Files from Tom Li
Google being sued over location tracking practices, EU General Court dismisses Intel’s billion euro fine, and a man is suing Uber for $63 million for a ride that left him paralyzed.
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Thursday, January 27th, and I’m your host, Samira Balsara.
Google is being sued again, this time for deceptive location tracking, according to an article by the BBC. According to the Associated Press, turning off location history when using Google Maps doesn’t fully prevent Google from tracking your location. Even when the settings are off, Web and App Activity will continue to log the user’s location if it’s on. The lawsuit accuses Google of using “dark pattern” marketing designed to confuse its users. Google responded to the lawsuit, claiming that the lawsuit is based on inaccurate claims and outdated assertions.
The EU General Court dismissed a 2009 antitrust decision against Intel and with it, its massive €1 billion fine. The European Commission had originally struck Intel with the fine on antitrust grounds, alleging that the company used its dominant market position to exclude competitors. The court now admits that the analysis by the European Commission was incomplete and thus dismissed the case. It was noted by Thurrot that the European Commission can still appeal the decision if it wants to do so, prolonging a case that’s already running for 20-years.
A Massachusetts man is suing Uber for $63 million, alleging that it hired an unqualified driver with a dangerous driving history. According to the lawsuit, Will Good received an injury when his Uber swerved and hit a parked car that left him paralyzed. A subsequent investigation revealed that the driver has had more than 20 driving citations since 1996, and was required to go through a driver retraining course. The lawsuit argued that the driver should not have been hired given his history. In addition to seeking compensation for his injury, Good’s attorney says that Good wants to raise awareness and make Uber safer for everyone.
Now for something a bit different. When Dan Reich forgot the password to his hardware crypto wallet, he never expected that its value would rise into the millions. Reich and his friend invested $50,000 on a batch of Theta tokens and had to extract it out of China when its government cracked down on crypto. Unfortunately his friend lost the paper on which the password was written. They were ready to write it off as a loss when in a few years, the price of their token turned their investment into $3 million at its peak. Because the wallet would automatically wipe the data after 16 incorrect password guesses, Reich and his friend turned to Joe Grand, an electrical engineer and a genius hacker, to recover the pin. After some complicated and delicate research, Grand was able to do just that by manipulating a vulnerability in the wallet, helping Reich extract the password and the coins. The hacking journey, covered by the Verge, is exhilarating and definitely worth a read.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, if you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Samira Balsara.