Security News

DeepDotWeb admin jailed for advertising illegal dark web markets
2022-01-27 21:13

An Israeli citizen who operated DeepDotWeb, a news site and review site for dark web sites, has received a sentence of 97 months in prison for money laundering and was ordered to forfeit $8,414,173. The DeepDotWeb site didn't host anything malicious or harmful but directly linked to various dark web marketplaces selling illegal goods.

Telegram launches advertising program for public channels
2021-10-27 13:56

Telegram has launched a new advertising program dubbed Ad Platform and offering the opportunity to display sponsored messages on the instant-messaging platform. First and foremost, Telegram advertising is not going to be targeted, which means that users will not be profiled by tracking their clicks and preferences.

Firefox improves advertising tracker blocking in private browsing
2021-10-06 10:01

Mozilla says that Firefox users will be better protected from advertising trackers while browsing the Internet in Private Browsing mode and using Strict Tracking Protection. The SmartBlock mechanism, introduced by Mozilla with the release of Firefox 87 in March, ensures that the Tracking Protection feature and Strict Mode don't break websites when blocking tracking scripts.

Amazon gets $888 million GDPR fine for behavioral advertising
2021-07-30 16:34

Amazon has quietly been hit with a record-breaking €746 million fine for alleged GDPR violations regarding how it performs targeted behavioral advertising. In an SEC Form 10-Q filed today, Amazon states that this massive fine came out of CNPD in July 2021, which fined them for improper processing of personal data.

Upcoming Android privacy changes include ability to blank advertising ID, and 'safety section' in Play store
2021-07-29 15:30

Google has shared details of upcoming changes to Android including the ability to blank a device's advertising ID, and a new safety section for apps in the Play store. The advertising ID is an identifier unique to an Android device which is supplied by Google Play Services.

Facebook sues hackers who hijacked advertising agencies' accounts
2021-06-30 16:31

Facebook has filed lawsuits against two groups of suspects who took over advertising agency employees' accounts and abused its ad platform to run unauthorized or deceptive ads. The social network says that four Vietnamese nationals took over the Facebook accounts of multiple employees working at marketing and advertising agencies using a technique known as session theft.

Musk-Themed ‘$SpaceX’ Cryptoscam Invades YouTube Advertising
2021-06-24 15:44

The scam is rearing its Elon-Musk-themed head in ads on YouTube that show up before and after videos about cryptocurrency, according to research from Tenable. "It did so by leveraging the existing infrastructure of YouTube Ads to identify their target demographic of cryptocurrency enthusiasts and get their ads in front of thousands of viewers. Many new cryptocurrency investors look to YouTube channels for news and guidance, so it's an ideal channel for promoting a fake coin."

Banning Surveillance-Based Advertising
2021-06-24 14:44

In the following chapters, we describe various aspects of these challenges and point out how today's dominant model of online advertising is a threat to consumers, democratic societies, the media, and even to advertisers themselves. A ban on surveillance-based practices should be complemented by stronger enforcement of existing legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation, competition regulation, and the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive.

Google Faces UK Scrutiny Over New Advertising Data Revamp
2020-11-24 09:22

Google faces fresh regulatory scrutiny in Britain over plans to revamp its ad data system, after an industry lobbying group complained to the competition watchdog that the changes would cement the U.S. tech giant's online dominance. The new technology would remove so-called third party cookies that allow users to be tracked across the internet by storing information on their devices, replaced by tools owned by Google.

Magnite supports Unified ID 2.0 to create a common transaction fabric for digital advertising
2020-11-18 01:30

Magnite announces its support of the open-source, interoperable identity solution, Unified ID 2.0, in collaboration with The Trade Desk and other companies across the digital advertising industry. Magnite will adopt Unified ID 2.0, an open source framework for hashing and encrypting email addresses, in order to create a common transaction fabric for digital advertising.