Apple faces local battles as it prepares global payments push

By Eric Auchard FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Apple has made mobile payments look easy, after a decade of mostly failed experiments by banks, telecom operators and retailers to woo consumers away from cards and cash. Apple Pay has taken the United States by storm since its launch in September, and the company has said it already accounts for around $2 out of every $3 spent using “contactless” payments on the three big U.S. card networks

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California ‘revenge porn’ trial gets under way in San Diego

By Marty Graham SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – The trial of a California man accused of running a so-called “revenge porn” website, featuring nude pictures of women often posted by jilted ex-lovers, began in San Diego on Friday in a test of state efforts to clamp down on such sites. Kevin Boellart, 28, was arrested in 2013 shortly after Governor Jerry Brown signed a first-in-the-nation law to target “revenge porn,” defined as the posting of private, explicit photos of others on the Internet to humiliate them. Prosecutors have said Boellart’s site, which is no longer operational, had featured over 10,000 sexually explicit photos, and that he charged women up to $350 each to remove them

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Sprint says Obama net neutrality plan wouldn’t curb investments

By Alina Selyukh WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sprint Corp will keep investing in its networks even if U.S. regulators adopt stricter “net neutrality” rules as long as they are applied with a “light touch,” the company said in a letter to the FCC released on Friday.

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U.S. says consulting UK, Australia, New Zealand on North Korea hack response

By Julia Edwards Honolulu (Reuters) – The Obama administration is consulting the UK, Australia and New Zealand, among other countries in hopes of organizing an international response to the cyberattack on Sony Pictures that it has pinned on North Korea, an administration official told Reuters on Saturday. The U.S

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