Lebanon complains to UN over latest deadly Israel strike on journalists

LONDON: British TV presenter Adil Ray revealed on Friday that he has received “horrendous” threats and racist abuse amid a reported surge in Islamophobic incidents across the UK.

Ray, who co-hosts ITV’s “Good Morning Britain,” said the wave of anti-Muslim hostility came as tensions escalated over the government’s handling of asylum-seekers and immigration.

“I’ve experienced it, I’ve had people DM me on Instagram, talk about remigration,” said Ray, who is of Pakistani Muslim background, during his show appearance. “I’ve had threats to watch myself on the streets.”

The 51-year-old said prominent Muslim politicians had also received violent threats, and members of the public told him they were living in fear.

“People who work here, and several friends of theirs who are Muslim, don’t want to go to the mosque anymore,” he added.

His remarks follow a rise in anti-Muslim incidents reported across the country. Several mosques have been vandalized in recent weeks.

Ray criticized the lack of political response. “The thing that strikes me about this is no one seems to be talking about it. These are anti-Muslim hate crimes,” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be any politician that’s standing up and reassuring millions of Muslims in this country that the country is behind them.”

He warned that this silence was “deeply concerning,” adding: “We’re seeing a rise in anti-Muslim hate crime.”

SAN FRANCISCO/PARIS: Alphabet’s Google was told by a federal jury in the US on Wednesday to pay $425 million for invading users’ privacy and slapped with a fine of 325 million euros ($381 million) in France for a similar offense.

The jury found the tech giant of guilty of violations by continuing to collect data for millions of users who had switched off a tracking feature in their Google account.

The verdict comes after a trial in the federal court in San Francisco over allegations that Google over an eight-year period accessed users’ mobile devices to collect, save, and use their data, violating privacy assurances under its Web & App Activity setting.

The users had been seeking more than $31 billion in damages.

The jury found Google liable on two of the three claims of privacy violations brought by the plaintiffs. The jury found that Google had not acted with malice, meaning it was not entitled to any punitive damages.

A spokesperson for Google confirmed the verdict. Google had denied any wrongdoing.

The class action lawsuit, filed in July 2020, claimed Google continued to collect users’ data even with the setting turned off through its relationship with apps such as Uber, Venmo and Meta’s Instagram that use certain Google analytics services.

At trial, Google said the collected data was “nonpersonal, pseudonymous, and stored in segregated, secured, and encrypted locations.” Google said the data was not associated with users’ Google accounts or any individual user’s identity.

US District Judge Richard Seeborg certified the case as a class action covering about 98 million Google users and 174 million devices.

Google has faced other privacy lawsuits, including one earlier this year where it paid nearly $1.4 billion in a settlement with Texas over allegations the company violated the state’s privacy laws.

Google in April 2024 agreed to destroy billions of data records of users’ private browsing activities to settle a lawsuit that alleged it tracked people who thought they were browsing privately, including in “Incognito” mode. 

In France, the data protection authority Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) said ordered Google to pay 325 million euros ($381 million) for improperly displaying ads to Gmail users and using cookies, both without Google account users’ consent.

The CNIL also gave Google six months to ensure ads are no longer displayed between emails in Gmail users’ inboxes without prior consent, and that users give valid consent to the creation of a Google account for the placement of ad trackers.

Failing that, Google and its Irish subsidiary would both have to pay a penalty of 100,000 euros per day of delay, CNIL said in a statement.

A Google spokesperson said the company was reviewing the decision and said that users have always been able to control the ads they see in their products.

In the past two years, Google has made updates to address the commission’s concerns, including an easy way to decline personalized ads when creating a Google account, and changes to the way ads are presented in Gmail, the spokesperson said.