The Google subsidiary Wing Aviation has applied for a waiver from some FAA drone regulations so that it can expand its operations beyond a single small city in Virginia, according to a notification published by the FAA on Friday. As of early 2019, Wing has supplied a multitude of services for locals of Christiansburg, Virginia, including both scheduled and emergency deliveries. With the goal of serving more people, “Wing is now aiming to expand and improve upon these operations,” the company claimed in its request for waivers from some FAA drone regulations. The organization promised to listen to petitioners before reaching a final call. The FAA was informed by Wing that the company had “made major investments targeted to strengthen both the safety and capacity” of drone operations in the United States. More than 17 months have passed with no reported incidents. Wing seeks FAA clearance to move remote pilot activities “to regional operations centers that can monitor and safely handle a greater number of airliners at once. When it grows, Wing aims to utilize a variant “that has been demonstrated to be dependable in commercial operations and is extremely comparable in its operating characteristics,” Wing said. Yet “to identify and accept this alternate aircraft version,” approval from the FAA is required.

In addition, during the interval, Wing requested that the FAA conduct operator line inspections once every 12 months rather than every three. According to the report, “current limitations will make it infeasible to grow a light-footprint, distributed operation across a neighborhood,” therefore the amendments “will assist assure that more American homes may experience the benefits of (drone) technology.” Small drones can now legally fly over people and at night without special permission under new FAA regulations that went into effect on Wednesday. The long-awaited guidelines require remote identification technology in most situations to enable drone identification from the ground, which is intended to alleviate security concerns.

Andrew Bosworth, vice president of business operations at Facebook, reportedly told employees that privacy is more important than the quality of the product.

VP of Facebook Andrew “Boz” Bosworth sent a stern message to his staff about privacy on December 22, 2020. He remarked that the company’s previous mode of operation was “no longer the greatest method to serve individuals who utilize our products.” Here at Big Technology, we were the first to report on an internal Facebook document written by Bosworth titled “The Great Shift,” in which he urged developers to put privacy ahead of the user experience whenever possible. He claimed that the public’s privacy standards were evolving and that Facebook’s previous approach was no longer enough.

“It’s apparent that attitudes around the world have altered to the point where consumers are willing to tolerate lower product quality,” Bosworth wrote. “Rather than focusing on optimizing for specific features, we need to think about the consumer experience as a whole.”

Bosworth penned these words at the end of a terrible year for Facebook. Lawsuits were filed against the business by the FTC and a large number of state attorneys general. As compared to other social media platforms, its users have the least faith in it. Mark Zuckerberg was often requested to testify before Congress. Even Vice President-elect Joseph Biden didn’t care for it. Facebook continued to strive for product excellence, but the backlash against the corporation had tangible effects. A shift was necessary.

Facebook’s public messaging on privacy was consistent with Bosworth’s for a long time, but the company didn’t make any serious changes to its growth-driven culture to keep up with its pledges. The only way to make substantial progress at Facebook, as Bosworth’s message pointed out, is to change the company’s culture. He said that user privacy shouldn’t be compromised while the company’s algorithmic ranking and sharing technologies are being developed. The internal privacy tools of the corporation, he warned the staff at one time, “will only be effective inasmuch as we cease opposing them at the cultural level.”

Bosworth has been with Facebook for 15 years, making him a significant figure there. His 2016 post “The Ugly” and 2020 post “Thoughts for 2020” established the company’s ethos and direction. These memos get a lot of attention after he uploads them on Workplace, the company’s internal Facebook. Thus, “The Great Change” must be taken seriously. Bosworth’s future as head of Facebook’s Reality Labs business, which is in charge of the company’s virtual and augmented reality products, depends heavily on the company’s standing in the privacy arena. Privacy advocates will surely have a field day with the smart glasses his team is about to release. Bosworth informed his team that they would be flipping their product development process around in a follow-up email. According to him, “we will start with the idea that we can’t acquire, utilise, or keep any data,” rather than conceiving a product and paring it down to match modern requirements of data privacy and security. We must prove that particular information is necessary for the product to function.

Bosworth compared Facebook’s threat to that faced by Microsoft in the early 2000s, when the public lacked confidence in the software giant’s security measures. Microsoft has put product security ahead of all else after receiving a lot of negative feedback. Based on what Bosworth saw, Microsoft “may now be the most trusted enterprise software company in the world” after going through that procedure. According to his email, he sees this as a model for Facebook. For us to truly succeed, we need to establish ourselves as the go-to guys for secure software.

Facebook, which declined to comment on Bosworth’s remarks, was able to get away with its careless approach to privacy for a while, but the implications have now been impossible to ignore. Facebook is so distrusted that a poorly worded privacy upgrade sent users rushing off WhatsApp in mass earlier this month. This comes on the heels of pressure from regulators and the potential of legislative action under Biden. Meanwhile, Apple is alerting users to Facebook’s propensity to track with a new, comprehensive label explaining the company’s data collecting practices.

In the case of Facebook, it’s hard to get too worked up about sweeping assertions about personal data security. The company’s track record thus far does not provide much cause for optimism. Because of this, the FTC mandates that all new products undergo privacy evaluations. Regardless of his intent, Bosworth’s use of this style of speech while speaking to employees always carries weight. His memo’s dissemination should serve as further motivation for the corporation to follow his instructions.

Could Amazon, which handles half of all online business, be held legally and financially liable for the quality of third-party products sold on its site?

The answer from Amazon is negative. Nevertheless, a panel of three judges from California’s Court of Appeal in Los Angeles issued a contrary ruling this week. Justices ruled that Amazon’s assertion that its site is only a platform connecting customers and sellers was incorrect and that the company was instead a direct link in the vertical chain of distribution under California’s strict liability law. When a customer buys a product from a third-party seller, Amazon and other online retailers aren’t on the sidelines. To put it simply, it’s an essential aspect of the deal. And if it turns out to be detrimental, it can be held liable.

The retailer is Amazon. They’re the ones selling it, said San Francisco attorney Christopher Dolan, who led the charge in filing suit against the online retail giant. He assured me that, “because of this verdict,” Amazon will be changing all of its policies for third-party sellers. Kisha Loomis, a resident of Oroville in Butte County, north of Sacramento, is being sued for her purchase of a hoverboard, a popular children’s toy, in December 2015. Anybody still use those old hoverboards? Like the hoverboards from “Back to the Future Part II,” these gadgets could stand on their own.

The one that fictional character Marty McFly rode about on in the made-up California town of Hill Valley was way cooler than the ones that actually existed. They were mobile, battery-operated, wheeled, and lithium-ion. The problem was, those batteries had a disturbing propensity for catching fire. That’s what happened when Loomis’s kid opened the hoverboard she bought him for Christmas from a Chinese manufacturer on Amazon. Dolan said that the hoverboard “exploded while charging in a bedroom” less than a week after the holiday. “When she sought to toss the burning toy from her home,” he continued, “Loomis was seriously burned.”

Not long after Loomis’ contraption exploded, firefighters in Los Angeles dealt with their first exploding hoverboard. KTLA filmed a hoverboard fire on a street in Koreatown. Dolan, who was representing Loomis in the lawsuit, discovered that both the Chinese manufacturer and its U.S. distributor had gone out of business, “leaving only Amazon to be held culpable for the injuries to Ms. Loomis and the damages to her home.”

In the initial lawsuit, Amazon came out on top. A judge in Los Angeles agreed with the Seattle firm’s argument that it was a “online advertising” and therefore not liable for the quality of the products it promoted by others. In March of 2019, the lawsuit was dropped. This week’s appellate court judgement reverses the lower court’s finding and holds Amazon liable for the goods sold by third parties on its platform.

Amazon has “considerable potential to affect the production or distribution process” since it can demand safety certification, indemnity, and insurance before agreeing to market a product, according to the court of appeals. A representative for Amazon declined to comment on the new verdict or if Amazon plans to appeal it to the state Supreme Court, citing the company’s policy of maintaining media silence. She simply stated, “Amazon makes significant investments to ensure the security and authenticity of all products offered in our store, including proactively verifying sellers and products before they are posted and regularly monitoring our shop for signals of concern.”

According to those who specialize in product liability, the decision made this week makes it very clear that internet retailers are, in fact, retailers, and that they cannot use the global nature of their business as an excuse to avoid culpability for selling dangerous products. “I’d like to argue this shouldn’t even be a debate,” Alex Harman, an advocate for competition policy at Public Citizen, said. “But it’s great to have more information on this.” The implications of this verdict “are potentially considerable for Amazon and other online businesses,” according to University of Richmond law expert Carl Tobias.

According to Consumer Federation of America’s legislative director Rachel Weintraub, the verdict is crucial. “Consumers do not know that some platforms claim they are not functioning as a retailer when they purchase from them online,” she said. The ruling will facilitate consumers’ rights to seek remedies. The issue of product security has gained considerable attention recently. The other day I published an article about Peloton’s refusal to recall a treadmill that was linked to the death of a child and the potential injury of many more. Despite a “urgent warning” from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission regarding the Peloton Tread+ workout machine, Peloton has dismissed the notification as “inaccurate and misleading,” insisting that users should continue to use the device normally. Companies’ willingness to voluntarily recall potentially dangerous products is crucial to the CPSC’s ability to do its job. Legally, it cannot warn customers about potentially harmful products without the consent of the manufacturer.

The Amazon judgement from this week establishes a precedent that consumers have a right to be satisfied with the products sold by online retailers, regardless of where those products were manufactured. It’s likely, according to Dolan, that Amazon is already telling its third-party sellers that they need to carry enough insurance if they want access to the company’s massive client base. He also promised that the firm would pay closer attention to reports of potentially unsafe products and take swifter action to cease sales of any such items. I inquired as to whether or not he fears Amazon would appeal the case to the highest court in California. I really do,” Dolan said. In contrast, I seriously doubt that they will. They have the ability to decipher omens. And the omens in the tea leaves suggest that the buyers came out on top.