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privacy
privacy
Viral Facebook Status Update Hoax Won't Protect Your Privacy
By Phil Villarreal on February 3, 2012 9:15 AM
24 Comments
A generally harmless but misleading — as well as quite annoying — status update is worming its way through Facebook, imploring contacts to perform a ritual that will supposedly stop strangers from seeing their comments on the sidebar. (It won't). More »
Google Reaching Its Grabby Arms Out To Combine More Of Your Personal information
By Mary Beth Quirk on January 25, 2012 10:00 AM
30 Comments
Google wants to change things up a bit and grant itself the right to combine your personal information across its products. So how is it planning on doing that? By simply rewriting its privacy policy to let you know about it first, which they figure you'll agree to if you want to keep using Google stuff. More »
(TheeErin)
Hospital CEO Thinks It's Perfectly OK To Show Patient's Records To Newspaper
By Chris Morran on January 4, 2012 1:35 PM
125 Comments
Last January, a woman in California says she was billed by a hospital for a treatment she never received. She took her complaint to the folks at California Watch, who published a story about her predicament. But when a local newspaper went to verify the information, the hospital's CEO had absolutely no problem showing up at the reporter's door to rifle through that patient's file without her permission. More »
D.C. Residents, Recycle Your Cat Litter Or Face Garbage Snooping, Fines
By Phil Villarreal on December 14, 2011 9:00 AM
97 Comments
The Washington, D.C. Department of Public Works is apparently so dedicated to enforcing recycling laws that they're willing to dig through trash to find evidence to issue fines. A resident says she's been stuck with $2,000 worth of fines, some of which come from a government employee who admits to discovering her violations by snooping in her garbage. More »
AT&T Says Hackers Tried To Swipe Account Info
By Phil Villarreal on November 22, 2011 9:30 AM
13 Comments
According to AT&T, hackers tried to break into some users' accounts and make off with some private information. The company calls the attack an "organized and systematic attempt," but more importantly, a failure. More »
(jk+too)
Report: Google Analytics Can Reveal Identities Of Anonymous Bloggers
By Phil Villarreal on November 18, 2011 9:00 AM
19 Comments
Those who harbor secret online identities may not be as anonymous as they think. Determined snoopers can potentially uncover bloggers with a little legwork and the use of Google Analytics. More »
UK City Forcing Taxi Drivers To Record All Passengers
By Chris Morran on November 15, 2011 2:00 PM
53 Comments
You're probably familiar with the long-running HBO special "Taxicab Confessions," in which cab passengers —often under the influence of some sort of intoxicant — open their hearts, minds, and sometimes their blouses to drivers of taxis rigged with multiple hidden cameras. Now the UK city of Oxford is turning its entire fleet of cabs into rolling recording devices. More »
Thank You For [Not] Being A Chase Customer, Here Is Your Junk Mail
By Laura Northrup on November 9, 2011 9:00 AM
40 Comments
Jonathan received a letter from Chase thanking him for being a customers, and asking him to send it back in order to opt out of receiving promotional mailings. Which is interesting, because Jonathan not only isn't a Chase customer, he doesn't live at that particular address full-time or normally receive mail there. Concerned about identity theft, he learned that he wasn't the only non-customer being thanked for patronizing Chase. But they won't let him get off their mailing list, either. More »
Hundreds Of People's Tax Returns Found Dumped In Front Of Jackson Hewitt Office Because They Were "So Heavy"
By Ben Popken on November 4, 2011 1:00 PM
39 Comments
A soggy pile of hundreds of old tax returns was found in front of an abandoned Jackson Hewitt tax prep office in San Francisco in late October. The papers had social security numbers, names, addresses, and phone numbers, a potential goldmine for any identity thief who got their hands on them. More »
Senator Is Victim Of Credit Card Fraud, Thieves Rack Up $12,000 At Walmart
By Ben Popken on October 28, 2011 3:00 PM
50 Comments
It's a measure of the brazenness and ubiquity of identity theft that a U.S. Senator has become the latest victim of credit card fraud. Thieves stole the credit card numbers belonging to Senator Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii, embedded them on the magnetic strip of a fake credit card, and went on a $12,000 Walmart shopping spree. More »
Groups Call On TransUnion To Stop Selling Employee Credit Reports To Employers
By Ben Popken on October 26, 2011 5:00 PM
84 Comments
Employers pull the credit reports of prospective employees as a way to determine whether they're trustworthy and good at managing money. But now more than 25 civil rights groups, labor unions and consumer groups have banned together to demand that TransUnion stop selling credit reports to employers. They say the practice is invasive, discriminatory, and worst of all, doesn't even work. More »
NYC Taxis To Start Asking Passengers How Much Money They Make
By Ben Popken on October 26, 2011 11:00 AM
77 Comments
If you've ever thought your New York City taxi driver was too talkative, the taxis there are about to get a whole lot nosier. The screens in NYC taxis are now going to start asking passengers how much money they make. That's a bit presumptuous! More »
Credit Cards To Sell Your Buying History So Online Advertisers Can Target You More Precisely
By Ben Popken on October 25, 2011 1:00 PM
51 Comments
How about a world where you swipe for a Big Mac and then the next time you go online you get an ad for Slimfast? That's the big idea behind Visa and Mastercard's new business foray: selling off all your swipe data to online advertisers so they can more precisely target their ads to what's going on in your skull. It's another nail in the coffin for the quaint fiction we call "online privacy." More »
Verizon Internet To Share Your Location With Advertisers So You'll Get Ads "Of More Interest"
By Ben Popken on October 5, 2011 2:00 PM
43 Comments
As a favor to you, Verizon internet says they're going to start sharing your local geographical location to advertisers so you'll get ads "of more interest." For instance, "a pizza chain may want to deliver their ad to give a special offer to people living in a particular area." Here's how to opt out. More »
Secret Memo Reveals Which Cellphone Carriers Store Your Data The Longest
By Ben Popken on September 28, 2011 4:00 PM
27 Comments
How long does your cellphone company keep logs of your text messages? Of the words you wrote? Of the calls you made? A Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina unearthed a Department of Justice document that breaks down the retention periods for each mobile provider. More »
Women Sue Plastic Surgeon For Posting Nude Pics
By Phil Villarreal on September 28, 2011 9:15 AM
99 Comments
According to lawsuits filed by five women, a St. Louis plastic surgeon violated their privacy, advertising his skills by posting naked pictures of them on his site. More »
Senators Blumenthal And Franken Ask Social Intelligence Corp About Using Your Facebook Photos In Employer Background Checks
By Ben Popken on September 26, 2011 11:00 AM
85 Comments
Senators Blumenthal and Franken have figuratively posted on Social Intelligence Corp's Facebook wall a poll asking the company to answer several questions about its background check business. What makes this company's service unique is that it scours the internet profiles of prospective employees and flags them for things like holding drinks or holding guns. More »
(cletch)
OnStar Says Not To Worry About It Tracking Your Car Even After You Cancel It
By Ben Popken on September 26, 2011 10:00 AM
73 Comments
Last week, OnStar raised some eyebrows when they emailed their customers to say that the company will tracking their car even after they canceled service. They then followed up with an emailed statement to the press to let everyone know they're not bad guys. More »
Netflix Wants You To Ask Congress To Let It Stream On Facebook
By Phil Villarreal on September 23, 2011 9:15 AM
90 Comments
Netflix would like to buddy up with Facebook, but a 1988 law called the Video Privacy Protection Act, which makes it illegal to publish customers' rental history, prevents it from doing so. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings noted the legal roadblock at Facebook's f8 conference Thursday, and the company publicly asked customers for support. More »
Judge Holds Up Borders Sale Due To Privacy Concerns
By Phil Villarreal on September 23, 2011 9:00 AM
22 Comments
Things are so bad for Borders that the company can't even seem to fail properly. A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge threw a hurdle in front of the proposed $15.8 million sale of intellectual property to Barnes & Noble, demanding that paperwork must clarify privacy rights for 48 million customers whose data will be swapped in the transaction. More »
