Data & Privacy

Facebook's 'Previous Status Updates' Bring Back Unwanted Memories

Facebook's 'Previous Status Updates' Bring Back Unwanted Memories

People share all kinds of news via Facebook status update: births, college acceptances, new jobs, and deaths. Facebook recently introduced a feature that rehashes “previous,” (originally called “memorable”) status updates in the right sidebar, with some of the text of and a link to certain status updates, which could be several years old. It’s incredibly confusing at first, but at least it generates pageviews for Facebook.

The feature has been causing Carroll a lot of anxiety lately because it keeps pulling up statuses from her and her contacts’ feeds from a period in her life that she would rather not remember, when many of her loved ones and pets died in a short span of time.

Texas Data Breach Exposes 3.5 Million Addresses, SSNs

Texas Data Breach Exposes 3.5 Million Addresses, SSNs

Everything’s bigger in Texas. Even data breaches. As many as 3.5 million residents of the state found their personal data has been set free in a gaffe by the state government. [More]

Facebook App To Automatically Match College Students With Financial Aid

Facebook App To Automatically Match College Students With Financial Aid

MTV and The College Board recently teamed up for something called the College Affordability Challenge, a contest to create digital tools that will help to make navigating the financial aid maze even slightly easier. Earlier this week, they announced the winner, a Facebook application that takes users’ info and matches them up with the most appropriate aid providers. [More]

Report: Hackers Retaliate Against Sony For Going After One Of Their Own

Report: Hackers Retaliate Against Sony For Going After One Of Their Own

In an episode reportedly linked to Sony’s attempts to take down the alleged hacker who decimated the PS3’s security, a group of hackers reportedly crippled the PlayStation Network and several Sony-related cites. [More]

Google Takes Another Stab At Being Facebookish With +1 Button

Google Takes Another Stab At Being Facebookish With +1 Button

Remember Google Buzz, the search engine giant’s attempt at trying to become all Facebook-like? It didn’t exactly do much to make Mark Zuckerberg sweat and eventually ended up as the subject of an FTC investigation over privacy issues. But that isn’t stopping Big G from trying to create a more social aspect of its search results. This week, the company announced its new “+1 Button,” which is pretty much the same as Facebook’s Like button, except not on Facebook and not at all private. [More]

Debunking The Creation Myths Behind 5 Huge Companies

Debunking The Creation Myths Behind 5 Huge Companies

It might be shocking to you to find out that some companies have lied about their own creation, but hey, who doesn’t like a good story? From eBay to YouTube, tall tales have been spun to consumers for various reasons. Let’s take a walk down liars’ memory lane, shall we? [More]

Mass. Restaurant Chain Fined $110K For Data Breach

Mass. Restaurant Chain Fined $110K For Data Breach

A Massachusetts restaurant chain agreed to pay a $110,000 fine to settle a complaint that alleged hackers nabbed customers’ credit card and debit card info in 2009. [More]

Facebook Wants To Use Your Real-Time Utterances To Sell You Stuff

Facebook Wants To Use Your Real-Time Utterances To Sell You Stuff

You might want to think twice the next time you update your Facebook status with, “Someone send me a pound of gummy bears and a gigantic chocolate rabbit”: Facebook is in the process of testing ad targeting that would work off your real-time conversations. [More]

Worst Company In America Round One: Time Warner Cable Vs. Facebook

Worst Company In America Round One: Time Warner Cable Vs. Facebook

Only one of this afternoon’s combatants has been the subject of an Oscar-nominated movie. Apparently, two hours of customers sitting on the phone not being helped by Time Warner Cable customer service isn’t as thrilling as the story of a site that lets 500 million users share baby photos with friends and all their personal info with sketchy app developers. [More]

Gap Wants You To Haggle Over Some Khaki Pants

Gap Wants You To Haggle Over Some Khaki Pants

In what we can only assume is a desperate attempt to make shopping for the world’s most boring item fun, the Gap is running a one-day-only promotion where you, the internet-savvy shopper, can haggle over khaki pants while potentially not even wearing any. [More]

Warner Bros. Starts Renting Movies Through Facebook

Warner Bros. Starts Renting Movies Through Facebook

It was bound to happen eventually. Earlier today, Warner Bros. launched a new program on Facebook that will let users rent streaming movies directly through the social networking site. [More]

Facebook To Simplify Privacy Policy

Facebook To Simplify Privacy Policy

Facebook has had a bad relationship with the whole “privacy” thing. Now the company says it will be toning down the legalese on its nearly 6,000-word privacy policy. [More]

Twitter: Google Isn't Trying To Buy Us For $10 Billion

Twitter: Google Isn't Trying To Buy Us For $10 Billion

It was recently reported that Google is in the market to buy Twitter and that the price tag floating around for the company was somewhere in the $8-10 billion range. But today, Twitter’s CEO denied those reports — sort of. [More]

Is Twitter Worth $10 Billion?

Is Twitter Worth $10 Billion?

A lot of people expressed surprise at the $315 million purchase of Huffington Post by AOL. But that’s nothing compared to the figures Facebook and Google are reportedly considering ponying up to acquire Twitter. [More]

Follow Consumerist On Twitter, RSS, Facebook

Follow Consumerist On Twitter, RSS, Facebook

Did you know you can follow Consumerist on Twitter and get all our headlines that way? Or read us in RSS? Or fan us on Facebook and only get a selection of our most popular stories? Yep, it’s true! Take our hand and jump on in, the water is nice. [More]

Sponsored Facebook Posts Turn Your Updates Into Ads For Which You Get No Money

Sponsored Facebook Posts Turn Your Updates Into Ads For Which You Get No Money

For the none of you who really, really wanted to have your Facebook updates automatically converted into ads for which you receive no money — and which you can’t opt out of — the site has answered your prayers! [More]

Survey: Facebook Users Compelled To Update Status From Bathroom

Survey: Facebook Users Compelled To Update Status From Bathroom

If you’ve ever wondered how some of your Facebook friends find the time to update their status as frequently as they do, a new survey may have an answer. According to the study, from AIS Media, 27% of people use Facebook in the bathroom. Good thing they’re not actually including details about that in their updates. [More]

JCPenney Opens Up The First Facebook Store

JCPenney Opens Up The First Facebook Store

JCPenney just snagged the “anchor store” spot on Facebook, becoming the first retailer to let shoppers purchase crap directly from their Facebook page application through a fully integrated e-commerce platform. [More]