Reader bethSmash is freaked out that Best Buy sent her a follow-up email even though she didn’t give the clerk her her address or even flash her loyalty program card when she bought a wireless router. She assumes the corporation connects her credit card number to her email address, which she must have given Best Buy when she signed up for the program, through some sort of privacy invasion trickery. [More]
privacy
FTC Makes Twitter Promise Not To Mislead Customers About Privacy
By 6.24.10
Twitter has settled a Federal Trade Commission investigation, which started after a hacker gained access to a number of Twitter accounts (including President Barack Obama’s) and sent out fake tweets from those addresses. Under the terms of the settlement, Twitter “will be barred for 20 years from misleading consumers about the extent to which it maintains and protects the security, privacy and confidentiality of nonpublic consumer information.” We don’t know what happens in year 21. [More]
Domino's Delivery Guy Demanded My Social Security Number
By 6.24.10
Brent says the Domino’s dude wouldn’t let him pay with a credit card unless he offered up his Social Security Number or driver’s license number. Since Brent was smart enough to know you only give such information to Girl Scouts and those guys who go to door-to-door selling magazine subscriptions, he checked it out with his local Domino’s, which told him the nosyness is store policy. [More]
Google In Hot Water For Collecting Data From Your Wireless Networks
By 6.22.10
A group of attorneys general have decided to go ahead with a multi-state investigation of the Google Streets View project after it was revealed that the cars it uses to capture the images were also capturing data from people’s home and business wireless networks. The capturing was done in 30 countries and the government of France says that it included people’s passwords and email.
Google says they were capturing the data “inadvertently” and that the quality of the data was poor because the cars were moving. [More]
How To Opt Out Of Apple's iAds Service, Eventually
By 6.22.10
If you don’t want Apple collecting data on you and using it to target you with ads starting July 1st, you can opt out from “any device running iOS 4,” says AppleInsider. The opt-out is automatic when you hit up http://oo.apple.com from an iOS 4 device, and as far as I can tell you can’t undo it, so don’t click the link unless you really want to opt out. Also, it’s not working at the moment. [More]
Coming Soon, A Way To Find Out How That Online Ad Knows What You Like
By 6.22.10
Last year the FTC asked online marketers to regulate targeted advertising, so in an attempt to avoid new regulatory policies the major ad industry groups have gotten together to launch a new service. Starting late summer, when a targeted ad from a participating marketer appears on your screen, you’ll be able to click a small icon somewhere on the ad and see your profile on that marketer’s site. You’ll also be able to then opt out of future ads from that ad network, reports Wired. [More]
Privacy Change: Apple Knows Where Your Phone Is And Is Telling People
By 6.21.10
Apple updated its privacy policy today, with an important, and dare we say creepy new paragraph about location information. If you agree to the changes, (which you must do in order to download anything via the iTunes store) you agree to let Apple collect store and share “precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device.” [More]
HP And Yahoo Want To Put Ads On Your Printouts
By 6.21.10
Google’s not the only company that wants to put ads on everything you read. HP’s new web-connected printers will let you send pages or photos directly from websites or phones and schedule recurring printouts from content partners–and the company is pilot testing a program with Yahoo’s advertising network to deliver targeted ads on those scheduled printouts. [More]
It's iPhone 4 Day, So Naturally AT&T Is Exposing Account Info To Strangers
By 6.15.10
AT&T knows it needs to step up if it wants to be taken seriously these days as a wireless provider, so it’s been beefing up 3G coverage, rejiggering data plans, and of course ramping up the speed at which it leaks your private data to strangers. In fact, according to multiple reports from AT&T customers, the company has managed to pull off the neat trick of logging customers in to strangers’ accounts today during the iPhone 4 pre-order fiesta. See? You no longer have to wait until you’ve got the device in hand to worry about privacy issues. [More]
Cruise Line Employee Used Reservation List To Determine When To Rob Vacationers
By 6.14.10
I guess you could try to prepare your robbery schedule based on Foursquare and Twitter updates, but a former Royal Caribbean Cruise Line employee found a much easier way: she accessed the cruise line’s reservations list, wrote down the addresses of passengers and the dates they’d be on the cruise, and handed the list off to her husband. She’s being charged with 24 counts of burglary, while her husband will be charged soon. [More]
Hackers Bite Apple, AT&T To Breach 114K iPad Owners
By 6.10.10
Some early iPad adopters got a special bonus prize for buying a device that’s sure to be replaced with a vastly superior model a year from now — a data breach in which hackers unearthed account info from 114,000 users, including newscaster Diane Sawyer, New York mayor Michael Bloomerg and movie kingpin Harvey Weinstein. [More]
"Got ID?" Is A Question Many More Businesses Will Be Asking Soon
By 6.8.10
Your driver’s license could start getting worn down a lot starting in December . That’s because a whole bunch of businesses will soon be required to ask you for your ID, everyone from your dentist to your car dealer. [More]
Nervous Facebook CEO Claims People Are Overreacting To Privacy Changes
By 6.3.10
Business Insider says that the usually calm and collected Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg “seemed to melt on stage,” while answering questions from industry insiders at the All Things D Conference. They also report that Mr. Zuckerberg told the crowd that he doesn’t believe in giving users the choice to “opt-in” to privacy changes because back when Facebook introduced the “news feed” everyone freaked out — but it turned out OK in the end. [More]
Chase Doesn't Care That I'm Getting Someone Else's Payment Verifications
By 6.2.10
Robert got a confirmation email from Chase verifying that he’d paid $130 on a credit card account. Problem was, the payment he made was for $236.27, and the account listed with the $130 payment wasn’t his. He brought up the issue to Chase but was told to ignore it. [More]
UK School Wants To Fingerprint Kids Who Take Out Library Books
By 5.30.10
What’s your children’s privacy worth? Should they be subjected to fingerprinting just to take out a library book? That’s the question parents at a school in the UK are grappling with. [More]
Bipartisan Senate Push Seeks To Expose Owners Of Prepaid Cell Phones
By 5.28.10
A couple Senators are Voltroning to introduce legislation that would let authorities track identities of prepaid cell phone owners. Anyone who’s seen The Wire knows criminals thrive off of pre-paids. [More]
How To Use Facebook's New Privacy Controls
By 5.26.10
Lifehacker has a handy guide to and analysis of the new, streamlined privacy controls just announced by Facebook. There’s also the full version posted on Facebook. The new controls are simpler, but fall short in some respects. [More]
