Three PayPal users who've allegedly had their accounts frozen and funds taken by the company without explanation have filed a federal lawsuit against the online payment service. The plaintiffs — two users from California and one from Chicago — are accusing the company of unlawfully seizing their personal property and violating racketeering laws. They're now proposing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all other users who've had their accounts frozen before and are seeking restitution, as well as punitive and exemplary damages.

Lena Evans, one of the plaintiffs who'd been a PayPal user for 22 years, said the website seized $26,984 from her account six months after it got frozen without ever telling her why. Evans had been using PayPal to buy and sell clothing on eBay, to exchange money for a poker league she owns and for a non-profit that helps women with various needs. 

Fellow plaintiff Roni Shemtov said PayPal seized over $42,000 of her money and never got an acceptable reason for why her account was terminated. She received several different explanations when she contacted the company: One customer rep said it was because she used the same IP and computer as other Paypal users, while another said it was because she sold yoga clothing at 20 to 30 percent lower than retail. Yet another representative allegedly said it was because she used multiple accounts, which she denies. 

Shbadan Akylbekov, the third plaintiff, said PayPal seized over $172,000 of his money without giving him any explanation why the account got limited in the first place. Akylbekov used the account of a company his wife owns to sell Hyaluron pens, which are needle-less pens that inject hyaluronic acid into the skin. After the money disappeared from the account following a six-month freeze, PayPal allegedly sent his wife a letter that says she "violated PayPal's User Agreement and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) by accepting payments for the sale of injectable fillers not approved by the FDA." It also said that the money was taken from her account "for its liquidated damages arising from those AUP violations pursuant to the User Agreement."

PayPal has long angered many a user for limiting accounts and freezing their funds for six months or more. One high-profile case was American poker player Chris Moneymaker's who had $12,000 taken from his account after six months of being limited. Moneymaker was already in the process of asking people to join him in a class action lawsuit before his funds were "mysteriously returned." 

Part of the complaint reads:

"Plaintiffs bring this class action against Defendant PAYPAL, INC. ("PayPal") to recover damages and other relief available at law and in equity on behalf of themselves, as well as on behalf of the members of the class defined herein... This action stems from Defendant’s widespread business practice of unilaterally seizing funds from its clients’ financial accounts, without cause and without any fair or due process.

PayPal places a "hold" on Plaintiffs' own funds in their own PayPal accounts. PayPal has failed to inform Plaintiffs and members of the class of the reason(s) for the actions PayPal has taken, even telling Plaintiffs and members of the class that they will "have to get a subpoena" to learn the simple information as to why PayPal was holding, and denying Plaintiffs, access to their own money."

Apple is set to slightly alter the wording on its notice for the iCloud Private Relay error that switched off the VPN-like feature for some users. According to MacRumors, the tech giant will update its note for users, clarifying that their carriers aren't always to blame for the issue. After a previous iOS 15.2 update, some users found that they couldn't use Private Relay while on a cellular network. Private Relay ensures that, as long as the user is on Safari, not even Apple can see their activities. 

The original notice puts the blame solely on mobile carriers:

"Private Relay is turned off for your cellular plan. Your cellular plan doesn't support ‌iCloud‌ Private Relay. With ‌iCloud‌ Private Relay turned off, this network can monitor your internet activity, and your IP address is not hidden from known trackers or websites."

T-Mobile, however, denied that it was responsible for the error happening to its subscribers' phones. It told Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in a statement that it identified a problem with the iOS 15.2 update that toggled off the feature by default. Apple denied that its update rolled out with changes to Private Relay, as one would expect: "No changes were made to iCloud Private Relay in iOS 15.2 that would have toggled the feature off," a spokesperson said.

Whatever the real reason is for the feature being switched off, fixing the problem could be as simple as toggling some settings back on. The updated notice that rolled out with iOS 15.3 beta now says:

"Private Relay is turned off for your cellular plan. Private Relay is either not supported by your cellular plan or has been turned off in Cellular Settings. With Private Relay turned off, this network can monitor your internet activity, and your IP address is not hidden from known trackers or websites."

Apple's support page now also contains instructions on how fix the problem: If Private Relay has been switched off for a cellular network, users can go to the network's settings and turn on "Limit IP Address Tracking." They can go to WiFi settings and do the same if the feature isn't working on WiFi.

Nigerians can now access Twitter again without having to use VPNs or having to fear repercussions for doing so. The Nigerian government has lifted the ban on Twitter on January 13th, 2022, over seven months after it ordered telecom providers in the country to block the social network. According to CNN, Reuters and The Financial Times, Nigeria has decided to lift the ban after Twitter agreed to open a local office.

Twitter also had to agree to meet other conditions set by the government, including "managing prohibited publication in line with Nigerian law." The social network has to pay domestic taxes, as well, and to appoint a representative in the country who'll be in charge of engaging with local authorities.

If you'll recall, Nigeria originally suspended Twitter in June 2021 after the website removed a tweet made by President Muhammadu Buhari who used the platform to threaten citizens following attacks on government buildings. Back then, Twitter explained that the post violated its abuse policy. Nigerian authorities shot back by accusing Twitter of allowing its platform to be used "for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria's corporate existence." They also warned citizens that they would prosecute those who tried to circumvent the suspension by using VPNs and similar tools. Bloomberg reported back in October that Nigeria was already set to lift the ban, so long as Twitter is used in the country for "business and positive engagements," but it clearly took a few more months for the agreement to be finalized. 

Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director general of Nigeria's National Information Technology Development Agency, said Twitter "has agreed to act with a respectful acknowledgement of Nigerian laws and the national culture and history on which such legislation has been built." The social network has also apparently agreed to work with the country's government "to develop a Code of Conduct in line with global best practices, applicable in almost all developed countries."

The long-running lawsuit Apple faced over off-the-clock bag searches of its employees in California is almost over. While its final approval hearing won't take place until July, the tech giant has detailed the terms of the $29.9 million settlement it agreed to and provided claimants (and everyone else) access to documents related to the case on its legal website. The list of documents includes everything from the original class action complaint to notices of the settlement to different types of class members. It also includes information on how to get in contact with the settlement administrator.

A group Apple employees sued the company in 2013 for not paying them for the time it took to check their bags during their shifts or when they're leaving for work, which took between five to 20 minutes. They claimed Apple was violating California law by doing so. Apple said bag checks were necessary to ensure workers weren't leaving with stolen goods or trade secrets and tried to argue in court that those who didn't like the policy could simply not bring their bags or their iPhones to work. The company stopped searching employees' bags in 2015. 

While a district court originally tossed the lawsuit, it went to the California Supreme Court on appeal, wherein the judge sided with the plaintiffs. As previously revealed in a court filing, the lawsuit covers 14,683 workers in 52 Apple Stores in California who were subjected to bag checks from July 25th, 2009 until August 10th, 2015. They'll each get $1,286 from the settlement amount.

NVIDIA has started rolling out Software Experience Upgrade 9.0 for Shield TV devices, and it will upgrade their operating system to Android 11. The company says Experience 9.0 will bring the new OS to all Shield TVs, including the original 2015 models, and it will also include the September 2021 Android security patch that fixes a vulnerability allowing remote attackers to cause a permanent denial of service.

In addition, the upgrade adds access to a new Google Keyboard with support for voice searches. Users will now be able to look for movies and shows to watch by issuing voice commands through Google Assistant. Those who have aptX compatible Bluetooth headsets will be able to start using it with their streaming box, as well. 

Other updates including the option to automatically disconnect Bluetooth devices on sleep in order to save battery, an Energy saver setting for additional power customization and Stadia button support for Xbox, Playstation and Shield controllers. For GeForce Now members, the update adds support for additional Bluetooth keyboards and mice. Plus, Twitch has been updated to be able to simultaneously support high-quality streaming and gaming for them.

Finally, those living in the US can get six months of Peacock Premium for free when they get a new Shield TV. Peacock is NBCUniversal's streaming service that serves as home to NBC shows like The Office. It has a free ad-supported version with a limited catalogue, and a Premium ad-free one with more content that costs $5 a month. 

Good lighting that flatters the subject is an essential element of production for streamers and video creators in general. Logitech (under the Logitech for Creators brand) has just launched a new lighting device made for streamers called Litra Glow, and it says the product is capable of providing a "natural, radiant look across all skin tones." 

Litra Glow delivers a glare-free light that's supposed to be gentle on the eyes and is safe for all-day streaming. It also features Logitech's TrueSoft technology, which promises cinematic color accuracy and enables a soft, flattering light that can apparently make streamers look less, well, tired.

Jasmine Apolinar, Product Manager for Logitech For Creators, said:

"We designed Litra Glow to solve common challenges faced by streamers and content creators, including light quality, harsh shadows and eye fatigue from long hours of streaming."

Whether it can truly provide a "radiant" look across all skin tones remains to be seen. Different skin tones require different approaches to lighting on video — using the same lighting for white actors, for instance, had made Black actors look ashy or barely visible during dimly lit scenes in movies and shows for a long time. One of the creators Logitech got to talk about Litra Glow, however, is Black visual artist and photographer Aundre Larrow, who once shared tips on how to photograph darker skin tones in an article he wrote for Adobe. Larrow said of Litra Glow:

"The lighting looked natural. It looks good on my skin and works for people of different skin tones without looking blown out. The warm to cool is super accurate and I found light to be strong and soft enough to use on its own."

Logitech designed Litra Glow to be plug-and-play, and streamers can choose between five presets with different brightness and color temperature. If they want to customize it further, they can adjust those settings on their own. They can also connect it to Logitech's G HUB software to create their own presets and assign them to the G Keys on a Logitech G keyboard or mouse. The Litra Glow will come with a monitor mount that has adjustable height, tilt and rotation when it starts shipping sometime this month. It will be available in the United States, Canada, Australia and select European countries on Logitech's website and from Amazon, Adorama and other retailers for $60. 

A class action lawsuit has named Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather and basketball star Paul Pierce as defendants for promoting a cryptocurrency called EthereumMax. According to Finbold, the platintiffs sued the celebrities and the still-unidentified entities behind the tokens for causing the value of the Ethereum knockoff to soar so "they could sell their portion of the Float for a profit." The lawsuit lists anybody who invested in the token between May 14th and June 27th, 2021 as a defendant.

As Gizmodo explains, the claimants are accusing the defendants of perpetrating a "pump and dump" scheme, in which investors sell off their shares to make a lot of money after orchestrating a rise in its value. The lawsuit states that the coin rose 632 percent in value after Mayweather and Pierce promoted it — the boxing star wore shorts with the EthereumMax URL during his exhibition match with Logan Paul, while Pierce tweeted about it. 

Meanwhile, Kardashian posted about EthereumMax on Instagram Stories, telling followers that she heard about it from her friends and linking to its website. According to Morning Consult, 19 percent of the survey respondents who said they heard about Kardiashian's post invested in EthereumMax as a result. The lawsuit states that the day after Kardashian's post, the token's value plummeted by 98 percent. Further, the coin's creators allegedly sold off their shares before the price drop, as shown by their wallet's activities. 

Celebrities have been promoting cryptocurrency tokens for a while now and even creating their own. This isn't the first time or the last that they'll get caught up in controversies surrounding a token — Mayweather, for instance, was charged by the Securities and Exchange Comission in 2018 for failing to disclose that he was paid $100,000 to promote Centra Tech's 2017 initial coin offering. Two of Centra Tech's founders were arrested for securities fraud and wire fraud, with the SEC accusing them of "touting nonexistent relationships between Centra and well-known financial institutions" in an effort to entice people to invest in the ICO. 

NFTs exploded in popularity during the first two years of the pandemic, and it doesn't look like they're going away anytime soon. One of the latest organizations to jump into the craze is the Associated Press (AP), which will start selling its "award-winning contemporary and historic photojournalism" as non-fungible tokens on January 31st. The news agency teamed up with blockchain technology provider Xooa to develop a marketplace for its NFTs, which will debut with an initial collection that will be released over the coming weeks after its launch.

AP's initial collection includes digitally enhanced Pulitzer Prize-winning images across categories, such as space, climate and war. Each one will include the image's original metadata that shows the time and date it was taken, its location, and the equipment and settings the photographer used for the shot. They agency says the marketplace will allow people to buy, sell and trade the tokens, which can be purchased using credit cards and crypto wallets. The proceeds it will earn from the sales will then be used to fund its operations. One of the biggest controversies surrounding NFTs is that they have a huge environmental impact. AP says its NFTs will be minted on the Polygon blockchain that was designed to consume less energy than its counterparts. 

Whether AP successfully sells its photos for the kind of money it's hoping to earn remains to be seen. Adidas made $23 million for its first NFT drop, but Ubisoft barely sold any when it launched its own tokens. Another company that's reportedly looking to open its own marketplace is GameStop, which (according to The Wall Street Journal) recently formed a cryptocurrency division to work on the project. 

Apple will soon allow developers to use alternative payment systems for their apps in South Korea to comply with the country's new law. According to The Korea Herald, the tech giant has turned in its plans on how its app store would support third-party payments to the Korea Communications Commission. It reportedly didn't include details on when the changes to its store will take effect and how much it will charge for its service fees exactly. However, the company did say that its cut for alternative payment transactions will be smaller than 30 percent. 

South Korea passed a law — dubbed the "anti-Google law" — last year that requires major app stores like Google's and Apple's to allow third-party payment methods. It was a blow to the tech giants that typically keep a tight grip on their app stores. Both of them are even grappling with lawsuits challenging the commission they take from developers. Their most high-profile legal battle is perhaps the one with Epic, which started after the video game developer tried to work around the companies' 30 percent commission by offering discounts to users who purchase in-game currency directly from its portal. 

The new Korean law states that companies will face fines if they refuse to comply and force developers to use their payment systems only. Google submitted its initial compliance plans shortly after the law took effect in September, revealing that it will lower its commission by four percent for transactions that don't use its own payment system. As for Apple, we'll likely hear more information in the coming months. A spokesperson said in a statement:

"We look forward to working with the KCC and our developer community on a solution that benefits our Korean users. Apple has a great deal of respect for Korea's laws and a strong history of collaboration with the country's talented app developers. Our work will always be guided by keeping the App Store a safe and trusted place for our users to download the apps they love."

Over the past few months, Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike has been talking to candidates who can potentially take over his role as company CEO. That's what Marlinspike has revealed in a post about stepping away his role over the next month, where he talked about struggling to do almost everything on his own before the Signal Foundation was formed four years ago. The foundation provided the encrypted messaging app with $50 million in funding from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, giving Signal the money it needed to be able to hire people and expand. 

Before it had access to the funding, Marlinspike said he was writing all the Android and server code, facilitating all product development and solving issues the service may have had on his own. Now, he said, Signal is a group of 30 people who each have their roles, and he can switch off his phone without having to worry that the service would implode. "In other words, after a decade or more, it’s difficult to overstate how important Signal is to me, but I now feel very comfortable replacing myself as CEO based on the team we have, and also believe that it is an important step for expanding on Signal’s success," he wrote.

Marlinspike will remain on the Signal board and will focus on finding the next CEO for the service over the the next month. For now, Acton will serve as the interim CEO. While he talked about this move as a step towards Signal's expansion, he didn't say exactly why he's leaving his role. TechCrunch believes it may have something to do with MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency that's integrated into Signal and allows users to send each other digital coins through the app. It's also unclear what Marlinspike is doing next, only revealing on Twitter that he's "taking a break for a bit."