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In 2017, Facebook's React JavaScript library used a BSD+Patents license that included a patent retaliation clause, meaning users who sued Facebook for any patent infringement would lose their license to use React. The Apache Software Foundation banned the license, calling it incompatible with Apache projects. After widespread community backlash and organizations threatening to migrate away, Facebook relicensed React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js to the standard MIT license in September 2017.

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton departed Facebook in September 2017, forfeiting $850 million in unvested stock by leaving before his four-year vesting period. Disagreed with Mark Zuckerberg over monetization plans including ads and data sharing. Later revealed he was 'coached' to mislead EU regulators about data merging capabilities during acquisition approval. Stated 'I sold my users' privacy to a larger benefit. I live with that every day.' Tweeted #deletefacebook during Cambridge Analytica scandal in March 2018. Invested $50M in privacy-focused Signal app.

Lee Jae-yong was convicted of bribing associates of President Park Geun-hye approximately $38 million (43.3 billion won) to secure government support for a 2015 merger that consolidated his control of Samsung. Bribes included funding for equestrian training and horses worth $3.2 million. He served 18 months in prison before being released on parole.

Between 2012-2018, Facebook's recommendation algorithms systematically amplified hate speech and disinformation against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority. UN investigators concluded this played a 'determining role' in inciting genocide. The Myanmar military used Facebook as a tool for ethnic cleansing propaganda over multiple years. Over 10,000 Rohingya were killed in 2017 and more than 740,000 forced to flee. Facebook knew its algorithms amplified harmful content from internal studies dating to 2012, but failed to adequately invest in content moderation. Zuckerberg was presented with options to remove algorithmic amplification in April 2020 but chose not to. Facebook apologized in April 2018 but civil rights groups dismissed it as 'grossly insufficient.' Rohingya refugees filed a $150 billion lawsuit in 2021; a survivor filed SEC whistleblower complaint in January 2025.

In August 2017, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince personally decided to terminate services for neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer following the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. Prince acknowledged the decision was arbitrary, writing internally 'I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the internet.' This was the first time Cloudflare had ever terminated a customer for content.

In August 2017, after the deadly Charlottesville violence, Twilio updated its terms of service to explicitly prohibit use of its products for hate speech or in any way that 'degrades, intimidates, incites violence against, or encourages prejudicial action against anyone based on protected categories.' CEO Jeff Lawson called it an 'easy decision.'

Cloudflare has been a consistent advocate for net neutrality. Co-founder Michelle Zatlyn served on the FCC's Open Internet Advisory Committee, contributing to the 2015 net neutrality vote. In 2017, Cloudflare partnered with Fight for the Future for Net Neutrality Day, reaching 178 million page views urging users to contact Congress. Cloudflare filed FCC comments in 2024 supporting net neutrality principles.

On July 7, 2017, as W3C Director, Berners-Lee approved the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) standard enabling DRM in web browsers despite unprecedented opposition from the EFF, Free Software Foundation, security researchers, and a UN official. Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and the MPAA supported the standard. The EFF resigned from W3C in September 2017 - the first member resignation in protest - calling it a betrayal of open web principles that creates 'legally unauditable attack-surface' in browsers.

In 2015, DeepMind signed a deal with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust gaining access to identifiable medical records of 1.6 million patients — including HIV status, drug overdoses, and abortions — without patient consent. The data was used to develop Streams, a kidney disease detection app. In 2017, the UK Information Commissioner's Office ruled the data-sharing agreement failed to comply with data protection law. New Scientist revealed the full scope of identifiable data accessed. A class-action lawsuit on behalf of 1.6 million affected patients was filed in 2021 but dismissed in 2023 on procedural grounds.

In 2017, users discovered NZXT's CAM monitoring software was consuming massive bandwidth (9-22 GB per month, with constant 0.1-0.5 Mbps usage). CAM collects hardware configuration, IP addresses, computer names, fan speeds, temperatures, installed games/applications, and game performance data. The software requires mandatory online account login to control NZXT hardware. NZXT founder Johnny Hou acknowledged the concerns on Reddit.

In June 2017, five major Uber investors demanded Kalanick's resignation following cascading scandals: the Susan Fowler harassment revelations, the Greyball regulatory evasion tool, the Waymo trade secret theft lawsuit, a leaked video of Kalanick arguing with an Uber driver, and the Eric Holder investigation findings. Kalanick resigned as CEO on June 20, 2017.

The Intercept shared unredacted NSA documents with the government for verification, inadvertently revealing machine-readable printer codes and metadata that led to Reality Winner's arrest on June 3, 2017. Winner received the longest prison sentence ever (63 months) for an unauthorized release to media. First Look Media pledged legal support but Winner alleges they stopped payments after her August 2018 sentencing, leaving '30% of agreed cost' unpaid, with lawyers continuing pro bono after First Look 'fell behind.'

Palantir's software was used by ICE to identify and arrest 443 relatives of unaccompanied migrant children who had come forward as potential sponsors. The software enabled family targeting that critics called a betrayal of families who trusted the government's sponsor program.

Throughout 2017, Persson tweeted 'It's okay to be white' (a far-right slogan associated with 4chan), called feminism a 'social disease', said those opposing a heterosexual pride day 'deserve to be shot' (later deleted), called developer Zoë Quinn a slur, and endorsed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. He later rescinded the heterosexual pride day comments.

After leaving Baidu, Ng founded DeepLearning.AI to provide accessible deep learning courses and resources. The platform offers specialized technical training including the Deep Learning Specialization and AI for Everyone course, reaching an estimated 8 million learners globally and helping bridge the AI skills gap.

After leaving Meta in 2017, Palmer Luckey founded Anduril Industries in 2017, a defense technology company building autonomous drones, AI-powered surveillance towers (Lattice), and counter-drone systems for the US military and border patrol. Anduril has won billions in defense contracts including a $1B+ USSOCOM contract and was valued at $14B+ by 2024.

In 2017, Brave launched the Basic Attention Token (BAT), an opt-in advertising system where users choose to view privacy-preserving ads and earn up to 70% of ad revenue as BAT tokens. Ad matching happens locally on the device so neither Brave nor advertisers learn user browsing habits. The browser is free and open-source (Chromium-based), aiming to realign incentives between users, publishers, and advertisers without requiring data collection.

As early as May 2017, McKinsey partners discussed keeping documents from being discovered in Purdue lawsuits, including using neutral templates without Purdue logos and showing only hard copies that could be deleted. A senior partner described the benefit: documents would live only on laptops and then could be deleted. A former senior partner was charged with felony obstruction of justice for deleting opioid-related documents. McKinsey terminated two senior partners over the conduct.

LinkedIn filed suit against hiQ Labs for scraping publicly available LinkedIn profile data. The landmark case reached the Supreme Court in 2021, which remanded it. The Ninth Circuit ruled scraping public data doesn't violate the CFAA. Ultimately LinkedIn won a $500,000 judgment in December 2022 on breach of contract and CFAA claims related to hiQ's use of fake accounts. The case established key precedents about platform control over publicly accessible data versus open internet principles.

In 2017, Google became the first major company to match 100% of its global electricity consumption with renewable energy purchases. Google has been carbon neutral for operations since 2007 and in 2020 announced its goal to run on 24/7 carbon-free energy at all data centers and campuses by 2030. By 2023, Google's global average was 64% carbon-free energy on an hourly basis. Google also committed to achieving net-zero emissions across all operations and value chain by 2030, though data center energy usage has surged due to AI workloads.

Berners-Lee was a leading voice against the FCC's 2017 net neutrality repeal. He testified before the US House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, signed open letters to Congress with Vint Cerf and Steve Wozniak, and met with FCC leadership. He argued net neutrality enabled him to invent the web without permission and that its repeal would force innovators to ask ISPs for permission.

In September 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs filed a lawsuit alleging Palantir discriminated against Asian job applicants. The lawsuit found the company 'routinely eliminated' Asian applicants during the hiring process even when they were as qualified as white applicants. Palantir settled in April 2017 for $1.7 million without admitting wrongdoing.

Palmer Luckey was terminated from Facebook/Meta in March 2017 with no official explanation. Internal emails obtained by WSJ showed executives including Zuckerberg pressured Luckey to publicly claim he supported Gary Johnson rather than Trump. Luckey hired an employment lawyer and negotiated a $100M+ payout citing California employment law violations. In 2024, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth publicly apologized for his ousting.

In March 2017, LGBTQ+ creators discovered YouTube's Restricted Mode was systematically hiding their content—including wedding videos, coming-out stories, and queer-themed pop culture commentary—while allowing Mortal Kombat fatality compilations and marijuana growing tutorials. YouTube acknowledged the system 'sometimes make[s] mistakes' and claimed to fix it in April 2017 by unfiltering 12 million videos, but creators reported the problems persisted. By 2019, LGBTQ+ creators filed a class-action lawsuit alleging discriminatory censorship, with plaintiffs reporting 75% revenue drops.

In March 2017, the Times of London revealed that ads from major brands and the UK government were running alongside extremist and terrorist content on YouTube. Over 250 brands including AT&T, Walmart, PepsiCo, and Starbucks pulled their ads. YouTube's response—implementing broad demonetization categories and raising monetization thresholds—disproportionately harmed legitimate creators covering sensitive topics including news, women's issues, and LGBTQ+ content, while the underlying brand safety problem persisted. Creators reported 30-85% revenue drops.

Uber developed and deployed software tool 'Greyball' from 2014-2017 to identify and deceive law enforcement officers attempting to enforce laws against the service. The tool displayed fake cars that would never arrive when police tried to hail rides. Used in Portland, Las Vegas, Boston, and internationally in China, South Korea, France, Italy, Australia, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Denmark with knowledge of senior management including CEO Travis Kalanick and Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty. US Department of Justice launched criminal investigation in May 2017.

Under Kalanick's leadership, Uber developed and deployed 'Greyball,' a secret software tool that identified and evaded government regulators and law enforcement officials attempting to enforce transportation laws. The tool was used from at least 2014 to 2017 across multiple cities and countries. The DOJ investigated the program.

The Pegasus Project investigation revealed that at least 25 Mexican journalists were selected for targeting with Pegasus spyware over a two-year period. Among them was journalist Cecilio Pineda, whose phone was selected for targeting just weeks before he was killed in March 2017. Mexico was one of the earliest and most prolific users of Pegasus, with documented targeting of journalists, activists, and political opponents by Mexican authorities.

Since 2016, IBM has provided free public access to quantum computers via the cloud through IBM Quantum Experience, and developed Qiskit, an open-source Python framework for quantum computing that became the world's most widely used quantum software stack. IBM open-sourced Qiskit on GitHub, enabling researchers, students, and developers globally to experiment with quantum computing without financial barriers.

On February 19, 2017, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published a blog post detailing systemic sexual harassment and HR failures at Uber. She described how her manager propositioned her on her first day and HR dismissed complaints. The revelations triggered an internal investigation by former AG Eric Holder, led to CEO Travis Kalanick's resignation in June 2017, and prompted Microsoft, Google, and Facebook to end forced arbitration for sexual harassment claims.