Find out the week’s top mobile stories from around the world.
This week.. FBI investigates major Twitter attack, US-EU Privacy Shield data sharing agreement struck down by court, over 2,500 games removed from Apple’s China App Store after loophole shuts and much more…
Twitter hack: FBI investigates major Twitter attack
BBC
The FBI has launched an investigation after hackers hijacked Twitter accounts of a number of high-profile US figures in an apparent Bitcoin scam. “The accounts appear to have been compromised” to perpetrate cryptocurrency fraud, said the bureau, urging the public to be vigilant. Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Joe Biden were among those hit in what Twitter said was a “co-ordinated” attack.
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US-EU Privacy Shield data sharing agreement struck down by court
Ars Technica
Europe’s highest court today struck down the agreement by which companies operating in the EU are allowed to transfer data to the United States. The court ruled that the agreement leaves European customers’ data too exposed to US government surveillance.
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TikTok a privacy threat? Sure, but so are most of your smartphone apps
NBC
China has a well-chronicled appetite for Americans’ data. Meanwhile, the popular, China-based video app TikTok collects significant information on its users.
That confluence has made the app a focus of concern among privacy watchdogs, culminating last week in reports that the U.S. is positioning itself to ban TikTok.
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Immersive chat startups have a very different vision for the future of voice
TechCrunch
What happens when startups look to build on the trendiness of podcasting and social audio platforms while injecting them with some of virtual reality’s weirdness? Turns out, plenty of founders are already experimenting with that strange question.
As audio-centric platforms garner investor interest, virtual reality founders of old are trying to push 3D audio as the next evolution, presenting the tech in a way that looks entirely different from today’s voice chat platforms.
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EU launches antitrust probe focusing on Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri
Tech Hive
Are voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant stifling competition when they only let you stream music from a single service, or when then send you to a specific shopping site by default?
It’s a fair question, and one that European Union regulators are looking to answer as part of a “sweeping” antitrust probe, Bloomberg reports.
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Over 2,500 games removed from Apple’s China App Store after loophole shuts: Data firm
Economic Times
HONG KONG: More than 2,500 mobile games were removed from Apple’s China app store in the first week of July, four times as many in the same period in June, after Apple closed a loophole to comply with Chinese licence requirements, data from SensorTower showed.
Apple had given publishers of revenue-generating games a deadline of end-June to submit a government-issued licence number that allows them to make in-app purchases, a requirement that Android-based app stores in China have long had. It was not clear why Apple had allowed the loophole to exist for so long.
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India’s existing data privacy laws are inadequate in protecting people’s information
CNBC
India’s recent ban of dozens of Chinese mobile apps gives local start-ups some leeway to develop products to replace the affected services, but the country’s existing data protection laws are inadequate, the legal director for the Software Freedom Law Center said Monday.
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EC probes consumer IoT sector
Mobile World Live
The European Commission (EC) launched an inquiry into the consumer IoT sector, fearing the nascent market may already be subject to competitive distortion.
In a statement, the EC said the probe was an early-stage move designed to inform its future policy. Margrethe Vestager, EC VP and Competition Commissioner (pictured) explained the sector is “expected to grow significantly in the coming years and become commonplace in the daily lives of European consumers”.
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Global mobile roaming data traffic to recover to pre-COVID levels in 2022 as traffic predicted to fall by 53% in 2020
Telemedia Online
Kaleido Intelligence’s Roaming Data Hub – Q2 2020 predicts a substantial decline in annual inbound and outbound travel numbers this year, representing around 64% fall in global travel volume.
Following the spread of the Coronavirus worldwide, 100% of global destinations have imposed travel restrictions impacting travel volume and roaming traffic in 2020.
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T-Mobile’s latest Un-Carrier move buckles down on spam calls, gives customers a free second number
GSMArena
T-Mobile announced the company’s first “Un-carrier” move with Mike Sievert as the company’s new CEO. Un-carrier is what T-Mobile called itself back when it was making aggressive ad campaigns against its competitors by solving common customer pain-points and you can say that spam calls are as bad as ever.
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