The Breadth of the Fediverse
The Washington Post recently published an op-ed by Megan McArdle titled "Twitter might be replaced, but not by Mastodon or other imitators." The article argues that Mastodon is falling into a common trap for open source projects: building a look-alike alternative which improves things a typical user doesn’t care...
Civil Society Organizations Call on the House Of Lords to Protect Private Messaging in the Online Safety Bill
As the UK's Online Safety Bill enters its Second Reading in the House of Lords, EFF, Liberty, Article 19, and Big Brother Watch are calling on Peers to protect end-to-end encryption and the right to private messaging online.As we've said before, undermining protections for end-to-end encryption would make...
Setting the Record Straight: EFF Statement in Support of FCC Nominee Gigi Sohn
In the last week, a number of dangerous and conspiracy-driven attacks were launched against EFF board member Gigi Sohn, an eminently qualified nominee to the Federal Communications Commission. These attacks attempted to twist EFF's long-held positions and commitments into dog whistles against Ms. Sohn. We’d like to set the record...
EFF Files Amicus Briefs in Two Important Geofence Search Warrant Cases
Should the police be able to identify everyone who was in a busy metropolitan area, just because a crime occurred there? In two amicus briefs just filed in appellate courts, we argue that’s a clearly unconstitutional search.[1]The two cases are People v. Meza, in the California...
The FCC Broadband Maps: Meet the New Maps, Same as the Old Maps
When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released their new broadband map in November 2022, many hoped the chronic inaccuracies of past FCC maps would be resolved. Previous maps of high-speed broadband access in the United States painted inaccurate pictures partly because the definitions of things like “access” and “high-speed”...
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back on Vaccine Privacy in New York
Stupid Patent of the Month: Digital Verification Systems Patents E-Signatures
Patent trolls make patents, and argue over them. They don’t have to ever make the thing described in their patents, if it’s even possible to determine what those things are. Instead, they generate legal threats and waste the time and money of companies that do do these things. This month’s...
California Law Says Electronic Search Data Must Be Posted Online. So Where Is It?
Brazil's Telecom Operators Made Strides and Had Shortcomings in Internet Lab's New Report on User Privacy Practices
Brazil’s biggest internet connection providers made moderate advances in protecting customer data and being transparent about their privacy practices, but fell short on meeting certain requirements for upholding users’ rights under Brazil's data protection law, according to InternetLab’s 2022 Quem Defende Seus Dados? (Who Defends Your Data?) report. In...
EFF Tells Supreme Court: User Speech Must Be Protected
The Supreme Court is about to hear a case that could dramatically affect users’ speech rights online. EFF has filed a brief explaining what’s at stake, and urging the court to preserve the key law protecting user expression, 47 U.S.C § 230 (Section 230).In Gonzalez v. Google, the petitioning...
