Victory! Ruling in hiQ v. Linkedin Protects Scraping of Public Data
In a long-awaited decision in hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that automated scraping of publicly accessible data likely does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). This is an important clarification of the CFAA’s scope, which should provide some...
Watering Holes and Million Dollar Dissidents: the Changing Economics of Digital Surveillance
Recently, Google’s Project Zero published a report describing a newly-discovered campaign of surveillance using chains of zero day iOS exploits to spy on iPhones. This campaign employed multiple compromised websites in what is known as a “watering hole” attack. The compromised websites would automatically run the chain of exploits...
New Chair of EFF’s Board of Directors: Renowned Legal Expert Pamela Samuelson
EFF is proud to announce our newest Chair of our Board of Directors, renowned legal expert Pamela Samuelson. Pam has served on EFF’s board for nearly 20 years, and her deep knowledge of digital copyright law, intellectual property, and information policy has made EFF a stronger organization.Pam is a...
Americans Deserve Their Day in Court About NSA Mass Surveillance Programs
EFF continues our fight to have the U.S. courts protect you from mass government surveillance. Today in our landmark Jewel v. NSA case, we filed our opening brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, asserting that the courts don’t have to turn a blind eye to the...
EFF's DEF CON 27 T-Shirt Puzzle
At Hacker Summer Camp 2019, EFF unveiled our 10th-annual limited edition member shirt—available only during the three-day event, and inspired by the DEF CON theme of Technology’s Promise: “a break from the dystopian imagery into a major-key, blue-sky thoughtscape, full of color and light...a future where we have tamed...
Facebook's Dating Service is Full of Red Flags
If you open Facebook’s mobile app today, it will likely suggest that you try the company’s new Dating service, which just launched in the U.S. after a rollout in 19 other countries last year. But with the company’s track record of mishandling user data, and its business model of monetizing...
Key California Officials Join the Voices Opposing Broadband Deregulation Law
Right now, a vast majority of Californians have just one choice—or no choice at all—for high-speed broadband service, thanks to a law that removed any state oversight over California's broadband market. When that law passed in 2012, its supporters, including AT&T and Comcast, promised that removing oversight of any...
Facebook Is Changing Its Face Recognition Settings. We Have Questions.
Yesterday Facebook announced it was changing its settings for face recognition, which it has used since 2010 to match known faces in user profile pictures and other photos to unknown faces in newly uploaded photos. This leads to two questions:What exactly has Facebook changed?How many Facebook users are actually...
Remembering Gene Crick, Digital Rights Pioneer
Lawmakers Must Not Listen to the Internet Association and Weaken the California Consumer Privacy Act
Hundreds of thousands of Californians last year demanded that big technology companies respect their privacy rights, and supported a movement that led to the California Consumer Privacy Act.The law will go into effect on January 1, 2020. Big technology companies fought hard against the CCPA and have been leaning heavily...
