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LOS ANGELES (AP) — The company that controls the dot-org universe is trying to sell the online registry to an investment firm for more than $1 billion, drawing opposition from activists who protested Friday and others who fear costs would soar if a for-profit company is in charge of registering the website suffix. About 20 people representing nonprofits rallied outside the Los Angeles building housing the organization that oversees domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN is meeting this weekend and is e...
NEW YORK (AP) — Did someone invite a spy into your home over the holidays? Maybe so, if a friend or family member gave you a voice-controlled speaker or some other smart device. It's easy to forget, but everything from internet-connected speakers with voice assistants such as Amazon's Alexa to television sets with built-in Netflix can be always listening — and sometimes watching, too. As with almost all new technology, installing such devices means balancing privacy risks with the conveniences they offer. The research firm IDC estimates wor...
NEW YORK (AP) — Equifax 2017 . Marriott 2018 . Capital One 2019 . Data breaches through hacking attacks are distressingly common these days, and personal details about you can lead to identity theft, such as credit cards and loans in your name. But it's hard to pin the blame on any specific hack, as the most sophisticated criminals combine data from multiple attacks to better impersonate you. "That's why fraud can be emotionally challenging," said Kyle Marchini, a specialist in fraud management at the financial research group Javelin. "It j...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Samsung unveiled a highly anticipated smartphone with a foldable screen in an attempt to break the innovation funk that has beset the smartphone market. But it's far from clear that consumers will embrace a device that retails for almost $2,000, or that it will provide the creative catalyst the smartphone market needs. The Galaxy Fold, announced Wednesday in San Francisco, will sell for $1,980 when it is released April 26. Consumers willing to pay that hefty price will get a device that can unfold like a wallet. It can w...
NEW YORK (AP) — Apple and Google want to help you spend less time on their phones — really. Like that time you checked Facebook at 3 a.m. Stats don't lie. Their new tools for managing screen time will let you see how often you picked up the phone after bedtime or how long you're on Instagram at work (shame on you). Apple's tools also let you control how long your kids spend on their devices, if you're concerned that screens are taking time away from sleep, homework or exercise. Apple's tools launch Tuesday as part of the free iOS 12 sof...
NEW YORK (AP) — New privacy features in Apple's Safari browser seek to make it tougher for companies such as Facebook to track you. Companies have long used cookies to remember your past visits. This can be helpful for saving sign-in details and preferences. But now they're also being used to profile you in order to fine-tune advertising to your tastes and interests. Cookie use goes beyond visiting a particular website. As other sites embed Facebook "like" and "share" buttons, for instance, Facebook's servers are being pinged and can access y...
NEW YORK (AP) — Revelations that an Amazon Echo smart speaker inadvertently sent a family's private conversation to an acquaintance highlights some unexpected risks of new voice-enabled technologies. According to Amazon, the fault was an "unlikely" series of inadvertent vocal cues that triggered the speaker, caused it to begin recording and then led it to interpret subsequent conversation as a "send message" request. There's no way to eliminate these sorts of privacy risks short of unplugging entirely. But you can minimize the odds of u...
Europe's new data and privacy rules take effect Friday, clarifying individual rights to the personal data collected by companies around the world for targeted advertising and other purposes. Years in the making, the rules are prompting companies to rewrite their privacy policies and in some cases, apply the European Union's tougher standards even in the U.S. and other regions where privacy laws are weak. Although they take effect as Facebook faces an enormous privacy crisis , that timing is largely coincidental. Not much will change for you,...
Europe's new data and privacy rules take effect a week from Friday, clarifying individual rights to the personal data collected by companies around the world for targeted advertising and other purposes. Years in the making, the rules are prompting companies to rewrite their privacy policies and in some cases, apply the European Union's tougher standards even in the U.S. and other regions where privacy laws are weak. Although they take effect as Facebook faces an enormous privacy crisis , that timing is largely coincidental. Not much will...
NEW YORK (AP) — Yet another service is asking you to change your password. Twitter said Thursday it discovered a bug that stored passwords in an internal log in plain text, without the usual encryption. Though Twitter says there's no indication that anyone has stolen or misused those passwords, the company is recommending a change as a precaution. Here are some tips on coming up with a new password and safeguarding your account — even if your password is compromised. ___ COMPLEXITY COUNTS Don't even think of using "password" as your pas...
NEW YORK (AP) — Mark Zuckerberg insisted once again Tuesday that Facebook doesn't sell your data, calling it a common misconception people have about Facebook. Here's a look at his remarks. ZUCKERBERG: "We do not sell data to advertisers," the Facebook CEO testified during a Senate hearing. "What we allow is for advertisers to tell us who they want to reach. And then we do the placement." THE FACTS: It's true that Facebook doesn't sell your data directly to third parties, but it clearly profits from the information. Thanks to user data, F...
NEW YORK (AP) — A 1996 law that shields online services from being liable for what their users do would be weakened by a sex-trafficking bill awaiting President Donald Trump's signature. The law is what allows Facebook, Google and other leading companies to provide communications services. A company that hosts blogs doesn't have to worry about being sued for defamation, for instance, when a user posts nasty things about someone. Likewise, Facebook doesn't have to worry if someone shares advice that turns out to be harmful. In both cases, i...
NEW YORK (AP) — Though Facebook gets the attention because of a recent privacy gaffe, the social network is far from alone in collecting massive amounts of data on you to help marketers sell you stuff. Google, for one, also does extensive tracking to power its advertising engines. And many other websites and apps run ads sold by Facebook and Google and exchange data with them. Beyond that, plenty of services including Uber and Amazon keep detailed histories on you. Here are some of the ways to block or minimize such tracking — but they com...
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook's decision to stop working with third-party data collectors might earn it public-relations points, but it does little to protect your privacy. The social network still has more than enough data on your interests and hobbies to target ads with precision. The company will still tap browser and device IDs to track visits to third-party sites and apps. And it will have lots more information from your use of its service — everything from the businesses and hobbies you "like" to the types of news articles you read and share....
NEW YORK (AP) — Some 60 companies including such leading brands as Subway, Sprint and the NFL are joining forces to help each other follow you around online. Adobe, a company better known for Photoshop and PDF files, says the new Device Co-op initiative it is organizing will help companies offer more personalized experiences and make ads less annoying by filtering out products and services you have already bought or will never buy. Under the initiative, Adobe can tell you're the same person on a home PC, a work laptop, a phone and a tablet b...
NEW YORK (AP) — Engulfed in a scandal over its users' privacy, Facebook has opted to take little more than baby steps to fix the problem. From the company's perspective, that makes perfect sense. Stronger safeguards on user data might damage Facebook's core business: using what it knows about you to sell ads that target your interests. Facebook is proposing only narrow countermeasures that address the specifics of the furor over Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump's campaign and is accused of i...
NEW YORK (AP) — Samsung says its new Galaxy S9 phone features a "reimagined" camera, and it is indeed pretty darned good. But you might not want to shell out $720 or more for one just yet unless your current phone is already close to death. That's because other high-end phone cameras — nowadays, one of the major differentiators between phones — are also pretty darned good. If your phone is recent, it probably already has a decent camera. Technology has improved to the point that it's really hard to tell the difference between them. In many...
NEW YORK (AP) — When the world shifted from personal computers to smartphones, websites had to slim down to work on smaller screens and slower wireless connections. A similar shift to voice-centric services is again forcing businesses to rethink how they present information to consumers — and spurring new efforts to help them do so. The software company Adobe, for instance, announced on Tuesday a new suite of tools that could help airlines, retailers and other companies create simple voice interfaces for travel and shopping. It's not a sim...
What's the hottest thing in the world of technology these days? Your voice. Some of the most popular gadgets over the holiday season were smart speakers with digital assistants from Amazon and Google . Apple is coming out with its own speaker this year; Microsoft and Samsung have partnered on another. As the annual CES gadget show kicks off in Las Vegas this week, manufacturers are expected to unveil even more voice-controlled devices — speakers and beyond — as Amazon and Google make their digital assistants available on a wider array of pro...
NEW YORK (AP) — Move over, Alexa. While Amazon pioneered the internet-connected speaker that responds to voice commands, it now has plenty of competition from other tech heavyweights. Even the original Amazon Echo has six Alexa-powered alternatives vying for your attention and dollars. Digital assistants on these speakers — Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant, Microsoft's Cortana and soon Apple's Siri — can play music, set timers and read off your calendar events. These speakers can also serve as a gateway to controlling other internet-connected a...
NEW YORK (AP) — Apple is offering a nifty way to unlock its new iPhone X — just stare at it. Face ID, Apple's name for its facial-recognition technology, replaces the fingerprint sensor found on other models. How well does it work — not just technically, but in everyday use? After all, it's much easier to align your finger with the sensor than to align your face with the phone. The iPhone X costs about $1,000 — $300 more than the iPhone 8. Advance orders began this past Friday, and Apple is now giving delivery times of five to six weeks....
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — A chief gripe with Apple Watch is that it requires you to keep an iPhone with you for most tasks. The inclusion of GPS last year helped on runs and bike rides, but you're still missing calls and messages without the phone nearby. A new model with its own cellular-network connection is Apple's next step toward an untethered world. Now you can make and receive calls and messages on the watch while leaving your phone at home. But the watch still needs regular contact with an iPhone, and for most tasks, the phone needs t...
NEW YORK (AP) — When watching sports in virtual reality, it's best to remind yourself that TV wasn't born in a day. Early television was mostly radio with pictures. It took years — even decades — for producers to figure out the right camera angles, graphics and instant replays to deliver. Sports is going through a similar transformation. VR holds the promise of putting fans right in the middle of the sporting action — on the 50-yard line, say, or in a ringside seat, or standing behind the catcher as the umpire calls strikes. But today's VR spor...
NEW YORK (AP) — Every NFL football game will be shown live online this season — but that doesn't mean you'll be able to watch them. New this year is the ability to watch with an Amazon Prime or a CBS All-Access subscription. Even so, the sports universe is heavily Balkanized online, meaning your best bet at comprehensive streaming of pro football will involve that old standby — a cable or satellite TV subscription — or cellphone service through Verizon. Otherwise, you'll be limited to a few unrestricted games online, including Thursda...
NEW YORK (AP) — Roads, refineries and other infrastructure have taken a beating in the Texas and Louisiana regions hit by Harvey — but cellphone networks so far remain largely functional. One reason: Big carriers brought in supplemental equipment and backup power and turned to drones to diagnose problems. Four Gulf Coast counties northeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, had more than half of their cell towers knocked out earlier in the week, but crews have been able to restore many of them. As of Thursday, one of the most heavily hit areas, Ara...
