Facebook has gotten away with a lot — from continuous privacy breaches to questionable advertising systems — but it seems the government’s patience is wearing thin. Today, the Department of Housing and Urban development hit Facebook with a lawsuit , saying the social media giant participates in housing discrimination. HUD’s actions are a follow up to a complaint filed in August 2018 , that stated there was evidence to believe Facebook violated the Fair Housing Act. According to a press release , HUD alleges that Facebook’s ad system unlawfully discriminates by barring certain people from seeing listings. In addition, HUD says that Facebook gathers data about users, which it then uses to figure out which of its users can view housing-related ads. “Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement. “Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in...

Some states are stepping up to the plate in regards to appropriately regulating tech. Recently, Mississippi’s attorney general, Jim Hood, said the state is preparing an antitrust case against Google, as reported by CNBC . “At some point in the future, there will be a reckoning,” Hood said, according to CNBC. “It’ll either be in Congress or in a court of law.” Hood said the case will tackle the privacy practices of Alphabet — Google’s owner — and it’ll be similar to a federal case brought against Microsoft in the late 1990s. In that case, the federal government reviewed antitrust charges against Microsoft. Eventually, the company was charged with acting as a monopoly and limiting competitions on PCs. At the time, they were forcing manufacturers to bundle Internet Explorer on their hardware products before receiving a license for the Windows 98 operating system. Obviously, Microsoft wasn’t forced to split up because they’re still around today. However, the settlement definitely shook...

Kanye West is out of legal trouble after promising his album would be exclusively available on Tidal. The artist settled a class-action lawsuit of nearly $85 million with a fan over the exclusivity of ‘The Life of Pablo.’ West originally said the album would only be streamed on the platform, but weeks later it was offered on both Apple Music and Spotify. Justin Baker-Rhett, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, said that he bought a $9.99 subscription to Tidal in order to stream ‘The Life Of Pablo.’ After the album began streaming on other platforms, Baker-Rhett felt slighted and deceived into downloading the service. The terms of the settlement are not known; however, the 2016 lawsuit from Baker-Rhett has been dropped. Exclusivity on streaming services is now a thing of the past. As artists, record labels and the platforms agree to more effective contracts, an artists’ need to only offer content on one service has evaporated. There are special cases when artists offer albums exclusively...