Craig Timberg

Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission is in the late stages of an investigation into YouTube for allegedly violating children’s privacy, in a probe that threatens the company with a potential fine and already has prompted the tech giant to reevaluate some of its business practices. The FTC launched its investigation after numerous complaints from consumer groups and privacy advocates.

Two decades after Congress tried to wall off the worst of the Internet in hopes of protecting the privacy and innocence of children, the ramparts lie in ruins. Many popular online offerings maintain they are “not directed” at children. But the services also don’t ask users how old they are. This tactic, lawyers say, helps the companies sidestep the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a 1998 law that restricts the tracking and targeting of those younger than 13 but requires “actual knowledge” of a user’s age as a key trigger to enforcement.

In what will stand as among the most definitive public accounts of the Kremlin’s attack on the American political system, the report of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation laid out in precise, chronological detail how “the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” The Russians’ goal, Mueller emphasized at several points, was to assist Donald Trump’s run for the White House and to damage Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

Facebook said it is investigating whether an organization backed by Internet billionaire and Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman violated the social media giant’s policies when it set up several misleading news pages in a bid to target US voters with left-leaning political messages. The probe focuses on News for Democracy, whose Facebook ads and affiliated pages about sports, religion, the American flag and other topics were viewed millions of times during the 2018 midterm elections, according to an analysis of the company ad archive conducted by New York University.

The attorney general for the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against Facebook for allowing Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy, to gain access to the names, "likes" and other personal data about tens of millions of the social site's users without their permission. The lawsuit filed by Karl Racine marks the first major effort by regulators in the US to penalize the tech giant for its entanglement with the firm. It could presage even tougher fines and other punishments still to come for Facebook as additional state and federal investigations continue.

A report prepared for the Senate that provides the most sweeping analysis yet of Russia’s disinformation campaign around the 2016 election found the operation used every major social media platform to deliver words, images and videos tailored to voters’ interests to help elect President Donald Trump — and worked even harder to support him while in office. The report is the first to study the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), its chairman, and Sen. Mark Warner (VA), its ranking Democrat.

Google’s chief executive, in perhaps the most public display of lawmakers’ unease with his company’s influence, was grilled about everything from search result bias and the data Google collects about its users to plans for a censored service in China. Sundar Pichai, an engineer who rose through Google’s ranks to become its leader three years ago, faced more than three hours of questions from the House Judiciary Committee. Republicans expressed concerns about unfair treatment of conservatives, and lawmakers in both parties zeroed in on privacy issues.

Marriott International, one of the largest hotel chains in the world, revealed that its Starwood reservations database had been hacked and that the personal information of up to 500 million guests could have been stolen. An unauthorized party had accessed the database since 2014.

Facebook executives in recent years appeared to discuss giving access to their valuable user data to some companies that bought advertising when it was struggling to launch its mobile ad business, according to internal emails quoted in newly-unredacted court filings. In an ongoing federal court case against Facebook, the plaintiffs claim that the social media giant doled out people’s data secretly and selectively in exchange for advertising purchases or other concessions, even as others were cut off, ruining their businesses.

 Even as Silicon Valley has become more aggressive in battling foreign efforts to influence US politics, it is losing innumerable cat-and-mouse games with Americans who are eagerly deploying the same techniques used by the Russians in 2016. “Everyone’s witnessed the playbook playing out,” said former FBI agent Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “Now they don’t need Russia so much.