An anonymous reader quotes a report from Slate.com: On March 1, after a week of horror in Ukraine, reports came out that Russia's censorship office had threatened to block Russian Wikipedia. A 32-year-old who asked to be called Alexander soon made a plan to download a local copy of Russian-language Wikipedia to keep with him in eastern Russia. "I did it just in case," he told me over Instagram Messenger before sharing that he and his wife are "working on moving to another country" with their two dogs, Prime and Shaggy. (Instagram has been blocked in Russia, but many continue to access it using virtual private networks. On Monday, the Russian government officially declared Facebook and Instagram "extremist organizations.")

Alexander wasn't the only Russian citizen to make a local copy of Wikipedia. Data suggests that after the threats of censorship, Russians started torrenting Wikipedia in droves. Currently, Russia is the country with the most Wikipedia downloads—by a landslide. Before the invasion, it rarely broke the top 10, but after the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, it has kept a solid hold on first place. The 29-gigabyte file that contains a downloadable Russian-language Wikipedia was downloaded a whopping 105,889 times during the first half of March, which is a more than 4,000 percent increase compared with the first half of January. According to Stephane Coillet-Matillon, who leads Kiwix, the organization that facilitates these downloads, Russian downloads now constitute 42 percent of all traffic on Kiwix servers, up from just 2 percent in 2021. "We had something similar back in 2017 when Turkey blocked Wikipedia," he said, "but this one is just another dimension." "Wikipedia routinely makes a dump of its databases available publicly, which Kiwix compresses into an archive so it can be more easily shared," adds Slate. "The entirety of English Wikipedia, from 'List of Informally Named Dinosaurs' to 'Floor' to 'Skunks as Pets' and everything in between, is 87 GB with pictures or 47 GB without. Russian-language Wikipedia is even smaller, continuing 1.8 million articles compared with English Wikipedia's 6.4 million."

A Moscow court on Monday found Meta Platforms guilty of "extremist activity", but said its decision would not affect the WhatsApp messenger service, focusing its ire on the company's already banned Facebook and Instagram social networks. From a report: Moscow's Tverskoi District Court upheld a lawsuit filed by Russian state prosecutors on banning the activities of Meta on Russian territory, the court's press service said in a statement. The U.S. company's lawyer, Victoria Shagina, had said in court earlier on Monday that Meta was not carrying out extremist activities and stood against Russophobia, the Interfax news agency reported.

The New York Times reports that "After more than three weeks without being able to leave the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, 64 workers were able to be rotated out, the plant said on Sunday." Staff at the plant, which includes more than 200 technical personnel and guards, had not been able to rotate shifts since February 23, a day before Russian forces took control of the site, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which serves as a nuclear watchdog for the United Nations. In a Facebook post, the plant said that to rotate the 64 workers, 46 volunteers were sent to the site to make sure operations at the plant could continue.

It was unclear whether the remaining workers would also have an opportunity to be rotated.

For weeks, the International Atomic Energy Agency, known as the I.A.E.A., has expressed concern for the workers at the Chernobyl site, calling for the staff to be rotated for their safety and security. Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the I.A.E.A., said last week that he remained "gravely concerned about the extremely difficult circumstances for the Ukrainian staff there." The I.A.E.A. said on March 13 that workers were no longer doing repairs and maintenance, partly because of "physical and psychological fatigue...."

Workers at the site have faced a number of issues recently, including a power outage and limited communication. Ukrainian government officials said on March 9 that damage by Russian forces had "disconnected" the plant from outside electricity, leaving the site dependent on power from diesel generators and backup supplies. Power was restored a few days later, and the plant resumed normal operating conditions.
Earlier this month a former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (from 1998 to 2007) argued in the Wall Street Journal that "An unappreciated motive for Russia's invasion of Ukraine is that Kyiv was positioning itself to break from its longtime Russian nuclear suppliers, as the U.S. was encroaching on Russia's largest nuclear export market...."

"The project was intended to allow Ukraine to store this fuel safely without shipping it back to Russia for reprocessing. The processing and storage facility was completed in 2020, and Holtec and SSE Chernobyl were loading the canisters to be stored when the war began on February 24..." By taking over Chernobyl, Russia gives itself control of the disposal of its spent fuel, which it can store in canisters at the site or ship to a reprocessing facility in Russia. Either way, this represents hundreds of millions of dollars for Rosatom, the Russian state-owned nuclear enterprise....

The timing is telling. In November 2021, Ukraine's leaders signed a deal with Westinghouse to start construction on what they hoped would be at least five nuclear units — the first tranche of a program that could more than double the number of plants in the country, with a potential total value approaching $100 billion. Ukraine clearly intended that Russia receive none of that business.

Spotify may be the latest service to adopt NFTs. According to the Financial Times, the company is "drawing up plans to add blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens to its streaming service, fueling excitement in the crypto and music industries about the potential of NFTs to boost artists' earnings." It comes just days after Mark Zuckerberg confirmed NFTs will soon be coming to Instagram. From the report: Two recent job ads show Spotify is recruiting people to work on early stage projects related to "Web3," a tech buzzword for a blockchain-powered network that some crypto enthusiasts hope will wrestle control back from the Big Tech platforms that dominate today's internet.

Spotify's recruitment in the sector appears to be at an exploratory stage. It pointed to Web3 in a recruitment notice for an engineer on its "experimental growth" team. "This small and full-stack team is responsible for driving growth through new technologies, like Web3," the ad said. A separate Spotify job listing, for a manager in its future-gazing "Innovation and Market Intelligence" group, shows the music streaming service is looking for a candidate with experience in "content, creator, media, web3, and emerging technology industries" to "help define Spotify Moonshots," a term for ambitious new projects. The report goes on to note that Spotify "was an early collaborator on Facebook's ill-fated cryptocurrency project, Diem."

Daniel Ek, Spotify's chief executive, told a company podcast back in 2019 that cryptocurrencies and blockchain could allow users of "a service like Spotify [...] to be able to pay artists directly," especially across international borders or in regions where few people have traditional bank accounts. "That can open up massive opportunities where all of a sudden, a user in Japan might pay a creator in Argentina. And that opens up huge opportunities for how we can further our mission."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Minnesota state lawmakers are trying to prohibit social media platforms from using algorithms to recommend content to anyone under age 18. The bill was approved Tuesday by the House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee in a 15-1 vote. The potential state law goes next to the House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee, which has put it on the docket for a hearing on March 22. The algorithm ban applies to platforms with at least 1 million account holders and says those companies would be "prohibited from using a social media algorithm to target user-created content at an account holder under the age of 18." There are exemptions for content created by federal, state, or local governments and by public or private schools.

"This bill prohibits a social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, TikTok, and others, from using algorithms to target children with specific types of content," the bill summary says (PDF). "The bill would require anyone operating a social media platform with more than one million users to require that algorithm functions be turned off for accounts owned by anyone under the age of 18." Social media companies would be "liable for damages and a civil penalty of $1,000 for each violation." Tech-industry lobbyists say the bill would violate the First Amendment, prevent companies from recommending useful content, and require them to collect more data on the ages and locations of users. TechDirt's Mike Masnick slammed the bill in an article titled, "Minnesota pushing bill that says websites can no longer be useful for teenagers."

"I get that for computer illiterate people the word 'algorithm' is scary," Masnick wrote. "And that there's some ridiculous belief among people who don't know any better that recommendation algorithms are like mind control, but the point of an algorithm is... to recommend content. That is, to make a social media (or other kind of service) useful. Without it, you just get an undifferentiated mass of content, and that's not very useful."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Early in March, a bunch of Facebook users got a mysterious, spam-like email titled "Your account requires advanced security from Facebook Protect" and telling them that they were required to turn on the Facebook Protect feature (which they could do by hitting a link in the email) by a certain date, or they would be locked out of their account. The program, according to Facebook, is a "security program for groups of people that are more likely to be targeted by malicious hackers, such as human rights defenders, journalists, and government officials." It's meant to do things like ensure those accounts are monitored for hacking threats and that they are protected by two-factor authentication (2FA).

Unfortunately, the email that Facebook sent from the address security@facebookmail.com resembled a rather common form of spam, and so it's probable that many people ignored it. It actually wasn't spam. In fact, it was real. The first deadline to hit for many people was Thursday, March 17th. And now, they are locked out of their Facebook accounts -- and are having trouble with the process that Facebook has provided to get them back in. Those who did not activate Facebook Protect before their deadline are apparently getting a message explaining why they can't get into their accounts and offering to help them turn it on. However, it's not always working.

Spotify is drawing up plans to add blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens to its streaming service, fuelling excitement in the crypto and music industries about the potential of NFTs to boost artists' earnings. Financial Times: Two recent job ads show Spotify is recruiting people to work on early stage projects related to "Web3," a tech buzzword for a blockchain-powered network that some crypto enthusiasts hope will wrestle control back from the Big Tech platforms that dominate today's internet. Spotify is the latest tech giant to venture into NFTs and head off potential competition from crypto start-ups. This week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg confirmed a Financial Times report earlier this year that Instagram would soon start to support NFTs. Other social media companies, including Twitter and Reddit, are also working to build new features for displaying or trading NFTs. NFTs use blockchain technology to certify ownership of digital assets. The vast majority of the $17.7bn worth of NFTs traded last year were for visual artworks, games and collectibles, according to market tracker Nonfungible.com.

Australia's competition watchdog filed a lawsuit against Facebook owner Meta Platforms on Friday, alleging the social media giant failed to prevent scammers using its platform to promote fake ads featuring well-known people. From a report: The advertisements, which endorsed investment in cryptocurrency or money-making schemes, could have misled Facebook users into believing they were promoted by famous Australians, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) said. The lawsuit filed in the Federal Court also alleges Facebook "aided and abetted or was knowingly concerned in false or misleading conduct and representations by the advertisers," the ACCC said in a statement.

South Africa's Competition Commission says it had referred Facebook and WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms to a tribunal for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the market. From a report: But a spokesperson for WhatsApp said the regulator was objecting to actions meant to protect the platform's users from abuses of WhatsApp's terms. In a statement, the regulator accused Meta of "abusing its dominance by engaging in exclusionary conduct geared at preventing competitors or potential competitors from entering into, participating, and expanding in a market". The commission said Meta had decided to "offboard" GovChat (a start-up that connects government and citizens) and its subsidiary #LetsTalk from its WhatsApp Business Application Programming Interface. It also said the company had "imposed and/or selectively enforced exclusionary terms and conditions regulating access to the WhatsApp Business API, mainly restrictions on the use of data".

TorGuard has settled a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by several movie companies last year. The VPN provider stood accused of failing to take action against subscribers who were pirating films. As part of the settlement, TorGuard agrees to block BitTorrent traffic on U.S. servers; however, it stresses that user privacy is in no way affected by this decision. TorrentFreak reports: "Pursuant to a confidential settlement agreement, Plaintiffs have requested, and Defendant has agreed to use commercially reasonable efforts to block BitTorrent traffic on its servers in the United States using firewall technology," a joint statement reads. This is quite a far-reaching measure as a broad BitTorrent blockade will also affect legal traffic, which includes software updates from Twitter and Facebook. That said, people can still use BitTorrent on servers in other regions. [...]

The company confirms that it's blocking torrent traffic on U.S. servers, but that doesn't change anything for the privacy of users. "TorGuard has not been forced to log network usage data. Due to the nature of shared IP's and related hardware technicalities of how TorGuard's network was built it is impossible for us to do so," the VPN provider writes. "We have a responsibility to provide high quality uninterrupted VPN and proxy services to our client base at large while mitigating any related network abuse that should arise. This commitment to user privacy and service reliability is the reason we have taken measures to block Bittorrent traffic on servers within the United States."

Russia followed through on its threat to block Meta-owned Instagram on Monday, cutting off access to tens of millions of users in the country. From a report: Instagram is popular in Russia. It's Meta's second most popular app there, according to data from Sensor Tower, behind ubiquitous messaging service WhatsApp. The app has been installed 166 million times across the Russian App Store and Google Play since 2014, making it three times as popular as Facebook. After Russian censor Roskomnadzor announced that the government would restrict access to the app following a 48-hour "transition period," Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri condemned Russia's actions, which will affect 80 million people in the country.

Facebook parent Meta Platforms clarified on Sunday that it is against the company's user rules to share a post that "calls for the death of a head of state" -- likely a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin. From a report: Last week, Facebook temporarily relaxed its policies so that Ukrainian users could post threats of violence against the Russian military, which invaded its neighbor in late February. The change led to some public confusion as to what was allowed, and what was not, on Facebook and Instagram. Meta's President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg posted a statement Friday saying the move is aimed at protecting Ukrainian rights and doesn't signal tolerance for "discrimination, harassment or violence towards Russians." On Sunday, he tried to further explain the company's stance to employees in an internal post. "We are now narrowing the focus to make it explicitly clear in the guidance that it is never to be interpreted as condoning violence against Russians in general," Clegg wrote in the internal post, which was reviewed by Bloomberg.

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Platforms is among the most vocal proponents of the future of the metaverse, but one gaming industry veteran is particularly skeptical about its vision. From a report: Like the cloud five years ago and even the internet of 20 years past, every business is now trying to latch onto the metaverse, said former Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime. Instead of Facebook's parent, the digital future will be driven by smaller companies that are really innovating, while companies like Epic Games are doing "really compelling" things, he said. "Facebook itself is not an innovative company," Fils-Aime told Emily Chang at the South by Southwest event in Austin, Texas, on Saturday. "They have either acquired interesting things like Oculus and Instagram, or they've been a fast follower of people's ideas. I don't think their current definition will be successful."

Slashdot reader quonset shares this report from Reuters: Instagram users in Russia have been notified that the service will cease as of midnight on Sunday after its owner Meta Platforms said last week it would allow social media users in Ukraine to post messages such as "Death to the Russian invaders". An email message from the state communications regulator told users to move their photos and videos from Instagram before it was shut down, and encouraged them to switch to Russia's own "competitive internet platforms".

Meta, which also owns Facebook, said Friday that the temporary change in its hate speech policy applied only to Ukraine, in the wake of Russia's Feb. 24 invasion. The company said it would be wrong to prevent Ukrainians from "expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces"....

The message to Instagram users from the state media regulator, Roskomnadzor, described the decision to allow calls for violence against Russians as a breach of international law. "We need to ensure the psychological health of citizens, especially children and adolescents, to protect them from harassment and insults online," it said, explaining the decision to close down the platform.
"The tears were flowing Sunday among Russia's airbrushed Instagram influencers, who begged their followers in farewell posts to join them on alternative social media platforms..." reports the Washington Post: On the platform, emotions ran high Sunday among Russians who were about to lose thousands of dollars they received to promote various products, as well as access to millions of followers amassed over the years. "I'm writing this post now and crying," Olga Buzova, a Russian reality television star, wrote, saying she hoped "it's all not true and we will remain here...."

The ban on Instagram is the latest example of how Russia's citizens are being isolated from the rest of the world as a result of Moscow's war against Ukraine. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion on Feb. 24, his government has also pulled the plug on Russia's opposition-oriented radio and television networks, part of a broader effort to squelch domestic dissent in response to the war. Thousands of Russians have been arrested for attempting to protest the invasion.... But perhaps no move is more isolating than removing Russians from social media platforms that connect them directly to other users around the world. Instagram counted nearly 60 million users in Russia in 2021, according to the market data firm Statista, about 40 percent of the country's population. The platform is also a huge revenue source for its users, who rake in cash from sponsors by posting promotional content.
"We know that over 80 percent of people in Russia on Instagram follow an account from outside of Russia," Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a video, according to the Post's article.

It adds that "It is unclear how many Russians will continue to be able to access Instagram using Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs."

The Washington Post shares a story that hasn't been previously disclosed. "Russian agents came to the home of Google's top executive in Moscow to deliver a frightening ultimatum last September: take down an app that had drawn the ire of Russian President Vladimir Putin within 24 hours or be taken to prison." Google quickly moved the woman to a hotel where she checked in under an assumed name and might be protected by the presence of other guests and hotel security, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The same agents — believed by company officials to be from Russia's FSB, a successor to the KGB intelligence service — then showed up at her room to tell her the clock was still ticking.

Within hours, an app designed to help Russians register protest votes against Putin could no longer be downloaded from Google or Apple, whose main representative in Moscow faced a similarly harrowing sequence....

The unnerving encounters, which have not previously been disclosed, were part of a broader campaign that Putin intensified last year to erode sources of internal opposition — moves now helping him maintain his hold on power amid a global backlash over the invasion of Ukraine. In a single year, Putin had his political nemesis Alexei Navalny imprisoned after a poisoning attempt failed to kill him; pushed independent news outlets to the brink of extinction; orchestrated a Kremlin-controlled takeover of Russia's Facebook equivalent; and issued "liquidation" orders against human rights organizations.

Amid this internal offensive, Putin also moved to bring foreign technology companies to heel. Moscow deployed new devices that let it degrade or even block Russians' access to Facebook and Twitter, imposed fines totaling $120 million on firms accused of defying Kremlin censors, and ordered 13 of the world's largest technology companies to keep employees in Russia and thus exposed to potential arrest or other punishment for their employers' actions — a measure that U.S. executives refer to as the "hostage law."

On their own, these moves were seen as disparate signs of Russia' descent into authoritarianism. But they also laid the groundwork for the Soviet-style suppression of free expression now underway in Russia, much as the months-long military buildup set the stage for the invasion of Ukraine.
The article also notes "preliminary evidence that the suppression strategy is working. "Polls, whose reliability is always uncertain in Russia, show that a majority of Russians support the war. In interviews with Western journalists that have gone viral online, Russians who rely on state-controlled media have consistently echoed Kremlin falsehoods about eradicating alleged Nazism in Ukraine while seeming to be genuinely oblivious to the war's carnage."

The article also notes how Apple is responding to Ukraine's crisis — but also includes this anecdote: Apple has similarly kept employees in Russia and taken other steps to placate the Kremlin. The company last year began configuring iPhones sold in Russia to promote Kremlin-backed social media companies, enabling users to activate them with a single click. It is an accommodation Apple has rarely made elsewhere and advances Putin's goal of migrating Russian people to platforms controlled by the government, according to Russia analysts.

Walgreens and other retailers replaced some fridge and freezer doors with iPad-like screens, reports CNN. "And some shoppers absolutely hate it." The screens, which were developed by the startup Cooler Screens, use a system of motion sensors and cameras to display what's inside the doors — as well as product information, prices, deals and, most appealing to brands, paid advertisements. The tech provides stores with an additional revenue stream and a way to modernize the shopping experience. But for customers who just want to peek into the freezer and grab their ice cream, Walgreens risks angering them by solving a problem that shoppers didn't know existed. The company wants to engage more people with advertising, but the reaction, so far, is annoyance and confusion.

"Why would Walgreens do this?" one befuddled shopper who encountered the screens posted on TikTok. "Who on God's green earth thought this was a good idea?"

"The digital cooler screens at Walgreens made me watch an ad before it allowed me to know which door held the frozen pizzas," said someone on Twitter....

Walgreens began testing the screens in 2018 and has since expanded the pilot to a couple thousand locations nationwide. Several other major retailers are launching their own tests with Cooler Screens, including Kroger, CVS, GetGo convenience stores and Chevron gas stations. "I hope that we will one day be able to expand across all parts of the store," said Cooler Screens co-founder and CEO Arsen Avakian in an interview with CNN Business. Currently the startup has about 10,000 screens in stores, which are viewed by approximately 90 million consumers monthly, according to the company....

Politifact last month debunked a viral Facebook video that claimed "Walgreens refrigerators are scanning shoppers' hands and foreheads for 'the mark of the beast.'"

Avakian insists the tech is "identity-blind" and protects consumers' privacy. The freezers have front-facing sensors used to anonymously track shoppers interacting with the platform, while internally facing cameras track product inventory...

The items on display don't always match up with what's inside because products are out of stock.....

"This is the future of retail and shopping," Avakian said.
CNN notes that major corporations are backing the company Cooler Screens, which "has raised more than $100 million from backers including Microsoft and Verizon." But long-time Slashdot reader davidwr points out it's been done before. "Some gas stations have had video ads at the pump for years now. I boycott those stations on principle."

And Slashdot reader quonset wonders if we're one step closer to Futurama's vision of a world where advertisers enter our dreams.

According to the latest updates from CNN, Ukraine's defense ministry claims Russia is planning to carry out "some sort of terrorist attack at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant" and blame Ukraine. The plant is currently without power and under Russian control. From the report: The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence claimed on its Facebook page Friday that "the available intelligence says Putin has ordered that his troops to prepare a terror attack at Chernobyl for which the Russian invaders will try to blame Ukraine." The directorate also repeated that the plant "remains completely disconnected from the monitoring systems run by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence also alleged Friday that Russian forces had denied a Ukrainian repair team access to Chernobyl. It claimed without offering evidence that "Belarusian specialists" went there posing as nuclear power experts and that Russian saboteurs were arriving to set up a terror attack. The ministry claimed that "without receiving the desired result from the ground military operation and direct talks, Putin is ready to resort to nuclear blackmail of the international community."

The IAEA said last week that it had not been able to re-establish communication with systems installed to monitor nuclear material and activities at either the Chernobyl or Zaporizhzhia plants following the loss of remote data transmissions from those systems. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Thursday that the situation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, occupied by the Russian forces, was degrading as the IAEA was losing "a significant amount of information" on safeguarding monitoring systems. However, he said he was "quite encouraged [...] on one important thing, is that Ukraine and Russian Federation want to work with us, they agree to work with us." "Both Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly claimed without substantiation that the other side is planning to provoke an incident involving nuclear, chemical or biological agents," notes CNN.

On Wednesday, Russian's foreign ministry claimed that the U.S. operates a biowarfare lab in Ukraine, "an accusation that has been repeatedly denied by Washington and Kyiv," reports Reuters.

Russian prosecutors have asked a court to ban Meta Platforms's Facebook and Instagram as "extremist," Interfax reported, the latest move in a growing crackdown on social networks. From a report: Authorities blocked access to Facebook last week under a new media law, but the "extremist" designation, if approved by a court, would effectively criminalize all of Meta's operations in Russia. The company's Instagram app would also be blocked. The move comes amid increasing tension between Moscow and U.S. tech companies. Earlier Friday, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, called on prosecutors to investigate Meta after Reuters reported that the company had temporarily eased internal restrictions on calling for violence against Russian soldiers due to the invasion of Ukraine. Russia has already banned certain social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, while tech companies have demonetized Russian state-sponsored media and blocked them in Europe.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Transparency organization Distributed Denial of Secrets has released what it says is 800GB of data from a section of Roskomnadzor, the Russian government body responsible for censorship in the country. On Distributed Denial of Secrets' website, the organization describes the data as coming from a hack and says that Anonymous claimed responsibility. Roskomnadzor is the agency that has in recent days announced a block of Facebook and other websites in the country as the war in Ukraine intensifies.

Specifically, Distributed Denial of Secrets says the data comes from the Roskomnadzor of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The Republic of Bashkortostan is in the west of the country. Motherboard found references to the Republic of Bashkortostan in some of the released files. The data is split into two main categories: a series of over 360,000 files totalling in at 526.9GB and which date up to as recently as March 5, and then two databases that are 290.6GB in size, according to Distributed Denial of Secrets' website. "The source, a part of Anonymous, urgently felt the Russian people should have access to information about their government. They also expressed their opposition to the Russian people being cut off from independent media and the outside world," wrote DDoSecrets on its website, as highlighted by Forbes.

"We will soon be releasing the raw data while we look for solutions to extracting the data. One appears to be a legal research database that was, according to the file timestamp, last modified in 2020. The other appears to be a database for HR procedures." Given the size of the leak and timing, they note "it's always possible that something could be modified or planted."

HBO was hit with a class action lawsuit on Tuesday alleging that it shares subscribers' viewing history with Facebook, in violation of a federal privacy law. Variety reports: A class action law firm, Bursor & Fisher, filed the suit in federal court in New York on behalf of two HBO Max subscribers, Angel McDaniel and Constance Simon. The suit alleges that HBO provides Facebook with customer lists, which allows Facebook to match customers' viewing habits with their Facebook profiles. The suit alleges that HBO never receives consent from subscribers to do this, thereby violating the Video Privacy Protection Act. The act was passed in 1988, after a reporter obtained Robert Bork's rental history from a video store.

The lawsuit argues that HBO knows that Facebook can combine such data because HBO is a major advertiser on Facebook, and it in fact uses that information to retarget Facebook ads to its own subscribers. HBO Max has a privacy policy on its website, in which it discloses that it and its partners use cookies to deliver personalized ads, among other purposes. But the VPPA requires that subscribers give separate consent to share their video viewing history. "In other words," the lawsuit states, "a standard privacy policy will not suffice."