Italy's competition authority has opened an investigation into cloud storage services operated by Apple, Dropbox and Google, in response to a number of complaints alleging unfair commercial practices. From a report: In a press release announcing the probe, the AGCM says it's opened six investigations in all. The services of concern are Google's Drive, Apple iCloud and the eponymous Dropbox cloud storage service. As well as allegations of unfair commercial practices, the regulator said it's looking into complaints of violations of Italy's Consumer Rights Directive. A further complaint alleges the presence of vexatious clauses in the contract. All three cloud storage services are being investigated over complaints of unfair practices related to the collection of user data for commercial purposes -- such as a lack of proper information or valid consent for such commercial data collection -- per the press release.

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The vast majority of reports published by the cyber-security industry focus on high-end economic espionage and state-sponsored hacking topics, ignoring threats to civil society and creating a distorted view of the actual cyber threat landscape that later influences policy-makers and academic work. From a report: In an article published in the Journal of Information Technology & Politics, a team of academics made up of some of today's biggest names in cyber-security and internet research fields analyzed 700 cyber-security reports published over the last decade, between 2009 and 2019. "The reports we collected were derived from two types of sources: first, commercial threat intelligence vendors (629 reports), and second, independent research centers (71 reports)," academics said. In addition, the team also examined helpline data from AccessNow, a digital rights advocacy group, in order to understand the true digital threats, as reported by the end-users themselves.

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