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Google’s plan to limit data tracking on its Chrome browser has been extended to cover apps on its Android-based smartphones.

Its so-called Privacy Sandbox project aims to curb the amount of user data that advertisers can gather.

Rival Apple now forces app developers to ask permission from users before tracking them.

The news will be a blow to firms like Meta, which rely on putting their code on apps to track consumer behaviour.

Meta said this month that Apple’s changes would cost it $10bn (£7.3bn) this year. Google’s Android operating system is used by about 85% of smartphone owners worldwide.

No detail
Third-party cookies, which use people’s browsing history to target adverts, will be phased out on Google’s Chrome browser by 2023.

In a blog, Google said it was now extending what it calls its Privacy Sandbox to Android apps, and working on solutions that will limit sharing users’ data and “operate without cross app identifiers, including advertising ID”.

These identifiers are tied to smartphones and are used by apps to collect information. Google said that it will keep them in place for at least two years, while it works “with the industry” on a new system.

“We’re also exploring technologies that reduce the potential for covert data collection, including safer ways for apps to integrate with advertising SDK (software developer kits),” it added.

The tech giant did not detail how it plans to do this.

Apple decided in April last year that app developers had to explicitly ask for permission from users to use IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers). Data from advertising company Flurry Analytics, and published by Apple, suggests that US users are choosing to opt out of tracking 96% of the time.

Google’s blog did not name Apple, but referred instead to “other platforms” which it said “have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers”.

“We believe that – without first providing a privacy-preserving alternative path – such approaches can be ineffective,” it added.

Google, unlike Apple, relies on advertising revenue.

Google’s attempts to create alternatives to third party cookies on its Chrome browser have not gone entirely smoothly.

Its first proposal -a system called Federated Learning of Cohorts (Floc) – was disliked by privacy campaigners and advertisers alike.

Floc aimed to disguise users’ individual identities by assigning them to a group with similar browsing histories.

Real-time bidding
Its successor, Topics, was announced recently and aims instead to group users in topic clusters selected out of about 350 categories such as fitness or travel. When someone visits a website, Topics will show the site and its advertising partners three of their interests from the previous three weeks.

The Competitions Market Authority has been scrutinising Google’s transition to more privacy-focused systems and said of its plans to extend them to Android apps: “We will continue to monitor this closely and engage with Google on the nature and detail of its proposals.”

The average app includes at least six third-party trackers that are there solely to collect and share online data, according to a report commissioned by Apple last year.

And any one data broker is estimated to have data on up to 700 million consumers, according to research firm Cracked Lab.

Regulators, such as the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, are investigating the advertising ecosystem, especially the way ads are sold – known as real-time bidding – which automatically places billions of online adverts on web pages and apps every day.

Apple plans to introduce a number of changes to make it harder to misuse AirTags to track someone.

The button-sized devices are designed to work with Apple’s ‘Find My’ network to locate lost items.

The company said its changes to the device will make suspicious tags easier to find, and alert users earlier that an AirTag may be travelling with them.

In January, a number of women told the BBC they had been followed using AirTags.

Apple launched AirTags in April last year. The small, circular devices can be attached to luggage or keys – anything you could lose.

But the devices can be misused to track people by being hidden in a car, or on a personal item such as a bag.

As part of the changes to make misuse harder, Apple said every user setting up their AirTag for the first time will see a message warning that using the device to track people without consent is a crime in many regions around the world.

Currently, iPhone users (and Android users who download an app) receive “unwanted tracking” alerts if an unknown AirTag moves with them.

Apple announced that people will be alerted earlier that an unknown AirTag is travelling with them.

And when people are warned of “unwanted tracking” by an AirTag, users of iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and iPhone 13 devices will be able to use “precision finding”, to see the distance and direction to an unknown AirTag when it is in range. Previously only the owner of the AirTag could do this.

More noise
Currently iOS users can send an unwanted tracking alert to make the suspect AirTag play tones and Apple has said tags will use louder tones in the future to make the tag easier to locate.

The company said it will also add to a feature that makes an AirTag that hasn’t been with the person who registered it for an extended period of time, play a sound when moved.

In theory this could reveal the presence of an AirTag to a stalking victim, but recent reports revealed that AirTags with the internal speakers deactivated had been listed for sale online.

To counter this, when the sound is triggered and the AirTag is detected moving with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, an alert will also appear on that device.

Apple also said it will also update its support article on unwanted tracking with additional information and resources.

Apple AirTags are incredibly good at finding things. They can track your items down to 0.1 feet.

But that accuracy means that, in the wrong hands, they can be used as sophisticated tracking tools.

This isn’t theoretical, as the BBC reported last month, there’s evidence that people are using AirTags to follow people.

The AirTags themselves are relatively new, and it’s clear that Apple hasn’t yet worked out how best to protect people.

For example, it took six months after AirTag’s launch for the company to bring out an app that would alert Android users to an unwanted AirTag.

The new updates that Apple plans to come out later this year – precision finding and AirTags that emit louder noises – are what campaigners have been calling for.

But with these iterative updates, there will be questions over whether Apple launched the product too early.

2px presentational grey line
Apple said it designed “products to provide a great experience, but also with safety and privacy in mind”, adding that it was “committed to listening to feedback and innovating to make improvements that continue to guard against unwanted tracking”.

It also noted that “based on our knowledge and on discussions with law enforcement, incidents of AirTag misuse are rare; however, each instance is one too many”.

Amber Norsworthy lives in Mississippi with her four children.

It had just turned 3pm when she got home on 27 December. She received a notification on her phone.

“My phone made a ding that I’d never heard before”, she says.

The notification told her that an unknown device had been following her movements.

Ms Norsworthy, who’s 32, went on to the ‘Find My’ app on her iPhone.

“It showed me my whole route. It said ‘the last time the owner saw your location was 15:02’ and I was like, ‘that’s now, I’m at home’.”

She rang the police, who told her they didn’t know what to do. She has yet to find the device, which she believes is somewhere in her car. She says Apple Support was able to confirm it was an AirTag. “I watch my surroundings very closely now,” she says.

The BBC has spoken to six women in the US who say they have been tracked using Apple AirTags.

The button-sized devices are designed to work with Apple’s ‘Find My’ network to locate lost items. But there have been multiple reports in the US of the devices being used to track people.

Apple told the BBC: “We take customer safety very seriously and are committed to AirTag’s privacy and security.”

The company also says AirTags have better security features than rival products. However, there is growing evidence that they are being used for criminal activity across the US.

Apple launched AirTags last April. They’re small, smooth and circular – and took inspiration from other tracking products on the market, like Tile.

The idea is that they can be attached to luggage or keys – anything you could lose. You can track an item to within 0.1ft. But in the wrong hands, they can be used for a different purpose.

“If you create an item which is useful for tracking stolen items, then you have also created a perfect tool for stalking,” says Eva Galperin, Director of Cyber-Security at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“I have personally talked to several people who have found AirTags in their possession,” she says.

Apple was aware, long before it released AirTags, that they could be used for criminal activity. On releasing them, Apple said that “AirTags are designed to track items not people”.

They created a series of safeguards that, they said, would protect people from being tracked.

People with an iPhone would be alerted if an unregistered AirTag was moving with them. And the AirTags would make a beeping noise when separated from an owner for a period of time.

In December, the company also released an app which Android users can download. Tracker Detect allows users who aren’t on the iOS operating system to be notified of a rogue AirTag.

But for several reasons, many people believe these safeguards don’t go far enough.

Anna Mahaney is from Georgia. She was alerted to an unknown device after she’d gone to the shopping mall.

“I was pretty freaked out and I went to try to disable it. Every time I did that, it said it couldn’t connect to the server.” She went to an Apple Store, where they suggested she should turn off her location settings.

When she went to the local police, they told her there had been another similar report in her area. She believes the device is somewhere on her car.

The BBC has spoken to six women who all say they have been tracked with AirTags. One said she had found an AirTag taped to the inside of a bag. Others haven’t been able to locate the tags.

All of them have questions about whether Apple is doing enough to stop their products from tracking people.

Apple says AirTags will make a beeping sound between 8-24 hours after a device is detected moving with an unregistered phone. But it’s easy to register an AirTag, and then disable it.

Anna Mahaney says Apple Support told her this could be why she hasn’t been able to find the AirTag: “It looks like what could have happened in my case was that the person that owns the AirTag tracked me until I got home, and then they turned off the AirTag.”

This isn’t the only potential loophole in Apple’s AirTag safeguards. Apple’s app, designed for Android users to find an unwanted AirTag, has been downloaded by a tiny percentage of Android phones

The BBC asked Apple for figures on how many times the app has been downloaded on Google Play, Android’s default app store. Apple didn’t say, but Google Play puts the figure at around 100,000 downloads. To put that into context, there are around 3 billion active Android devices around the world.

Apple says that if you don’t have an iPhone, people will be notified with another safeguard – a beeping sound that plays after an unwanted AirTag is detected. But there are problems with this too.

“AirTags emit a 60 decibel beep. and it’s really easy to muffle.” says Eva Galperin. “I could muffle it just by closing it in my fist. I could muffle it by putting it between two couch cushions. It’s impossible to hear by putting it, say, under your car bumper.”

And the noise will only begin to play after eight hours. Critics argue that by then it is too late.

In Bloomingdale Illinois, one police force has warned local residents about AirTags: “We thought it was important to notify the people in our community that this is somewhat of an issue.” says Frank Giammarese, director of public safety at Bloomingdale Police.

“Technology is great but unfortunately… some people have misused that.”

There is an argument that Apple is being unfairly targeted. It’s easy to buy tracking devices on the internet.

The BBC asked its major competitor, Tile, what it was doing to protect the public from being tracked with its devices. Tile replied that it was “developing a solution” which would identify an unknown device near people. But that solution hasn’t been released yet.

The counter-argument is that AirTags are just very good at being located by a registered iPhone. The ‘Find My’ network uses almost a billion Apple devices around the world – and their Bluetooth connectivity – to create accurate and long-range tracking.

“I want Apple to require these devices to ask permission before you can be followed,” says Anna Mahaney. “With ‘Find My Friends’, if my husband wants validation, I have to okay that and give it to him. I cannot rationalise why a stranger can follow me and I don’t have to give consent.”

Amber Norsworthy believes AirTags should not be sold until Apple can work out how to better alert people: “They should stop selling them for a period of time until they can work out some safety boundaries.”

Eva Galperin believes Apple needs to create better safeguards: “I want them to work with Google in order to give Androids the same level of detection automatically in the background, as they already have for iPhones.”

The BBC put these criticisms to Apple, who said: “We take customer safety very seriously and are committed to AirTag’s privacy and security…If users ever feel their safety is at risk, they are encouraged to contact local law enforcement, who can work with Apple to provide any available information about the unknown AirTag.”

Shares in Japanese technology giant Sony have slumped in Tokyo trade after Microsoft said it plans to buy mega games company Activision Blizzard.

The deal worth $68.7bn (£50.5bn), would be Microsoft’s biggest ever buyout and the largest deal in gaming history.

It would see the US firm owning popular gaming franchises including Call of Duty, Warcraft and Overwatch.

The deal would be a major step for Microsoft’s Xbox gaming brand in its battle against Sony’s PlayStation.

It also comes a year after Microsoft bought another influential gaming company, Bethesda for $7.5bn.

Buying the troubled but successful Activision would turn Microsoft into the world’s third-biggest gaming company by revenue, behind China’s Tencent and Sony, marking a major shift for the industry.

Microsoft said the Activision-Blizzard deal would help it grow its gaming business across mobile, PC and consoles as well as providing the building blocks for the metaverse.

The purchase of the Call of Duty maker comes as Microsoft is also aggressively expanding its Game Pass subscription service.

“We’re investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and makes gaming safe, inclusive and accessible to all,” Microsoft’s chief executive Satya Nadella said in a statement.

Microsoft plans to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7bn
In the battle for popularity with gamers, Sony’s PlayStation 5 is widely seen as having the lead over Microsoft’s fourth generation Xbox models.

In recent years, Sony has strengthened its network of in-house games studios and delivered a string of exclusive hits including in its Spider-man franchise, which has left its US rival playing catch-up.

The Japanese firm is also a pioneer in virtual reality and this month teased some details its next generation headset.

However, it faces tough competition in that area from non-traditional rivals such as Facebook owner Meta Platforms, which is investing heavily in its metaverse offering.

Sony Group’s shares closed 12.8% lower in Tokyo on Wednesday, which helped to pull down the benchmark Nikkei 225 index by 2.8%.

The 10 biggest US airlines have warned that the impending switch-on of 5G mobile phone services will cause “major disruption” to flights.

They said the start of Verizon and AT&T 5G mobile phone services, planned for Wednesday, would cause a “completely avoidable economic calamity”.

Airlines fear C-band 5G signals will disrupt planes’ navigation systems, particularly those used in bad weather.

The warning was issued in a letter sent to US aviation authorities.

The chief executives of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines were joined by others in saying: “Immediate intervention is needed to avoid significant operational disruption to air passengers, shippers, supply chain and delivery of needed medical supplies”, including vaccine distribution.

The BBC has seen the letter outlining their urgent concerns. It was sent to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, as well as the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the chair of the Federal Communications Commission and the director of the National Economic Council.

The BBC understands that negotiations are continuing at the highest levels of the US government about what has been described as a “very fluid situation”.

Why your new phone could disrupt flights and ground planes
Top US phone firms agree delay of 5G rollout
Boeing and Airbus warn US over 5G safety concerns
The airlines want 5G signals to be excluded from “the approximate two miles of airport runways at affected airports as defined by the FAA on 19 January 2022”.

“This will allow 5G to be deployed while avoiding harmful impacts on the aviation industry, travelling public, supply chain, vaccine distribution, our workforce and broader economy.

“We further ask that the FAA immediately identify those base stations closest to key airport runways that need to be addressed to ensure safety and avoid disruption,” they added.

These concerns were recently highlighted by the two big planemakers, Airbus and Boeing, in a rare joint warning.

The group of airlines said: “Airplane manufacturers have informed us that there are huge swathes of the operating fleet that may need to be indefinitely grounded.

“In addition to the chaos caused domestically, this lack of usable wide-body aircraft could potentially strand tens of thousands of Americans overseas.”

In an update on Sunday, the FAA, which oversees aviation safety across the US, said it had cleared “an estimated 45% of the US commercial fleet to perform low-visibility landings at many of the airports where 5G C-band will be deployed”.

The FAA added that it had approved “two radio altimeter models that are installed in a wide variety of Boeing and Airbus planes”.

“Even with these new approvals, flights at some airports may still be affected,” the regulator said.

“The FAA also continues to work with manufacturers to understand how radar altimeter data is used in other flight control systems. Passengers should check with their airlines if weather is forecast at a destination where 5G interference is possible.”

Phone companies have spent tens of billions of dollars on upgrading their networks to deploy the 5G technology, which brings much faster internet services and greater connectivity.

There have been several delays already because of the aviation concerns, with launch dates in December and earlier this month both being pushed back.

US wireless industry group CTIA has previously said 5G is safe and accused the aviation industry of fearmongering and distorting facts.

“A delay will cause real harm. Pushing back deployment one year would subtract $50bn in economic growth, just as our nation recovers and rebuilds from the pandemic,” said CTIA chief executive Meredith Attwell Baker in a blog post in November.

Novak Djokovic has arrived in Serbia after being deported from Australia.

The top men’s tennis player was deported after losing a visa battle that centred on the fact he is unvaccinated.

Supporters gathered at the airport in Belgrade, waving the national flag and chanting “we love Novak”.

“This is a shame what they did to Novak in Australia,” one supporter said. “This is a shame what the world has come to.”

“I myself am vaccinated, double-jabbed, but I think no-one should be forced to do something… he was judged and sentenced for his freedom of choice,” he added.

This year’s Australian Open tournament, which has been overshadowed by the player’s visa troubles, began in Melbourne on Monday.

Djokovic had been scheduled to play later in the day, but his dramatic deportation ended his hopes of winning a record 21st Grand Slam title.

Under Australia’s immigration laws, Djokovic, 34, cannot be granted another visa for three years.

But Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said he may be allowed entry sooner under the “right circumstances”.

“[The ban] does go over a three-year period, but there is the opportunity for them to return in the right circumstances and that would be considered at the time,” he said in an interview with the Australian radio station 2GB on Monday.

What has Djokovic said about vaccines?
ANALYSIS: What next for Djokovic?
Australian law does provide for compelling or compassionate reasons for the three-year visa ban to be waived.

This would potentially allow Djokovic to take part in the Australian Open tournament next year.

But questions have also been raised over Djokovic’s participation in the French Open, the next Grand Slam tournament on this year’s calendar.

France’s parliament has just given its final approval to a law requiring people over the age of 16 to have a certificate of vaccination to enter public places, including sports venues.

France’s sports ministry said on Monday it would not grant exemptions to its latest rules on vaccine passes, which it noted apply to professional players as well as spectators.

But a spokesperson also said the situation might change before the event is held in May.

How did the 10-day saga reach a climax?
Djokovic was forced to leave Australia after judges upheld a decision by Immigration Minister Alex Hawke to cancel his visa on public health grounds.

The decision marked the end of a tumultuous period where the Serb fought to stay and defend his title.

He was originally granted a medical exemption to enter Australia by two different independent health panels – one commissioned by Tennis Australia, the other by the state government of Victoria – after testing positive for coronavirus in mid-December.

But the player’s attempt to enter the country without being vaccinated stoked public anger.

The Australian Border Force then detained him on 5 January for not meeting coronavirus requirements and his visa was revoked.

A judge overturned that decision last Monday, but the government stepped in several days later to revoke the visa yet again.

The legal battle reached its conclusion on Sunday when judges upheld the government’s decision, leaving Djokovic with no other option but to leave the country.

New Zealand has sent a plane to Tonga to assess the damage after a huge volcanic eruption triggered a tsunami.

The eruption has covered the Pacific islands in ash, cut power and severed communications.

Up to 80,000 people there could be affected, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) told the BBC.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the tsunami had wreaked “significant damage”.

No deaths have been reported so far.

Information remains scarce, however, and New Zealand and Australia are sending surveillance flights to assess the extent of the damage.

The New Zealand Defence Force tweeted that an aircraft had left to “assist in an initial impact assessment of the area and low-lying islands”.

ANALYSIS: Satellites key to understanding Pacific volcano
Katie Greenwood of the IFRC in Fiji said that help was urgently needed.

“We suspect there could be up to 80,000 people throughout Tonga affected by either the eruption itself or from the tsunami wave and inundation as a result of the eruption,” she said.

“That was a shock to people, so we do hold some concern for those outer islands and we’re very keen to hear from people.”

The underwater volcano erupted on Saturday, sending a plume of ash into the sky and triggering warnings of 1.2m (4ft) waves reaching Tonga. The eruption was so loud it could be heard in New Zealand, some 2,383km (1,481 miles) from Tonga.

New Zealand’s Acting High Commissioner in Tonga Peter Lund has said the island nation looks “like a moonscape” after it was coated in a layer of volcanic ash.

The dust was reportedly contaminating water supplies and making fresh water a vital need, Ms Ardern said on Sunday.

Aid charities said the ash had prompted authorities to tell people to drink bottled water and wear face masks to protect their lungs.

As the sky darkened with ash, videos showed traffic jams as people fled low-lying areas by car. Hours later, Tonga’s internet and phone lines went down, making the island’s 105,000 residents almost entirely unreachable.

Prior to the largest eruption, the volcano had been erupting for several days. The Tonga Meteorological Agency had warned that the smell of sulphur and ammonia was being reported in some areas.

Ms Ardern said power was being restored to some parts of the island and mobile phones were slowly starting to work again. But the situation in some coastal areas remained unknown.

Unable to speak to their friends and family, many Tongans in Australia and New Zealand have grown concerned for their safety.

Fatima said she had not heard anything from her colleague who runs a seafront restaurant in Tonga’s capital Nuku’alofa.

“It’s all very sad, we are hoping for the best,” she told the BBC. “This will hit them so hard as they have been in lockdown a long time with no tourists visiting and now this.”

Satellite images suggest some outlying islands have been completely submerged by seawater.

Experts say the eruption of the Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai volcano is one of the most violent in the region in decades.

It triggered tsunami warnings in several countries, including Japan and the US, where flooding hit some coastal parts of California and Alaska.

UK Foreign Office minister Zac Goldsmith called the situation in Tonga “shocking” and said Britain stood “ready to help and support our Commonwealth friend and partner in any way we can”.

Scientists got their first look at Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai post-eruption on Saturday when the EU’s Sentinel-1A satellite flew overhead.

This spacecraft is a radar platform and can see through obscuring cloud and ash to the surface below.

It showed clearly that much of the crater rim that stood above the ocean waters had been destroyed – a testament to the ferocity of the blast.

Researchers will be keen to understand the cause of a tsunami that produced waves not just on nearby islands but at beaches right around the Pacific.

To what extent was the explosion itself responsible? Pressure waves can make what are termed “meteotsunami”. Or perhaps the displacement of water was the result of an unseen collapse of part of the volcano below the ocean surface.

More data in the coming days and weeks will establish the facts.

Up to 44 million UK Facebook users could share £2.3bn in damages, according to a competition expert intending to sue parent company Meta.

Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen alleges Meta “abused its market dominance” to set an “unfair price” for free use of Facebook – UK users’ personal data.

She intends to bring the case to the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

A Meta representative said users had “meaningful control” of what information they shared.

‘Excessive profits’
Facebook “abused its market dominance to impose unfair terms and conditions on ordinary Britons, giving it the power to exploit their personal data”, Dr Lovdahl Gormsen says.

And this data, harvested between 2015 and 2019, provided a highly detailed picture of their internet use, helping the company make “excessive profits”.

Anyone living in the UK who used Facebook at least once during the period will be part of the claim unless they choose to opt out, she says.

However, in November, the UK’s Supreme Court rejected an optout claim seeking billions of pounds in damages from Google over alleged illegal tracking of millions of iPhones – Google said the issue had been addressed a decade ago.

Free services
The judge in that case said the claimant had failed to prove damage had been caused to each individual by the data collection.

But he did not rule out the possibility of future mass-action cases if damages could be calculated.

And Dr Lovdahl Gormsen told BBC News: “Optout cases are specifically permitted at the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

“As a result, my case is able to claim damages on behalf of the 44 million British Facebook users affected.”

Meta has rejected the allegations.

People use its free services because they find them useful and have control over how their data us used, it says.

‘Deliver value’
A representative told BBC News: “People access our service for free.

“They choose our services because we deliver value for them and they have meaningful control of what information they share on Meta’s platforms and who with.

“We have invested heavily to create tools that allow them to do so.”

However, this latest case adds to the company’s legal battles

The US Federal Trade Commission was recently given the go-ahead to take Meta to court over anti-trust rules.

Meta said it was sure it would prevail in court.

The administrators of the largest illegal marketplace on the darknet for stolen credit cards are retiring after making an estimated $358m (£260m).

The anonymous owners of UniCC thanked the criminal fraternity for their business, citing age and health for the closure.

Many other illegal darknet marketplaces have also shut down voluntarily over the winter for unknown reasons.

Police say the trend leaves them with mixed feelings.

The darknet is a part of the internet only accessible through special browsing software.

‘We are not young’
Cryptocurrency experts at analysts Elliptic traced hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto-payments made to UniCC.

UniCC posted on darknet forums in both Russian and English saying “our team retires”. The anonymous criminals added: “We are not young and our health do not allow to work like this any longer”.

UniCC has been active since 2013 with tens of thousands of new stolen credit cards listed for sale on the market each day.

Hundreds of millions of payment card details have been stolen from online retailers, banks and payment companies before being sold on online marketplaces such as UniCC.

These stolen cards have value because they can be used to purchase high-value items or gift cards, which can then be resold for cash.Elliptic researchers say the website has received cryptocurrency payments since it opened totalling $358m across Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether and Dash.

The closure of UniCC comes just under a year after the retirement of the previous market leader, Joker’s Stash.

It’s also the latest in a growing list of criminal marketplaces to have voluntarily retired in the last six months.

Vaccines and vaccine passports being sold on darknet
Dark web drugs gang dismantled
In October 2021, White House Market – the largest darknet market of its kind – announced that it would shut down. This was followed by Cannazon in November and Torrez over Christmas.

When Torrez closed in December it was one of the largest English-language marketplaces in the world selling drugs, hacking tools, counterfeit cash and criminal services.

A letter posted on its homepage said it had been “a great pleasure to work with most vendors and users”.

Historically when darknet sites close down, the operators disappear with customers’ or vendors’ money – this is known as an exit scam. They may also be hacked, or busted by police and taken offline.

This new trend for marketplaces winding down in an orderly fashion is known as “sunsetting” or “voluntary retirement”.

“Right now it seems to be happening more. Markets gracefully exit and say, ‘We’ve made enough money, and before we get caught, we’re just going to retire and go into the sunset,” says Prof David Décary-Hétu, a criminologist at the University of Montreal.

He says that administrators running large marketplaces like Torrez can make upwards of $100,000 a day in commission fees.

For police, who would prefer criminals to face justice, this kind of exit causes mixed feelings.

“I always celebrate anybody who perhaps realises that they’re in an occupation, which is criminalised and decided not to enhance that further,” says Alex Hudson, the National Crime Agency’s head of darknet intelligence.

“If there is a regret, it’s that we do need to hold them accountable for it and they need to understand that they will still be held accountable.”

The closures are unlikely to spell the end of darknet markets as new ones will no doubt emerge.

New BBC research for Radio 4’s File on Four found that at least 450 darknet vendors operating today have outlived previous police closures over the last decade.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been given the go-ahead to take Facebook to court over anti-trust rules.

The competition and consumer regulator is trying to make Facebook – now called Meta – sell off Instagram and WhatsApp.

A previous version of the same action failed last year because of a lack of detail.

The FTC has since revised the case and a federal judge has said the claim is now “far more robust” and can go ahead.

Meta said it was sure it would prevail in court.

Seeking ‘divestiture’
The FTC’s claim revolves around the idea Facebook had systematically bought up rivals to eliminate competition, effectively giving itself a monopoly.

The key examples were Instagram and WhatsApp, which Facebook acquired in 2012 and 2014.

The FTC was seeking “divestiture” – the selling off of those companies to eliminate the alleged monopoly.

Considering the case in June 2021, Judge James Boasberg said the FTC had not provided a justification for its delay in looking into the matter nor provided enough evidence to support its claims.

“It is almost as if the agency expects the court to simply nod to the conventional wisdom that Facebook is a monopolist,” he wrote at the time.

In the wake of the case being thrown out, Facebook’s stock price surged and the company achieved a trillion-dollar (£0.7tn) market value for the first time.

Giving the revised case the go-ahead, on Tuesday, Judge Boasberg wrote: “In stark contrast with its predecessor, this complaint provides reinforcing, specific allegations that all point toward the same conclusion: Facebook has maintained a dominant market share during the relevant time period.”

However, he added: “The agency may well face a tall task down the road in proving its allegations.”

Meta had asked the court to dismiss the case entirely, saying Lina Khan – a vocal critic of Meta, who chairs the FTC – was biased against the company.

Judge Boasberg, however, said Ms Khan was not an impartial judge and more akin to a prosecutor.

“Although Khan has undoubtedly expressed views about Facebook’s monopoly power, these views do not suggest the type of ‘axe to grind’ based on personal animosity or financial conflict of interest that has disqualified prosecutors in the past,” he wrote.

But the judge did tell the FTC it had to drop some allegations about Facebook’s platform policies, which he said the company had already changed.

Meta said: “Today’s decision narrows the scope of the FTC’s case by rejecting claims about our platform policies.

“It also acknowledges that the agency faces a ‘tall task’ proving its case regarding two acquisitions it cleared years ago.”