Enrique Abeyta:

Cities Terminate Flock Contracts at Record Pace in August

New data compiled by a Bay Area anti-surveillance advocacy group shows that not only are American localities dropping cameras from Flock Safety, but they are doing it at an accelerating rate.

Secure Justice, an Oakland-based advocacy group, has recorded 214 cities and counties that have dropped Flock since 2021. Of those, 90 ended their relationship with Flock in August 2026 alone, a fourfold increase compared to the previous month.

Put another way: During the last 30 days, an average of three localities per day have halted contracts with Flock.

After extensive criticism regarding the safety of Flock's technology and practices, CEO Garrett Langley wrote in a recent blog post that Flock would reduce data retention defaults from 30 days to seven, among other privacy-minded changes.

Last Friday, Flock's top lawyer wrote in another blog post that its newly modified terms of use "expressly prohibit customers and their users from using Flock Services to mislead, harass, stalk, or otherwise impose upon or violate the legal rights of another person."

Those efforts have done little to quell political scrutiny.

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Greg Guenthner:

MapQuest's App Surges to No. 1 in Navigation After Refusing To Rename Lake Ontario

MapQuest stood up to President Donald Trump, and now its app is reaping the rewards.

The "OG of online mapping," as the company calls itself, announced on Thursday that it would not change the name of Lake Ontario on its maps to Lake America, despite Trump's executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to update the lake's name in the U.S. geographic naming service. As a result, MapQuest's mobile app downloads soared, sending the iOS app to the No. 4 position on the U.S. App Store's Top Charts for apps (not including games) as of Monday morning on the U.S. east coast.

MapQuest also reached the No. 8 position overall in the U.S. App Store across both apps and games, and it became the No. 1 Navigation app in the United States. In Canada's App Store, the app reached No. 2 overall as of Sunday evening.

"We took the same approach we did with the Gulf of Mexico: be part of the conversation, and give people an app that keeps the names they're familiar with," said Doug Berger, general manager of MapQuest, in a statement. "Hundreds of thousands of people signaled to us this weekend that we got it right by downloading our app."

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Davis Wilson:

Sony Argues in Court That Digital Games Can't Be Owned

Sony has told a federal judge that no reasonable consumer believes they own the digital games they pay for on the PlayStation Store, according to an August 21 filing.

The filing is the company's first substantive answer to a proposed class action brought in June in the Northern District of California by four California PlayStation customers. They allege the store's "Buy Now" and "Confirm Purchase" buttons imply ownership when the transaction hands over only a revocable license.

The suit's first count is brought under California's false advertising law. It bars sellers from using "buy," "purchase," or any term a reasonable person would read as conferring unrestricted ownership, unless the checkout carries a clear and conspicuous statement, in plain language, that buying the digital good is a license.

Sony says its checkout already does that. Fine print in the cart links to the PlayStation Terms of Service and the Software Product License Agreement. The terms of service tell customers they "do not own the product," in the eighth of 18 sections.

Sony's primary request is that the judge send the dispute into private arbitration, on the grounds that PlayStation's terms commit users to settle claims that way. The ownership arguments apply only if the judge refuses.

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