Items tagged with DoJ
Google parent company Alphabet has confirmed that it is under investigation by the United States Department of Justice. Specifically, the DOJ suspects Alphabet of antitrust practices, and is demanding all information and documents related to prior antitrust investigations involving the company around the globe. While the DOJ stated that it was just beginning to investigate major tech companies back in July 2019, we now know the department's efforts have kicked into high gear. Alphabet and Google aren't the only major tech companies under the crosshair right now. Apple, Facebook, and Amazon are all known to be under investigation as well, and we wouldn't be surprised if other platforms...
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Sprint and T-Mobile announced that they intended to merge with T-Mobile CEO John Legere leading the newly merged company last year. Today, a report is going around that the U.S. Department of Justice plans to approve the $26 billion merger between the two cellular carriers on Thursday. However, the deal will have some conditions attached to it. The big condition is that certain wireless assets must be sold to Dish. CNBC cites sources close to the matter as saying that the DOJ is requiring T-Mobile to sell its pre-paid mobile division to Dish with the satellite TV provider paying $1.4 billion in return. Dish will also pay $3.6 billion over time for spectrum assets. The sources claim that the merged...
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Facebook is no stranger to privacy and security issues; it seems at every turn, a new report is surfacing that claims that some new mishandling of user data has taken place. The most significant privacy outcry Facebook has taken on, happened last year with the Cambridge Analytica fiasco that landed CEO Mark Zuckerberg in front of Congress to talk about how the company handles user data. Facebook admitted that Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed data of 87 million Facebook users and now the FTC has approved a settlement with Facebook on its Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. The FTC has approved a settlement with Facebook that amounts to about a $5 billion in fine, according to a person...
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The tensions between device makers like Apple and Google against law enforcement shows no signs of slowing down. As you may recall, the U.S. government is hell-bent on forcing Apple to unlock encrypted iPhone that are involved in criminal cases. Apple contends that the encryption that it provides on iPhones via the iOS operating system is meant to safeguard user data first and foremost, and that giving law enforcement the ability to snoop through private data sets a dangerous precedent. Comments made by U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein this week bolster Apple’s position, and throw cold water on the U.S. government’s wishes to steamroll tech companies. Judge Orenstein took the somewhat unorthodox...
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AT&T may have failed in its attempt to acquire rival wireless provider T-Mobile for $39 billion back in 2011, but as for its proposed $48.5 billion acquisition of satellite TV service giant DirecTV, federal regulators are set to approve the deal. Doing so would end a more than yearlong review process that began in May of 2014 when the deal was first announced. While the deal is set to be approved, there are several conditions that AT&T must follow, all of which are outlined in an order Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler has circulated to the agency's other commissioners recommending the deal. One of the requirements is that AT&T must expand its GigaPower...
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The market may be filled to the brim with image and video sharing websites, but one of the oldest ones, Photobucket, still proves to be a popular choice. As we're now finding out, though, it's a choice you may want to reconsider if you have an account with the service. The US Department of Justice yesterday announced the arrest of two men responsible for developing and marketing software that would allow people to gain access to private photos attached to Photobucket user accounts. The software utilized a legitimate technique called 'Fusking', which enables you to fetch URLs en masse that follow a specific pattern; eg: IMG_1[1-999].jpg. A fetching method like this would be useless on most sites,...
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The opposition to the $45 billion Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger is growing. Late last week, we reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust division is damn near close to recommending that the deal be nuked. The DOJ’s recommendations could ultimately lead to a lawsuit aimed at stopping the deal in its tracks. For its part, Comcast contends that a merger with TWC would be good for consumers. “There is no basis for a lawsuit to block the transaction,” said Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice last week. Fitzmaurice went on to add that the deal would “result in significant consumer benefits -- faster broadband speeds, access to a superior video experience, and more competition in business...
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Comcast has spent the past year extolling the benefits of its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable, but many in the tech industry and plenty of customers aren’t so certain that a merger is the right way to go. As we’ve seen time and time again, Comcast’s customer service is often atrocious and Time Warner Cable isn’t much better. Both companies have been slow to innovate when it comes to offering customers new services and faster Internet speeds and when they do, it’s only because newer competition — like Google — forced their hand. It is now looking like the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is the latest to jump on the anti-Comcast bandwagon, and with good reason. According to a new Bloomberg...
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Hot on the heels of president Obama's insinuation that the government should never have an issue accessing a person's data comes an even scarier prospect -- being the victim of a search warrant just because you take steps to enhance your privacy.As it happens, that could become the reality, if the FBI gets its way. While it's no secret that government agencies spy on us as if we're all guilty of destabilizing national security, the Fourth Amendment has a number of protections in place that can prevent us from prosecution. So, the FBI has decided to go after a specific rule to help get rid of that roadblock.That rule is called Federal Rule 41(b), and the change would result in law enforcement...
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Phew, we can all breathe a sigh a relief that the scooping up of our sensitive mobile phone data -- things like text messages, call records, browsing history, pictures, contact, and more -- is completely legal, or so the government says. Doesn't that make you make feel much better about the U.S. Marshal Service's use of spy planes to harvest cellphone information on a mass scale? No? Well perhaps you'll rest easier at night knowing that the Department of Justice insists that the Marshal Service doesn't maintain a database of cellphone data belonging to everyday, law abiding citizens as part of a program that it won't even acknowledge exists. Surely that should give you warm fuzzies, right? Still...
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Four members belonging to an international computer hacking ring have been indicted. The Justice Department released a press release that revealed the members were charged with breaking into the computer networks of tech companies and even the U.S. Army. The estimated value of the theft of intellectual property is said to be over $100 million. “As the indictment charges, the members of this international hacking ring stole trade secret data used in high-tech American products, ranging from software that trains U.S. soldiers to fly Apache helicopters to Xbox games that entertain millions around the world,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. The four men were identified as Nathan...
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Sir Walter Scott warned long about about weaving a tangled web through deception, but apparently the Department of Justice (DoJ) and National Security Agency (NSA) aren't fans of old poetry. If they were, they'd drop the secrecy behind the PRISM program that whistleblower Edward Snowden blew wide open earlier this year. The truth eventually comes out anyway, as it did with Google's reluctant participation in PRISM. Google wants to offer its users transparency about what's going on, but its hands are tied after the DoJ won a court ruling to keep the search giant from talking about federal demands for using data. Doing so would be a threat to national security, the DoJ argued. Image Source: Flickr...
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Panasonic and its subsidiary Sanyo (by way of a 50.2 percent stake in the company) both pleaded guilty in separate price fixing allegations involving automotive parts and battery cells, the United States Department of Justice announced this week. The two firms will pay a total of $56.5 million in criminal fines, while LG Chem Ltd., a leading manufacturer of secondary batteries, also admitted guilt and will pay a fine of $1.056 million. The DoJ accused Panasonic of conspiring to fix prices of switches, steering angle sensors, and automotive high intensity discharge (HID) ballasts installed in cars sold in the U.S. and elsewhere. Panasonic carried out its scheme from at least as early as September...
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The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a $1 billion criminal fine against AU Optronics for its alleged involvement in a liquid crystal display (LCD) price fixing scheme that took place from 2001 to 2006. In addition to the hefty company fine, the DoJ also wants two convicted company executives to each serve 10 years in prison and pay $1 million in fines. "These defendants and AUO’s subsidiary, AU Optronics Corporation America, were central figures in the most serious price-fixing cartel ever prosecuted by the United States. Only these sentences could possibly reflect the seriousness of this offense or provide adequate deterrence," the DoJ said in a court document. AU Optronics was allegedly...
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The Internet is still something of a wild frontier, where everything is growing and evolving fast, but the rules are still being written and shootouts between companies are general practice. It’s grown so much that it’s gradually invading just about every other market sector, from phone service to retail and more. The TV industry is a major battleground, as online streaming video from the likes of Netflix and Hulu nibble away at cable companies’ market share and, more importantly, make people question why they’re paying so much money for cable and satellite. In an on-demand world, the paradigm of cable/satellite programming is laughable, as TV programming is delivered...
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When the Department of Justice and Microsoft hammered out the terms of their agreement in 2001, one of the strictures was that the software giant would be subject to official DOJ oversight for a period of five years. In 2006, the DoJ opted to extend the term another five years, but the government body won't be doing the same thing again. On May 12, Microsoft will no longer be subject to special federal oversight. Analysts anticipate we'll see Microsoft making some bolder moves as a result, though no one anticipates a return to the old days. Rob Enderle, principle analyst at Enderle Group, told reports that "Any type of consent decree like the one that was over IBM and the one that is over Microsoft...
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Wow, this is odd. According to a new report today from the United States Department of Justice, six very well recognized silicon valley companies are have their hands slapped by a very powerful entity. The DoJ has mandated that six companies stop entering into anti-competitive employee solicitation agreements, which they have apparently been doing for as many as 5 years. It sounds like the six companies have agreed to comply, as the DoJ filed a lawsuit but says that the accompanying agreement should cover that. You're probably dying to know who exactly has been named here, so here goes: Adobe Systems Inc., Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., Intuit Inc. and Pixar. We're pretty sure you have...
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Uncle Sam doesn't like it when you try to pull one over on him, and that's something Hewlett Packard had to go and find out the hard way. After standing accused of offering kickbacks to systems integrator companies in exchange for recommending HP products to U.S. agencies, the OEM has agreed to fork over $55 million to put the whole incident in their rear view mirror, the Justice Department announced this week. "Contractors must deal fairly with the government when doing business with federal agencies," said U.S. assistant attorney general Tony West. "As this case demonstrates, we will take action against those who seek to taint the government procurement process with illegal kickbacks." The...
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Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha you gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when the U.S. Department of Justice slaps you silly for conspiring to fix prices of LCD panels on a global scale? So maybe the actual theme song goes a little differently than that, but we have an answer to the question nonetheless. When the DoJ lobs a legal backhand your way for bending the public over and kicking them in the wallet, you're going to serve time in jail. That's the self-imposed plight Wen-Hung "Amigo" Huang, a former executive from Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corporation, finds himself in after pleading guilty to conspiracy to fix LCD prices. "Under his plea agreement which is subject to court approval, Huang, who was charged...
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The Department of Justice approved Verizon Wireless’ $28 billion purchase of Alltel, but the deal is subject to a few stipulations. More specifically, Verizon Wireless will be required to divest wireless assets in 100 markets encompassing 22 states. The sale of assets doesn’t mean Verizon Wireless will lose service in the areas affected by the order. Instead, it means Verizon Wireless will sell licenses where the merger with Alltel would give the company duplicate licenses. The entire states of North Dakota and South Dakota; major portions of Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Montana, South Carolina, Utah, and Wyoming; and sections of Alabama, Arizona, California, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska,...
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The Department of Justice has been hounding Microsoft for years over anti-trust issues of one sort or another, not to mention the major case in the late '90s that had people wondering if MS was going to be broken into several smaller operating units. Apparently that's all changed: "Nearly a decade after the government began its landmark effort to break up Microsoft, the Bush administration has sharply changed course by repeatedly defending the company both in the United States and abroad against accusations of anticompetitive conduct, including the recent rejection of a complaint by Google.The retrenchment reflects a substantially different view of antitrust policy, as well as a recognition...
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