In 2012, Facebook settled a class-action suit with parents who claimed that their kids were being tricked into spending real money on game items, thinking they were spending virtual in-game currency; the parents said that Facebook had structured its system to allow kids to use their parents' credit cards without the parents' intervention, unlike competitors ...

European privacy campaigner Max Schrems has filed a fresh batch of strategic complaints at tech giants, including Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Spotify and YouTube. The complaints, filed via his non-profit privacy and digital rights organization, noyb, relate to how the services respond to data access requests, per regional data protection rules. Article 15 of Europe’s General ...

Now, if the cops try to force you to unlock your iPhone with your face, the law might actually be on your side.  Previously, other courts have ruled that the police could make suspects unlock their phones with Touch ID, even though legally they ... ...

In 2015, Stephen Harper's Tory government began enforcing a 1993 law that stripped expatriate citizens like me of our right to vote in Canada; last month, Justin Trudeau's Liberal government restored our voting rights.

But it turns out that the Liberals' action was largely symbolic: yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada broke with precedent and eroded ...

Did you know all those hundreds of thousands of U.S. government workers who aren't getting paid during Trump's 18-days-and-counting shutdown still have to show up for work, even if they are not getting paid? Hard to believe, right?

But true. U.S. law says public employees are not allowed to go on strike. Federal workers are forced ...

The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that Uber can't use binding arbitration "agreements" to stop its drivers from joining a class action suit against the company; the court held that the arbitration clause was "illegally outsourcing an employment standard."

Under Uber's non-negotiable driver "agreement," drivers who wanted to sue the company had to pay up ...

In 2009, Obama signed an executive order requiring the administrative branch to embrace the broadest, most liberal approach to the Freedom of Information Act, reversing John Ashcroft's 2001 memo that instructed government agencies to turn over as little information to the public as possible.

At the time, I published a column in Make magazine lauding the ...

The European Commission has finally given the U.S. a deadline related to the much criticized data transfer mechanism known as the EU-US Privacy Shield . But it’s only asking for the U.S. to nominate a permanent ombudsperson — to handle any EU citizens’ complaints — by February 28, 2019. If a permanent ombudsperson is not ...

Haisam Elsharkawi is a US citizen of Egyptian descent who was travelling to Mecca in 2017 when he was pulled out the boarding line for his flight from LAX by CBP agents who demanded that he unlock his phones; when he refused and asked for a lawyer, he was handcuffed and taken to an interrogation ...

In 1991, Vicky Jo Metz borrowed $16,613 to pay for tuition; now she's 59, and has paid back 90% of that money -- and she still owes $67,277.

Metz is broke and has filed for bankruptcy. But thanks to a law signed by Bill Clinton, it's almost impossible to discharge your student debt through bankruptcy. That's ...