Good morning, folks. We’ve got a few things to share with you today.
1. No age verification for accessing pr0n
Starting with The Guardian this morning and it’s reporting on the Australian government’s long-awaited roadmap for age verification for online pornographic material. Per the report, the federal government will not force adult websites to bring in age verification following concerns about privacy and the lack of maturity of the technology. Instead, it’s tasked eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant with working with the industry to develop a new code to educate parents on how to access filtering software and limit children’s access to such material or sites that are not appropriate.
2. Google blurs sexually explicit images
Staying on this theme and per The Verge, we learn Google is now blurring sexually explicit images by default. According to the report, Google has rolled out a new SafeSearch feature that automatically blurs explicit (meaning violent, sexual, etc.) images in its results, including for those who don’t have SafeSearch enabled. This setting was first announced back in February but was scheduled to roll out globally this month. It’s all part of a larger Google Search initiative to, as the company puts it, “help you stay in control of your personal information, privacy, and online safety”.
3. Google announces Pixel 8 event
Staying with Google for a second and we’ve got another phone launch event. This time, it’s a Google event and unlike Apple, the search giant punching well above its weight in the smartphone game has all but told us a new Pixel flagship is coming. The event will be called, of course, Made By Google, and it’ll take place at 10 am ET October 4 in New York City. That translates to 1 am October 4 in AEDT (daylight savings starts the weekend beforehand) and a bit more palatable 10 pm October 4 in AWST. Here’s the hype vid.
4. Pet Circle pays $26K penalty
Online furry friend store Pet Circle has paid penalties of $26,640 after the ACCC issued it with two infringement notices for allegedly making false or misleading representations on its website about the price of goods at checkout. The impacted customers had used Pet Circle discount codes or vouchers, which were applied at the point of sale, but the ACCC said the total order price displayed, which was represented as including the discount of $15 and $20 respectively, was incorrect as customers were later charged an additional amount equal to the discount code or voucher. “As a result of ACCC action, Pet Circle has committed to reimburse all 5,400 customers who were charged a higher price than displayed at checkout,” ACCC commissioner Liza Carver said in a statement.
5. Duolingo data scraping incident doesn’t go away
And lastly, Duolingo last week was exposed as suffering a data breach, one that BleepingComputer at the time reported as resulting in the scraped data of 2.6 million Duolingo users being leaked on a hacking forum, allowing threat actors to conduct targeted phishing attacks using the exposed information. We didn’t report on it at the time as the BleepingComputer article was the only confirmation we had. Since then, there have been multiple cybersecurity companies in my inbox offering their 5 cents on the incident. We’ll bring you more if more unfolds, but for now, if the green birdy notifies you on the daily to pick your lockdown hobby back up, just be vigilant when clicking on email links.
BONUS ITEM: An interesting read from Crikey for you this morning.
Have a wonderful day.