Activity

On February 25, 2026, eBay settled a lawsuit filed by David and Ina Steiner, who operated EcommerceBytes newsletter. In 2019, eBay executives allegedly directed employees to harass the couple after critical coverage, telling staff 'I want to see ashes. As long as it takes. Whatever it takes.' Employees sent live cockroaches, fly larvae, a bloody Halloween pig mask, and a funeral wreath to the couple's home. Several workers traveled from California to Massachusetts to surveil them and attempt to install a GPS tracker on their car. Former CEO Devin Wenig was named as a defendant. Seven employees pleaded guilty to conspiracy and cyberstalking charges.

On February 23-24, 2026, xAI reached agreement with the Pentagon to deploy Grok on classified military systems at Impact Level 5 (IL5) - the highest military AI security classification. Unlike Anthropic, xAI accepted the Pentagon's 'all lawful use' standard without restrictions on autonomous weapons or mass surveillance. The deal positions Grok to replace Claude across up to 3 million DoD personnel, with potential applications in intelligence analysis, weapons development, and battlefield operations.

On February 22-28, 2026, OpenAI negotiated and signed an agreement with the Pentagon for classified network deployment. Altman claims the deal includes safeguards aligned with Anthropic's red lines, though the language differs meaningfully: OpenAI requires "human responsibility for use of force" while Anthropic requires "human in the loop" for autonomous weapons. OpenAI also secured cloud-only deployment (not edge systems like drones) and the right for models to refuse tasks. Critics note "human responsibility" (accountability) is a weaker standard than "human in the loop" (authorization required). CNN reported it remains unclear what actually differs between OpenAI's accepted terms and Anthropic's rejected ones.

On February 20, 2026, the National Parent Teacher Association ended its partnership with Meta amid ongoing child-safety trials. The decision came two days after Zuckerberg testified in a landmark social media addiction trial where he was grilled about internal documents showing millions of underage users.

At the India AI Impact Summit on February 19, 2026, Sam Altman called for urgent AI regulation, suggesting the world may need 'something like the IAEA for international coordination of AI.' He praised India as 'leading the world in AI adoption' and acknowledged that 'AI washing' is real but tech-related job displacement is coming. Altman also announced a partnership with Tata to drive AI innovation.

On February 19, 2026, a federal grand jury indicted three Iranian national engineers for stealing trade secrets from Google and transferring sensitive processor security and cryptography data to Iran. The engineers allegedly copied hundreds of files to personal devices and a third-party platform. One took photos of another company's Snapdragon SoC secrets the night before traveling to Iran. Google detected the theft through routine security monitoring and referred the case to law enforcement.

On February 19, 2026, West Virginia AG JB McCuskey filed a consumer protection lawsuit alleging Apple allowed child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) to be stored and distributed on iCloud services. The lawsuit claims Apple 'prioritized user privacy over child safety for years' - Apple filed only 267 CSAM reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2023, compared to Google's 1.47 million reports. The state seeks statutory and punitive damages plus injunctive relief requiring Apple to implement effective CSAM detection.

At the India AI Impact Summit in February 2026, Sundar Pichai announced Google would invest $15 billion in AI infrastructure in India, including a full-stack AI hub in Visakhapatnam. Pichai called AI 'the biggest platform shift of our lifetimes' and met with PM Modi at the summit.

On February 18, 2026, Mark Zuckerberg testified in Los Angeles in a landmark trial over social media's effects on children - his first testimony on child safety in front of a jury. He was grilled about internal documents showing 4M+ users under 13 in 2015 and goals to increase user engagement to 40-46 minutes daily. Zuckerberg said he reached out to Tim Cook to discuss 'wellbeing of teens and kids.' The trial could set precedent for 1,500+ similar lawsuits.

Microsoft announced it matched 100% of its annual global electricity consumption with renewable energy purchases. Since its 2020 carbon-negative announcement, the company has contracted 40 GW of new renewable energy across 26 countries through 95+ utilities and 400+ contracts. 19 GW is already online with remainder coming over the next 5 years. Estimated to reduce Scope 2 emissions by 25 million tons of CO2.

A bug (CW1226324) allowed Microsoft Copilot Chat to read and summarize customers' confidential emails without permission for approximately four weeks (January 21 to mid-February 2026). Emails marked with confidentiality labels and protected by DLP policies were incorrectly processed across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Affected organizations included the UK's National Health Service. Microsoft did not disclose the number of affected customers or what data was accessed. This was the second trust boundary violation in eight months, following CVE-2025-32711 'EchoLeak' in June 2025 (CVSS 9.3).

At a Las Vegas company event in February 2026, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff made at least two remarks joking about ICE officers 'in the building' after asking international employees to stand. Internal Slack channels 'lit up with angry reactions.' 1,400 employees subsequently signed a letter expressing concerns about Agentforce AI being used by ICE to automate processes like handling tipline reports. At least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 and at least 9 in 2026, including high-profile shootings.

On February 12, 2026, Anthropic announced it had raised $30 billion in Series G funding, valuing the company at $380 billion. The massive fundraising round reflects continued investor confidence in Anthropic's safety-focused AI development approach.

In February 2026, Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 identified hacking group TGR-STA-1030 as connected to Beijing in a draft report, but the final published version described them only as 'a state-aligned group that operates out of Asia.' Two sources told Reuters the company feared retaliation from Beijing after Chinese authorities banned ~15 US/Israeli cybersecurity firms in January 2026. The campaign had breached government and critical infrastructure in 37 countries. SentinelOne independently confirmed the China link. VP Nicole Hockin called suggestions 'speculative and false.' Palo Alto has 5 offices and 70+ employees in China.

In February 2026, Kickstarter terminated four union members just three months after ratifying a contract with Kickstarter United (OPEIU Local 153) that included a 4-day workweek and strong AI protections. The company created a new team to take over terminated employee Jason Featherington's work, then outsourced it to non-union contractors using AI tools. Union filed Unfair Labor Practice charges with NLRB and grievances over contractor/AI use undermining bargaining unit work. Shop steward Zak Thompson called the retaliation 'unconscionable.'

On February 11, 2026, California AG Rob Bonta announced the largest CCPA settlement to date with Disney. The company's opt-out webform only stopped sharing through Disney's own ad platform while continuing to sell data to third-party ad-tech companies. Disney failed to provide in-app opt-out in streaming apps, ignored device-specific Global Privacy Control signals for logged-in users, and required bundle subscribers to opt out up to 10 separate times to fully stop data sharing.

Between February 9-13, 2026, at least nine engineers departed xAI, including six of the original twelve co-founders. Notable departures included Tony Wu and Jimmy Ba (both Feb 10). Musk addressed the wave of exits, stating xAI was 'reorganized a few days ago to improve speed of execution.' The departures came amid controversy over Grok producing inappropriate content and shortly after the SpaceX-xAI merger.

On February 10, 2026, PayPal disclosed a data breach affecting approximately 100 PayPal Working Capital loan applicants due to a software coding error. Personal data including Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and business contact information was exposed from July 1 to December 13, 2025. Some customers experienced unauthorized transactions and received refunds. PayPal offered 2 years of free credit monitoring through Equifax.

In February 2026, Anthropic aired anti-OpenAI advertisements during the Super Bowl, criticizing OpenAI's announced plans to add 'Instagram-style' advertising to ChatGPT. The ads resulted in an 11% boost in Anthropic users. Sam Altman called the ads 'deceptive.' The rivalry escalated at the India AI Summit where Altman and Dario Amodei refused to hold hands during a group photo with PM Modi.

In February 2026, after FEC filings revealed Greg Brockman's $25 million combined donations to MAGA Inc., the QuitGPT boycott movement launched on February 5, 2026. The boycott attracted over 300,000 participants and was endorsed by actor Mark Ruffalo. The movement focused on Brockman's political donations and OpenAI's partnerships with ICE/DHS. It became part of a broader 'Resist and Unsubscribe' campaign organized by NYU Professor Scott Galloway targeting 10 tech companies.

In early February 2026, Tim Cook told Apple employees he was 'deeply distraught' with the US approach to immigration and vowed to lobby lawmakers on the issue. The statement came as the Trump administration pursued restrictive immigration policies.

On February 4, 2026, Kakao notified KakaoTalk's 47M+ users it would begin collecting and analyzing usage records and patterns for targeted advertising. After public backlash over privacy invasion, Kakao revised its terms on February 11, deleting some controversial provisions. This followed a September 2025 redesign debacle that was rolled back in 5 days after user revolt, and criticism of a location-sharing feature that allegedly enabled stalking.

SpaceX submitted an application to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission seeking approval to deploy as many as one million low-Earth-orbit satellites dedicated to artificial intelligence computing. The plan envisions orbital data centers powered by solar energy. Critics warn of escalating space debris, astronomical interference, and unresolved environmental costs. Astronomers raised alarms about the potential for further light pollution and space debris from a million-satellite constellation.

SpaceX announced a new Space Situational Awareness (SSA) system called Stargaze, offering it free to all satellite operators via its space-traffic management platform. The system can quickly detect satellite maneuvers and publish updated trajectories, generating new collision data messages distributed to relevant satellites. In late 2025, Stargaze detected a third-party satellite maneuver with just five hours notice that collapsed anticipated miss distance to ~60 meters, allowing a Starlink satellite to react within an hour and plan an avoidance maneuver.

The European Commission fined X (Twitter) EUR 120 million for violations of the Digital Services Act, with the decision published January 30, 2026. Violations included: deceptive blue checkmark design where verification review averaged only 53-79 seconds per account, deliberately obstructed ad transparency repository with artificial 3-minute delays (only 58% of French ads appeared), and blocked researcher data access (95.8% of applications rejected as of May 2024). The fine was levied against X Internet Unlimited Company, X Holdings Corp, X.AI Holdings Corp, and Elon Musk personally.

In January 2026, Snap Inc. settled a bellwether case just days before trial, in which a 19-year-old woman and her mother alleged she developed mental health problems after becoming addicted to Snapchat. The suit accused Snapchat of engineering features like infinite scroll, Snapstreaks, and recommendation algorithms that made the app nearly impossible for kids to stop using, leading to depression, eating disorders, and self-harm. The settlement terms were confidential. The broader MDL included over 2,243 plaintiffs as of January 2026.

Microsoft issued out-of-band security patches for a high-severity Microsoft Office zero-day vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-21509, with a CVSS score of 7.8 out of 10.0. The vulnerability allows attackers to bypass document security checks and is being actively exploited in the wild via malicious files. The emergency patch was released outside Microsoft's normal Patch Tuesday schedule due to active exploitation.

Cisco released a patch for a critical vulnerability affecting its Unified Communications and WebEx products that allowed remote code execution. The vulnerability was actively exploited in the wild before the patch was released, representing a significant security risk to enterprise communications infrastructure.

The FTC announced a proposed order to settle allegations that cryptocurrency company Nomad (Illusory Systems Inc.) failed to implement adequate security measures leading to a breach in which hackers stole $186 million from customers. The FTC alleged that Nomad prominently touted its security in advertising, claiming 'security-first' services, but failed to live up to these promises by failing to use secure coding practices, implement processes for receiving and addressing vulnerability reports, respond to security incidents, or utilize widely known technologies that might have helped mitigate consumer losses.

Researchers demonstrated that Google's Gemini AI model could be tricked using prompt-injection attacks to leak private details about a user's calendar. The vulnerability allows malicious actors to extract sensitive personal information through carefully crafted prompts, highlighting security risks in AI systems with access to private user data.