Business
Apple to pay $95 million to settle privacy lawsuit over Siri recordings
Apple agreed to pay $95 million in cash to settle a lawsuit that alleges the tech giant recorded private conversations from people who used its voice assistant Siri without their consent.
The iPhone maker was sued in 2019 for allegedly violating users’ privacy after the Guardian reported that contractors hired by the company to review Siri’s responses to prompts heard recordings that included medical information, drug deals and couples having sex.
Apple apologized that year for the privacy breaches following consumer complaints and said it would no longer retain recordings of users’ exchanges with Siri. In court filings, however, the company denied having overstepped users’ rights, writing that “Apple denies all of the allegations made in the lawsuit and denies that Apple did anything improper or unlawful.”
The company didn’t respond to a request for comment about the settlement.
The allegations underscore problems tech companies are facing as people become increasingly reliant on voice assistants to answer questions, set alarms and find directions.
Filed on Tuesday in a federal court in California, the preliminary settlement also requires the iPhone maker to confirm that it permanently deleted Siri audio recordings collected before October 2019 and to publish a webpage that explains how users can opt in to improve Siri and what information Apple collects.
Tens of millions of Apple users could be eligible for money from the settlement by submitting claims for up to five devices that include Siri in which the voice assistant was unintentionally activated from Sept. 17, 2014, to Dec. 31, 2024, during a private or confidential conversation. The money received depends on how many valid claims are filed, according to the settlement.
Plaintiffs in the case estimated total damages to the class exceeded $1.5 billion, but they agreed to settle the lawsuit because obtaining “the total damages at trial would be a challenge, given Apple’s denial of liability,” the settlement said.
The settlement is pending approval from U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White.
Business
Golden Globes Stars Avoided Politics
Hollywood hoisted a white flag in the culture war on Sunday.
That summation of the 82nd Golden Globe Awards will undoubtedly aggravate some people in the movie capital. Us? Conceding the moral high ground to President-elect Donald J. Trump and his supporters? Never.
They could point — fairly — to the movies that won prizes on Sunday. “Emilia Perez,” honored with four Globes, is a Spanish-language musical about trans identity. “The Brutalist,” which received three, is an epic about immigrant struggles. “Conclave,” the winner of best screenplay, is about the selection of a Mexican, intersex pope. “Wicked,” which was given a newish award for best blockbuster, is about prejudices and the corruption of power.
But the Globes have never been about subtlety. The Globes are where stars supposedly let it rip, where they proselytize for progressive causes and concerns. Sunday’s show was Hollywood’s first megaphone since Mr. Trump was comfortably elected to a second term. And this time, there was barely a peep about it.
In 2017, Meryl Streep tore into Mr. Trump from the Globes stage, firmly throwing down the gauntlet for a new kind of culture war. The next year, the Globes became a de facto rally for the Time’s Up movement, with dozens of actresses wearing black to protest sexual harassment and Oprah Winfrey delivering a barnburner of a speech. In 2020, Michelle Williams gave an impassioned plea for abortion rights, while Russell Crowe called attention to climate change and a bush fire crisis in Australia.
Black Lives Matter, the global refugee crisis and veganism have all been touted from the Globes stage. In 2023, the Globes gave airtime to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who gave a speech condemning Russia.
During the official red carpet preshow, hosts kept the conversation bordering on cotton candy: you’re beautiful, I’m beautiful, the weather is beautiful, everything is beautiful. “It’s Sunday afternoon, and the sun is out,” Felicity Jones told an interviewer. “There’s not a lot to complain about.”
During her monologue that opened the show, the comedian Nikki Glaser gently teased the assembled celebrities for not being able to stop Mr. Trump from returning to office. “It’s OK,” she said. “You’ll get ’em next time — if there is one.” She smiled and added, “I’m scared,” before changing the subject to Ben Affleck’s sex life.
The only other political commentary of note came three hours later, when “Emilia Pérez” won the Globe for best musical or comedy. The film’s star, Karla Sofía Gascón, used the moment to speak for trans rights. “You can beat us up,” she said. “But you never can take away our soul.”
“Raise your voice,” she added.
Maybe the lack of politics in Sunday’s show shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Many of those who oppose Mr. Trump still seem to be sorting out how to push back against him and his administration. And there has even been a gentle drift to the right by Hollywood, to scrub some of the most progressive edges off some shows and select more movies that speak to Mr. Trump’s base.
Ahead of the Globes, some publicists and agents advised clients to keep quiet about Mr. Trump and pointed to Rachel Zegler as a cautionary example. After the election in November, Ms. Zegler, the young star of Disney’s coming live-action “Snow White,” harshly decried Mr. Trump and his supporters in a social media post. The MAGA blowback was severe, and Ms. Zegler was forced to apologize.
And for the people behind the Globes, the silence was probably welcome. Producers who specialize in awards telecasts say research, compiled mainly from Nielsen, indicates that viewers dislike it when celebrities turn a trip to the stage into a political bully pulpit. Minute-by-minute viewership analysis indicates that “vast swaths” of people turn off televisions when celebrities started to opine on politics.
It recalled a time, decades ago, when stars worked at being stars, turning on the charm and saying nothing that might alienate a single ticket buyer. The message came through loud and clear.
Business
Los Angeles man is trapped in circling Waymo on way to airport: 'Is somebody playing a joke?'
A Los Angeles man said he recently missed his flight home after getting trapped on his way to the airport in a Waymo that wouldn’t stop making circles in a parking lot.
L.A. tech entrepreneur Mike Johns posted a video three weeks ago on LinkedIn of his call to a customer service representative for Waymo to report that the car kept turning in circles and that he was nervous about missing his flight.
“I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I’m getting dizzy,” Johns said. “It’s circling around a parking lot. I got my seat belt on. I can’t get out of the car. Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies. Is somebody playing a joke on me?”
The customer service representative told Johns to open his Waymo app and that she would try to pull the car over but seemed to struggle with getting the vehicle to stop.
Johns was returning home from Scottsdale, Ariz., according to a CBS report, which also noted that Johns “nearly” missed his flight.
On his social media post, Johns, who also works on AI initiatives, according to his LinkedIn profile, said Waymo had not followed up with him after the experience.
“You’d think by now Waymo would email, text or call for a follow-up,” he wrote.
A Waymo spokesperson wrote in an email to The Times on Sunday that the incident occurred in mid-December and that the rider was delayed by roughly five minutes, then driven to his destination.
At the time of the incident, however, Johns wrote on LinkedIn, “Mind you I was on my way to the airport and now missed my flight.”
The spokesperson said the software glitch had since been resolved and that Johns was not charged for the ride. They added that the company had since tried to follow up with him via voicemail.
The company’s autonomous cars have been a common sight on San Francisco streets for years, and Waymo recently opened its services to all riders after first rolling out a pilot program to select users. The robotaxis launched in L.A. last fall.
Waymo’s goal is to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities through autonomous-driving technology, and riders and proponents of the service have lauded it as a safe and easy alternative to human drivers.
But there have also been tech glitches and safety concerns during the company’s rollout of its robotaxis in several cities.
A man in downtown L.A. on Thursday allegedly attempted to hijack a Waymo and drive away. Police took the man into custody after they eventually got him out of the car.
There have also been reports of riders experiencing harassment by pedestrians who block the car’s path and stall the vehicle.
Business
Amazon Prime Will Release a Melania Trump Documentary
Amazon said on Sunday that its Prime Video streaming service would release a “behind the scenes” documentary about Melania Trump’s life.
The film will head to movie theaters and stream on Amazon Prime in the second half of this year, the company said in a statement. Mrs. Trump will be an executive producer of the documentary, which started filming in December, the month after her husband, Donald J. Trump, won the presidential election.
Amazon said it was “excited to share this truly unique story.”
The company and its founder, Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, had a rocky relationship with Mr. Trump during Mr. Trump’s first presidential term. But in recent months, Amazon and Mr. Bezos have taken steps to repair it. The tech giant said last month that it would donate $1 million to the president-elect’s inaugural fund, joining Meta and executives of some other Silicon Valley companies in writing checks to the inaugural committee. Mr. Bezos has said he is “very optimistic” about Mr. Trump’s new term in office and is eager to work with his administration on reducing regulation.
During his first presidential term, Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Bezos because of his newspaper’s political coverage and questioned whether the U.S. Postal Service was charging Amazon too little for shipping. Amazon, in turn, accused Mr. Trump of using “improper pressure” on the Pentagon to deny the company a cloud-computing contract.
Amazon now appears to be eager to turn the page.
In October, The Post said it would stop endorsing presidential candidates, a decision made by Mr. Bezos, and did not publish an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris that had already been drafted. Mr. Bezos defended his decision, saying newspaper endorsements “create a perception of bias.”
Last week, Ann Telnaes, a Post cartoonist, said she was resigning after the paper’s opinion section rejected a cartoon that showed Mr. Bezos and three other technology executives bending the knee to a statue of Mr. Trump while offering the president-elect bags of money. David Shipley, The Post’s opinion editor, said the cartoon was rejected because the section had published a column on the same subject and had already scheduled another one for publication. He said he had asked Ms. Telnaes to rescind her resignation, saying, “The only bias was against repetition.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the efforts by the company and Mr. Bezos to forge closer ties to Mr. Trump. The Trump transition team also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mrs. Trump has recently shown more willingness to share details about her life with the public. Last year, she published a memoir that described her career as a model, marriage to Mr. Trump and time in the White House. It became a No. 1 New York Times best seller. Her role as executive producer of the documentary suggests that she will have some influence over how it depicts her life.
Brett Ratner, a director and producer behind movies like “Rush Hour” and “The Revenant,” will direct the documentary. Mr. Ratner has kept a lower profile in recent years after questions were raised about his behavior. In 2011, he resigned as co-producer of the Oscars broadcast after he used an anti-gay slur at a public event. In 2017, Mr. Ratner was accused of sexual misconduct by six women in an article published by The Los Angeles Times, claims that he denied.
Amazon, which will have exclusive rights to the movie about Mrs. Trump, said it would reveal more details on the project as filming progressed and it completed release plans.
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