Maine state representative Charlotte Warren has introduced LD1278 (HP938), or An Act To End the Maine Information and Analysis Center Program, a bill that would defund the Maine Information and Analysis Center (MIAC), also known as Maine’s only fusion center. EFF is happy to supp … | Continue reading
Ethos Capital is at it again. In 2019, this secretive private equity firm that includes insiders from the domain name industry tried to buy the nonprofit that runs the .ORG domain. A huge coalition of nonprofits and users spoke out. Governments expressed alarm, and ICANN (the ent … | Continue reading
It seems like every week there’s another Big Tech hearing accompanied by a flurry of mostly bad ideas for reform. Two events set last week’s hubbub apart, both involving Facebook. First, Mark Zuckerberg took a new step in his blatant effort to use 230 reform to entrench Facebook’ … | Continue reading
At long last, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is asking for your broadband experiences. When you submit your experiences here, you will let the FCC know whether you have been adequately served by your internet service provider (ISP). The feedback you provide informs f … | Continue reading
We are disappointed that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit this week dodged a critical constitutional question: whether individuals have a First Amendment right to record on-duty police officers.EFF had filed an amicus brief in the case, Frasier v. Evans, asking the … | Continue reading
The threats to online expression and innovation keep coming. One that’s flown under the radar is a misguided effort to convince the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to allow claims based on the “right of publicity,” (i.e., the right to control the commercial exploitation of your pe … | Continue reading
Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the Supreme Court to rule that when students post on social media or speak out online while off campus, they are protected from punishment by school officials under the First Amendment—an important free speech princi … | Continue reading
Today, Google launched an “origin trial” of Federated Learning of Cohorts (aka FLoC), its experimental new technology for targeting ads. A switch has silently been flipped in millions of instances of Google Chrome: those browsers will begin sorting their users into groups based o … | Continue reading
A piece in USA Today describes how a number of Capitol Hill rioters are utilizing online fundraising platforms to raise funds to cover legal fees, only to find their accounts shut down. This is prompting an online discussion not only about when and how tech companies should shutt … | Continue reading
In 2005, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made a foundational decision on how broadband competition policy would work with the entry of fiber to the home. In short, the FCC concluded that competition was growing, government policy was unnecessary in deference to market … | Continue reading
Before COVID-19, people living in rural and isolated areas urgently needed to access health care services remotely; now we all do. Thanks to decades of innovation in computing and telecommunications, more essential health care services are available electronically than ever befor … | Continue reading
Facebook announced last year that it would be banning followers of QAnon, the conspiracy theorists that allege that a cabal of satanic pedophiles is plotting against former U.S. president Donald Trump. It seemed like a case of good riddance to bad rubbish.Members of an Oakland-ba … | Continue reading
Among the dozens of bills introduced last Congress to amend a key internet law that protects online services and internet users, the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act (PACT Act) was perhaps the only serious attempt to tackle the problem of a handful of dominan … | Continue reading
Some high-tech surveillance is so dangerous to privacy that companies must never deploy it against a person without their voluntary opt-in consent. It comes as little surprise that Amazon, the company that brought you Ring doorbell cameras and Rekognition face surveillance, has a … | Continue reading
Rock climbers have a tradition of sharing “beta”—helpful information about a route—with other climbers. Giving beta is both useful and a form of community-building within this popular sport. Given that strong tradition of sharing, we were disappointed to learn that the owners of … | Continue reading
As Mark Zuckerberg tries to sell Congress on Facebook’s preferred method of amending the federal law that serves as a key pillar of the internet, lawmakers must see it for what it really is: a self-serving and cynical effort to cement the company’s dominance.In prepared testimony … | Continue reading
We at EFF are profoundly disappointed to hear of the re-election of Richard Stallman to a leadership position at the Free Software Foundation, after a series of serious accusations of misconduct led to his resignation as president and board member of the FSF in 2019. We are also … | Continue reading
Facebook announced last year that it would be banning followers of QAnon, the conspiracy theorists that allege that a cabal of satanic pedophiles is plotting against former U.S. president Donald Trump. It seemed like a case of good riddance to bad rubbish.Members of an Oakland-ba … | Continue reading
In September 2020, the Tampa Bay Times revealed a destructive “data-driven” policing program run by the Pasco County, Florida Sheriff's Office. The program is misleadingly called “Intelligence-Led Policing” (ILP), but in reality, it's nothing more than targeted child harassment b … | Continue reading
Sacramento – On Tuesday, March 23, at 1:30 pm PT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will urge California senators to crack down on location tracking by passing SB 210, a bill that would require the destruction of automatically collected license plate data within 24 hours o … | Continue reading
One year ago, the California State Auditor released a damning report on the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) by local law enforcement agencies that confirmed concerns EFF has raised for years. Police are using these camera systems to collect enormous amounts of sens … | Continue reading
When it launched HBO Max, AT&T also announced that usage of the service would not count against the data caps of its customers, a practice known as “zero-rating.” This means that people on limited data plans could watch as much HBO Max content as they wished without incurring ove … | Continue reading
For the first time, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is reaching out to its vast community to improve its membership program and outreach.Today current EFF members and other donors from the past year will receive an email inviting them to tell us how to better serve our support … | Continue reading
This blog post was co-written by Dr. Aleksandra Kuczerawy (Senior Fellow and Researcher at KU Leuven) and inspired by her publication at Verfassungsblog.Suspension of Trump’s Social Media Accounts: Controversial, but not unprecedentedThe suspension of the social media accounts of … | Continue reading
Something is rotten online. Facebook and Google dominate the market on online advertising, depleting the resources needed by any other company reliant on serving digital content. For news media, the confluence of an increasingly digital world with Google and Facebook’s siphoning … | Continue reading
The California Attorney General recently published new regulations that implement the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), a law that takes some important steps to empower consumer choice. What stands out the most in the new regulations is the explicit prohibitions around dece … | Continue reading
SAN FRANCISCO—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is pleased to announce it has received the James Madison Freedom of Information Award for Electronic Access for its groundbreaking, crowd-sourced Atlas of Surveillance, the largest-ever collection of searchable data on the us … | Continue reading
When it comes to broadband policy, much of the attention on California understandably has been focused on its legal win on S.B. 822, its landmark net neutrality law. That court case is likely to head to the 9th Circuit next, and we are optimistic that the state will prevail. But … | Continue reading
Rewriting the legal pillars of the Internet is a popular sport these days. Frustration at Big Tech, among other things, has led to a flurry of proposals to change long-standing laws, like Section 230, Section 512 of the DMCA, and the E-Commerce Directive, that help shield online … | Continue reading
Last week was the deadline for comments on the draft of the so-called “Digital Copyright Act,” a proposal which would fundamentally change how creativity functions online. We asked for creators to add their voices to the many groups opposing this draft, and you did it. Ultimately … | Continue reading
Since 2015, The Foilies have served as an annual opportunity to name-and-shame the uncoolest government agencies and officials who have stood in the way of public access. We collect the most outrageous and ridiculous stories from around the country from journalists, activists, ac … | Continue reading
An organization calling itself Safe Cities Northwest is aiming to create public-private surveillance networks in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. The organization claims that it is building off of a “successful model for public safety” that it built in San Francisco. How … | Continue reading
New year, new Congress, but the problems of Internet access remains. If anything, the longer the COVID-19 crisis continues, the stronger the case for fast, affordable, Internet for all becomes. And so, an updated version of the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act has been … | Continue reading
Last fall, reports revealed the location data broker X-Mode’s ties to several U.S. defense contractors. Shortly after, both Apple and Google banned the X-Mode SDK from their app stores, essentially shutting off X-Mode’s pipeline of location data. In February, Google kicked anothe … | Continue reading
Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today urged the Supreme Court to rule that consumers can take big tech companies like Facebook and Google to court, including in class action lawsuits, to hold them accountable for privacy and other user data-related viola … | Continue reading
This blog post was co-written by EFF, the Internet Society, and Mozilla.As people have learned more about how companies like Google and Facebook track them online they are increasingly taking steps to protect themselves, but there is one relatively unknown way that companies and … | Continue reading
Facebook Rightfully Questions Claims That California Inmates Are Banned from Having a Social Media Presence Up until last spring, Facebook had maintained a semi-secret channel for corrections facilities to file "Inmate Takedown" requests. A prison official could fill out a simple … | Continue reading
Throughout our nation’s history—most potently since the era of civil rights activism—those participating in social movements challenging the status quo have enjoyed First Amendment protections to freely associate with others in advocating for causes they believe in. This right is … | Continue reading
Hailey Rodis, a student at the University of Nevada, Reno Reynolds School of Journalism, was the primary researcher on this report. We extend our gratitude to the dozens of other UNR students and volunteers who contributed data on campus police to the Atlas of Surveillance projec … | Continue reading
San Francisco - The U.S. patent system is in crisis, but there are clear steps Congress and the White House can take to mitigate the impact of vague patents, patent trolls, and a weak legal process to protect competition and creativity, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) ex … | Continue reading
Last week, EFF—along with the ACLU and EPIC—filed an amicus brief in the Wisconsin Supreme Court challenging a series of warrantless digital searches and seizures by state law enforcement officers: the search of a person’s entire cell phone, the retention of a copy of the data on … | Continue reading
Federal law enforcement has been asking for a backdoor to read Americans’ encrypted communications for years now. FBI Director Christopher Wray did it again last week in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. As usual, the FBI’s complaints involved end-to-end encryption emp … | Continue reading
The relationship between the federal judiciary and the executive agencies is a complex one. While Congress makes the laws, they can grant the agencies rulemaking authority to interpret the law. So long as the agency’s interpretation of any ambiguous language in the statute is rea … | Continue reading
The coronavirus pandemic, its related stay-at-home orders, and its economic and social impacts have illustrated how important robust broadband service is to everything from home-based work to education. Yet, even now, many communities across America have been unable to meet their … | Continue reading
The third-party cookie is dying, and Google is trying to create its replacement. No one should mourn the death of the cookie as we know it. For more than two decades, the third-party cookie has been the lynchpin in a shadowy, seedy, multi-billion dollar advertising-surveillance i … | Continue reading
Reformers often tout police use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) as a way to prevent law enforcement misconduct. But, far too often, this technology becomes one more tool in a toolbox already overflowing with surveillance technology that spies on civilians. Worse, because police often … | Continue reading
Baltimore, MD and St. Louis, MO, have a lot in common. Both cities suffer from declining populations and high crime rates. In recent years, the predominantly Black population in each city has engaged in collective action opposing police violence. In recent weeks, officials in bot … | Continue reading
The multi-pronged attempt by state Attorneys General, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission to find Google and Facebook liable for violating antitrust law may result in breaking up these giant companies. But in order for any of this to cause lasting change, … | Continue reading