TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Korea’s FTC (that’s Fair Trade Commission) has updated the terms of service for social media sites. “Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) revealed Sunday that it has made adjustments to what it deemed as unfair clauses in the terms of service of four major social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and KakaoStory. The four social media platforms did not clarify, in their terms of service, the limitations of the use of uploaded content, allowing businesses to make use of user-created content for commercial purposes without permission from the copyright owner. The terms also made it impossible for authorities to regulate these illicit practices.”

USEFUL STUFF

Been thinking about possibly making your own ‘bot? Check out these Eight principles of ‘bot design. “Despite plenty of excitement it’s still unclear how conversational UIs can be made to work in a practical sense. But opinionated design principles can help us push past the hype, and design something real people will want to use every day.”

From Social Media Examiner, which is always worth a read: 10 Ways to Use Snapchat for Business.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Hmm: what happens when you broadcast on Facebook Live for 24 hours? “By now, most Facebook users should be familiar with Facebook Live. It’s been used to interview celebrities, take viewers behind the scenes at major events, and, yes, explode a watermelon. We’ve been using it ourselves for the past five months. But what would happen if, instead of a Q&A or interview, we just put our entire 24-hour livestream on Facebook Live? That was the question we hoped to answer last weekend.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

A new strain of ransomware is aimed at Office 365 users. “The malware was discovered by the cyber security company Check Point and comes in the form of an invoice sent by email. The attack is designed to catch unsuspecting victims according to security analyst Raymond Schippers who said: ‘The email sent to Office 365 users via Outlook gives the appearance of an invoice in the form of an Office document. When they go to open it, a message will appear telling people the document was created with a previous version of the software, so they will need to click something to enable the content’.”

Keep your eyes out – it looks like Facebook shenanigans are being used to spread malware. AGAIN. “Currently, a malware scam is infecting Facebook users in which they receive a notification in the app and/or in their email about a friend tagging in a comment, upon clicking the link, a malware is downloaded on their device. Though just downloading it won’t infect your device but users who are not aware of how scammers target people may click the downloaded file and infect their devices.” The article says that the scam seems to be targeting Chrome users, as it appears that part of the malware payload is a Chrome extension.

The US government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is saying that the background check hack it suffered impacted more people than first thought. “The stolen data about the newly announced victims contains what is “generally available in public forums,” OPM officials say. The FAQ, which apparently was changed late Friday, does not quantify how many additional people are affected…. This subset of hacked individuals will not be offered ID protection services.”

There’s a bit of chatter going around about a healthcare organization hack. “News site Deep Dot Web first reported the news on Saturday. The breaches supposedly come from three different healthcare organizations: one in Farmington, Missouri with 48,000 records; another in Atlanta, Georgia with 397,000 entries, and the third in the Central/Midwest US with 210,000 records. Thedarkoverlord has decided to not name the organizations, as he has threatened each with a ransom demand.”

German publishers are appealing a recent court decision in Google’s favor. “Germany’s biggest newspaper publisher, Axel Springer and 40 other publishers had accused Alphabet Inc’s Google of unfair treatment. The court had rejected the case in April, saying that Google’s business model was a ‘win-win’ proposition for both parties.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Does fiber Internet mean higher rent? “It looks like most people in the U.S. will be getting faster internet connections during the next few years, but it also seems likely they’ll be paying more for it. A recent report by the Fiber to the Home Council (FTTH) found that landlords see the value of fiber-optic internet connections, because when they have it they can raise their rents by 11 percent on average, according to Silicon Beat.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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