The authority holds the view that Facebook is abusing this dominant position by making the use of its social network conditional on its being allowed to limitlessly amass every kind of data generated by using third-party websites and merge it with the user's Facebook account. These third-party sites include firstly services owned by Facebook such as WhatsApp or Instagram, and secondly websites and apps of other operators with embedded Facebook APIs.

Users cannot expect data which is generated when they use services other than Facebook to be added to their Facebook account to this extent. Data are already transmitted from websites and apps to Facebook when a user calls them up or installs them, provided they have an embedded API.

While many iPhone users have experienced perceived slowdowns due to iOS updates over the years, it appears that there’s now proof Apple is throttling processor speeds when a battery capacity deteriorates over time.

“This fix will also cause users to think, 'my phone is slow so I should replace it' not, 'my phone is slow so I should replace its battery,’” says Geekbench’s John Poole.

It’s also clear that Apple, which makes its devices hard to open and repair, could do a better job helping consumers understand the benefits of battery replacement.

One hundred and seventy-one years after the first electrical message was transmitted down a line running alongside the railway between Brussels and Antwerp the final dispatch will be sent and received on 29 December.

So the world won't really change when Belgium finally pulls the plug on its telegram system, but it is another milestone in the long, slow death of a method of communication that once changed the world and which, in its glory days 100 years ago, seemed as though it would never stop.

In particular, the new rules ban violent threats or even "wishing for serious physical harm." For now, the most prominent accounts that have been removed for running afoul of these rules were three affiliated with a far-right United Kingdom group known as "Britain First."

The company went on to explain that its new policy includes any abusive language in the profile information of an account (in addition to applying to language used in tweets).

Google moved to strip from its news search results publications that mask their country of origin or intentionally mislead readers, a further step to curb the spread of fake news that has plagued internet companies this year.

“We update our policies on a regular basis to reflect a constantly changing web and how people look for information online,” a Google spokeswoman wrote in a statement.

It was automatically added to Firefox users’ browsers this week with no explanation except the cryptic message, “MY REALITY IS JUST DIFFERENT THAN YOURS,” prompting users to worry on Reddit that they’d been hit with spyware.

It is currently unclear what user-privacy considerations Mozilla management made before deciding to auto-install the Mr. Robot plugin into Firefox.

A new FOIA release shows the FBI Director’s Office responded to FOIA requests for known files on deceased FBI officials by presenting options that seemingly included a law enforcement investigation/proceeding against the requesters, with one email calling the requests “SUSPICIOUS.”

According to the Bureau, fulfilling the FOIA requests would have prevented the FBI from fulfilling FOIA requests. Their letter stated that the “manner of submission interfered with the FBI’s ability to perform its FOIA and PA statutory responsibilities as an agency.

According to researchers, the FortiClient software stores VPN credentials in a local file on each computer, which is encrypted with a key to preventing easy access to the data. SEC Consult says this key is the same for all users and it's stored by default in the FortiClient binary itself. The key can easily be extracted and used to decrypt and access the VPN credentials.

Security researcher Philip Pettersson discovered that by combining three vulnerabilities together, he could run code on a Palo Alto firewall from a remote location with root privileges.

The short version is that the adware, built by Israeli ad-tech firm TargetingEdge, poses as a legitimate installer, like a video player or document reader. Like other software, the installer asks for the user's password to install, tricking the user into turning over root privileges to the installer. Once it's hooked into the system, the installer uses a script to download further components from the adware's command and control server.

TargetingEdge sent cease-and-desist letters to try to prevent Serper from publishing his research.

Just like humans, plants can succumb to the effects of general anesthetic drugs, researchers report this week in the Annals of Botany. The finding is striking for a variety of reasons—there’s the pesky fact that plants lack a central nervous system, for one thing.

The anesthetics temporarily caused the plants to go still and unresponsive. The Venus flytrap's spikey trap didn’t slam shut when poked. The shy plant was no longer shy; it’s leaves stayed open when gently brushed. Similarly, the sundew plants didn’t bend to capture dead fruit flies and the pea plant’s tendrils drooped and curled up instead of whirling in normal upward fashion.