A joint investigation by The Markup and Consumer Reports was cited in a lawsuit over discriminatory car insurance rates
My dad brought home a computer when I was 3 years old. He hoped that it would teach me things — and it did. I learned to spell in English by playing Reader Rabbit and the Fabulous Word Factory.
Companies advertising online have developed a series of unethical practices that some describe as Dark Patterns, which can mislead consumers on the internet.
What’s the problem here? It might be you (sorry). It might be the infrastructure you’re working with. It might be your internet provider.
A group of bipartisan lawmakers hopes to pass antitrust legislation that takes aim at tech giants buying out the competition and hoarding data.
Amazon lists its own brands and exclusives above competing products with better ratings.
The deployment of facial recognition technology in a school in the US marks a disturbing trend with the protection of identity and the safety of students.
Google's advertising system as allowed employers and landlords to discriminate against nonbinary and some transgender people by excluding them from ads.
Dear Readers,
Anonymization of data isn’t enough to guarantee privacy
Amazon is the largest retailer in the world, but a majority of the sales on the site come from third-party sellers. Along with toasters and mops, the site’s a target for people trying to sell dangerous and illicit products.
Comment comes as part of big tech CEO grilling by antitrust committee
Life360, a safety app, claims it will stop selling precise location data.
A lot of ride-share drivers were victims of carjacking in Minneapolis last fall. Here is what spokespeople, the police, and the drivers have to say about it.
Newly laid-off workers face crashes, long load times, and messages offering phone callbacks as states struggle to adjust
Getty Images and Ali Wijaya
The ads, until recently available for view in Facebook’s public ad library, were frauds that slipped through Facebook’s content moderation process...
Long wait times, passwords sent by mail, and shutdowns thwart applicants
For millions of prospective college students, applying online for federal financial aid has also meant sharing personal data with Facebook, unbeknownst to them.
American politicians react to The Markup's findings that minorities are getting discriminated against when they apply for a mortgage.
The trackers notified Google, Facebook’s parent company Meta, payments processor Stripe, and four analytics firms when users visited its site.
The Markup has found that Facebook is serving up ads and posts for the so-called “abortion pill reversal” procedure...
Could behavioral advertising be on its way out?
Facebook has been criticized in the past because many believe they are allowing right-wing content to run rampant on the site.
Ransomware has become a much more common crime online in recent days. But why is this the case and what can people even do about this massive problem?
You may be accidentally sharing personal information in your photos
A new study says more than 50 gig workers have been murdered in the U.S. over the past five years.
Geofencing itself simply means drawing a virtual border around a predefined geographical area. Data can then be gathered on users who enter that area.
Technically, yes, but it is not always easy
You don’t always have to give your boss the finger
The COVID-19 crisis highlights the costs of the U.S. digital divide
In an attempt to manage soaring health care costs, some government officials and health care companies are turning to algorithms to determine how to allocate limited benefits, who to provide care to first, or whether a person should receive care at all.
The right-to-repair movement has drawn an unusual coalition of stakeholders, including environmentalists, libertarians, engineers, gamers, and hobbyists.
Dynamic pricing algorithms on Amazon aren’t just about supply and demand
There are fake test answer websites that are being used to entrap students looking for answers during online tests.
Workers fight for hazard pay, protective equipment, and better sick leave
Spotting the fakes isn’t always possible, but here are some tips
The Pandemic Didn’t Start Educational Disparities—but It Has Made Them Worse. Vulnerable students get hit the hardest via online learning.
Investigate, complain, and maybe sue
Estimated 9/10 landlords, under pressure to ensure their properties are safe, use companies like Rentgrow to perform background checks on potential tenants.
Simple steps to take before hitting the streets
Traditionally, the podcast ecosystem has been tracking-resistant, in part because podcasters release their shows through RSS, free technology dating back to '99
Five scenarios that show the differences in states’ testing algorithms
Computer algorithms that scan everything from terror watch lists to eviction records spit out flawed tenant screening reports. And almost nobody is watching
Currently that appears to include a 10-pack of rubber chickens
In at least one case, that same company is now getting pandemic-relatedcontracts
An investigation by The Markup has shown that YouTube has been surpressing Black Lives Matter-related ads while doing nothing to prevent white supremacist ads.
We found banned items for sale on Amazon.com
The proposed system is anonymous but vulnerable to trolls and spoofing
We found drug ads targeted at users interested in everything from bourbon to therapy on Facebook, with significant implications for privacy for users.
We want to know the ways one state’s testing procedures may vary from a neighbor’s, and the reasons why.
The count is going mostly digital for the first time. Oh, and there’s a pandemic
Using a payment app of any kind, no matter how privacy-preserving it is, always introduces a middleman: an agent that uses data to execute a demand.
AT&T, Verizon, EarthLink, and CenturyLink disproportionately offered lower-income and least-White neighborhoods slow internet service for the same price...
Lawmakers allege abuse of monopoly power and political bias
Amazon isn't completely upfront with what brands they own or don't. That's why The Markup created a browser extension to help with this problem.
In April 2019, fans of the makeup influencer Jaclyn Hill noticed her new eyeshadow palette, normally $38, on Walmart.com for the unbelievably low price of $16.39. Many rushed to buy; others were skeptical: Hill had announced that the palette would be available only through certain retailers, and Walmart wasn’t one of them.
What the United States’ children’s privacy law does and doesn’t do
Algorithmic auditing got press recently when HireVue, a popular hiring software company used by companies like Walmart and Goldman Sachs faced criticism.
We found discriminatory ads can still appear, despite Facebook's efforts
The Markup obtained internal documents that coach new employees to avoid creating “very real legal risks” in using words like “market” and “networkeffects”
Court hearings are going virtual in response to COVID-19. Studies show they can lead to harsher outcomes for defendants
State regulators and consumer advocacy groups have scrutinized Allstate Corporation’s use of big data and personalized pricing in the way it calculates how much the company charges its private auto insurance customers.
The Digital Advertising Alliance has a website that you can use to opt out of personalised ads. The problem is, it doesn't really work like it is supposed to.
Critics say it merely techwashes injustice
To determine how testing protocols for COVID-19 vary across the United States, we sent requests under public records laws to all 50 states, New York City, and Washington, D.C. The requests were sent to health departments the week of March 16 and were identical. The database below contains responses we have received, as well as publicly available guidance from some jurisdictions.
The government websites responsible for helping citizens get their COVID-19 Vaccines have been found to have less-than-ideal accessibility and privacy features.
The search engine dedicated almost half of the first page of results in our test to its own products, which dominated the coveted top of the page
An array of free website-building tools, many offered by ad-tech and ad-funded companies, has led to a dizzying number of trackers loading on users’ browsers.
Seven years ago, Allstate Corporation told Maryland regulators it was time to update its auto insurance rates. The insurer said its new, sophisticated risk analysis showed it was charging nearly all of its 93,000 Maryland customers outdated premiums. Some of the old rates were off by miles. One 36-year-old man from Prince George’s County, Md., who Allstate said in public records should have been paying $3,750 every six months, was instead being charged twice that, more than $7,500. Other customers were paying hundreds or thousands of dollars less than they should have been, based on Allstate’s new calculation of the risk that they would file a claim.
We designed an experiment to measure the quantity and placement of
these Google-created and self-referential search results and how they compare to others.
To determine how testing protocols for COVID-19 vary across the United States, we sent requests under public records laws to all 50 states, New York City, and Washington, D.C. The requests were sent to health departments the week of March 16 and were identical. The database below contains responses we have received, as well as publicly available guidance from some jurisdictions.
