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☆ China deletes 1.4 million social media posts in crackdown on 'self-media' accounts
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Eduardo Baptista | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

BEIJING, May 27 (Reuters) - China's cyberspace regulator said 1.4 million social media posts have been deleted following a two-month probe into alleged misinformation, illegal profiteering, and impersonation of state officials, among other "pronounced problems". The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement on Friday it had closed 67,000 social media accounts and deleted hundreds of thousands of posts between March 10 and May 22 as part of a broader "rectification" campaign. Since 2021, China has targeted billions of social media accounts in a bid to "clean" its cyberspace and make it easier for authorities to control. The latest crackdown targeted accounts on popular Chinese social media apps including WeChat, Douyin, and Weibo that fall under the category of "self media," a term that broadly refers to accounts that publish news and information but are not government-run or state-approved. Some 25,000 other accounts were targeted for impersonating public institutions, such as disease and prevention control centers and state-run research institutes.

☆ A Bipartisan Gun Control Measure - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Gordon Witkin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

The law expands the gun purchase prohibition for people convicted of domestic violence or subject to a restraining order to include dating partners, not just people married to or living with the victim. Reformers applauded this closing of the boyfriend loophole, but the worry is that many criminal history records don’t clarify whether such relationships existed. Some of the families sued in 2018 after the Air Force admitted it had not reported the violent history of the gunman, Devin Kelley, including a 2012 conviction for domestic assault, to the NICS system. A more basic NICS flaw involves simply identifying the prospective gun buyer. I’ll stipulate that for successful purchasers, all traces of the search would need to be destroyed immediately to satisfy privacy concerns.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) launched a special campaign to clean up online information, focusing on social media accounts that disseminate "fake news" and impersonate state-controlled media. The regulator said it had wiped 107,000 accounts of counterfeit news units and news anchors and 835,000 pieces of fake news information since April 6. The cleanup comes as China and countries across the globe grapple with an onslaught of fake news coverage online, with many implementing laws to punish culprits. News dissemination on Chinese social media, however, is already heavily controlled, with platforms like the Twitter-like Weibo favouring topic hashtags produced by state media, while censoring hashtags on issues or incidents considered sensitive by Beijing, even if they go viral. China recently arrested a man in Gansu province for allegedly using ChatGPT to generate a fake story about a train crash.

☆ Target expects organized retail crime-fueled losses to jump by $500 million this year
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Melissa Repko | In Melissa-Repko | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Target said Wednesday that organized retail crime will fuel $500 million more in stolen and lost merchandise this year compared with a year ago. He described retail theft as "a worsening trend that emerged last year," and said violent incidents have increased at Target's stores. "The country has a retail theft problem," Home Depot CFO Richard McPhail said on a call with CNBC on Tuesday. Yet it's hard to verify if organized retail theft has grown and if so, by how much. Target has become more vocal about organized retail theft, as it has struggled with excess inventory and its margins have disappointed.

☆ Financial fraudsters are targeting postal workers to steal their mailbox keys, so USPS is trying something new
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-13 | by ( Bethany Biron | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

USPS and the Postal Inspection Service announced it is cracking down on robberies and mail theft. Incident rates of attacks against mail workers and theft from blue collection boxes are on the rise. But less talked about is another issue: Thieves targeting postal workers themselves. Robbers specializing in financial fraud schemes are increasingly stealing mail straight from the hands of mail workers, or stealing their keys to mailboxes. So the United States Postal Service is implementing new policies and security efforts to curb the worsening problem.

☆ Lululemon, cult athleisure brand, takes on the booming culture of 'dupes'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Ramishah Maruf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

This weekend, athleisure giant lululemon is hosting a dupe swap at the Century City Mall in Los Angeles. Call it recession-core or Gen Z’s anti-consumerism sentiments, but #dupe has amassed more than 3.5 billion views on TikTok. Before, finding knock offs was a lowkey way to way to find affinity to a luxury brand. Lulu has been “hyper aware” of dupe culture, its Chief Brand Officer Nikki Neuburger said in an interview with CNN Business. Though lululemon may be leading in dupe hashtags on TikTok, the Align line that began in 2015 remains its top seller, the company said.

☆ Drones over Kremlin likely launched from inside Russia, US experts say
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Mike Stone | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Ostorozhno Novosti/Handout via REUTERSSummary Kremlin citadel has extensive anti-drone protections400-plus km journey from Ukraine unlikelyIf launched in Russia, multiple drone types possibleWASHINGTON, May 5 (Reuters) - The drones that crashed over the Kremlin earlier this week probably evaded an extensive number of defenses in and around Moscow, suggesting they might have been launched from inside Russia, U.S.-based drones experts said. "Spoofing" occurs when a counterfeit GPS signal is sent to replace a legitimate one, electronically fooling guidance systems on drones or other devices. "Of all the types of one-way attack drones, the aircraft used in this instance appears to have been a fixed-wing aircraft and among the larger one-way attack drones currently in use or development," said drone expert Dan Gettinger at the Vertical Flight Society, an engineering advocacy group. China, India, Taiwan and Ukraine are among a clutch of nations producing drones of this size and capability, Gettinger said. Gettinger, who published a paper on one-way attack drones on Thursday, said if the aircraft was launched from within Russia, there was a significantly greater number of aircraft capable of carrying out this attack.

☆ Inside the Delirious Rise of ‘Superfake’ Handbags
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Amy X. Wang | Grant Cornett | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Once upon a time, the legend goes, Theseus slew the Minotaur and sailed triumphantly home to Athens on a wooden ship. What if, Thomas Hobbes wondered, someone rustled up a second boat out of the discarded planks; would you now have two original vessels? Not long ago, I found myself wandering through Paris with a fake Celine handbag slung over my shoulder. In France, a country that prides itself on originating so much of the world’s fashion, punishments for counterfeiting are severe, to the point that I technically risked three years in prison just by carrying my little knockoff around. My plunge into the world of fantastically realistic counterfeit purses — known as “superfakes” to vexed fashion houses and I.P.

☆ Ex-Minneapolis police officer found guilty of aiding in George Floyd killing
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Thao had opted to allow Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill decide whether he was guilty or not guilty, waiving his right to a trial by jury. Derek Chauvin, a white officer captured on cellphone video kneeling on the handcuffed Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes, was found guilty of murdering Floyd in 2021. With Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck, and Lane and Kueng restraining his knees and buttocks, Floyd pleaded for his life before falling limp. Two other former officers, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, pleaded guilty last year to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, the same charge Thao faced. At a federal trial last year, Keung, Lane and Thao were found guilty of violating Floyd's civil rights.

☆ Border patrol seized $290,000 worth of counterfeit Apple AirPods Pro and Watches at Virginia airport
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Will Gendron | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

US Customs and Border Patrol officers detained four shipments of Apple products suspected to be fake. The products, Apple AirPods Pro and Apple Watches which came from China, were seized. Handbags and wallets were the most common items seized, accounting for 30.3% of all seizures, the agency reported. Counterfeit Apple products are nothing new. In 2020, Apple removed more than one million online listings for counterfeit products, with most of these sellers based in China.

☆ Bored Ape NFT creators win case against copycat artist
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Elle Reeve | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Crypto company Yuga Labs has won its claims of trademark infringement against artist Ryder Ripps who copied their NFTs in what he called a protest of their racially offensive imagery. Ripps told CNN he would appeal. But critics commented on social media that some of the Bored Apes contained what looked like references to posts on the website 4chan, which has become a hub of extremism, and pointed out that apes are an old trope in racist imagery. “Once the court adopted the plaintiff’s framing of the case, it was clear what was going to happen: the plaintiff wins everything basically,” he said. “There was an underlying really important point that the defendants are trying to make about the possibility that there was some kind of Nazi glorification in the overall collection NFT collection for the Bored Ape Yacht Club,” Goldman said.

☆ Miller High Life: Belgium destroys shipment of American beer after taking issue with 'Champagne of Beer' slogan
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Mitchell Mccluskey | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Belgium has destroyed a shipment of American beer after taking exception to its maker’s slogan that it was “The Champagne of Beers.”Belgian customs crushed the 2,352 cans of Miller High Life beer earlier this week, reasoning that they were improperly labeled as Champagne. The move came after a trade association for the Champagne industry complained that the term should be used only on bottles of sparkling wine, made using a traditional method in Champagne, France. By convention, true Champagne – as in, the French sparkling wine – can only be made using Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier grapes. The Comité Champagne, a joint trade association for the Champagne industry, requested the destruction of the American beers, arguing that the label “The Champagne of Beers” infringed on the protected designation of “Champagne”. According to its website, it began to use the slogan “The Champagne of Bottle Beer” three years later, shortening it to “The Champagne of Beers” in 1969.

☆ Amazon launches program to identify and track counterfeiters
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Online marketplaces in the United States including Amazon face hurdles in keeping counterfeiters off their platforms and fake merchandise from entering their warehouses. The new program mimics data exchange programs by the credit card industry to find scammers and identify their tactics. Stores and Amazon marketplace sellers can anonymously contribute information and records flagging counterfeiters to a third-party database or use the database to avoid doing business with the bad actors. The Seattle-based retail giant piloted the anti-counterfeiting initiative in 2021 with an undisclosed number of apparel, home goods and cosmetics stores, where counterfeiting is most common. Reporting by Arriana McLymore in New York City; Editing by Kirsten DonovanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Why banning TikTok could be a bad idea
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Download Insider's app here. Screenshots from Lemon8 app, Ese Nuesiri / Shantania Beckford1. The rise of Lemon8 proves how pointless a TikTok ban would be. The US government wants to ban TikTok, but its parent company ByteDance is coming out with a new app aimed at the US market. Paayal writes that even if the US banned TikTok, Lemon8 would still exist.

Minneapolis City Council members voted on Thursday to settle the federal civil rights lawsuits filed by John Pope Jr and Zoya Code in May 2022. The lawsuits claimed racism and civil rights violations and stemmed from incidents dating back to 2017. Pope was 14 years old in 2017 when officers were called to his home for a reported domestic disturbance. Their lawsuits also named the city of Minneapolis as a defendant. He also pleaded guilty to related federal charges and is serving a federal sentence of 21 years concurrently.

☆ Google incorrectly flagged some retailers' products as counterfeit, and it cost one company $150,000 in lost revenue
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Google incorrectly flagged two retailers for selling counterfeit goods, and shut off their ads. In recent weeks, two agencies that manage Google ads for retailers say that their clients' accounts were incorrectly flagged as selling counterfeit goods, which then shuts off the ability for retailers to run ads. Both agencies said that the issue started when their retail clients' Google Merchant Center accounts were suspended because they were erroneously flagged as selling counterfeit goods. Google Merchant Center is a key sales driver because it helps consumers discover products. However, the issue underscores the risk online merchants face when they tie their product listings to their Google ads.

☆ Baidu sues Apple, app developers over fake Ernie bot apps
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

REUTERS/Tingshu WangSHANGHAI, April 8 (Reuters) - Chinese search engine giant Baidu (9888.HK), has filed lawsuits against "relevant" app developers and Apple Inc (AAPL.O) over fake copies of its Ernie bot app available on Apple's app store. Baidu said it had lodged lawsuits in Beijing Haidian People's Court against the developers behind the counterfeit applications of its Ernie bot and the Apple company. "At present, Ernie does not have any official app," Baidu said in a statement late on Friday posted on its official "Baidu AI" WeChat account. "Until our company's official announcement, any Ernie app you see from App Store or other stores are fake," it said. The Ernie bot is only available to users who apply for and receive access codes.

☆ Amazon seller consultant admits to bribing employees to help clients; will plead guilty
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

An influential consultant for Amazon sellers admitted Monday to bribing employees of the e-commerce giant for information to help his clients boost sales and to get their suspended accounts reinstated. "On some occasions, I paid bribes, directly and indirectly, to Amazon employees to obtain annotations and reinstate suspended accounts. Behind the scenes, scammers have for years resorted to illicit tactics to squash competitors, artificially boost their listings or bypass Amazon's marketplace rules. "No one should pay bribes to Amazon employees to provide private Amazon information," Rosenberg wrote on Monday. Nor should anyone pay any Amazon employees for any other special favors regarding a seller's account."

☆ Pay $84 a year for Twitter Blue or lose your checkmark beginning April 1, Twitter says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

“To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue,” the company’s tweet continued. Twitter Blue is a subscription service that Musk relaunched late last year that costs individuals $84 a year or $8 a month. Twitter Blue first launched in the pre-Musk days of 2021, as a subscription service offering “power features” like undoing a tweet and saving bookmarks to folders. Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Getty ImagesMusk pulled the Twitter Blue program for a few weeks and relaunched it yet again in December, with additional steps for reviewing and approving subscribers. The company also says Twitter Blue users will see 50% fewer ads in their home timelines, and that their tweets will be prioritized among replies, mentions and searches.

Seoul/Atlanta CNN —Interpol says a man arrested in Montenegro is Kwon Do-hyeong, also known as Do Kwon, the disgraced founder of a collapsed crypto company who is wanted in South Korea and the United States on fraud and other charges. Kwon, a South Korean national, founded the blockchain platform behind the TerraUSD stablecoin and its sister coin Luna. Kwon’s identity was confirmed through a fingerprint match, Interpol’s national central bureau in Seoul told CNN on Friday. Seoul prosecutors told CNN in December that the crypto entrepreneur was believed to be in Serbia, where he was in hiding after leaving Singapore via Dubai. Kwon has been charged with fraud and breaches of South Korea’s capital markets law.

☆ Americans desperate for the hot weight-loss drug Ozempic are turning to Canada and Mexico because they can't afford it at home
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

She found CanShipMeds.com, one of many websites that says it ships a similar drug, Ozempic, from Canada at a lower cost. Delp is hardly the only American searching for weight-loss drugs across the border in Canada or Mexico. Medicare, the federal program that provides health coverage for people 65 and older, doesn't cover weight-loss drugs at all, though there's a push to change that. People are looking to Canada and Mexico for cheaper OzempicCrystal Cox/Business InsiderUntil insurance coverage improves, people will look abroad to afford the weight-loss drugs. Want to tell us about your experience with weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro?

☆ U.S. FTC asks social media, video streaming firms info on misleading ads
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

March 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday issued orders to eight social media and video streaming firms including Meta Platforms Inc (META.O), Twitter, TikTok and YouTube seeking information on how the platforms screen for misleading advertisements. The companies did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. "Social media has been a gold mine for scammers who tout sham products and other scams that have cost consumers enormously in recent years," said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC's consumer protection bureau. "This study will help the FTC ensure that social media and video streaming companies are doing everything they can to keep scammers and deceptive ads off their platforms." read moreReporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju SamuelOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Nike is doubling down on litigation in a fierce battle to protect its patents and trademarks. Here's every brand it has sued in recent years.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Matthew Kish | Danni Santana | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Nike's also suing companies that sell sneakers that resemble Dunks, Jordans, and Air Force 1s. In recent months, Nike's presence in courtrooms has become more visible, with headline-grabbing lawsuits against Lululemon, Bape, StockX, Warren Lotas, Kool Kiy, and others. Several of the lawsuits now before a judge relate to Nike's enforcement of those patents, including interactive fitness technology. While trademarks protect words and phrases like "Nike" and "Just do it," trade dress protects silhouettes and appearances, like the outline of a Coca-Cola bottle or the shape of an iPhone. The company has another four applications pending,Here's a rundown of some of the company's most recent lawsuits, starting with the most recent.

☆ A Senate hearing on drug trafficking shows how meaningless the world 'cartel' has become
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-26 | by ( Steven Dudley | Insight Crime | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

During a recent Senate hearing on fentanyl trafficking, lawmakers and officials used the word "cartel" 90 times. InSight Crime analysisA Sinaloa Cartel leadership chart from November 2015 with "El Chapo" Guzmán and two of his sons, Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo. The Sinaloa Cartel, for instance, has at least three major poles of power, each of which is controlled by different leaders. Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman arrives in New York after his extradition in January 2017. Milgram, for instance, pointed to the DEA's laser focus on the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG as the path to success.

☆ Pandemic-favorite Etsy beats revenue estimates on demand for bags, gifts
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Granth Vanaik | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Feb 22 (Reuters) - Etsy Inc (ETSY.O) on Wednesday beat estimates for quarterly revenue on steady demand for bags, party products and personalized gifts on its online marketplace, sending the company's shares up more than 5% in extended trading. "Shoppers are coming to us more frequently and spending more with Etsy," said Chief Executive Officer Joshua Silverman on a post-earnings call, adding the company is continuing to build the "Etsy habit." Net revenue in the quarter ended Dec. 31 jumped 12.6% to $807.2 million for Etsy, compared with analysts' expectation of $751.8 million, according to Refinitiv. For the current quarter ending March, Etsy expects GMS to be in the range of $2.95 billion to $3.15 billion. The company forecast revenue between $600 million and $640 million for the January-March period, compared with analysts' expectation of $621.6 million.

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