Tag: Justice Department

What we all know concerning the DOJ’s antitrust case in opposition to Google to date

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Multistory glass building with huge Google logo.

Enlarge / If the corporate obtained damaged up, possibly every enterprise would take a special coloration with them once they go. (credit score: JHVEPhoto | Getty Photographs)

The Justice Division at the moment filed a landmark antitrust case in opposition to Google. The hotly anticipated, long-awaited lawsuit accuses Google of utilizing its market dominance to power unfair contract phrases on suppliers and rivals, to the detriment of competitors and {the marketplace}.

The go well with would possibly simply be the most important factor in antitrust because the DOJ sued Microsoft within the 1990s… or it won’t. Though the investigation that led right here has been occurring for 16 months, a go well with like that is the start, not the tip, of the method. So this is all the pieces we all know—and extra importantly, all the pieces we nonetheless do not—about what this blockbuster case actually means.

What does the go well with allege?

The criticism (PDF) lays out the case that Google used “exclusionary agreements and anticompetitive conduct” to develop into dominant within the search market, after which stored abusing that market dominance to stop nascent rivals from gaining sufficient of a toehold probably to develop into actual competitors.

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Six Russians accused of the world’s most harmful hacks indicted

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The faces of 6 men underneath a banner that reads WANTED BY THE FBI.

Enlarge (credit score: US Justice Division)

Six males accused of finishing up among the world’s most harmful hacks—together with the NotPetya disk wiper and energy grid assaults that knocked out electrical energy for a whole lot of hundreds of Ukrainians—have been indicted in US federal courtroom.

The indictment mentioned that every one six males are officers in a brazen hacker group greatest often called Sandworm, which works on behalf of Unit 74455 of the Russian Principal Intelligence Directorate, abbreviated from Russian as GRU. The officers are behind the “most disruptive and harmful sequence of laptop assaults ever attributed to a single group,” prosecutors mentioned. The alleged objective: to destabilize overseas nations, intervene with their inner politics, and trigger financial losses.

Among the many hacks is NotPetya, the 2017 disk-wiping worm that shut down the operations of hundreds of firms and authorities companies all over the world. Disguised as ransomware, NotPetya was in reality malware that completely destroyed petabytes of information. The outcome, amongst different issues, was hospitals that turned away sufferers, transport firms that had been paralyzed for days or even weeks, and transportation infrastructure that didn’t perform.

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Google might face federal, state antitrust fits subsequent week, stories say

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Google's in everything. Perhaps too much everything, regulators now worry.

Enlarge / Google’s in every thing. Maybe an excessive amount of every thing, regulators now fear. (credit score: Omar Marques | SOPA Photographs | LightRocket | Getty Photographs)

A number of investigations into Google guardian Alphabet’s competitors practices might lastly be reaching a head, as state and federal regulators meet right this moment to plan subsequent steps for a number of lawsuits towards the corporate.

Attorneys from the Division of Justice are assembly right this moment with attorneys normal from a number of totally different states about imminent plans to file an antitrust go well with towards Google, The Washington Put up and Bloomberg report.

The DOJ started its antitrust probe of “market-leading on-line platforms” slightly greater than a yr in the past, with out naming names. Google was extensively assumed to be one of many targets, and the corporate confirmed final September that it was certainly underneath investigation.

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DOJ prompt OANN ought to name FBI about NPR’s tipline, emails present

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The most salacious tips obviously also have the most dramatic backlighting.

Enlarge / Essentially the most salacious ideas clearly even have probably the most dramatic backlighting. (credit score: Andrew Brookes | Getty Pictures)

A consultant from the Division of Justice prompt in 2018 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation ought to take a look into NPR’s use of a safe, encrypted tipline, newly publicized emails reveal.

Reporter Jason Leopold obtained an e-mail change from DOJ officers from a Freedom of Data Act (FOIA) request and shared them on Twitter. The e-mail thread begins with an April 2018 message from Neil McCabe, who was on the time a reporter at One America Information Community (OANN), a far-right cable information channel finest identified for enhancing and spreading conspiracy theories. McCabe was writing to Lauren Ehrsam Gorey, who was then a spokesperson within the DOJ’s Workplace of Public Affairs (i.e., the division’s communications and public relations division).

“Can you discover out if DOJ is cool with NPR operating a Tor-enabled tip e-mail?” McCabe wrote, including a hyperlink to NPR’s directions for sending in confidential ideas.

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DOJ: Chinese language hackers stole “lots of of tens of millions of {dollars}” of secrets and techniques

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The Department of Justice seal as seen during a press conference in December 2019.

Enlarge / The Division of Justice seal as seen throughout a press convention in December 2019. (credit score: Samuel Corum | Getty Photos)

Two state-sponsored hackers in China focused US companies in a “subtle and prolific risk” for greater than 10 years, each for monetary achieve and to steal commerce secrets and techniques, the Division of Justice stated right now.

The 11-count indictment (PDF), which was made public right now, alleges Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi labored with China’s Ministry of State Safety (MSS) and different companies to hack into “lots of of sufferer corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, and particular person dissidents, clergy, and democratic and human rights activists in america and overseas.”

Li and Dong have been allegedly infiltrating networks of companies in a big selection of sectors, together with “excessive tech manufacturing; civil, industrial, and medical gadget engineering; enterprise, academic, and gaming software program growth; photo voltaic vitality; and prescription drugs,” in addition to protection contractors, since no less than September 2009. In latest months, prosecutors allege, the 2 have been looking for methods in to “the networks of biotech and different companies publicly recognized for work on COVID-19 vaccines, therapies, and testing know-how” in no less than 11 nations, together with the US.

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