record Labels Sue AI Music Generators Suno and Udio for Copyright Infringement

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelscopyright, digital music news, intellectual property, riaa, tech policy and law

The music industry has officially declared war on Suno and Udio, two of the most prominent AI music generators. A group of music labels including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Group has filed lawsuits in US federal court on Monday morning alleging copyright infringement on a “massive scale.”The plaintiffs seek damages up to $150,000 per work infringed. The lawsuit against Suno is filed in Massachusetts, while the case against Udio’s parent company Uncharted Inc. was filed in New York. Suno and Udio did not immediately respond to a request to comment.“Unlicensed services like Suno and Udio…

17 Jun

OpenAI-Backed Nonprofits Have Gone Back on Their Transparency Pledges

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIartificial intelligence, openai, regulation, silicon valley, startups, tech policy and law

Neither database mandates nor generally contains up-to-date versions of the records that UBI Charitable and OpenResearch had said they provided in the past.The original YC Research conflict-of-interest policy that Das did share calls for company insiders to be upfront about transactions in which their impartiality could be questioned and for the board to decide how to proceed.Das says the policy “may have been amended since OpenResearch’s policies changed (including when the name was changed from YC Research), but the core elements remain the same.”No WebsiteUBI Charitable launched in 2020 with $10 million donated from OpenAI, as first reported by TechCrunch…

13 Jun

The Fight Against AI Comes to a Foundational Data Set

stp2y0 CommentsAIalgorithms, artificial intelligence, machine learning, tech policy and law

Danish media outlets have demanded that the nonprofit web archive Common Crawl remove copies of their articles from past datasets and stop crawling their websites immediately. This request was issued amid growing outrage over how artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI are using copyrighted materials.Common Crawl plans to comply with the request, first issued on Monday. Executive director Rich Skrenta says the organization is “not equipped” to fight media companies and publishers in court.The Danish Rights Alliance (DRA), an association representing copyright holders in Denmark, spearheaded the campaign. It made the request on behalf of four media outlets, including Berlingske Media…

06 Jun

Former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch Cleared in US Fraud Trial

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelscloud computing, crime, hp, tech policy and law

The objective of the defense, says Zachary Terwilliger, a former US prosecutor and partner at law firm Vinson & Elkins, was to “humanize” Lynch. “As a defense attorney, you want to make your client relatable to the jury, even if they are a millionaire,” he says. The government, meanwhile, was aiming to “beat back the defense narrative: This isn’t some folksy guy named Mike, this is Dr. Lynch. This is someone that focuses on every excruciating detail,” says Terwilliger.The bulk of the trial was taken up by testimony from more than 30 government witnesses—a ranging cast of Autonomy insiders, whistleblowers,…