Hashtag Trending – U.S. carriers hit with FCC complaint; Amazon gets sued; Huawei in the hot seat

AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile get hit with a FCC complaint, lawsuits aimed at Amazon suggest the company may be recording kids who use Alexa devices without their consent, and Huawei is in the hot seat again.

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Trending on Reddit – Activist groups have filed a complaint with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) based on serious concerns regarding AT&T, T-Mobile, Spring and Verizon’s improper disclosure of location information. The complaint points to examples of some of the carriers selling location data, which ultimately ended up in the hands of bounty hunters, according to reporting from Motherboard.The complaint also says the carriers actions have threatened public safety as a result. As of this recording, the FCC did not respond to a request for comment by Vice.

There’s a lot of chatter on LinkedIn about a lawsuit filed in Seattle alleging how Amazon is recording children using Alexa devices without their consent. The complaint, recently filed on behalf of a 10 year old girl from Massachusetts, says the Alexa system can identify individual commands based on voices and Amazon could choose to inform users who had not previously consented that they were being recorded and ask for consent. The lawsuit continues, suggesting Alexa doesn’t do this. The federal complaint is seeking a class-action status. The Seattle Times as of this recording says Amazon had declined to comment.

And lastly, trending on Reddit – Huawei is in the hot seat again. Angry users are complaining on Reddit about ads running on Huawei smartphone lock screens, seemingly without any warning. Huawei is adamant it’s not the one placing the ads there, and encouraged users to check app settings. But users aren’t convinced – the ads can also be found in Huawei’s Magazine cycle of wallpapers. According to a Reddit thread, four images about Booking.com were added to the Huawei phone’s wallpaper collection, meaning they would start showing up as wallpapers like any other image.

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Alex Coop
Alex Coophttp://www.itwc.ca
Former Editorial Director for IT World Canada and its sister publications.

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