Snap out of it, Facebook! Snapchat clones rile Messenger, WhatsApp users

But with some users revolting against two new lookalike updates, has Facebook drawn too much inspiration from Snapchat? Some ticked-off users think so.

The backlash stems from new features on chat apps Messenger and WhatsApp that mimic Snapchat Stories that are popular with smartphone-toting teens and adults.

WhatsApp this week backtracked after the app's ratings had plunged to one- and two-star reviews as people groused about the new "Status" feature that encouraged them to share images, GIFs and videos along with drawings and emojis that disappeared after 24 hours. What some of WhatsApp's 1.2 billion users wanted back: The simple text update located next to each user's profile. And now they're getting it.

We heard from our users that people missed the ability to set a persistent text-only update in their profile, so we’ve integrated this feature into the ‘About’ section in profile settings," WhatsApp said in a statement.

None too soon for Tania Hinds, a 26-year-old part-time blogger from Brighton, England who works in retail. She says she uses WhatsApp daily to stay in touch with friends and family, especially her twin sister who lives abroad.

"I would prefer they looked into developing useful features ... relevant to communication rather than trying to compete with Snapchat," Hinds said. "It feels like a completely redundant feature and could not be further from the reason I use WhatsApp."

She added: "Who really needs another platform to share disappearing images?"

That's the question Facebook is grappling with as some people express frustration with another new feature: Messenger Day, which encourages them to share video diaries on Facebook Messenger that disappear after 24 hours.

Messenger Day sits at the top of the list of active threads in Facebook Messenger with no option to hide or remove it.

And that has been extremely distracting for Julian Maha, the 40-year-old founder and CEO of KultureCity in Birmingham, Alabama, who uses Messenger to communicate with his start-up team internationally.

Messenger used to be a relatively clean interface. Adding Snapchat-like features to it serves to not only clutter this up, but also create confusion about the purpose of Messenger," he said. "Messenger needs to stick to what it is designed to do best. The Snapchat cloning features have added no benefit at all."

Facebook Messenger declined to comment.

Facebook had good reason to think people would embrace Snapchat-like features. Snapchat Stories, launched in 2014, was the inspiration behind Instagram Stories with which users can create text, photo and videos that vanish after 24 hours. The feature has been such a resounding success that Snap had to warn IPO investors that Instagram could clip its growth. Facebook is testing a version of Stories for its main Facebook app, too

"I don't feel like I need another way to express myself online," said Petrochenko, 37, who is active on Facebook, Instagram Messenger, WhatsApp and Snapchat and used to work for LiveJournal and Russian social network Kroogi. "I already use Snapchat for personal updates. And if I would want to share those with my friends who aren't on Snapchat, I would probably copy my Snaps to Instagram like some people do."

Silicon Valley venture capitalist M.G. Siegler says he gets it. Snap, now publicly traded, is so in tune with young people that it has become an existential threat to Facebook.

But Siegler's verdict on Messenger Day? He hates it. He even wrote a blog post to convey his consternation: "ShatChat: The opposite of an ode to Facebook ‘Messenger Day.’"

That's not the case in Messenger, Siegler argues.

"Here, people have their list of contacts and/or groups that they chat with. The most recent conversations — likely the most important — are at the top of that feed. But if you’re anything like me, you’re often scrolling down a bit because you have many regular conversations. And so this screen real estate is insanely valuable. And Messenger puked up this new ‘Day’ nonsense all over it."

Prompts that pop up when people share images in a Messenger chat window have led to some unintended posts in Messenger Day, Jon Russell wrote in tech news outlet TechCrunch.

"One friend posted confirmation of a bank transfer, sent as confirmation to the receiver via Messenger, to 'Messenger Day.' Because it wasn’t clear how to remove the image, he cringed all day as it sat there for all to see for 24 hours before finally disappearing," Russell wrote.

Will people just learn to love the new features? Or will Facebook's latest bid to poach the attention of young people flop?

That remains to be seen. But Jan Dawson, chief analyst with Jackdaw Research, warns that Facebook has gotten too aggressive in trying to force consumers to adopt new behaviors. The result, he says: New features that undercut the user experience.

"Over the past year Facebook has abandoned its past caution about forcing changes on users and has pushed its new strategic projects too hard," Dawson said.

Thao Tran, 32, says she uses both Messenger Day and Snapchat.

"The features in Messenger Day, like stickers, are pretty awesome," says Tran, director of marketing with software development company Concepta fla
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The World Wide Web's inventor warns it's in peril on 28th anniversary

tim berners lee

Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, now wants to save it

The computer scientist who wrote the blueprint for what would become the World Wide Web 28 years ago today is alarmed at what has happened to it in the past year.

Over the past 12 months, I’ve become increasingly worried about three new trends, which I believe we must tackle in order for the web to fulfill its true potential as a tool which serves all of humanity," he said in a statement issued from London. He cited compromised personal data and fake news, which he says has "spread like wildfire."

"Even in countries where we believe governments have citizens’ best interests at heart, watching everyone, all the time is simply going too far," he said, in an allusion to WikiLeaks' disclosure of what documents claim is a vast CIA surveillance operation. "It creates a chilling effect on free speech and stops the web from being used as a space to explore important topics, like sensitive health issues, sexuality or religion."

When Berners-Lee submitted his original proposal for the Web, he imagined it as an open platform that would allow everyone, everywhere to share information, access opportunities and collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries.

But his faith, and those of privacy advocates and cybersecurity experts, has been badly shaken by a series of high-profile hacks and the dissemination of fake news through the use of data science and armies of bots.

Front and center: The WikiLeaks bombshell. The treasure trove of more than 8,000 pages reads like a John Le Carre spy novel overrun with Edward Snowden-like protagonists. The CIA, with sophisticated hacking tools, has been angling to turn popular consumer devices such as iPhones, Samsung TVs and Android smartphones into surveillance devices, the documents indicate.

Imagine that Big Brother scenario extended to the millions of smart devices such as digital thermostats and fire alarms feeding the Internet of Things ecosystem, and you have a problem that could eviscerate the privacy of billions of people, say security experts.

Berners-Lee is just the latest high-profile technologist to share concerns over what former Cisco Systems executive Monique Morrow calls a fundamental assault on privacy and cybersecurity, with critical infrastructure — banking systems, the grid — hanging in the balance. "How do we use technology responsibly?" she asked at a SXSW talk in Austin Saturday.

Look Ma, no hands! No steering wheel needed under new Calif. car rules

Under newly proposed California self-driving car rules, the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles will let companies test autonomous vehicles that lack that quintessential car component, the steering wheel.

What else can they shed? Brake pedals and (human) drivers, anywhere in the car.

Once the cars have been tested either on a closed track or through computer modeling, self-driving cars will be able to tool around California roads without drivers or even the ability to be driven by a driver.

Prior to this, autonomous vehicles had to have a driver sitting ready to take charge at any second should anything go wrong.

Instead, manufacturers will now have to submit an application, certify there's a communication link to the vehicle, provide a copy of their plans for any interactions with local law enforcement, create a training program for remote operators and get 

safety assessment letter from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administratio

They “kick many of the safety enforcement issues to the federal government, requiring that any robot car deployed must certify that it meets Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards," said John Simpson, privacy project director at Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest group.

There are no federal safety standards that explicitly apply to autonomous vehicles, he said.

Because of this, the safety check list is meaningless. "It only asks that manufacturers voluntarily say, ‘Yeah, we thought about this stuff,'” he said.

Apple, Google, Microsoft in crosshairs of WikiLeaks allegations

The tech industry just can't shake the ghost of Edward Snowden.
Nearly a year after a unified front of companies fought the FBI's attempt to hack the encrypted iPhone of a terrorist, the biggest consumer tech names (Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft) are facing a deep and multi-fronted new series of allegations that federal authorities can override their best efforts at security

Thousands of documents published by WikiLeaks Tuesday describe an arsenal of CIA hacking tools that can turn iPhone and Android smartphones, TVs, computers and other coveted consumer products into "covert microphones."

The data trove threatens to reprise the public distrust of tech companies that hit a peak when ex-federal contractor Snowden revealed NSA spying and collaboration between the government and Internet and phone companies used by millions. Waving the flag of consumer privacy, tech companies have been trying to repair the brand damage since.

On Tuesday CIA issued a statement declining comment on the "purported" documents. USA TODAY has not yet been able to confirm the authenticity of the documents nor seen anything in them thus far to indicate the tools were used in the U.S.

So far, Silicon Valley has responded with resounding silence to the latest WikiLeaks bombshell.

Microsoft, Google, Samsung and WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) said they are looking into the matter. Signal did not respond to an email message for comment on the report.

Late Tuesday, Apple said its initial analysis "indicates that many of the issues leaked today were already patched in the latest iOS (but) we will continue work to rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities

If true, the blockbuster disclosures not only will rock the tech world but could foster widespread paranoia among consumers that their most prized digital devices could be spying devices, casting doubt on their security and the companies that design and build them, say cybersecurity experts.

"Everybody should have been worried before, but this is reason to worry more," says Phil Reitinger, CEO of the Global Cyber Alliance and a former director of the National Cyber Security Center. "There is a soaring risk for attack that this feeds into."

— Developers created programs in homage to popular culture, including RickyBobby, an “implant” to computers running Microsoft Windows referencing the 2006 Will Farrell movie Talladega Nights. Another program, called a trojan, was dubbed Fight Club. Spread via thumb drives, it referenced the 1996 novel and 1999 movie with Brad Pitt.

— Hackers have lists of targeted information like: geolocation data, user identification information, counter-intelligence, pattern of life, return information and general machine information.

— A specialized unit in the CIA's Mobile Development Branch "produces malware to infest, control and exfiltrate data from iPhones and other Apple products running iOS, such as iPads."

— Government hackers were able to infiltrate Android phones and collect “audio and message traffic before encryption is applied,” WikiLeaks said in a statement.

— Some of the hacks can be deployed via games like 2048, a single-player sliding block puzzle game, or Sudoko. Others deploy from communication programs like Skype or virus-prevention programs such as McAfee.

— Encrypted messaging tools for popular phone and messaging services, including WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, were bypassed, according to a New York Times report.

— Some of the WikiLeaks documents describe tests of hacksdesigned to infiltrate network routers, the computers that are responsible for directing traffic on the internet.

For Silicon Valley, the disclosure is the latest example of a government agency posing a serious threat to global trust in their products, , says Richard Henderson, global security strategist at cybersecurity firm Absolute Software.

"This takes the topic to a deeper level," Henderson says.

What Snowden started jolted the market into accepting that “we are more vulnerable than we thought we were,” adds Casey Ellis, CEO of security company Bugcrowd. "The 'Vault 7’ disclosures are simply taking us deeper down the rabbit-hole of how, why, and where."

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Day 3 for Snap: The selloff begins

Day 3 for Snap, Inc. on Wall Street wasn't as rosy as the first two.

The newly issued stock declined 12.26% to close at $23.77, hovering under its opening day price of $24. That erased nearly all of the last two days of gains, when investors — eager for a slice of what they hoped would be the next Facebook — bought into shares after the IPO.

In the run-up to the $3.4 billion sale, the biggest U.S. tech IPO since Alibaba in 2014, the Venice, Calif. social messaging company had told told investors it lost $514 million last year, on sales of $400 million, and that profits could be way down the line. Analysts started picking up on that.

According to CNBC, five of the seven analysts covering Snap recommending selling, to just two that have "hold" recommendations.

"While we believe the firm has displayed a network effect among its users and has begun to compile valuable user data, or intangible assets, we are not yet convinced that it will effectively monetize those users in order to generate excess return on capital for at least 10 years," said Morningstar analyst Ali Mogharabi

Scott Kessler, an analyst with CFRA Research, offered a "sell" recommendation Monday, with $22 as the price target for the stock. "We see strong user engagement, but user growth that has decelerated," he said, in a note to investors.

Of the up and down pricing for Snap over three days of trading, Kessler notes "there will be a lot of volatility for this stock."

Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser went even further, suggesting last week that $10 was the appropriate price for the stock, below the IPO price of $17. He called Snap "significantly overvalued," in a note to investors.

Many firms involved in the underwriting of the IPO, who would normally be available to offer "buy" recommendations, are precluded from talking about Snap in the initial IPO period.

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How YouTube TV compares to rivals Sling, PlayStation, DirecTV

but you're missing out watching  "The Voice" on NBC. Is YouTube TV for you

YouTube's massive audience will likely help it draw subscribers to the $35 monthly service. Viewers on the Google-owned site already watch 1 billion hours daily, YouTube said recently.

That puts it in direct competition with other pay-for-broadband TV services like Sling TV and DirecTV Now.

But the fledgling service's programming holes have been duly noted. Missing on its 40-plus channels: AMC, CNN, TBS and TNT.

We also don't know when YouTube TV will become operational and where. YouTube said it would be available soon in the largest markets with channels from local ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC stations, with expanded availability 

soon after.

Such to-be-ironed out details raise some concerns. "We remain uncertain about the extent to which (YouTube TV's) streaming deals have been reached with various TV Station affiliates" said Vijay Jayant, an analyst with Evercore ISI in a note to investors this week.

There's plenty of room for growth as only about 2 million total have subscribed to current entrants Sling TV, PlayStation Vue and DirecTV Now, he estimates. Streaming site Hulu plans to enter the competition soon, too, with its own live broadband TV service.

Currently, with only 10 of the top 25 primetime networks in its lineup, Jayant foresees YouTube TV as "a niche offering with a number of programming ‘voids’ ... that should lead to limited mass appeal."

Low price, no contract

However, the price is right for YouTube TV. It fits within what has become the $35-$40 monthly range for basic programming packages on competing so-called "broadband pay-TV" offerings, says analyst Joel Espelien of The Diffusion Group in a blog post on the research firm's site. That price window represents a significant cost savings over the typical $80-$100 pay TV bill.

In addition to a lower price, neither YouTube TV nor any of its broadband TV competitors — Sling TV, PlayStation Vue and DirecTV Now — require a contract. They compete by being on the most popular devices — among them Amazon Fire, Apple TV and Roku — and "on lining up (all) the traditional broadcasters followed by as much news and sports as content costs allow," Espelien said.

Here's how YouTube TV and the competition compare on price, content and features:

-- Sling TV ($20-$40, on Android mobile and iOS devices, Amazon Fire, Android TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox One). The Dish Network-run service, which debuted two years ago, has a basic $20 Sling Orange package with more than 30 channels including CNN, ESPN and ESPN 2.

Sling Blue ($25 monthly) drops the ESPN channels, but has 40-plus others such as Fox Sports 1 and FS2, NFL Network, NBCSN and Tru TV. That Turner network, along with TBS and TNT (included on both Sling packages) will carry NCAA men's basketball tournament games beginning March 14. Sling Blue also has local Fox and NBC channels in some markets. For $40 monthly, you can get all 49 of Sling's channels plus ABC in some local markets (available to Orange subscribers $5) and add extra programming including NFL RedZone in the Sports Extra package to get the NFL RedZone channel (an additional $5 monthly). You can also stream up on up to four devices simultaneously (one with Orange and three with Blue).

Pros: 30,000 hours of on demand content, plus NBC's regional sports networks land in selected markets before Major League Baseball's opening day April 3.

Cons: No CBS and no widely available cloud DVR (currently in beta testing).

$29.99-$64.99; Android and iOS devices, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Roku, Chromecast, PlayStation 3 and PS4). Launched soon after Sling TV by Sony, Vue's Access Slim package ($29.99) has 45-plus channels including CNN, Fox Business Network, ESPN, ESPN 2, Fox Sports 1 and FS2, AMC and MSNBC -- and at least one local affiliate (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC) in 153 markets. The Core Slim ($34.99) adds more than 15 channels including Comcast regional sports networks, ESPNews, ESPN U, NBA TV, Golf Network and NFL Network. Subscribers can stream on up to five devices at once including one PS3 and one PS4 -- no more than three devices using the PS Vue Mobile app.

Pros: Has some on-demand and cloud DVR capabilities.

Cons: Recently lost Viacom networks such as BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon.

DirecTV Now ($35-$70; on Android and iOS devices, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Chromecast). DirecTV Now is an off-shoot of the AT&T-owned satellite network. The basic package has more than 60 channels including CNBC, CNN, ESPN and ESPN 2, Fox News, MSNBC, Nickelodeon, TBS and TNT (local ABC, Fox and NBC channels vary by market availability). At the $50 level, you gain ESPNews, ESPNU, NBC Sports and MLB Network, as well as some regional sports networks (at the $50 monthly level). Subscribers can stream on two devices simultaneously.

Pros: Free streaming for AT&T wireless customers and new Unlimited Plus plan includes $25 video credit toward DirecTV Now.

Cons: No CBS or DVR recording capability; Roku compatibility in the works.

YouTube TV ($35; on Android and iOS, Chromecast). More than 40 channels including CNBC, E!, ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPNU, Fox News, Fox Business Network, Fox Sports 1 and FS2, regional sports networks and local channels. Each membership comes with six accounts, each with its own DVR capabilities.

Pros: Unlimited cloud DVR and YouTube Red content.

Con: So far, Chromecast is only way to watch on TV.

YouTube TV's cloud DVR will appeal to millennials, who want "the content they want on their time," said Molly Schweickert, head of digital at analytics firm Cambridge Analytica. However, YouTube will want to be nimble and be ready to add more channels because, she said, "the cost of YouTube TV may make it difficult to justify if some of the missing options are particularly key to (millennials') interests."

For the foreseeable future, expect each broadband TV service to have some programming holes, because "networks are intentionally withholding content," said Sean Cullen, executive vice president of product and technology at digital marketing and data firm Fluent.

"The larger media companies aren’t just worried about upsetting cable providers, but they are also trying to avoid the emergence of a single dominant service," he said. "All of these companies took note of how Apple was able to take over the music industry and want to avoid a similar situation."

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The typo that halted the Internet and Snap's payday: week in tech

Snap's all grown up, a typo took down part of the Internet, and a dashcam video put Uber's CEO in the doghouse again.

ICYMI, here are the top tech headlines of the week

Let’s start with Amazon, which does a lot more than just send out books and other products overnight in brown boxes. The company also is a mega behind-the-scenes Internet player, doing back-end work for tens of thousands of websites through its Amazon Web Services division.

In a nutshell, Amazon hosts lots of the content used on websites Americans visit every day, such as Netflix, Spotify, Buzzfeed, Pinterest, Expedia and others, helping them store photos, videos and other files, and enabling anyone to create a web business easily.

When a portion of Amazon’s cloud service division went down Tuesday, many of those sites suddenly had broken links and empty rectangles where data, videos and photos should have been. The culprit? A typo that resulted in a cascading set of problems in a key storage system.

No such issue at YouTube, whose website is hosted by Google. The video network, really popular with young people, later this year will launch YouTube TV, offering 40 channels of TV for $35 monthly, which YouTube notes is half the price of the average cable bill. That’s fine and dandy, but the service is targeted to millennial cord cutters who have proven they don’t want to spend money on TV, and many top networks are missing, like MTV, AMC, Comedy Central and CNN.

YouTube’s got quite the challenge.

--Snap's hot debut raised $3.4 billion and made its twentysomething co-founders filthy rich. Snap is the parent company that makes the red-hot Snapchat app, and co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy both sold 16 million shares, raking in $272 million. Their remaining stakes in the company are worth $5.2 billion.

Another hot start-up's leadership is having a much worse week. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick spent much of the prior week doing damage control after a female former engineer published an Internet-shaking blog post detailing sexual harassment that management swept under the rug.

This week, Kalanick ousted a recently hired exec  after revelations the top engineer had faced, but not disclosed, an investigation into sexual harassment claims at his prior employer, which he denied

Midweek, Kalanick was caught on tape berating a driver for the ride-hailing app Uber. After it went public, Kalanick apologized to the driver and promised to get "leadership help." But the pain didn't stop there. On Friday, the New York Times published a report that Uber had used a program to thwart police; Uber admitted to the program, but not the purpose.

--In Barcelona, much of the wireless industry met for the Mobile World Congress, but the two biggest players weren’t there with new phones: Apple or Samsung. The big news was the re-emergence of names from the past with retro phones—Blackberry and Nokia—and lots of talk about the next big thing in wireless, 5G service. This is said to be even faster than home internet, and while there will be some tests here in limited fashion this year, 2019 is expected to be more realistic, with 5G going mainstream in 2022. So we wait….and wait.

Visitor check devices in the Vive HTC booth during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Manu Fernandez, AP

--And finally, that huge Snap, Inc. IPO. The company went public, with shares pricing at $17 and closing at just under $25 on day one, up 44%, and then adding 11% the next day. Also investing--NBC Universal, which bought $500 million worth of shares. Snap, best known for the Snapchat app, which sends disappearing photos and videos, is now valued at $28 billion

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Uber's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

You think you had a bad week? Welcome to Uber's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.
First, a little context. Last week was already one of the worst in the ride-hailing company's history. It started on a Sunday when a former engineer, Susan Fowler, published an explosive blog post alleging sexual harassment and discrimination. Then Uber got blasted by its own investors for fostering a "toxic" culture. To make matters worse, it also got sued by Google-parent Alphabet's Waymo for allegedly stealing some driverless car technology. Uber, of course, denies doing that

So this week could only get better for Uber, right? Nope.

On Monday, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick had to ask his senior vice president of engineering Amit Singhal to step down after it was learned Singhal had not revealed he was the subject of a 

sexual harassment investigation at his previous employer Google

Smaller rival Lyft, sensing an opening, says It's seeking to raise $500 million to pursue an aggressive U.S. rollout.

Then an Uber driver dashcam video surfaced showing Kalanick berating the driver. The CEO issued a staff-wide apology in which he admitted that his behavior had to change and that he was seeking leadership help. Yikes.

But no, the week was not nearly over yet. More headlines came when Fowler said Thursday she had retained an attorney and accused her former employer of investigating her and blaming her for a rash of Uber app deletions

Thank God it's Friday? Not even close. The New York Times reported that Uber has for years evaded law enforcement authorities around the globe by using a program called Greyball that identified and avoided these authorities. This program may or may not be legal in these various places, according to the newspaper. Uber has admitted to the program but said it was just used for rivals, fraudulent customers and "opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’."

Time for the weekend? Oh please. In the second major shake-up of the week, a top Uber executive, Ed Baker, who was vice president of product and growth, left Friday as scrutiny of the company's workplace culture and business practices heated up.

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Amazon mystery solved: A typo took down a big chunk of the Internet

The major outage that hit tens of thousands of websites using Amazon's AWS cloud computing service on Tuesday ends up having been the result of a simple typo — just one incorrectly-entered commandThe four-hour outage at Amazon Web Services' S3 system, a giant provider of backend services for close to 150,000 websites, caused disruptions, slowdowns and failure-to-load errors across the United States.Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) lets companies use the cloud to store files, photos, video and other information they serve up on their website. It contains literally trillions of these items, known as "objects" to programmers.

When the system was down, websites could not access the photos, logos, lists or data they normally would have pulled from the cloud. While most of the sites didn't go down, many had broken links and were only partly functionalOn Tuesday morning, an Amazon team was investigating a problem that was slowing down the S3billing system.

At 9:37 am Pacific time, one of the team members executed a command that was meant to take a few of the S3 servers offline.

"Unfortunately," Amazon said in its posting, one part of that command was entered incorrectly — i.e. it had a typo.

That mistake caused a larger number of servers to be taken offline than they'd wanted. Two of those servers ran some important systems for the whole East Coast region, such as the ones that let all those trillions of files be placed into customers' websites.

All of this wasn't just affecting Amazon's S3 customers, it was also hitting other Amazon cloud customers as well — because it turns out those systems use S3, too.

While Amazon says it designed its system to work even if big parts failed, it also acknowledged that it hadn't actually done a full restart on the main subsystems that went offline "for many years."

During that time, the S3 system had gotten a whole lot bigger, so restarting it, and doing all the safety checks to make sure its files hadn't gotten corrupted in the process, took much longer than expected

It wasn't until 1:54 pm Pacific time, four hours and 17 minutes after the mistyped command was first entered, that the entire system was back up and running.

To make sure the problem doesn't happen again, Amazon has rewritten its software tools so its engineers can't make the same mistake, and it's doing safety checks elsewhere in the system.

Amazon apologized to its customers for the event, saying it "will do everything we can to learn from this event and use it to improve our availability even further."

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Yahoo's Marissa Mayer loses millions over breach

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer on Wednesday agreed to forgo any annual equity award she might get for 2017 because of the massive breach her company suffered in 2014. The Yahoo board also voted to withhold her 2016 annual bonus — usually around $2 million— for the same reason

Under her contract, her equity award is not to be less than $12 million per year.

The announcement came as information about Yahoo's financial data and its sale to Verizon was posted with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filing also said that Yahoo's general counsel Ronald S. Bell was resigning from the company and would get no payout in connection with his resignation.

Her reason for giving up her equity award was that she is the company's CEO and that the 2014 breach happened during her tenure.

That breach, launched according to Yahoo by a state-sponsored actor (i.e. someone working for another government) affected data belonging to at least 500 million members.

Who knew what, when?

A separate question has been whether Yahoo executives knew, or should have known, about the 2014 breach and should have notified Verizon when discussions about a purchase began in the summer of 2016.

The SEC filing says that the independent committee created to investigate the breach found that senior Yahoo executives and relevant legal staff were aware that a state-sponsored actor had accessed certain accounts in late 2014. At the time, Yahoo believed that only 26 specifically targeted users were affected and that it notified them and consulted with law enforcement, according to the filing.

At the time of the investigation the committee “did not conclude that there was an intentional suppression of relevant information,” the filing said.