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The campaign, launched this month in England and later in France, promised vouchers of up to 100 euros if a client downloaded the Temu shopping app and invited another person to sign up.
But the terms of the offer state that Temu is granted the right to use for life, and without notice, much of a client's personal data.
British news site The Independent reported this week that the terms specified the use of "photo, name likeness, voice, opinions, statements, biographical information, and/or hometown and state for promotional or advertising purposes in any media worldwide".
Temu, part of Chinese low-price retailer Pinduoduo, said in a statement to AFP that its offer had been a "great success in France, with numerous satisfied clients".
Nevertheless it had been halted in both France and Britain because of "misunderstandings on the extent of client data use". Temu said it had only involved "user names and profile pictures".
It did not respond to requests on whether the promotional offer was being used in other countries.
"Temu is committed to client confidentiality," it said. "We do not and will not sell client data."
Earlier this month, Temu's parent Pinduoduo, a main competitor of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, reported a 90-percent surge in net profit for 2023, to 60 billion yuan ($8.3 billion).
Google to delete incognito search data to end privacy suit
San Francisco (AFP) April 1, 2024 -
Google has agreed to delete a vast trove of search data to settle a suit that it tracked millions of US users who thought they were browsing the internet privately.
If a proposed settlement filed Monday in San Francisco federal court is approved by a judge, Google must "delete and/or remediate billions of data records" linked to people using the Chrome browser's incognito mode, according to court documents.
"This settlement is an historic step in requiring dominant technology companies to be honest in their representations to users about how the companies collect and employ user data, and to delete and remediate data collected," lawyer David Boies said in the filing.
A hearing is slated for July 30 before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is to decide whether to approve the deal that would let Google avoid a trial in the class-action suit.
The settlement calls for no cash damages to be paid but leaves an option for Chrome users who feel they were wronged to sue Google separately to get money.
The suit originally filed in June of 2020 sought at least $5 billion in damages.
"We are pleased to settle this lawsuit, which we always believed was meritless," Google spokesman Jorge Castaneda said in a statement.
"We are happy to delete old technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for any form of personalization."
The object of the lawsuit was the "Incognito Mode" in the Chrome browser that plaintiffs said gave users a false sense that what they were surfing online was not being tracked by the Silicon Valley tech firm.
But internal Google emails brought forward in the lawsuit demonstrated that users using incognito mode were being followed by the search and advertising behemoth for measuring web traffic and selling ads.
The lawsuit, filed in a California court, claimed Google's practices had infringed on users' privacy by intentionally deceiving them with the incognito option.
The original complaint alleged that Google had been given the "power to learn intimate details about individuals' lives, interests, and internet usage."
"Google has made itself an unaccountable trove of information so detailed and expansive that George Orwell could never have dreamed it," it added.
The settlement requires Google, for the next five years, to block third-party tracking "cookies" by default in Incognito Mode.
Third-party cookies are small files which are used to target advertising by tracking web navigation and are placed by visited sites and not by the browser itself.
- No cookies? -
Google earlier this year began limiting third-party cookies for some users of its Chrome browser, a first step towards eventually abandoning the files that have raised privacy concerns.
Google announced in January 2020 that it would begin eliminating third-party cookies within two years, but the start has been delayed several times amid opposition from web media publishers.
Cookies have recently been subject to greater regulation, including the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation introduced in 2016 as well as regulations in California.
OpenAI unveils voice-cloning tool
San Francisco (AFP) Mar 29, 2024 -
OpenAI on Friday revealed a voice-cloning tool it plans to keep tightly controlled until safeguards are in place to thwart audio fakes meant to dupe listeners.
A model called "Voice Engine" can essentially duplicate someone's speech based on a 15-second audio sample, according to an OpenAI blog post sharing results of a small-scale test of the tool.
"We recognize that generating speech that resembles people's voices has serious risks, which are especially top of mind in an election year," the San Francisco-based company said.
"We are engaging with U.S. and international partners from across government, media, entertainment, education, civil society and beyond to ensure we are incorporating their feedback as we build."
Disinformation researchers fear rampant misuse of AI-powered applications in a pivotal election year thanks to proliferating voice cloning tools, which are cheap, easy to use and hard to trace.
Acknowledging these problems, OpenAI said it was "taking a cautious and informed approach to a broader release due to the potential for synthetic voice misuse."
The cautious unveiling came a few months after a political consultant working for the long-shot presidential campaign of a Democratic rival to Joe Biden admitted being behind a robocall impersonating the US leader.
The AI-generated call, the brainchild of an operative for Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips, featured what sounded like Biden's voice urging people not to cast ballots in January's New Hampshire primary.
The incident caused alarm among experts who fear a deluge of AI-powered deepfake disinformation in the 2024 White House race as well as in other key elections around the globe this year.
OpenAI said that partners testing Voice Engine agreed to rules including requiring explicit and informed consent of any person whose voice is duplicated using the tool.
It must also be made clear to audiences when voices they are hearing are AI generated, the company added.
"We have implemented a set of safety measures, including watermarking to trace the origin of any audio generated by Voice Engine, as well as proactive monitoring of how it's being used," OpenAI said.
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