Welcome to the Tech Mem Ride Home for Thursday, March 28th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough.

Today, Facebook is charged with violations of the Fair Housing Act.

The UK gives Huawei a pass, but drags them at the same time.

Spotify lets you share your account with your better half.

And let's take two on that Google Podcast Transcription Search Experiment.

Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has filed charges against Facebook, saying the company's

ad targeting tools enabled advertisers to violate the Fair Housing Act.

The charges stem from a complaint filed in August and hearken back to the ability of advertisers on Facebook's platform to target ads based on specific options including ethnicities and religions.

One section of the complaint reads that Facebook quote,

has provided a toggle button that enables advertisers to exclude men or women from seeing

an ad, a search box to exclude people who do not speak a specific

language from seeing an ad, and a map tool to exclude people who live in a specified area

from seeing an ad by drawing a red line around that area."

Another section of the complaint says Facebook's quote, ad delivery system prevents advertisers

who want to reach a broad audience of users from doing so.

Even if an advertiser tries to target an audience that broadly spans protected class groups,

Facebook's ad delivery system will not show the ad to a diverse audience if the system considers

users with particular characteristics most likely to engage with the ad."

A Facebook spokesperson told Virge, quote,

Were surprised by HUD's decision,

as we've been working with them to address their concerns

...