| Internet Governance FTC Reviews Amazon’s Purchase of iRobot: The Commission has begun a “wide-ranging” review of the company’s purchase of the vacuum maker to determine if the $1.7 billion deal harms competition in the market for robot vacuums and connected devices, as well as whether data generated by iRobot’s products could give Amazon an unfair competitive advantage. |
| Privacy Irish Data Protection Commission Fines Meta €405 Million Over Instagram’s Handling of Children’s Data: After a two-year investigation, the Commission found that Instagram violated the GDPR by allowing users between ages 13 and 17 to operate business accounts that publicly displayed their phone numbers and email addresses. |
| Information Security and Cyberthreats Hackers from Conti Group Target Ukraine: A report from Google’s Threat Analytics Group suggests that former members of the cybercrime unit have participated in financially-motivated attacks against Ukraine as part of a hacking group referred to as UAC-0089. The group’s new efforts against Ukrainian government, non-profit, and humanitarian organizations match similar efforts by the Kremlin and represent the “blurring lines between financially motivated and government-backed groups in Eastern Europe.” |
| Intellectual Property Andreessen Horowitz Unveils NFT Licensing Options: The venture capital firm introduced a set of licensing agreements that establish rights between NFT owners and those who create the original art underlying the NFTs. |
| Freedom of Expression and Censorship Instagram Disables Account of Pornhub: After being briefly disabled in 2021, the account has gone offline again without explanation for a period of over three days. The founder of an organization dedicated to battling sex trafficking created a post on Twitter suggesting that she’d requested that the page be removed for violating the platform’s guidelines. |
| Practice Note ISPs Cease Fight Against Maine Privacy Law: Telecommunications providers and related industry groups have dismissed their suit alleging that the state’s law prohibiting ISPs from using, selling, disclosing, or providing access to customers’ personal information without their opt-in consent violated the providers’ First Amendment rights. |
| On the Lighter Side Cut the Lawn with Laser Precision: A YouTuber created a motor-powered, spinning laser to keep the grass trim. |
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| Ron Lazebnik Academic Director, Fordham CLIP Tom Norton Executive Director, Fordham CLIP |