On September 22, 2021, a U.S. district judge from San Antonio, Texas, granted a summary judgment on the civil forfeiture of 147 bitcoin worth $6.3 million held on a Trezor hardware wallet. According to the court filing, the crypto assets stemmed from a Target gift card fraud incident that started in 2016. Gift Card Fraud…
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Social media users are leaving traditional providers in droves in favor of more independent platforms over fears of unwarranted data collection, censorship, and refusal of service. A change to WhatsApp’s terms of service has triggered a mass exodus from the messaging platform to more private and independent rivals like Telegram and Signal, which have registered…
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Regulators around the globe are increasingly turning hostile to the social media behemoth. The United States Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Facebook Inc., where it alleges that the corporation has been engaging in anti-competitive practices ever since acquiring a dominant global position at the turn of the 2010s. According to public case…
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There are multiple ways to approach digital payments, and Facebook wants to cover them all. Despite regulators across the board giving a cold shoulder to Facebook’s ambitious plan to install a worldwide crypto-based payment system called Libra, the company’s enthusiasm for moving into the digital payments space is only mounting. Earlier this week, reports emerged…
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Facebook is determined not to take “no” for an answer when it comes to fintech. Facebook has launched a new product group to promote “payments and commerce opportunities” with David Marcus, Libra’s co-creator, in charge of the division. The group, called Facebook Financial — or “F2” —will run its payments projects, including a planned Facebook Pay, Bloomberg…
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WhatsApp’s payment features have been suspended in Brazil less than one month after the Facebook-owned app rolled them out. Brazil’s central bank has ordered Mastercard and Visa to suspend processing money transfers on behalf of Facebook’s WhatsApp. According to official information shared with Cointelegraph Brazil, the Central Bank of Brazil (BC) took action against WhatsApp…
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Ex-Cambridge Analytica executive Brittany Kaiser discusses issues of global data protection crisis in an interview with Cointelegraph. Blockchain technology is an important tool in addressing the data protection crisis, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser believes. Kaiser, a former business development director at controversial British data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, has discussed global data privacy issues…
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Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of cloud-based messenger Telegram, says that Apple’s cloud service iCloud is “now officially a surveillance tool.” Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of major encrypted messenger Telegram, argues that Apple’s cloud service iCloud is “now officially a surveillance tool.” Citing a Jan. 21 Reuters report, Durov claimed that applications like WhatsApp…
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British decentralized communication startup New Vector has raised $8.5 million to promote an alternative messaging protocol. London-based decentralized communication startup New Vector has raised $8.5 million to drive adoption for Matrix, a major alternative messaging protocol. Slack rival Riot.IM The Matrix protocol, which enables secure communication via end-to-end encrypted messaging applications such as Riot.IM, an…
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