Sites Feed Personal Details To New Tracking Industry
Julia Angwin and Tom McGinty have a must-read story in the Wall Street Journal: The largest U.S. websites are installing new and intrusive consumer-tracking technologies on the computers of people visiting their sites—in some cases, more than 100 tracking tools at a time—a Wall Street Journal investigation has found. [...] n an effort to quantify the reach and sophistication of the tracking industry, the Journal examined the 50 most popular websites in the U.S. to measure the quantity and capabilities of the "cookies," "beacons" and other trackers installed on a visitor's computer by each site. Together, the 50 sites account for roughly 40% ...
Breaking a Promise on Surveillance
From a New York Times editorial: It is just a technical matter, the Obama administration says: We just need to make a slight change in a law to make clear that we have the right to see the names of anyone’s e-mail correspondents and their Web browsing history without the messy complication of asking a judge for permission. It is far more than a technical change. The administration’s request, reported Thursday in The Washington Post, is an unnecessary and disappointing step backward toward more intrusive surveillance from a president who promised something very different during the 2008 campaign. Read more in the ...
Ca: Tax collector may have used confidential files for business leads
Chad Skelton reports: A tax collector in B.C. used the Canada Revenue Agency's computers to look up the private tax files of hundreds of high-income individuals, apparently in the hopes of hitting them up for a business she ran on the side, according to internal government documents. The CRA's internal investigation report, obtained by the Vancouver Sun through the Access-to-Information Act, reveals the woman's "deliberate and systematic" mining of taxpayer information went on for four years before being detected, making it one of the largest privacy breaches in the agency's history. Read more on Canada.com
Do You Know Who’s Watching You?
Interesting infographic: Infographic byWordStream Internet Marketing
White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity
Ellen Nakashima reports: The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation. The administration wants to add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly ...
Google, CIA Invest in ‘Future’ of Web Monitoring
Noah Shachtman reports: The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it uses that information to predict the future. The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents — both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine “goes beyond search” by “looking at the ‘invisible links’ between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.” The idea is to ...
Internet
Sites Feed Personal Details To New Tracking IndustryJulia Angwin and Tom McGinty have a must-read story in the Wall Street Journal: The...
NC: Judge gives online commenters First Amendment protectionKevin Ellis reports: Attorneys for Michael Mead had sought to force The Gaston Gazette...
Facebook Users Who Sued Over Privacy Setting Changes Drop CaseWendy Davis reports: A group of four Facebook users who sued the site earlier this...
White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activityEllen Nakashima reports: The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for...
Read More News About Internet PrivacyBusinesses
Omo follows customers home with GPS-enabled productsMeghan Keane reports: Privacy advocates may not be happy with brands tracking consumers...
Sites Feed Personal Details To New Tracking IndustryJulia Angwin and Tom McGinty have a must-read story in the Wall Street Journal: The...
The TSA’s Secure Flight initiative may be making your privacy less secureChristopher Elliott writes: Thanks for the birthday card, Southwest Airlines. The...
Judges ponder location for Google privacy lawsuitsRebecca Boone of the Associated Press reports: A panel of federal judges is deciding...
Read More News About BreachesCourt
NC: Judge gives online commenters First Amendment protection
Kevin Ellis reports: Attorneys for Michael Mead had sought to force The Gaston Gazette to reveal information that could have been used to help reveal the identity of an anonymous commenter on the news organization’s website. But Superior Court Judge Calvin Murphy ruled Tuesday to nullify the request, siding with The Gaston Gazette that such information... [Read more of this story]
Facebook Users Who Sued Over Privacy Setting Changes Drop Case
Wendy Davis reports: A group of four Facebook users who sued the site earlier this year for allegedly violating their privacy have withdrawn their case. The one-sentence notice of dismissal, filed with the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif. last week, didn’t give a reason for the decision. The papers specified that the withdrawal was without... [Read more of this story]
Judges ponder location for Google privacy lawsuits
Rebecca Boone of the Associated Press reports: A panel of federal judges is deciding where to consolidate several lawsuits against Google Inc. alleging the company violated wiretapping laws. At least nine lawsuits have been filed in the United States so far contending that Google collected fragments of e-mails, Web surfing data and other online information... [Read more of this story]
LIGATT Security Tries to Silence its Online Critics With an Unsubstantiated Lawsuit
Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes: LIGATT Security, a controversial Georgia-based computer security firm, is embroiled in an ongoing flame war with its online detractors, who question the firm’s legitimacy and stock prospects. Earlier this month, LIGATT upped the ante by filing suit in a Georgia court, threatening about... [Read more of this story]
PA: Police chief sues AT&T for giving wife phone records
Paula Reed Ward reports: The police chief for Industry filed a lawsuit against AT&T Mobility recently, claiming the company improperly released his cell phone records to his wife. Garold Ray Miller filed the claim for invasion of privacy in Beaver County last month, but it was moved to federal court on Tuesday. [...] Mr. Miller’s wife was... [Read more of this story]
Read More News from Privacy in the CourtsPogo Was Right!
