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The German Federal Parliament passes a new law to better protect the data of cell phone and Internet users. Authorities can now only request information during investigations if there are "actual indications of a criminal act". The opposition has criticized the resolution. Following a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court, higher hurdles will apply in the future for government access to the personal data of cell phone and Internet users. The Bundestag passed a law that makes it more difficult for security authorities to retrieve so-called inventory data for law enforcement and counterterrorism purposes. At the same time, this also improves the already passed law against hate crime, which previously included similar regulations on data retrieval. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had halted the law last year due to constitutional concerns. In addition to users' names and addresses, the so-called inventory data also includes passwords and bank details. Previousl...

The audio app Clubhouse is coming under pressure due to data protection deficiencies. Consumer protectionists sent the operator a warning. Berlin, Germany: The Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV) is taking legal action against the operator of the social media app Clubhouse because of various shortcomings. For example, "serious deficiencies" in data protection are being complained about, VZBV head Klaus Müller announced on Twitter . In addition, the association complains that the platform does not have an imprint and thus violates the General Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO). In addition, the General Terms and Conditions (GTC) are only available in English. "The VZBV objects to these points in its warning letter to the operator of Clubhouse and demands the submission of a cease-and-desist declaration with a penalty clause," says Müller. The application comes from Alpha Exploration Co. in Oakland in the US state of California. In the warning it concer...

The new Clubhouse app is currently still characterized by an air of exclusivity. But that is set to change soon: While the provider wants to end the exclusion of Android users as soon as possible, consumer advocates are making serious accusations. The Internet talk app Clubhouse is growing rapidly and, according to experts, is on its way to becoming a mass product. "We are focused on opening Clubhouse to the whole world," company founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth recently announced. Consumer advocates, however, view this with concern - they accuse Clubhouse of violating data protection rules. With the help of fresh capital from more than 180 investors, the Clubhouse founders want to increase the value of the company to almost one billion US dollars (820 million euros). In the medium term, users will probably also be asked to pay, but exactly how is still unclear. The first test version of the app was only launched at the beginning of last year, and since then the number of...

For more than five years, a service technician in the U.S. used his company's security cameras to peek into the bedrooms of more than 200 customers. Telesforo Aviles, a 35-year-old former employee of home and office security company ADT, took advantage of his position at the U.S.-based firm to observe customers in intimate situations for more than five years. He admitted as much last Thursday in a district court in the U.S. state of Texas, pleading guilty to computer fraud, among other charges. As the English-language tech website Ars Technica reports, he now faces up to five years in prison. According to the confession, Aviles kept a list of customer households with attractive women, to whose customer accounts he added his email address. This gave him access to the mobile app for ADT's Pulse service , which allows users to remotely turn lights on or off, disable or reactivate alarms, or view the image from cameras. When asked by the customer, Aviles said he needed access to t...

After an announcement of new privacy policies, users are running away from Whatsapp in droves. To stop this exodus, the market leader is postponing the introduction of the controversial new rules. The messenger service sees itself as a victim of false information. The messenger service Whatsapp is postponing the introduction of new privacy rules by a good three months following criticism and an exodus of users. Previously, users were supposed to agree to the new terms by Feb. 8 if they wanted to continue using the chat service, which belongs to Facebook. Now the new privacy policy should only apply from May 15, Whatsapp announced. According to Whatsapp, the changes are primarily about creating better opportunities for communication with companies. The end-to-end encryption, with which chat content is only visible in plain text to the participating users, but not even to Whatsapp itself, will not be changed. It is also not about an extended data forwarding to Facebook. Outside the EU, W...

Anyone who spends a lot of time on the Internet knows the situation: a banner appears over the page and the user is asked to select which cookies are permitted. Annoyed, many simply click away - and often accept the maximum selection. The German Ministry of Justice now wants to change that. The Federal Ministry of Justice is pushing for changes in queries about cookies on the Internet. "In the future, we want to make it just as easy to reject cookie settings as it is to consent to them," Consumer Protection State Secretary Christian Kastrop told the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung." Until now, he said, the sites were often too consumer-unfriendly. Website operators must ask whether and to what extent users agree to the installation of small service programs known as cookies. The arrangement, size and color of the cookies often suggest comprehensive consent or even provoke erroneous approval. Kastrop spoke of manipulation in this context. Consumers are also o...

When Tesla CEO Elon Musk urged his Twitter followers on Thursday to “use Signal,” he meant the encrypted messaging app. Some people appear to have taken it the wrong way. Shares of an obscure and unrelated company called Signal Advance, which trades over the counter, surged 527% on Thursday and another 91% on Friday, climbing from 60 cents to $7.19. The Signal that Musk was referring to is operated by a nonprofit and serves as an alternative to texting apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Apple’s messaging service. That Signal took to Twitter on Friday to clarify that it has nothing to do with Signal Advance. “It’s understandable that people want to invest in Signal’s record growth, but this isn’t us,” Signal wrote. “We’re an independent 501c3 and our only investment is in your privacy.” It’s a familiar issue on Wall Street. In April 2019, on the day Zoom Video Communications held its hotly anticipated market debut under the ticker symbol ZM, a Chinese company named Zoom Techn...

The two mega-corporations are alleged to have entered into unfair agreements. In addition, the indictment accuses Google of manipulating header bidding. Nine US states have filed a lawsuit accusing Google of abusing its market power in the online advertising market. The focus is on a series of illegal agreements between parent company Alphabet and Facebook. The two companies control more than half of the market worldwide. In a deal that became public in 2018, the two reportedly agreed to let Facebook's advertisers run ads through Google's ad exchange. The search engine giant had entered into similar partnerships with other market players under the alias "Project Jedi" to maintain its market share. In return, Facebook received preferential treatment in the form of market-distorting exemptions, prosecutors write. The social media company subsequently withdrew from competing software that publishers brought to market to break Google's market power. Literally, the do...

Google and Facebook collect a particularly large amount of data from their users, and this is made particularly clear by an innovation in Apple's App Store. From now on, Apple wants to explain more precisely in its own app store which user data an app can access. For this purpose, there is now a new app privacy section, which is becoming a real data disaster for some large companies. The mandatory information reveals repeatedly and now directly "to the user" how data-hungry Facebook and Co. actually are. Google, on the other hand, has simply not updated its iOS apps at all in the new year. They would like to do so soon, but so far there have been no new updates and therefore the information field "Data linked to you" is still empty. Facebook, on the other hand, has been exemplary , but this makes for a dramatic picture. Kind of everything, right? What Facebook wants to know from us:   A comparison of various popular messengers alone shows that Facebook Messenger...

Hundreds of millions of iPhone owners will soon have to agree before apps are allowed to collect certain data. This panics Facebook - which already has an intimate dislike for Apple. Two of the world's largest corporations are fighting over a small pop-up. If Facebook is to be believed, the fate of millions of small businesses is at stake. And because that's not enough, the future of the web is allegedly also at stake. All of this threatens Apple, it says, because it will soon present users with an unassuming dialog asking whether apps are allowed to collect their data. This message seems to be very important to Facebook. In several blog posts and full-page ads in major U.S. media such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, Facebook is staging itself as the savior of the "free Internet" and advocate for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). On a specially set up campaign page , hoteliers, hairdressers, restaurant owners and others supposedly affected a...

Signal is considered one of the most secure messengers in the world - here you really chat completely safely and anonymously. Both whistleblower Edward Snowden and the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, recommend using Signal. If you value security and encryption of your messages and calls, you should turn to the crypto-messenger Signal. The messenger service became known primarily through Edward Snowden, who regularly propagates the use of Signal quite offensively . After WhatsApp's PR disaster, in which the messenger service apparently gave users an ultimatum via a pop-up and excluded them if they did not agree to the changed data processing conditions by February 8, both the world-famous whistleblower and Tesla CEO Elon Musk pressed ahead and recommended using the WhatsApp alternative Signal on Twitter . Unlike many other messengers, Signal attaches great importance to the privacy of its users. In addition to the actual content of the conversation, the sender is also encr...

New changes to WhatsApp’s privacy policy will force users to share a significant amount of data with the messaging app’s many-tentacled owner, Facebook. Users were first informed of the changes this week via an in-app notification, which asked them to accept an updated privacy policy taking effect on February 8. After that date “you’ll need to accept these updates to continue using WhatsApp,” it read. According to the ledger of terms and conditions , data that will be given to Facebook and its other subsidiaries includes “your account registration information (such as your phone number), transaction data, service-related information, information on how you interact with others (including businesses) when using our Services, mobile device information, your IP address, and may include other information identified in the Privacy Policy section entitled ‘Information We Collect’ or obtained upon notice to you or based on your consent.” The update was spotted on developer f...