Federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into data deals Facebook struck with some of the world’s largest technology companies, intensifying scrutiny of the social media giant’s business practices as it seeks to rebound from a year of scandal and setbacks. A grand jury in New York has subpoenaed records from at least two prominent makers of smartphones and other devices, according to two people who were familiar with the requests and who insisted on anonymity to discuss confidential legal matters. Both companies had entered into partnerships with Facebook, gaining broad access to the personal information of hundreds of millions of its users. The companies were among more than 150, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Sony, that had cut sharing deals with the world’s dominant social media platform. The agreements, previously reported in The New York Times, let the companies see users’ friends, contact information and other data, sometimes without consent. Facebook has phased out most of the partnerships over the past two years. “We are cooperating with investigators and take those probes seriously,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. “We’ve provided public testimony, answered questions and pledged that we will continue to do so.” It is not clear when the grand jury inquiry, overseen by prosecutors with the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, began or exactly what it is focusing on. Facebook was already facing scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. And the Justice Department’s securities fraud unit began investigating it after reports that Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, had improperly obtained the Facebook data of 87 million people and used it to build tools that helped President Trump’s election campaign. Get the full story on OUR FORUM.

Microsoft last year announced that it will stop pushing out cumulative updates to Windows 7 on January 14, 2020, and there will be no support or service updates pushed after the deadline. As the end of support, the deadline is approaching, Microsoft is planning to inform Windows 7 via notifications. Today, Microsoft revealed that customers who are still using Windows 7 will start receiving a notification about the OS end of support soon. The license customers will, however, be able to pay for the updates on Windows 7 but for regular users, they will have to upgrade to the latest version after the said date in order to remain secure. Currently, Windows 7 accounts for around 40 percent of the market share of all Windows PCs which would become obsolete and open to attackers after the January 14, 2020 deadline. Microsoft has also confirmed that the friendly warning pop-ups may show up once in a while but users will have the option to permanently dismiss the notifications. The pop up will provide details of what the users need to do after the deadline. “Beginning next month, if you are a Windows 7 customer, you can expect to see a notification appear on your Windows 7 PC. This is a courtesy reminder that you can expect to see a handful of times in 2019,” Microsoft explains. Follow this on OUR FORUM.