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Give Us Comments, Not Votes, Says Facebook December 05, 2012 
Facebook has elaborated on the changes it wants to make to its Data Use Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This new explanation is in response to the user feedback it has received thus far on a proposal it made late last month.
The crux of its proposed change is to scrap its user voting system and replace it with high-quality feedback instead.
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Bill Closing Email Privacy Loophole Clears Committee December 03, 2012 
A bill to protect email privacy cleared a key U.S. Senate committee last week, buoying the spirits of privacy advocates. The proposed law would close a loophole in the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which allows the government to peep on email more than 180 days old without a warrant. "We're very happy about it. It's a very good first step," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
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Google Play Takes Away Reviewers' Mask of Anonymity November 27, 2012 
Those who want to post reviews on Google Play will be required to use a Google+ account, the parent company of both announced on Tuesday. The new rules will be implemented with the latest version of Google Play, which the company is now introducing for Android devices. They have already been implemented in the online store.
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Google's Gov't Surveillance Report Stirs Privacy, Free Speech Fears November 14, 2012 
Surveillance of Internet users by governments around the world is on the rise, Google concludes in its latest Transparency Report, which details government requests it receives for information about its users. The United States tops the list of countries making requests for user data. "This is the sixth time we've released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise," Google said.
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eBay Launches Luxury Site for China's Fashionistas November 14, 2012 
eBay is taking another stab at the Chinese market. The retailer's new Chinese site, which is a joint venture with luxury retailed xiu.com, is described as low-key but stylish, and focuses on mid-range to high-end products such as clothing, handbags and accessories. Banana Republic, Clinique and Guess are among the estimated 5,000 brands already on board with the site.
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Facebook Welcomes Newbies With Privacy Grand Tour November 05, 2012 
Facebook has rolled out a round of security features intended to better educate new users about what information they can keep private and how. Now, when new users sign up for the site, they will have the option to take an online privacy tour to get information on its privacy policies.
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FTC Furrows Brows Over Facial-Recognition Tech October 24, 2012 
The FTC hopes to nip facial-recognition problems in the bud before things go too far. The agency offered guidelines for companies developing the technology in a staff report released this week. The purposes for using facial recognition tools range from identifying a criminal to displaying a highly customized ad.
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UK Blocks Extradition of UFO-Seeking Hacker October 17, 2012 
Gary McKinnon, a 46-year-old British computer hacker who admits to accessing U.S. government computers in 2002, will not be extradited to the U.S. UK home secretary Theresa May reportedly said that McKinnon was "seriously ill" and that the extradition request should be withdrawn. McKinnon says he hacked the U.S. computers searching for evidence of UFOs.
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EU Gives Google a Privacy To-Do List October 17, 2012 
It appears Google is catching flak from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. European privacy authorities have asked Google to modify its global privacy policy in order to give users a better understanding of what personal data is being collected. The move comes on the heels of rumors that the Federal Trade Commission is about to launch an antitrust suit against the company.
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Facebook Scans Private Conversations to Pad Likes October 05, 2012 
It isn't too hard to see what Facebook users Like, but on Thursday reports surfaced online about something few if any users would find likeable. It appears that sending links via private messages through the social network results in extra Likes for the link targets -- never mind that the link you're sharing may concern something you abhor. Call it a case of Like fraud.
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FTC Wades Deeper Into Online Child Privacy Thicket September 28, 2012 
The Federal Trade Commission is working on an update of the rules governing the online collection of personal information, which have remained pretty much the same since 1998. The changes to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, however, are likely to do as much to invade children's privacy as to protect it. The proposed changes have been debated since 2009.
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Feds Back Projects to Bolster Online ID Verification September 24, 2012 
When Paul Steiner published his 1993 cartoon in The New Yorker with the caption, "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog," little did he know it would become a mantra among security professionals, especially those concerned about authenticating identities on the Net. The job of finding ways to identify dogs in cyberspace has been assigned to the
National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, better known as NSTIC.
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Twitter Fought the Law and the Law Won September 14, 2012 
Despite pending appeals, on Friday Twitter handed over an Occupy Wall Street protester's tweets to a New York criminal court judge. The capitulation comes after months of attempts by the social networking company to fight a subpoena from prosecutors by claiming that micro-blog posts were private conversations.
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Twitter Stews Over 'Untenable' UK Surveillance Plans September 14, 2012 
Twitter said that Britain's plans to bolster Internet and phone surveillance could expose it and other communications companies to privacy lawsuits from abroad. The report from Twitter asserts that the UK's security push, which gives security services access to online communications such as email and social networking activity, would "unwittingly" collect data of non-UK residents.
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Privacy Advocates: Who's Watching the FBI Watchers? September 11, 2012 
The FBI soon will begin offering client software for its nationwide facial recognition database at no charge to law enforcement agencies in the United States. This is the fourth element in its seven-increment Next Generation Identification Program. The facial recognition system was deployed as a pilot in February.
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Mobile Phone Privacy: Buck Stops With the User September 06, 2012 
Cellphone and smartphone users have a love-hate relationship with mobile apps. While they love the functionality and enhanced user experience they bring to the table, clearly many hate the perceived privacy intrusions, suggests a newly released report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
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Speak to Me Only With Thine Texts September 05, 2012 
Voice mail is following in the footsteps of radio, television, film, records and email. That is, it is a technology that is slowly being supplanted by a newer technology -- in this case text messaging -- and may eventually become obsolete.
So say new figures Vonage provided to USA Today.
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BitTorrent Sharers Beware: You Are Being Watched September 05, 2012 
Swappers using the popular file-sharing protocol BitTorrent are spied on constantly by monitoring services, some of them seeking to identify media pirates, researchers at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom reported Tuesday. Monitoring is particularly intense for files that are currently popular among sharers.
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Anonymous Dumps Trove of 1 Million Stolen Apple IDs September 04, 2012 
The hacktivist group Anonymous has published 1 million universally unique identifiers belonging to Apple devices. These were among more than 12 million UDIDs stolen from the laptop of FBI Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl, the group said. Anonymous deleted personal data before releasing the data on the Internet.
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Japan Sizes Up Social Media as an Emergency Response Tool August 30, 2012 
Today in international tech news: Japan's government engages in talks about devising an official social media emergency response system. Also: Sony unveils some nifty new gadgets in Berlin, including a water-resistant tablet; a journalist is arrested for hacking a blogger's email account; and Assange supporters go on strike.
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