Google’s problem mirrors EU ‘woes’
Kaspersky releases report
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 16, (Agencies): As an aggressive antitrust investigation plays out in Europe against Google, its practices have drawn comparatively little scrutiny from regulators on the US side of the Atlantic. But the midwest state of Missouri wants to change that.
The state’s Attorney General Josh Hawley has launched an investigation which appears to mirror the probe by EU authorities, demanding information on how Google uses data gathered on consumers, and examining whether the internet giant abuses its dominant position in search.
“No entity in the history of the world has collected as much information about you as Google. My office wants to know what Google is doing with this information,” said a tweet from Hawley, a Republican who is running for the US Senate.
Hawley added that he sees “substantial evidence” that Google manipulates search results to list affiliated websites higher than those of rivals.
“If true, these actions may reflect an unlawful attempt to leverage Google’s monopoly power in the search-engine market to stifle competition,” he said.
In the US, the Federal Trade Commission in 2013 dropped a two-year antitrust investigation of Google after the company agreed to make changes to some practices to ease competition concerns.
But a number of Google critics and competitors have argued the US probe did not go far enough. They point to the European Commission’s three-pronged inquiry into Google’s dominance in search, its advertising platform and its Android mobile operating system.
The EU has already imposed a fine of 2.4 billion euros ($2.7 billion) over search results and could impose stiffer penalties as the investigations proceed.
Scott Cleland, a consultant and longtime Google critic — who operates the “watchdog” website Google Monitor — said the EU probe may represent a turning point for stiffer actions against Google.
Even if the federal government remains on the sidelines, “the states represent a law enforcement and a political and government force that Google can’t ignore,” Cleland said.
If several state regulators band together, “they are very formidable,” he added.
Google’s position has become more precarious with the election of President Donald Trump, following years of close — some say too cozy — ties between Silicon Valley and the White House.
And the failure of firms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter to crack down on disinformation and Russiansponsored propaganda has also eroded support of the tech sector in Washington.
“Google’s biggest challenge is that the American political landscape has shifted beneath its feet,” said Mark Blafkin, a co-founder of the technology and business consultancy Vrge.
“In the age of Trump, there is growing political momentum in both parties for holding Google and other tech giants accountable on competition, fake news, and a series of other issues.”
Hawley
Kaspersky Lab releases report:
Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab is releasing new details about how its software uploaded classified US documents several years ago. The incident is at the center of a controversy over whether the company’s popular antivirus really works as described.
Previous reports alleged that Kaspersky had uploaded National Security Agency files from an intelligence worker’s home computer in 2015. Founder Eugene Kaspersky confirmed the incident in a recent interview with The Associated Press, although he said that it occurred in September 2014, that the upload was accidental and that the files were quickly deleted.
A 13-page report published Thursday elaborates on that interview — and carries awkward claims for the NSA worker in question.
Under the heading “An Interesting Twist,” Kaspersky says the worker’s home computer was compromised by other hackers.
WH releases disclosure rules:
The Trump administration publicly released on Wednesday its rules for deciding whether to disclose cyber security flaws or keep them secret, in an effort to bring more transparency to a process that has long been cloaked in mystery.
The move is an attempt by the US government to address criticism that it too often jeopardizes internet security by stockpiling the cyber vulnerabilities it detects in order to preserve its ability to launch its own attacks on computer systems.
The revised rules, published on whitehouse.gov, are intended to shed light on the process for how various federal agencies weigh the costs of keeping a flaw secret, said Rob Joyce, the White House cyber security coordinator.
Speaking at an Aspen Institute event in Washington, Joyce said the rules were the “most sophisticated” in the world and that they set the United States apart from most other nations.
Private companies, he said, “are not getting tips from China, Russia, North Korea, Iran” about flaws in their technology.
Under former President Barack Obama, the US government created an inter-agency review, known as the Vulnerabilities Equities Process, to determine what to do with flaws unearthed primarily by intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA).
The process is designed to balance law enforcement and US intelligence desires to hack into devices with the need to warn manufacturers so that they can patch holes before criminals and other hackers take advantage of them.
The new Trump administration charter on the process explains how it functions and names the agencies involved in the vulnerability reviews. They include intelligence agencies in addition to several civilian departments, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, Energy and State.
The NSA is listed as the “executive secretariat” of the inter-agency group, tasked with coordinating debate over flaws submitted by the various agencies if there is disagreement about whether to disclose them. If disagreements are not reconciled the group will vote on whether to disclose or retain the flaw.
The rules also require an annual report, portions of which will be made public, that provides metrics about the amount of flaws discovered, retained and disclosed.
Decisions to retain vulnerabilities must be reconsidered every year, according to the charter.