Today's FTC ruling impacts how the TikTok app works for users under the age of 13.

A man in Germany asked Amazon to send him the audio recordings of his Alexa activities, and Amazon complied with the request, giving him a bonus: a link to 1,700 recordings from a stranger. When he told Amazon about it, Amazon didn't reply, but deleted the files from the link. Too late - the man had already downloaded the audio files. He then shared the files with a German magazine. They listened to the audio recordings of the man and his female companion and were able to figure out who he was and they told him what had happened. After the magazine ran the story, Amazon suddenly became chatty:

“This was an unfortunate case of human error and an isolated incident. We have resolved the issue with the two customers involved and have taken steps to further improve our processes. We were also in touch on a precautionary basis with the relevant regulatory authorities.”

[via Washington Post]

Image: Photocollege using Shutterstock/pianodiaphragm and Cryteria - Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link Read the rest

MEPs in European Parliament want Facebook to submit to a full audit by European Union bodies to determine whether the U.S. based social media company adequately protects users’ personal data. The demand made in the form of an EU resolution adopted Thursday, October 25, 2018, follows the company's recent breach scandal, in which data belonging to 87 million Facebook users around the world were improperly obtained and misused. Read the rest

Executives from Google, Twitter, AT&T, Amazon, Apple, and other big tech companies told a U.S. Senate panel today they support updating federal law to protect data privacy, but they want Congress to block California's tough new privacy rules. Read the rest