Privacy Digest 18/26
Google Aims To Boost AI With Purchase Of Spirit Airlines Data
What happens to decades of accumulated data when the company that collected it disappears? Google is paying $10 million for a vast repository from collapsed Spirit Airlines to improve its products and AI models. The assets include 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams records, billions of transaction records, and more than 175,000 employee records dating back to 1986. Google says personal information will be excluded and the data stripped of personally identifiable information before delivery. Even so, the sale highlights a growing privacy question: data collected for everyday business can outlive its original purpose and become a valuable AI-training asset.
news.bloomberglaw.com
Amazon Can Use Your Twitch Content To Train Its AI - Unless You Opt Out
Twitch creators now have a switch to stop their posts, streams, and videos from being used to train Amazon’s generative AI models. The catch: AI training is enabled by default, and Twitch has not clarified when it began using creator content this way. More than 16,000 creators have opposed the practice, while a Twitch executive acknowledged that an opt-in approach would attract little participation. Disabling the setting also doesn’t prevent Twitch and Amazon from using content for other AI-powered purposes, highlighting how consent, transparency, and meaningful control over personal and creative data remain unresolved in the AI era.
wired.com
Meta Agrees To Pay $18 Billion To Settle US Lawsuits Over Children's Social Media Addiction
Stricter rules are coming for teenage Facebook and Instagram users, including two-hour daily limits and overnight restrictions. Yet the agreement leaves a core part of Meta’s data-driven business largely untouched: personalized recommendations and targeted advertising can continue. Privacy claims also played a significant role, with 29 states alleging the company knowingly collected children’s personal data without parental consent and used it to train generative AI. Another $459 million resolves claims linked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The agreement could influence how other platforms handle young users and their data.
reuters.com
Inaudible Sounds Used To Fingerprint Browsers Catch AliExpress Red-Handed
AliExpress has been caught using inaudible audio signals as part of an extensive browser-fingerprinting operation. The technique exploits subtle differences in how devices process sound to help distinguish one visitor from another, although protections in modern Firefox and Chrome have rendered this particular method largely ineffective. More concerning is the wider picture: researchers identified over a dozen additional signals being collected, from graphics rendering and hardware characteristics to screen dimensions, browser behavior, and even mouse and touch events. It’s a vivid example of how online tracking can identify users without relying on cookies, while browsers and trackers continually race to outmaneuver each other.
arstechnica.com
Ring Says Its New Encryption Limits What It Can Give Police
Ring is changing who can hold the keys to footage captured around your home. Its new default encryption system temporarily keeps video keys so cloud features such as smart alerts and video search can work, then deletes them within 24 hours. After that, Ring says only the customer retains access, limiting what the company could provide to law enforcement even when presented with a legal request. It’s not end-to-end encryption, which remains optional, but it offers an interesting compromise: retaining cloud-based and AI features while reducing how long the company itself can access customers’ recordings.
theverge.com
How To Block Ads On Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video has included ads in its standard plan since 2024, with an extra fee for ad-free viewing. Ghostery users watching Prime Video in a supported browser already have another option: the extension can block advertising and tracking requests before they load. That protection does not extend to Prime Video apps on smart TVs or Fire TV, where Amazon’s paid tier remains the most reliable choice. You may know this already, but friends and family frustrated by yet another streaming subscription upgrade might not. Consider this one more reason to introduce them to Ghostery.
ghostery.com
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