1. Online Banking App Scams on the Rise
How many of you have lost money? We all have at some point in our lives. And if you haven’t, well, be prepared because it may happen to you. Fraud transactions can occur through digital platforms, such as Zelle. Similar to Venmo, Zelle “is a digital payment network that is pre-built into many banking apps such as Chase Bank and Bank of America. Zelle links to a user’s bank account and allows customers to send money to other people instantly using an email address or phone number.” There are numerous cases where consumers have lost large sums of money because of Zelle scammers. “It’s a simple proposition: the quicker the transaction is, the quicker a criminal can steal,” said Bob Sullivan, an author who tracks online bank scams. “This is almost engineered for crime.” However, if this happens to you, banks guarantee that your lost money will be reimbursed. Here are tips on how to prevent fraud:
- Change your security settings to enable multi-factor authentication — a second step to verify who you are, like a text with a code — for accounts that support it.
- Don’t provide any personal information to anyone who calls or emails you out of the blue. Instead, use a trusted channel to contact the bank or company, like the phone number on the back of your credit or debit card.
- Sign up for text or email alerts offered by your bank to warn of suspicious activity on your account. Contact your bank immediately if you suspect fraud.
Be careful where you send your money and take precautions as mentioned above!
(Source: NBC News)
2. More Privacy Issues for Facebook
Why do we create passwords? To have some privacy for yourself. Social media websites like Facebook give you the option to create passwords for additional safety purposes through a third-party app. Onavo, a security app bought by Facebook, is used “to gather broad information about which apps [are] popular and how people [are] using them, which it used to improve its own products.” However, Onavo was pulled down when Apple pointed out violations o user privacy. Then later, TechCrunch discovered that Facebook was incorrectly using an Apple app certification to run a similar program called Facebook Research. With that notion, Apple suspended Onavo. With that lesson, Facebook created a new app called Study that will “not collect data on user IDs, passwords, photos, videos or messages, and will not sell the data it collects or use it to target ads. The data will be used to help the company build better products. Facebook says they now understand that user data privacy is very important after countless ill-advised practices.
(Source: NBC News)
3. Genius Google
Genius.com is a digital media company that provides lyrics online. However, Genius accused Google of copying their lyrics and displaying them in search results. If the lyrics are going to show up in Google search results, then why go to a lyrics company’s website like Genius.com? In turn, Genius.com got suspicious of Google’s actions. Finally in 2016, when Genius got exclusive access to Desiigner’s song, Panda, Google somehow had it as well. How? Google copied Genius’ lyrics. This wasn’t the first time. However, Google keeps playing the denial game, stating they have a particular and safe process to retrieve lyrics from various licensed websites. Unfortunately for Genius, they can’t hold this against Google without more accountable evidence, plus Genius “does not own the copyright to the lyrics it publishes. The musicians do.” Competitors being upset with Google isn’t particularly new as Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Oracle have all lodged complaints against the search giant for abusing its information gatekeeper role by prioritizing self-serving search results. Yelp even at one point encouraged everyone to give Google 0 stars.
(Source: Business Insider)
