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OfficeSuite makes everything a breeze, with comprehensive compatibility across different platforms and devices. With OfficeSuite, you can work anywhere, any time, and on your terms in a reliable and familiar way. Want to work on a phone? Desktop? Tablet? Windows? iOS? Whatever you want. And, if you want a more open alternative to the monopolies [...]

Common Sense Media provides some really useful tools if you're a parent looking to see if certain content is age appropriate. I've used it for years. But... also, for years, the organization has been way out over its skis in supporting all sorts of absolutely horrible laws that would do real damage to the internet, [...]

While government leaders spent the last three years hyperventilating about TikTok, less talked about has been the dodgy internet of things" (IOT) space; a broad assortment of mostly overseas-made techno doodads with paper-grade security and privacy standards that Americans connect to home and business networks with reckless abandon. Smart" TVs, fridges, and other internet-connected devices [...]

The Ultimate Fighting Championship people are certainly no strangers to readers here at Techdirt. The league that puts on both mixed martial arts events and, incredibly, events where participants take turns slapping the shit out of each other has been one of the most aggressive pushers of greater and greater IP enforcement programs in professional [...]

The two big EU attempts to overly regulate the internet are starting to go into effect. The Digital Services Act (DSA), along with all its associated problems, is about six months ahead of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and all of its associated problems. Six months ago, the EU designated 17 sites as Very Large [...]

You might recall that Biden's first nominee to the FCC, Gigi Sohn, found her nomination torn apart after an industry-funded smear campaign successfully derailed the nomination. Sohn is an extremely competent and popular reformer, but a homophobic lobbying campaign by media and telecom giants (Comcast, News Corp.) falsely framed Sohn as a radical extremist, eroding [...]

Governments are weird. Maybe weird" isn't the right word. The more accurate word may be opportunistic." When it comes to speech they don't like, they move into this mode. If they think they can silence it, they will try to. And they'll do this while still pretending the speech they're trying to control is nothing [...]

A few weeks ago, we had director Alex Winter on the podcast to talk about his latest documentary, The YouTube Effect. In that film he spoke with a young man who talked about getting radicalized" on YouTube and going down the alt-right rabbit hole." One thing that Alex talked about in the podcast, but was [...]

Experience the ultimate convenience of wireless charging with Charging Hub Lot. This sleek and compact charging station is designed to power up multiple devices simultaneously, making it the perfect solution for your busy lifestyle. With a total charging output of 30W, including 2 USB ports and 1 USB-C port, you can easily charge your Qi-compatible [...]

Do not go gentle into that mass surveillance night, as the phrase goes. The EU Commission is sure something needs to be done about the sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). And it's not wrong! Things need to be done. But these are not the things. While the spread of CSAM is definitely something [...]

Mozilla's latest *Privacy Not Included report isn't subtle when it comes to calling out the shortcomings of modern, internet-connected vehicles: All 25 car brands we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label - making cars the official worst category of products for privacy that we have ever reviewed. After studying vehicle systems for over [...]

Of all the things in the gaming industry that annoy me, exclusivity deals have to rank near the very top. The idea that any title, but in particular third-party titles, could be exclusive to certain platforms, such as Xbox or PlayStation, is anathema to how art and culture distribution is meant to work. I understand [...]

Earlier this year the White House put out a document articulating a National Cybersecurity Strategy. It articulates five pillars," or high-level focus areas where the government should concentrate its efforts to strengthen the nation's resilience and defense against cyberattacks: (1) Defend Critical Infrastructure, (2) Disrupt and Dismantle Threat Actors, (3) Shape Market Forces to Drive [...]

We've covered the quixotic campaign of Stephen Thaler, who has filed lawsuits around the world arguing that he deserves to get copyrights and patents on writings and inventions created by DABUS, which Thaler claims is an AI that he created. He's lost nearly every case as he attempts to do so, often embarrassingly, including one [...]

For someone who's a lawyer, a former prosecutor, a former mayor, and a former presidential confidant, Rudy Giuliani sure doesn't seem to know his way around a lawsuit. It's perhaps that last thing on that list that's gotten him in the most trouble. Rather than recognize the peaceful transition of power that followed the 2020 [...]

uTalk can help you start speaking like a native within minutes. Using the uTalk learning App you can listen to real native speakers to help you navigate through your next vacation or business trip. With more than 2,500 words and phrases to learn in each of our 150+ languages, the app gives you a running [...]

It still amazes me that KOSA has any Democratic co-sponsors, let alone 21 Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate led by lead Democratic sponsor (and embracer of any bill that will undermine the internet it it lets him ignorantly grandstand about how terrible the internet is), Senator Richard Blumenthal. This includes some big names who purport [...]

For the last decade or so, U.S. cable TV customers have been plagued by a steady parade of content blackouts as cable providers and broadcasters bicker over new programming contracts. For the end user, so-called retransmission feuds" usually go something like this: a broadcaster demands a cable company pay significantly more money to carry the [...]

Never let it be said the NYPD doesn't know how to have a good time. The question remains as to whether it's possible for the NYPD to allow others to have a good time. The NYPD has always been in the business of acquiring the latest in law enforcement tech. The arrival of easily affordable [...]

Shocking the conscience. That's the legal term for government actions that are so far from acceptable no one, not even cop-friendly courts, can deem them acceptable. A small Kansas PD - the one presiding over the town of Marion - managed to shock the national conscience by raiding the office of the Marion County Record, [...]

We've got a another cross-post episode for you this week, on a subject near and dear to our hearts: protocols over platforms, and restoring decentralization online. Mike recently joined Danny O'Brien on the DWeb Decoded podcast to talk all about these topics, as well as tell a little story about Danny's role in the founding [...]

After years of irritating the DOJ with its refusal to compromise encryption, Apple suddenly went the other way after receiving criticism over its perceived inability to stop the distribution of CSAM (child sexual abuse material) via its devices and services. For a very brief moment, Apple decided it would no longer be a world leader [...]

Not this shit again. A month ago, free speech absolutist" Elon Musk sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) in an obvious SLAPP suit. As we said at the time, CCDH is, generally speaking, not a great organization. Their methodology is awful, and their reports are often silly. But they have a free speech [...]

The HomeSpot Rugged Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker was built to keep up with your adventures. It deflects dust, dirt, and water - and is coated with a rubberized surface that you'll feel comfortable bringing camping, rafting, and beyond. Best of all, this speaker truly delivers powerful sound that will fill even outdoor spaces with impressive audio. [...]

I know that we've already pointed to a whole bunch of studies, using a variety of different methods that all show no evidence of any link at all between social media and teen depression, but it's time to highlight another one. I mean, we just interviewed Professor Andy Przybylski, who published a study showing no [...]

In 2017 the Wisconsin GOP, with Donald Trump and Paul Ryan at the head of the parade, struck what they claimed was an incredible deal with Foxconn to bring thousands of high paying jobs to the state. The project, which Trump dubbed the the eighth wonder of the world," provided the former president with several [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is a simple anonymous comment about porn addiction": Funny, porn is addictive is a line pushed by religious fascists who wish to tell everybody what is good or bad based on a book that has its fair share of porn. In second place, it's Stephen [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2018, a security flaw at Charter Spectrum exposed the private data of millions of subscribers, while Big Telecom was trying out new tactics in its fight against net neutrality in California. An appeals court ruled that forcing someone to unlock their phone violates the fifth amendment, while another ruled [...]

If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide, right? That's what law enforcement and surveillance agencies tell us, coaxing us into letting our guard down so they can dig into our stuff without worrying about little things like probable cause. Cops like to do their work without creating narratives they can't challenge. Hence [...]

There may come a time when journalists around the world are left to point at massive datacenters housing AI journo-bots that have perfectly replicated what human journalists can do, screaming Dey took er jerbs!" like a South Park episode, but today is not that day. And frankly, it doesn't feel particularly close to being that [...]

You may have noticed that there's a massive, bipartisan push afoot to pass right to repair" laws in many states making it easier and cheaper to repair the things you buy. In a bid to undermine those laws, automakers and companies like John Deere have been using a fairly consistent playbook. One, they'll lie about [...]

For years we've covered the silly triennial review process associated with Section 1201 of the DMCA. If you don't know, Section 1201 is the part that makes circumvention of any technological measures" a form of infringement, even if bypassing those technological measures is not for copyright infringing reasons. It's actually even worse than that, because [...]

Censorship is a priority for prison systems. Despite publicly claiming to be instrumental in the act of rehabilitation," correctional facilities generally engage in the sort of non-productive paranoia that ensures the only resources prisoners have are... other prisoners. And we're all supposed to act like it's a surprise when people re-offend. Or worse, exit this [...]

The 2023 Technology Professional Bundle has 9 courses to teach you about becoming an information systems security professional. This bundle is designed for those interested in learning the basics of information systems security, including but not limited to security and risk management, asset management, security architecture and engineering, communication and network security, and more. It's [...]

Just after a judge granted an injunction against Texas' adult content age verification law on 1st Amendment grounds, a judge in Arkansas did the same to that state's social media age verification law. Trade organization NetChoice had challenged the law, and the court basically gave them a complete and total victory. Just like the ruling [...]

We've noted for years how there's no limit of companies and organizations that over-collect data on your daily movement patterns, then fail to adequately secure that data. Whether it's your mobile phone carrier, your smartphone maker, your favorite app, or a rotating crop of dodgy data brokers, our corrupt failure to pass even a baseline [...]

Given enough time and attention, informal parlance just becomes... parlance. And so it is for the Kansas State Police. For years, troopers have evaded the Constitution and applicable Supreme Court decisions to make the Fourth Amendment irrelevant. There's a term for this: Kansas two step." Enough drivers have encountered it that it is no longer [...]

A Texas federal district judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of a controversial age verification law set to enter force September 1. The court determined that House Bill (HB) 1181 was overly broad, even in the narrowest interpretations, and violated the First Amendment and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. [...]

One down, many more to go. We've been talking a lot by the rush of states to push for age verification laws all over the world, despite basically every expert noting that age verification technology is inherently a problem for privacy and security, and the laws mandating it are terrible. So far, it seems that [...]

Back in May of this year, the USPTO put out a request for public comments from interested parties in how to modernize its policies and/or copyright law to combat counterfeiting and online piracy. The world's easiest prediction would have been that the copyright industries would request more stringent copyright rules and heavier and faster policing [...]

In the past I've sometimes described Australia as the land where internet policy is completely upside down. Rather than having a system that protects intermediaries from liability for third party content, Australia went the opposite direction. Rather than recognizing that a search engine merely links to content and isn't responsible for the content at those [...]

This Apple Watch Portable USB Charger allows you to charge anytime, anywhere. With a built-in magnetic adsorption module, you can charge your watch immediately after contact. This charger has the ability to charge your watch within 2 to 3 hours fully. It's lightweight and portable, so you can charge your watch while traveling, when working [...]

We have covered the Protecting Kids On Social Media Act a few times, when it was first introduced back in April, where we highlighted how it was both unconstitutional and the rationale behind it was not supported by any actual evidence, and then again just recently when Senator Chris Murphy (one of the bill's co-sponsors) [...]

Of all the things we cover here at Techdirt, content producers going legal on pure fan-made productions that amount to fans expressing their fandom will always be the most befuddling for me. All the more so when it comes to content that was essentially kept alive by this same sort of fan-made work. Take the [...]

Last July,we noted howmedia reform activists had petitioned the FCC to revoke Fox News' local broadcast license in Philadelphia. More specifically, the group argued that Fox News' rampant election fraud propaganda technically violated the character clause" embedded in the Communications Act the FCC is supposed to use to determine whether an organization should hold a [...]

The states have gone rogue. In the last year alone, at least nine states enacted internet censorship laws. And more legislators are promising to take up the cause. But these laws are directly at odds with the First Amendment's command that the government shall not abridge the freedom of speech. Undeterred, states passed laws restricting [...]

Cops and cop tech providers like to pretend the things they use and the things they do are so black ops the public should not be allowed to discuss them with anyone, much less the defendants, judges, and juries being asked to weigh evidence and render verdicts in criminal trials. A lot of supposedly secret [...]

Capable of removing up to 10 times more plaque than a traditional brush, the AquaSonic Black Series Toothbrush gives your pearly whites the TLC they deserve. This high-end brush allows you to customize your brushing experience with soft, whiten, massage, and cleaning modes. Plus, the 40,000 VPM motor provides a deep clean while dissolving stains [...]

We need a federal anti-SLAPP law and strong state anti-SLAPP laws in all 50 states. And we need that as soon as possible. Anti-SLAPP/free speech law may not be as sexy these days as antitrust law, but, well, law shouldn't be particularly sexy. Or involve much sex at all. Joshua Wright apparently felt otherwise. Over [...]