Chromebook Sales Explode, Facebook Keeps Trump Ban; Facebook Blocks Signal Ads Exposing Facebook’s Targeting; Peloton Problems Increase-Data Leak

Chromebook sales grew a stunning 275% in the first quarter of the year! Geekwire.com reports that Amazon tablet shipments grew by almost 200%! The record Chromebook sales were spread over HP, Lenovo, Acer, Samsung, and Dell. HP scooped up 36.4% of Chromebook sales, with the education market accounting for the majority of Chromebook shipments. 

The Facebook Oversight Board released the promised decision about Donald Trump’s ban from the platform today. According to arstechnica.com, they have recommended to Facebook that the ban stay in place. The Board did say that Facebook should review the ban again within the next 6 months. In the meantime, Trump has launched a blog (no comments) and is posting things that his followers can re-post on Facebook and Twitter. He still claims he will launch his own social media platform in the future.

It’s no secret that Facebook has highly targeted ads…we’ve all noticed it. You look at something somewhere online, and presto! Facebook or Instagram serves up an ad to you about the fool item. Engadget.com says Signal has raised Facebook’s ire by running ads of their own on Instagram which exposes the intimate categories that facebook uses to classify users and serve up such micro-targeted ads. An example: “You got this ad because you’re a certified public accountant in an open relationship. This ad used your location to see you’re in South Atlanta. You’re into natural skin care and you’ve supported Cardi B since day one.” Facebook temporarily shut down Signal’s ad account…allegedly to an unrelated payments issue…but called the ads a ‘stunt.’ Facebook is also battling Apple, which in the latest version of iOS, forces iPhone app makers to explicitly ask users for permission to collect their data to use in ads. 

Under pressure, Peloton has recalled the treadmills that caused the death of a child and injuries to others. Now, TechCrunch.com reports that the company has another PR problem. Apparently, their ‘leaky’ API lets anyone grab a rider’s private data! The data leak works EVEN if your profile is set to private and friends list is set to zero. Many well-heeled and/or famous people ride their bikes, right up to President Biden (who’s is off line by Secret Service decree.) A researcher-Jan Masters, a security researcher at Pen Test Partners- told Peloton about the issue in January, and gave them 90 days to fix it…but they didn’t, so he has outed the problem.