I use free apps every day, and I write about them constantly. In many cases, theyβre genuinely great. Some of the most useful software on my phone and computer doesnβt cost me a cent upfront. But that doesnβt mean itβs actually free.
The company has made it easy for existing advertisers to expand their reach to include Threads by allowing them to automatically place ads through both Meta's Advantage+ program and via manual campaigns.
Still feeling uneasy about Meta's acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, the Federal Trade Commission will be appealing a November ruling that cleared Meta of allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly in a market dubbed "personal social networking."
The FTC hopes the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will agree that "robust evidence at trial" showed that Meta's acquisitions were improper. In the initial trial, the FTC sought a breakup of Meta's apps, with Meta risking forced divestments of Instagram or WhatsApp.
In a press release Tuesday, the FTC confirmed that it "continues to allege" that "for over a decade Meta has illegally maintained a monopoly in personal social networking services through anticompetitive conductβby buying the significant competitive threats it identified in Instagram and WhatsApp."
Instagram has rolled out Your Algorithm, a new feature that lets users control the kind of content they see on Reels by adding or removing topics, giving people more say over what shows up in their feed.
Instagram has dismissed security breach concerns, clarifying that recent unexpected password reset emails were caused by an external party exploiting a now-patched vulnerability rather than a complete system compromise. The social media giant confirmed that a flaw in its systems allowed unknown threat actors to request password reset emails on behalf of users without actually [β¦]
Instagramβs 17 million user data leak wasnβt a new breach - Hackread.com's in-depth analysis shows it was scraped in 2022, leaked in 2023, and falsely repackaged in 2026.