Obama appeals to Silicon Valley for help with online anti-extremist campaign

By Roberta Rampton and Dustin Volz WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Sunday called on Silicon Valley to help address the threat of militant groups using social media and electronic communications to plan and promote violence, setting up renewed debate over personal privacy online. “I will urge high-tech and law enforcement leaders to make it harder for terrorists to use technology to escape from justice,” Obama said in a televised Oval Office speech

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Liberty Interactive to buy online retailer Zulily in $2.4 billion deal

Liberty Interactive Corp , which owns home shopping network QVC, said it would acquire Zulily Inc in a deal valued at $2.4 billion to tap into the online retailer's younger clientele and its strong mobile presence. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd owns a stake of about 9 percent in the company. Billionaire John Malone-backed Liberty will combine the five-year old Zulily with its QVC business, which is about 30 years old and seen by analysts as a maturing business in the United States

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MasterCard stops allowing charges for Backpage.com sex ads

By Mary Wisniewski CHICAGO (Reuters) – MasterCard said on Tuesday that its credit cards can no longer be used to pay for ads on the Backpage.com website, following a request from a Chicago law enforcement official who said the site is used by sex traffickers. Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart said that so-called “escort” ads on Backpage.com and similar sites make up the foundation of the sex trafficking industry, which preys on the young and vulnerable. “Backpage has significantly lowered the barrier to entry for would-be traffickers,” said Dart, adding he will reveal details of a larger initiative against Backpage at a news conference on Wednesday

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California ACLU group launches app to record possible police misconduct

By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A California civil liberties group launched a mobile application on Thursday that will let bystanders record cell phone videos of possible cases of police misconduct and then quickly save the footage to the organization’s computer servers.

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FireEye raises revenue forecast as demand for cybersecurity rises

Cybersecurity company FireEye Inc raised its full-year revenue forecast as governments and businesses increase spending to protect their networks from sophisticated cyber attacks. Shares of FireEye, which also reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue, rose 1.7 percent in extended trading on Thursday.

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Authorities closing in on hackers who stole JPMorgan data: NYT

(Reuters) – Federal authorities investigating the data breach at JPMorgan Chase & Co are confident that a criminal case will be filed against the hackers in the coming months, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the investigation.

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