FTC bars Facebook from using deceptive privacy practices
November 29, 2011
Facebook on Tuesday agreed to a Federal Trade Commission consent order barring the company from deceiving consumers about its privacy practices. The order also requires Facebook to submit to monitoring for 20 years.
The sanctions stem from privacy setting changes Facebook made in December 2009, without asking users’ permission.
The company told users they could keep full control of who could access their content on Facebook when, …More
BYOD trend heightens risk of corporate intrusions
November 23, 2011
The confluence of more employees using personally-owned smartphones for work duties — and those same folks using those same devices to shop this holiday season — adds up to a profound new security concern. The increasing sophistication of Droid exploits and the jailbreaking of iOS has caught the attention of ISACA, the prestigious global association of 90,000 IT administrators and execs. After due …More
Rockefeller, Bono Mack seek explanations from Facebook
November 16, 2011
Two federal lawmakers want Facebook to come before Congress to explain how the social media company tracks Web users and why Facebook members got swarmed by pornographic and violent images this week.
Reacting to details of Facebook’s tracking practices disclosed in LastWatchdog’s page 1A story in print editions of USA TODAY, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D – W. Virg., said he intends to invite Facebook and …More
How Facebook keeps tracking logs of the webpages you visit
November 15, 2011
In recent weeks, Facebook has been wrangling with the Federal Trade Commission over whether the social media website is violating users’ privacy by making public too much of their personal information.
Far more quietly, another debate is brewing over a different side of online privacy: what Facebook is learning about those who visit its website.
Facebook officials are now acknowledging that the social media giant has been able to …More
Facebook’s sharing system swarmed by porn and gore
November 15, 2011
Facebook users today, 15Nov2011, were assaulted by a wave of pornographic and violent images, automatically pushed into their accounts as content supposedly liked or recommended by their friends.
The images included doctored photos of pop singer Justin Bieber and other celebrities in demeaning poses. Other images depicted extreme violence and abused animals.
Facebook members complained and described the images in Twitter posts all morning. By mid-afternoon Eastern time, …More
Why the FTC’s COPPA revisions fall short
November 9, 2011
The Federal Trade Commission has drawn positive reviews from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers for its proposal to update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA.
The 1998 COPPA law bans website publishers and social networks from collecting or using information from children under 13. Enforcement, however, has been spotty. And it’s common practice for website operators to do the minimum to meet the letter …More
Ten-fold rise in malicious ads bedevils publishers, consumers
November 2, 2011
The online advertising industry is scrambling to quell a long-standing problem that has taken a turn for the worse: the spread of malicious ads on the Internet’s top commercial websites.
Several new twists have made so-called malvertisements a fast-rising threat to consumers — and a big headache for publishers, advertisers and ad networks, say technologists and security researchers.
The spread of infected online ads has spiked tenfold over the …More
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