FTC Chair Lina Khan Upends Antitrust Standards by Suing Meta

New Technology

WASHINGTON — Early in her tenure as chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan declared that she would rein in the power of the largest technology companies in a dramatically new way.

“We’re trying to be forward looking, anticipating problems and taking fast action,” Ms. Khan said in an interview last month. She promised to focus on “next-generation technologies,” and not just on areas where tech behemoths were already well established.

This week, Ms. Khan took her first step toward stopping the tech monopolies of the future when she sued to block a small acquisition by Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, of the virtual-reality fitness start-up Within. The deal was significant for Meta’s development of the so-called metaverse, which is a nascent technology and far from mainstream.

In doing so, Ms. Khan upended decades of antitrust standards, potentially setting off a wholesale shift in the way Washington

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The Default Tech Settings You Should Turn Off Right Away

New Technology

There’s a catchy saying going around with a valuable lesson about our personal technology: The devil is in the defaults.

The saying refers to the default settings that tech companies embed deep in the devices, apps and websites we use. These settings typically make us share data about our activities and location. We can usually opt out of this data collection, but the companies make the menus and buttons hard to notice, likely in the hope that we don’t immediately tweak them.

Apple, Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft generally want us to leave some default settings on, purportedly to train their algorithms and catch bugs, which then make their products easier for us to use. But unnecessary data sharing isn’t always in our best interest.

So with every tech product we use, it’s important to take time to use the many menus, buttons and switches to pare down the

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The Benefits and Disadvantages of a VPN Service

General Articles

A VPN service provides several benefits to internet users. It protects users from geolocation blocks, prevents data throttling, and protects their privacy. This article will cover the advantages and disadvantages of a VPN service. The VPN shields users from geolocation and purchasing discrimination and helps them bypass geolocation blocks. 

Disadvantages of a VPN service

Although many companies have embraced the benefits of a  VPN, there are some disadvantages to implementing these services. Several problems are associated with implementation, bad habits, and potential risks. Performance, scalability, and protection from advanced cyberattacks are the biggest concerns. VPNs encrypt user data and must travel the same route to their server. The longer the distance, the slower the internet speed.

Some content providers block websites from world regions for security and legal reasons. Because your IP address is tied to your location, you won’t be able to access content from the other areas. … Read more