Associated Press

Yahoo has agreed to pay $50 million in damages and provide two years of free credit-monitoring services to 200 million people whose email addresses and other personal information were stolen as part of the biggest security breach in history. The restitution hinges on federal court approval of a settlement filed Oct 22 in a 2-year-old lawsuit seeking to hold Yahoo accountable for digital burglaries that occurred in 2013 and 2014, but weren’t disclosed until 2016.

Sidewalk Labs, a unit of Google’s parent company Alphabet, is proposing to turn a rundown part of Toronto’s waterfront into what may be the most wired community in history — to “fundamentally refine what urban life can be.” High-level interest is clear: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alphabet’s then-Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt appeared together to announce the plan Oct 2017. But some Canadians are rethinking the privacy implications of giving one of the most data-hungry companies on the planet the means to wire up everything from streetlights to pavement.

Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) signed the nation's toughest net neutrality measure on Sept 30, requiring internet providers to maintain a level playing field online. Advocates of net neutrality hope the move in the home of the global technology industry will have national implications, prompting Congress to enact national net neutrality rules or encouraging other states to follow suit.

Former President Barack Obama urged private businesses to come out of “isolation” and to engage more with governments when developing new products and services to avoid problems like those challenging Facebook. Obama told business leaders that “you cannot separate the business environment from the political and social environment.” “A good example is Facebook,” Obama said, referring to the public relations pummeling the social media company has received following US intelligence service reports that Facebook was a conduit for Russian election meddling in 2016.

Twitter is permanently banning right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his “Infowars” show for abusive behavior. Twitter said Sept 6 that Jones won't be allowed to create new accounts on Twitter or take over any existing ones. The company said Jones posted a video Sept 5 that violated the company's policy against “abusive behavior.” The video in question showed Jones shouting at and berating CNN journalist Oliver Darcy for some 10 minutes between two congressional hearings focused on social media.

A volunteer member of the advance team for President Donald Trump blocked a photojournalist's camera as he tried to take a photo of a protester during a campaign rally in Indiana. A photo taken by Associated Press photographer Evan Vuccishows the volunteer stretching out his hand over the lens of a news photographer's camera after a protester disrupted Trump's campaign event. President Trump paced on stage at the Ford Center as the protester was led out.