Linked List: August 31, 2022

Wednesday, 31 August 2022

The Talk Show: ‘An Unranted Rant’ 

Special guest Rosemary Orchard joins the show to talk about her new book, Take Control of Shortcuts, and the state of automation on iOS and MacOS.

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FTC Sues Data Broker Kochava for Sale of People’s Location Data 

Sarah Perez, reporting for TechCrunch:

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Monday announced it has filed a lawsuit against data broker Kochava Inc. for selling geolocation data from “hundreds of millions of mobile devices,” it says, which could be used to trace the movements of individuals including those to and from sensitive locations. Specifically, the FTC said the data could reveal people’s visits to places like reproductive health clinics, domestic violence or homeless shelters, addiction recovery centers and places of worship.

This personal and private information could expose people to “threats of stigma, stalking, discrimination, job loss, and even physical violence,” the FTC explained in a press release.

The suit aims to halt Kochava’s data collection practices involving sensitive geolocation data and will request that the company delete the data it has already collected.

Location data has always been sensitive — among the most private of private things that can be tracked through computing devices. With Roe v. Wade overturned and antiabortion Christianist lawmakers now drafting laws to make it illegal to cross state lines to get an abortion, the stakes are well past “hypothetical”.

Here’s a spitball idea for Apple: apps that include any sort of framework or integration with data broker companies should be required to list all of those companies by name in their privacy report cards in their App Store listings. As a user, if you’re concerned about the practices of, say, Kochava, you should be able to look at an app’s App Store listing and know with certainty whether the app shares data with Kochava.

Right now, these report cards have descriptions for each section that say something like “The following data may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies.” Apps should be required to list exactly who those other companies are.

Mike Masnick, Techdirt:

The main function of the bill is to allow news orgs to team up, force internet companies that link to them into mandatory arbitration, and force them to pay the journalism organizations for linking to them. For linking to them. Literally for sending them traffic. The bill says that each side submits their proposal for how much the internet companies should pay the news companies, and then the arbitrator picks one side’s proposal.

But, again, let’s go back to what this is — what the internet companies are being forced to pay for. They are being forced to pay to send other websites traffic. This is ludicrous.

Has Amy Klobuchar’s name ever been on a piece of tech or internet-related legislation that was anything but a terrible idea? Masnick righteously skewers this one, concluding:

I can’t see how anyone thinks this is a good idea. And, again, I run one of the companies that in theory would “benefit” from this nonsense by getting free money.

I used to just think that Senator Klobuchar was ignorant about how the internet worked. But considering how frequently she releases absolutely ridiculous and dangerous bills about the internet, I’m beginning to realize that she is deliberately seeking to destroy it.

The Check Is in the Mail, I’m Sure 

Speaking of Truth Social, here are Charlie Gasparino and Eleanor Terrett, reporting for the well-known hotbed of left-wing propaganda Fox Business:

Former President Donald Trump’s social media outfit, Truth Social, is locked in a bitter battle with one of its vendors claiming that the platform is stiffing the company out of more than $1 million in contractually obligated payments, Fox Business has learned. [...]

In October, RightForge announced it entered into an agreement to host Truth Social, which Trump helped create after he was banned by Twitter following the Jan. 6 riots. RightForge now contends that Truth Social has reneged on its contractually obligated monthly payments for setting up the platform’s web-servicing infrastructure, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

These people say RightForge contends that Truth Social has made just three payments and ceased making any payments since around March. RightForge claims that Truth Social owes it around $1.6 million and is threatening legal action to recoup the money, these people add.

Donald Trump stiffing a vendor? Get me to the fainting couch. I just can’t believe it.