• A bipartisan group of 36 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, alleging that the company has monopolized the sale and distribution of apps through the Google Play store on mobile devices and has charged “extravagant” commissions of up to 30 percent on app purchases. (Bloomberg)
• Former President Donald Trump announced that he has filed class-action lawsuits against the chief executive officers of Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Google, and is pushing for immediate injunctive relief to have his social media accounts restored as well as asking the court to impose punitive damages on the companies. (Axios)
• The Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure said it notified software supplier company Kaseya Ltd. in April of a cybersecurity vulnerability in its VSA software, which was then exploited in a ransomware attack last week that has affected hundreds of businesses and organizations. (The Wall Street Journal)

What 4.8 Million Scams Look Like
Bloomberg Businessweek

View Full Calendar

Pentagon Comes Around to Multicloud Approach
Sara Castellanos and Angus Loten, The Wall Street Journal

The Pentagon’s decision Tuesday to drop a proposed cloud contract with Microsoft Corp. in favor of planning to hire multiple vendors for the job is in line with the IT strategy at many big corporations and government agencies.

China’s Xi attacks calls for technology blockades
The Associated Press

Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Tuesday attacked calls from some in the U.S. and its allies to limit their dependency on Chinese suppliers and block the sharing of technologies.

Pelosi’s Husband Locked In $5.3 Million From Alphabet Options
Billy House and Anna Edgerton, Bloomberg

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, won big on Alphabet Inc. stock and added bets on Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. in the weeks leading up to the House Judiciary Committee’s vote on antitrust legislation that seeks to severely limit how these companies organize and offer their products.

As Bezos called for tax hikes, Amazon lobbied to keep its tax bill low
Theodoric Meyer, Politico

As Amazon publicly embraced President Joe Biden’s plan to raise the corporate tax rate across the board, it has also lobbied Congress to preserve a prized tax break that’s helped it lower its corporate tax bill.

The U.S. says humans will always be in control of AI weapons. But the age of autonomous war is already here.
Gerrit De Vynck, The Washington Post

Today, efforts to enact a total ban on lethal autonomous weapons, long demanded by human rights activists, are now being supported by 30 countries. But the world’s leading military powers insist that isn’t necessary.

From corporate America to conspiracy theory promotion: How a Minnesota man made a career out of anonymously amplifying dark plots
Shawn Boburg, The Washington Post

Sean G. Turnbull displays many of the hallmarks of a successful upper-middle-class family man, a former film producer and marketing manager for one of the country’s largest retail corporations who lives in a well-appointed home in this Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb. Former colleagues describe him as smart, affable and family-oriented. But for more than a decade, the 53-year-old has also pursued a less conventional path: anonymously promoting conspiracy theories about dark forces in American politics on websites and social media accounts in a business he runs out of his home. 

Start-Ups Aim Beyond Earth
Erin Woo, The New York Times

When Lisa Rich held a call with investors in March to raise money for Aurvandil Acquisition, a company that buys start-ups focused on space technology, her goal was to bring in several million dollars. Ms. Rich, a member of Aurvandil’s board, almost reached her goal within an hour.

House Republicans lay out their antitrust agenda for tech giants
Lauren Feiner, CNBC

House Judiciary Committee Republicans, led by ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, laid out their framework for regulating Big Tech companies on Wednesday.

French anti-trust decision on Google’s copyright talks with publishers due in coming days
Mathieu Rosemain, Reuters

France’s anti-trust watchdog will make a decision in the coming days over the way Google held copyright talks with some French publishers about paying for news content, the watchdog’s head Isabelle de Silva said on Thursday.

What a Tech Breakup Could Mean for You
Christopher Mims, The Wall Street Journal

As momentum builds to curtail the power of Big Tech, lawmakers, Beltway pundits and the companies themselves are all competing to explain to the public what it might mean to us, the everyday consumers of goods and services from those in the crosshairs.

Covid-weary consumers coming back to cities, stadiums boost 5G traffic, Verizon CEO says
Pia Singh, CNBC

More and more consumers are jumping on to next-generation 5G wireless technology as the economy reopens, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg told CNBC on Wednesday. 

Three months, 700 steps: Why it takes so long to produce a computer chip
Jeanne Whalen, The Washington Post

The tiny components are the brains behind an ever-growing array of electronics, from toothbrushes and refrigerators to vacuum cleaners and cars. Global chip sales are forecast to grow by 20 percent this year and by 9 percent next year as smartphones and laptops use more of the components.

Pressure grows on Biden to curb ransomware attacks
Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post

With a massive ransomware attack last week intensifying pressure on the Biden administration to demonstrate it can curb the threat, top national security officials briefed the president Wednesday on the government’s efforts to counter and blunt the impact of the costly, increasingly brazen assaults by Russia-based hackers.

Biden Weighs a Response to Ransomware Attacks
David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth, The New York Times

President Biden emerged from a Situation Room meeting with his top cybersecurity advisers on Wednesday to declare that he “will deliver” a response to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for the wave of ransomware attacks hitting American companies, after hearing a series of options about how he could disrupt the extortion efforts.

Code in huge ransomware attack written to avoid computers that use Russian, says new report
Ken Dilanian, NBC News

The computer code behind the massive ransomware attack by the Russian-speaking hacking ring REvil was written so that the malware avoids systems that primarily use Russian or related languages, according to a new report by a cybersecurity firm.

Malware spammers aim to leverage Kaseya ransomware drama in email campaign
Tim Starks, CyberScoop

First came the ransomware rampage stemming from the breach of Miami-based software firm Kaseya. Now comes a wave of malicious emails seeking capitalize on the rush to find a fix.

‘Shut down everything:’ Global ransomware attack takes a small Maryland town offline
Chris Velazco and Rachel Lerman, The Washington Post

It was just after 12:30 p.m. on the Friday before the Fourth of July holiday when a warning popped up on Laschelle McKay’s computer screen. McKay, the town administrator for Leonardtown, Md., didn’t even have time to read the whole message before it disappeared and her computer froze.

Opioid addiction apps access personal data, study finds
Patrick McGee, Financial Times

Platforms gain entry to sensitive user information such as phone number and IP address.

Pentagon office left military designs for body armor, vehicle gear open to hackers, watchdog finds
Tonya Riley, FedScoop

The office in charge of the U.S. military’s 3D printing left designs for defense technology vulnerable to theft by hackers and adversaries, according to a watchdog report made public on Wednesday.

Twitter begins exec hiring to comply with India’s new IT rules
Sankalp Phartiyal, Reuters

Twitter Inc.’s India unit has appointed an interim chief compliance officer and will soon designate two other executives to comply with the country’s new IT rules, the social media giant said in a court filing on Thursday.

U.S. concerned by reports of China LGBTQI Plus social media curbs
Reuters

The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday it was concerned about reports that China had restricted use of social media accounts of LGBTQI Plus student groups and non-governmental organizations.

TikTok wants you to send video resumes directly to brands to land your next gig
Taylor Hatmaker, TechCrunch

TikTok announced it will invite users to submit video resumes to participating companies, including Target, Chipotle, Shopify, Meredith, NASCAR and the WWE. The company encourages applicants to show off their skills in a creative way while tagging the content with the hashtag #TikTokResumes.

How TikTok’s hate speech detection tool set off a debate about racial bias on the app
Shirin Ghaffary, Recode

Tyler noticed that when he typed phrases about Black content in his Marketplace creator bio, such as “Black Lives Matter” or “Black success,” the app flagged his content as “inappropriate.” But when he typed in phrases like “white supremacy” or “white success,” he received no such warning.

Reprimand of judges for social media misconduct warrants updated guidelines, experts say
Erik Ortiz, NBC News

A local judge in upstate New York resigned in May after a state agency opened an investigation into Facebook posts that allegedly conveyed anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim bias and showed favoritism toward law enforcement. That same month, a domestic relations judge in Alabama was temporarily removed from the bench after state judicial investigators accused her or someone on her behalf of using fake Facebook accounts to harass litigants who had cases in her court.

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg’s Partnership Did Not Survive Trump
Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, The New York Times

In the years since Mr. Trump won the 2016 election, Facebook has struggled with the role it played in his rise and in the growth of populist leaders across the world. The same tools that allowed Facebook’s business to more than double during those years — such as the News Feed that prioritized engagement and the Facebook groups that pushed like-minded people together — had been used to spread misinformation.

Gig workers are prepping for a $100+ million battle against Uber, Lyft and DoorDash
Megan Rose Dickey, Protocol

Gig workers, labor activists, the NAACP New England chapter and other organizations are teaming up to fight Uber, Lyft and other gig-economy companies in Massachusetts. The group, The Coalition to Protect Workers’ Rights, is anticipating a $100 million-plus ballot campaign from gig-economy companies seeking to classify gig workers as independent contractors.

Uber and Lyft could be avoiding $135 million in Canadian taxes every year by relying on contract workers, report says
Tyler Sonnemaker, Insider

Uber and Lyft could be avoiding a combined $135 million in taxes every year in Canada, according to a new report from the nonprofit Canadians for Tax Fairness (C4TF).

Amazon’s new CEO Andy Jassy is already making his mark on the company with these additions to the executive ‘S-team’ and a slew of SVP promotions
Eugene Kim, Insider

Amazon has added two new members to its “S-team,” a group of roughly two dozen senior executives who make the company’s biggest decisions, Insider has learned. 

Let’s Make Google a Public Good
Dave Yost, The New York Times

American law recognizes that some critically important businesses must accept all customers and treat everyone fairly because they are not easily or economically efficient to duplicate — think railroads, electricity providers and telephone companies.

Could Ransomware Become a Geopolitical Weapon?
Jenny Jun, Politico

The fact that attackers can mount these attacks so frequently and extort large sums of money from victims shows that encryption has emerged as a really good way to hold hostages. What if an adversary state or a terrorist group starts using the same tool to demand something more than money?