DATING APP TINDER SUED FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Original Story:  USAToday.com

SAN FRANCISCO — Popular mobile dating app Tinder is being sued for sexual harassment and discrimination by a former marketing executive.

Whitney Wolfe, Tinder's former marketing vice president, claims she was subjected to a pattern of abusive behavior including inappropriate private messages from a company co-founder while working at Tinder.

In the suit, she alleges Tinder co-founder and marketing chief Justin Mateen stripped Wolfe of her co-founder title, telling her that having a "24?year-old girl" as a co-founder made the company "seem like a joke."

Wolfe also alleges Mateen called her a "whore" in front of Chief Executive Officer Sean Rad. Mateen could not be reached for comment.

When she complained, Wolfe said she was forced out of the company. The case was filed on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

"I had hoped this would be resolved confidentially, but after months of failed attempts, I have decided to pursue this suit," Wolfe said in a statement.

Tinder's parent companies, IAC and Match.com, are also named as defendants.

"Immediately upon receipt of the allegations contained in Ms. Wolfe's complaint, Mr. Mateen was suspended pending an ongoing internal investigation," IAC said in an emailed statement. "Through that process, it has become clear that Mr. Mateen sent private messages to Ms. Wolfe containing inappropriate content. We unequivocally condemn these messages, but believe that Ms. Wolfe's allegations with respect to Tinder and its management are unfounded."

The technology industry has come under fire for its lack of women in technical and executive ranks and for not creating a work environment that is more welcoming to women.

Ellen Pao, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, filed a lawsuit against her former venture capital firm for harassment and discrimination in 2012. Kleiner Perkins has denied the allegations and is fighting the lawsuit.

Earlier this year, a female employee of GitHub accused the San Francisco startup, of harassment. The company investigated and said it found no evidence of harassment but that there had been "mistakes and errors of judgment."

Last month, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel got into hot water when explicit emails he sent while a student at Stanford University surfaced. Spiegel apologized for the emails which contained statements that were demeaning to women.

Google Gains From Creating Apps for the Opposition

originally appeared in The New York Times:

For many people, smartphone shopping comes down to a choice of Apple’s iPhone or one powered by Google’s Android software.

But now consumers can get an iPhone and fill it with Google.

Google has become one of the most prolific and popular developers of apps for the iPhone, in effect helping its competitor make more appealing products — even as relations between the companies have deteriorated.

While some of its Internet services were built into the iPhone from the start, Google has stepped up its presence in the last eight months, pumping out major new iPhone apps or improving old ones. It also has expanded efforts to hire developers to make more such apps.

A maps app Google released in December has been the most downloaded program for the iPhone for much of the last month. The company has cranked out a YouTube app, an iPhone version of its Chrome Web browser and better software for gaining access to its Gmail service. Two dozen iPhone apps from Google are available on Apple’s App Store, with variations for the iPad.

Google’s strategy may look self-defeating at first. But analysts and technology executives say it is simply acknowledging the obvious: that there is an enormous market of avid iPhone users it wants to reach, an audience that is a target for ads and that can yield a bonanza of data that will allow Google to improve the online products that produce much of its profits.

Google’s support for the iPhone also looks like a win for Apple, which, after all, makes money when it sells an iPhone that is used to gain access to Google services.

But potential risks lie in Google’s growing presence on Apple’s devices, especially when it comes to apps that replace basic functions like Web browsing, maps and e-mail.

IPhone users who spend much of their time in Google apps could deprive Apple of valuable data it needs to improve its own online services like maps. And those apps could help Google build a deeper connection with users that makes them more likely to switch entirely to Android smartphones later.

“The best way to recruit users to those devices is to get them using the services,” said Chris Silva, a mobile analyst at Altimeter Group, a tech industry research business. “Find them where they are, get them using the services and ramp them up so when they have devices equivalent to the iPhone, they are already in the market.”

Stephen Stetelman, a real estate agent in Hattiesburg, Miss., is a prime example of an iPhone user whose loyalties are divided between Apple and Google. The first thing Mr. Stetelman, 25, said he did when he got a new iPhone two weeks ago was to download all of Google’s major apps, including Gmail, Chrome and Google Maps — all of which he said he considered better than the comparable Apple apps that came with the phone.

“It’s a little ironic,” Mr. Stetelman said. “But I think honestly the grace of Apple is in their design and in their hardware. As far as online services and applications and stuff, I think Google is still top of the line.”

People like Mr. Stetelman make executives at Apple nervous. Early in the iPhone era, Steven P. Jobs, the company’s former chief executive, who died in October 2011, did not want Apple to approve any apps for the device that replaced its core functions, one former senior Apple employee said.

Apple executives have long believed that they would need to build up many of the same services that Google offers to compete long-term in the mobile market, according to this person, who did not want to be named to avoid jeopardizing relationships.

Eventually, under scrutiny from federal regulators, Apple softened its stance and began allowing apps for the iPhone, like Web browsers, that competed with important built-in apps.

Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment for this article.

Apple has moved to reduce the presence of Google services in apps that come installed on its phones. Last year it removed the YouTube app — one that Apple created for the earliest iPhones so they would have access to YouTube videos. It also stopped using Google data to power its mapping application.

Instead, Apple began using its own maps service, which has been widely criticized for mistakes, including misplaced landmarks and inaccurate addresses. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, issued a rare apology last September for its maps product and later shook up the company’s management ranks, in part because of the problems.

Apple’s decision to stop including Google’s services on its devices forced Google to quickly ramp up its own software development for Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS.

While Google had engineers devoted to iOS projects, it had to hire outsiders to help quickly design a Google Maps app for the iPhone.

That app appears to be a huge hit. Widely praised by technology reviewers, Google Maps for the iPhone was downloaded more than 10 million times in the 48 hours after its release last December, Jeff Huber, a Google senior vice president, said in an online post at the time.

Other Google apps are among the most commonly used on the iPhone. Last November there were 11.8 million unique users of a new Google-created YouTube app for the iPhone in the United States, and 6.4 million users of its Google Search app, placing them both in the top 20 list of iPhone apps with the biggest audience, according to Nielsen.

In October, Google updated its search application for the iPhone with voice capabilities that more closely resembled those of Siri, the often-maligned virtual assistant included in the iPhone.

Google also bolstered its efforts last year to hire more iOS developers, many of whom might be unlikely to consider working for the company because of its focus on promoting the Android operating system on mobile devices.

Last July, Google bought Sparrow, a Paris-based start-up that made a popular app for using Gmail on the iPhone, and moved some of its engineers to Silicon Valley.

Last December, it began posting Web ads to recruit iOS developers, providing a link to a Q.&A. on the subject with the headline, “Wait, Google has iOS mobile apps teams?”

Chris Hulbert, a freelance programmer who spent three months working for Google in Australia last year, wrote a blog post in which he compared working on iOS apps there to “working behind enemy lines.”

Google said it had not changed its strategy on Apple devices, but rather was continuing to build apps for all devices.

“Our goal is to make a simple, easy-to-use Google experience available to as many people as possible,” said Christopher Katsaros, a Google spokesman. “We’ve developed apps for iOS for some time now, and we’re delighted to see the recent enthusiasm for them.”

Unlike Apple, Google makes its money not from selling phones but from selling ads that appear on those phones. So it cares less about which phone a consumer uses and more about whether that consumer uses Google apps — and shares data with Google and sees Google ads.

When a consumer uses Chrome on the desktop at work, for instance, then opens the same tabs and continues using Chrome on phones elsewhere, Google knows much more about that consumer’s behavior, including the consumer’s location and the searches. The company’s hunger for such data has, of course, raised privacy concerns.

Chetan Sharma, an independent mobile analyst, says Google’s focus on iOS should concern Apple. “It just pushes Apple to up their game in software,” he said. “They’re kind of behind.”

MySpace, Apps Leak User Data

The Wall Street Journal

MySpace and some popular applications have been transmitting information to outside advertising companies that could be used to identify users. Above, website pages from MySpace.com.

MySpace and some popular applications on the social-networking site have been transmitting data to outside advertising companies that could be used to identify users, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

The information was primarily sent by MySpace when users clicked on ads. The website had pledged to discontinue the practice of sending personal data when users click on ads after the Journal reported it in May.

A MySpace spokesman said the data identify the user profile being viewed but not necessarily the person who clicked on the ad. MySpace is owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.

MySpace, which had 58 million visitors in the U.S. in September, has been struggling to turn its business around in the face of tough competition from Facebook Inc., which had 148 million U.S. visitors last month, according to comScore Inc.

The data being transmitted were MySpace user IDs. These unique numbers can be used to look up a person's MySpace profile page, which sometimes includes their real name, photographs, location, gender and age. The advertising companies being sent the data, which included Google Inc., Quantcast Corp. and Rubicon Project, said they didn't use the information.

Earlier this week, the Journal reported that the top 10 most-popular applications on Facebook were passing that site's user ID numbers to outside companies. Facebook said it is changing its technology to block the transmission of user IDs.

The MySpace leaks appear to be more limited than those at Facebook, which has far more users and requires them to make public their name, gender and country.

On Facebook, the user ID is linked to a person's real name. MySpace allows users to hide their real names and use a "display name" on the network. That means that user IDs don't necessarily link to people's real identities. MySpace says knowledge of a user ID number only provides access to information a person has made public on their profile.

In addition, the Journal investigation found some MySpace applications were transmitting user IDs, including BitRhymes Inc.'s TagMe, which lets its 8.3 million users make and comment on friends; WonderHill Inc.'s GreenSpot, a virtual gardening game with 1.8 million users; and RockYou Inc.'s RockYou Pets, a game with 6.1 million users.

MySpace said it prohibits app makers from sharing user data, including user IDs, with other entities. "It has recently come to our attention that several third-party app developers may have violated these terms and we are taking appropriate action against those developers," a MySpace spokesman said.

The Journal's investigation demonstrates how fundamental Web technologies can jeopardize user privacy. When a user clicks on an online ad, several pieces of data are transmitted, including the web address of the page where the user saw the ad. At both MySpace and Facebook, that web address has included a user ID.

Craig Wills, a professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute who has studied how social-networking sites handle user IDs, said such referral data are a growing problem for the Web. As more sites try to tap into social-networking capabilities, "there is the potential danger that those sites with the identifier don't necessarily take care of it, and potentially leak it to whatever third parties are present," he said.

In many cases, the transmission is inadvertent. A RockYou spokeswoman said a company that works with RockYou was transmitting user information to a third company without RockYou's knowledge. "We have taken immediate action to indefinitely suspend their services in connection with RockYou and we are reviewing all third-party providers to ensure compliance with our platform partners' terms of service," she said.

WonderHill didn't respond to requests for comment.

The Journal found that TagMe transmitted a user ID to online tracking company RapLeaf Inc. MySpace and TagMe both said TagMe has since stopped the practice. RapLeaf declined to comment.

BitRhymes, maker of TagMe, said it "has a strict policy of not passing personally identifiable information to any third parties. When we were informed of the issue, any suspect relationship was immediately dissolved."

EFF Fights Facebook Bid to Outlaw One-Stop Social Apps

The Register

 

A civil liberties watchdog has challenged Facebook's legal claims that an unauthorized third-party site that helps users login automatically violates criminal laws.

In a friend-of-the-court brief filed Monday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said Facebook users have a legal right to choose how they access their accounts. It went on to argue that Facebook attorneys were misapplying California's criminal hacking statutes to prevent account holders from using alternative methods of accessing their data.

The brief comes in a lawsuit Facebook filed against Power Ventures, which offers a service that aggregates friends, messages and other data from a variety of social networking sites. In private communications and in court filings, Facebook has accused Power of violating California's criminal hacking law because Facebook's terms of service bar users from accessing their information through "automatic means."

"If Facebook's proposed construction of section 502(c) in this case is correct, millions of otherwise innocent internet users would potentially be committing frequent criminal violations of the law through ordinary, indeed routine, online behavior," EFF attorneys wrote.

"Similarly, allowing a private party to define criminal conduct merely by sending a letter complaining about a competitor's computer usage puts far too much power in the hands of private entities that in doing so may or may not have consumer rights and the public interest at heart."

Using Power's web-based service, a user can automatically view all his content from Twitter, LinkedIn, Orkut and Hi5 on a single screen. That eliminates the hassle of logging in to each account separately and sifting through messages and friend requests for each individual service.

While most social networking sites are willing to work with Power, Facebook objected. After its attorneys sent cease-and-desist letters and filed a complaint in federal court, Power stopped making its service available to Facebook users.

It's worth noting that Facebook's attempts to stop users from accessing their content through alternate means isn't much different than Apple deciding what apps can run on its iPhones and iPads. What sets the social networking site apart here is its invocation of criminal statutes to control the way people access content that per Facebook terms of service belong to the users who created it.

Facebook's legal theory is also notable because, taken to extremes, it threatens anyone who skirts any terms of service, such as requirements to include a person's true age, birth date or occupation in user profiles. Federal prosecutors pursued a similar track when they filed felony charges against a woman involved in creating a fake MySpace profile. The judge overseeing the case, noting fundamental problems with that strategy, eventually acquitted her.

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt defended the action on the grounds that Power "scrapes" user content, in violation of its terms. By then making the data available through Power's own website, the service can violate user privacy by airing restricted pictures and messages to world+dog.

"Facebook believes Power subverts privacy settings and choices people have made on Facebook by scraping their data and taking it somewhere else," he told The Reg.

In a statement, Facebook went on to say the site had no intention of criminalizing user access through automated means.

"We have sued Power to prevent Power - a third party with unknown security safeguards and data use practices - from accessing user data without adhering to the safeguards that apply to all developers and are intended to enforce the privacy decisions people make on Facebook."

A hearing on motions for summary judgment filed by both sides in the case is scheduled for June 7 before US District Judge James Ware in San Jose, California.