Top Stories
Obama calls for a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights
February 23, 2012
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY, 23FEB2012, P1B
The White House on Wednesday unveiled a strongly worded “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights’’ as the linchpin for a drive to get Congress to pass new laws protecting consumers privacy as they surf the Internet.
The announcement came as Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and attorneys general from 35 other states sent a letter to Google complaining about a new …More
Microsoft-Google privacy tussle widens spotlight on invasive practices
February 22, 2012
By Byron Acohido
USA TODAY, 22Feb2012, P1B
Mud-slinging between tech rivals is nothing new. But the red hot issue of online privacy has pushed it to another level.
Last week Google scrambled to deflect criticism that it tracked the online activities of users’ of Apple’s Safari web browser against their wishes, by circumventing an anti-tracking mechanism.
On Tuesday the search giant lashed out at Microsoft in response to …More
Google takes heat for tracking Safari users against their wishes
February 17, 2012
Yet more evidence of the gold rush to harvest and store profiling data on Internet users:
Google came under fire today by several members of Congress after a Stanford University grad student disclosed how the search giant has been tracking the online activities of users of Apple’s Safari web browser, despite the default use of a browser mechanism to block such tracking.
Jonathan Mayer, a grad student and …More
Path privacy gaffe highlights gold rush for mobile users’ data
February 16, 2012
Apple on Wednesday moved to quell the rising furor over disclosures that social network Path and several other makers of iOS apps collect and store users address books without asking their permission.
The tech giant said it would require third-party suppliers of applications in its App Store to secure user approval to use address book data, including full …More
Spammers exploit notoriety of Romney, Gingrich
February 10, 2012
Spamming continues as a lucrative global enterprise, with ebbs and flows pegged to high-profile events and celebrity news.
The latest example of that: e-mail messages playing off the notoriety of Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are helping fuel an uptick in spam.
Unsolicited messages pitching products ranging from car loans and credit scoring to uncertified drugs and fad diets have actually tailed off in the past …More
EPIC asks court to block Google’s new privacy policy
February 9, 2012
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY, 09FEB2012, p3B
An advocacy group went to court on Wednesday to block Google from making a policy change that could lead to the search giant assembling richer behavior profiles of people who use more than one of its popular online services.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint asking a Washington, D.C., district court judge to restrain Google from making the …More
Google to Congress: deleting profiling data ‘not always practicable’
February 2, 2012
Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., says there wasn’t enough time to set up a full public hearing on the controversial user agreement changes Google announced last week. Those changes take effect March 1 and will enable the search giant to step up the cross-referencing of profiling data collected from users of its popular online services. Google says it is not collecting any data from users of Google …More