Meta wins more than $167 million in damages from spyware maker that targeted WhatsApp
A jury has ruled that the company behind the infamous Pegasus spyware must pay Meta more than $167 million in damages for spreading malware via WhatsApp. The ruling is a major victory for Meta after a years-long legal battle with NSO Group.
Meta sued the NSO Group in 2019 over its Pegasus spyware. Meta said at the time that more than 1,400 people in 20 countries had been targeted, including journalists and human rights activists. The company said that the 'highly sophisticated cyber attack' spread malware via video calls even when the calls went unanswered. Last year, a judge sided with Meta and found the Israeli company had violated the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Tuesday's verdict followed a week-long jury trial to determine just how much NSO should pay in damages to Meta.
The jury ultimately awarded Meta $444,719 in compensatory damages and $167,254,00 in punitive damages. In a statement, WhatsApp's VP of Global Communications Carl Woog called the verdict 'a critical deterrent to this malicious industry against their illegal acts aimed at American companies and the privacy and security of the people we serve.'
NSO Group, which describes itself as a 'cyber intelligence" firm, has said that it's not possible to use Pegasus on US phone numbers. In court, lawyers for the firm argued that WhatsApp wasn't harmed in any way by Pegasus, according to Courthouse News Service .
In a statement, NSO's Gil Lainer said the verdict was 'another step in a lengthy judicial process' and said it would pursue 'further proceedings' or an appeal. 'We firmly believe that our technology plays a critical role in preventing serious crime and terrorism and is deployed responsibly by authorized government agencies,' Lainer said. 'This perspective, validated by extensive real-world evidence and numerous security operations that have saved many lives, including American lives, was excluded from the jury's consideration in this case.'
WhatsApp's Woog said Meta knows it has 'a long road ahead' to collect damages from NSO. 'Ultimately, we would like to make a donation to digital rights organizations that are working to defend people against such attacks around the world,' he said. He added that Meta plans to pursue a court order to prevent NSO from targeting WhatsApp in the future.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Is Energy Transfer the All-American Dividend Stock for You? Consider This High-Yielder Instead.
Energy Transfer has a lofty 7.4% yield backed by an inherently domestic business. The midstream giant has made some decisions that should leave conservative investors with trust issues. Enterprise Products Partners' 6.9% yield will likely be a better fit for most investors. 10 stocks we like better than Energy Transfer › Dividend investors are always trying to maximize yield, but that requires extra consideration on the risk front. A high yield that isn't backed by a reliable company could leave you in the lurch and, likely, at the worst possible time. This is why investors looking at Energy Transfer (NYSE: ET) and its lofty 7.5% distribution yield will probably be better off taking a little less yield and choosing Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD) instead. Here's why. Energy Transfer and Enterprise are two of the largest midstream companies in North America. They both hail from the United States and generate most of their business from the country. The truth is, owning energy infrastructure assets like pipelines essentially forces these two businesses to be American at heart. After all, you can't move oil around the United States on a pipeline that gets built in Europe. That pipeline has to get built on U.S. soil. The midstream is actually the most boring segment of the overall energy sector. That's because businesses like Energy Transfer and Enterprise charge fees for the use of their assets. Although the oil, natural gas, and other products that flow through the system may have volatile prices, midstream companies don't really care about the price of what they move. They just care about the volume of product they move. The higher the volume, the higher the toll-like revenues they generate. Given the importance of energy to the global economy, demand for oil and natural gas tends to remain fairly robust even when commodity prices are weak. Even recessions don't materially diminish demand, since the world would, literally, stop in its tracks without oil and natural gas. From this perspective, Energy Transfer and Enterprise Products Partners are on equal footing. Here's the thing: Energy Transfer doesn't have the same history of treating its investors well as Enterprise does. That difference is why conservative income investors should be happy to trade down to Enterprise's 6.9% yield. The first big issue happened in 2016, during a time when oil prices were weak. At that point, Energy Transfer agreed to buy peer Williams. It got cold feet, warning that completing the deal would require taking on too much debt and could also force a dividend cut. It was the right decision to scuttle the deal. The problem was the way in which it achieved that end. The company sold convertible securities, with a huge portion going to the then-CEO. It appears that the convertible securities would have protected the CEO from the effect of a dividend cut, had a dividend cut been needed. In the end, Energy Transfer got out of the Williams deal, but that convertible decision should leave a bad taste in investors' mouths. Then, in 2020, when the energy industry was hit hard by demand declines around the coronavirus pandemic, Energy Transfer cut its distribution. Again, the decision was probably the right one for the business, which used the freed-up cash to strengthen its balance sheet. But income investors took it on the chin, and that's the key takeaway here. During the last two big energy industry downturns, when income investors were likely hoping for consistency, they had to worry about, and actually experience, income declines if they owned Energy Transfer. Enterprise Products Partners didn't cut its distribution in 2016 or in 2020. It didn't put out any warnings that such an event was possible. It just operated its reliable cash flow generating business. Along the way, it delivered distribution increases. At this point, the U.S. midstream giant has increased its distribution for 26 consecutive years. While trust might be a troubling issue with Energy Transfer, it isn't with Enterprise Products Partners. The long streak of putting unitholders first is a core reason to like Enterprise Products Partners, but it isn't the only reason. Other good reasons to like this midstream giant are its investment grade rated balance sheet, and the 1.7x over that its distributable cash flow covered its distribution in 2024. These are both signs of management's commitment, since they mean there's a lot of leeway before a distribution cut would be in the cards at Enterprise Products Partners. Put it all together, and most investors will probably be better off with all-American Enterprise over all-American Energy Transfer. Before you buy stock in Energy Transfer, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Energy Transfer wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $868,615!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Enterprise Products Partners. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Is Energy Transfer the All-American Dividend Stock for You? Consider This High-Yielder Instead. was originally published by The Motley Fool
16 minutes ago
Trump's tariffs could pay for his tax cuts -- but it likely wouldn't be much of a bargain
WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — The tax cuts in President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act would likely gouge a hole in the federal budget. The president has a patch handy, though: his sweeping import taxes — tariffs. The Congressional Budget Office, the government's nonpartisan arbiter of tax and spending matters, says the One Big Beautiful Bill, passed by the House last month and now under consideration in the Senate, would increase federal budget deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next decade. That is because its tax cuts would drain the government's coffers faster than its spending cuts would save money. By bringing in revenue for the Treasury, on the other hand, the tariffs that Trump announced through May 13 — including his so-called reciprocal levies of up to 50% on countries with which the United States has a trade deficit — would offset the budget impact of the tax-cut bill and reduce deficits over the next decade by $2.5 trillion. So it's basically a wash. That's the budget math anyway. The real answer is more complicated. Actually using tariffs to finance a big chunk of the federal government would be a painful and perilous undertaking, budget wonks say. 'It's a very dangerous way to try to raise revenue,' said Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model, who served in President George W. Bush's Treasury Department. Trump has long advocated tariffs as an economic elixir. He says they can protect American industries, bring factories back to the United States, give him leverage to win concessions over foreign governments — and raise a lot of money. He's even suggested that they could replace the federal income tax, which now brings in about half of federal revenue. 'It's possible we'll do a complete tax cut,'' he told reporters in April. 'I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.'' Economists and budget analysts do not share the president's enthusiasm for using tariffs to finance the government or to replace other taxes. 'It's a really bad trade,'' said Erica York, the Tax Foundation's vice president of federal tax policy. 'It's perhaps the dumbest tax reform you could design.'' For one thing, Trump's tariffs are an unstable source of revenue. He bypassed Congress and imposed his biggest import tax hikes through executive orders. That means a future president could simply reverse them. 'Or political whims in Congress could change, and they could decide, 'Hey, we're going revoke this authority because we don't think it's a good thing that the president can just unilaterally impose a $2 trillion tax hike,' '' York said. Or the courts could kill his tariffs before Congress or future presidents do. A federal court in New York has already struck down the centerpiece of his tariff program — the reciprocal and other levies he announced on what he called 'Liberation Day'' April 2 — saying he'd overstepped his authority. An appeals court has allowed the government to keep collecting the levies while the legal challenge winds its way through the court system. Economists also say that tariffs damage the economy. They are a tax on foreign products, paid by importers in the United States and usually passed along to their customers via higher prices. They raise costs for U.S. manufacturers that rely on imported raw materials, components and equipment, making them less competitive than foreign rivals that don't have to pay Trump's tariffs. Tariffs also invite retaliatory taxes on U.S. exports by foreign countries. Indeed, the European Union this week threatened 'countermeasures'' against Trump's unexpected move to raise his tariff on foreign steel and aluminum to 50%. 'You're not just getting the effect of a tax on the U.S. economy,' York said. 'You're also getting the effect of foreign taxes on U.S. exports.'' She said the tariffs will basically wipe out all economic benefits from the One Big Beautiful Bill's tax cuts. Smetters at the Penn Wharton Budget Model said that tariffs also isolate the United States and discourage foreigners from investing in its economy. Foreigners see U.S. Treasurys as a super-safe investment and now own about 30% of the federal government's debt. If they cut back, the federal government would have to pay higher interest rates on Treasury debt to attract a smaller number of potential investors domestically. Higher borrowing costs and reduced investment would wallop the economy, making tariffs the most economically destructive tax available, Smetters said — more than twice as costly in reduced economic growth and wages as what he sees as the next-most damaging: the tax on corporate earnings. Tariffs also hit the poor hardest. They end up being a tax on consumers, and the poor spend more of their income than wealthier people do. Even without the tariffs, the One Big Beautiful Bill slams the poorest because it makes deep cuts to federal food programs and to Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income Americans. After the bill's tax and spending cuts, an analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model found, the poorest fifth of American households earning less than $17,000 a year would see their incomes drop by $820 next year. The richest 0.1% earning more than $4.3 million a year would come out ahead by $390,070 in 2026. 'If you layer a regressive tax increase like tariffs on top of that, you make a lot of low- and middle-income households substantially worse off,'' said the Tax Foundation's York. Overall, she said, tariffs are 'a very unreliable source of revenue for the legal reasons, the political reasons as well as the economic reasons. They're a very, very inefficient way to raise revenue. If you raise a dollar of a revenue with tariffs, that's going to cause a lot more economic harm than raising revenue any other way.''
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump's China Gambit Belies Rocky Road Ahead on Tariff Deals
(Bloomberg) -- Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks global trade. Sign up here. Next Stop: Rancho Cucamonga! Where Public Transit Systems Are Bouncing Back Around the World ICE Moves to DNA-Test Families Targeted for Deportation with New Contract US Housing Agency Vulnerable to Fraud After DOGE Cuts, Documents Warn Trump Said He Fired the National Portrait Gallery Director. She's Still There. President Donald Trump has come up short on striking trade deals with most nations with just one month left before his self-imposed tariff deadline, even as he took his first steps in weeks toward engaging with China. Trump secured a much-desired call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, paving the way for a new round of talks on Monday in London — yet the diplomacy was overshadowed by a blowout public fight between Trump and his billionaire onetime ally, Elon Musk. Trump's aides insisted Friday that the president was moving on and focused on his economic agenda. Still, question marks remain over the US's most consequential trade relationships, with few tangible signs of progress toward interim agreements. India, which the Trump administration has cited as an early deal target, has taken a tougher line in negotiations and challenged Trump's auto tariffs at the World Trade Organization. Japan held another round of talks with the US, while also signaling it wants a reprieve from duties on cars and light trucks. The legal fight over Trump's tariffs hangs over everything. A court ruling striking down the country-by-country duties imposed using emergency authorities left partners with no certainty over what Trump's powers are. The next test could come as soon as next week, when a court could rule on the administration's appeal. Trump and his team were eager to draw attention to inroads with China as proof his ways are working. Trump on Friday described talks with Beijing as 'very far advanced' and said Xi had agreed to speed shipments of critical rare-earth minerals that were at the center of recent tension. Unlocking those supplies would spell relief for major American automakers. Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will visit the UK next week, during which he will conduct trade negotiations with the US, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement late Saturday. The mixed results in the talks so far demonstrate the highs and lows of Trump's mercurial approach to trade, in which he and aides have cast him as the ultimate decision-maker on any deals. Rather than provide a clear-cut victory, Trump's dealings with Xi also show the difficult road ahead with China. The rare-earths dispute revealed how important those supplies, which Beijing dominates, are for the US economy. 'Xi is not letting go of the rare earths. He's got leverage, he's using it,' said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank. 'They talked, that's the most important thing. I think they're really far apart.' The clock is ticking for Trump. His 90-day pause on higher tariffs for the European Union and nearly five dozen countries expires July 9 — barring an extension he could do with the flick of a pen — while China's reprieve extends until August. If deals aren't reached, Trump plans to restore tariff rates to the levels he first announced in April, or lower numbers that exceed the current 10% baseline, a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'We will have deals. It takes time. Usually it takes months and years; in this administration, it's going to take more like days,' White House trade counselor Peter Navarro said Friday on Fox Business. 'We're on task and on target.' The Office of the US Trade Representative 'looks more like a deli now,' Navarro said, with countries lining up for talks. USTR sent letters this week to trading partners reminding them of the deadline. It's unclear what all the frantic activity has yielded. Xi for months was reluctant to get on the phone with Trump and analysts speculated about what concessions the US president offered to his counterpart in exchange for the call. Trump at least appeared to give some ground on foreign students, saying it would be his 'honor' to welcome Chinese scholars even as his administration cracks down on student visas. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited Washington facing demands from his nation's automakers for tariff credits for vehicles they produce in the US. But the subject barely came up during the public portion of his meeting with Trump, who spent a large chunk of time unloading on Musk. 'We'll end up hopefully with a trade deal or we'll do something — you know, we'll do the tariffs,' Trump said Thursday alongside Merz. Merz, in his US visit, emphasized the integrated trade ties between countries that are at risk — including by personally driving a BMW built in South Carolina. The German leader said Friday at an industry event the nations should agree on an 'offset rule' that would provide tariff relief for existing US production. Trump's UK deal — the lone pact so far — was undercut this week when he plowed ahead with levies on steel and aluminum. The UK said the pact included an agreement for zero tariffs on British metals, but Trump's latest order kept a 25% charge on them while negotiations continue and doubled the rate for others. Still, the upcoming Group of Seven summit of leaders from major economies could provide an opportunity for the type of in-person dealmaking Trump craves. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has been discussing terms of a potential interim deal with Trump ahead of the gathering this month near Calgary. One theme is clear: Negotiations over his so-called reciprocal tariffs have grown intertwined with his separate duties on autos and metals, despite previous US signals that the administration considered them separate. 'He's entirely transactional,' Holtz-Eakin said of Trump. 'He will always deal.' Talks are ongoing with the EU, which has previously proposed an agreement with the US to mutually drop auto tariffs to zero as part of a broader trade framework, which the Trump administration rejected. The bloc subsequently suggested working toward zero-for-zero tariffs on cars, other industrial goods and some agricultural imports with tariff-rate quotas as a possible interim measure. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said this week he'd consider some type of 'export credit' on autos, the kind of carve-out sought by Germany on vehicle tariffs. And he predicted there would be a US-India deal in the 'not too distant future.' Lutnick signaled, though, Trump's push for so-called reciprocity comes with caveats. The US wouldn't agree with Vietnam to drop all tariffs, because it believes the Southeast Asian nation is a hub for so-called transshipment of Chinese goods. Talks with South Korea, where Trump spoke with newly elected president Lee Jae-myung, and Japan, which had top trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa meet with Lutnick, continued this week. In yet another sign of the Trump team's frenetic approach, Nikkei reported that different — and even competing — positions among Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Lutnick had confounded Japanese counterparts. --With assistance from Akayla Gardner, Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Alberto Nardelli, Hadriana Lowenkron, Arne Delfs and Shiyin Chen. (Updates with China's He attending talks in London in eighth paragraph) Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert Wants to Donate His Billions—and Walk Again The SEC Pinned Its Hack on a Few Hapless Day Traders. The Full Story Is Far More Troubling Is Elon Musk's Political Capital Spent? Trump Considers Deporting Migrants to Rwanda After the UK Decides Not To What Does Musk-Trump Split Mean for a 'Big, Beautiful Bill'? ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
