As calls for comprehensive online privacy legislation get louder, Congress is looking to the experience of our cousins across the Atlantic where the European Union has had strict privacy regulations for over 15 years. What they’re finding is that privacy protections come with tradeoffs.
At a House hearing yesterday, M.I.T. Professor …
Facebook continues to refine the level of control granted to users over their News Feed. The social network’s newest feature, Subscriptions, functions similarly to the way you can follow people on Twitter, but with a few notable differences.
The new subscriptions service adds another layer to Facebook’s relationship hierarchy, which …
Whoa, boy: Facebook surprised us all this afternoon when they announced on their blog that they were adding a whole bunch of improvements to your friends lists: automatically generated “smart lists,” the ability to separate people into “close friends” and “acquaintances,” and a better suggestions mechanism with the ability to control who …
Last week we reported that Facebook was set to give its privacy pages a much needed facelift.
Its goal? To better streamline the controls granted to users over who can and can’t see their content. Previously Facebook users had to navigate through an unclear array of menus to get to their privacy settings. Now, that control is inline …
Google Plus added a new “ignore” feature to grant you further control of your privacy. Ostensibly, it’ll be for users you still want interacting with your content, but who you don’t want to see popping up in your stream all the time. Think of it as a less intense version of the “block” feature.
(LIST: A Brief History of Google’s …
A Federal court judge has done his part to fend off an Orwellian future, ruling that the government can’t collect citizens’ cell phone location data without a warrant.
The government had ordered Verizon Wireless to hand over 113 days worth of cell site location data for a criminal suspect without probable cause. In its argument, the …
Well, that didn’t take long.
In a blog post that went up earlier today, Facebook announced that they were adding several new privacy features, many of which are eerily reminiscent of Google Plus.
Their goal is to make who you share your content with more straightforward, thus saving you the embarrassment of having to explain why …
Liking things on the internet may be illegal in Germany.
More specifically, liking things on Facebook; German websites were ordered to shut down Facebook fan pages and remove “Like” buttons from their own websites on Friday, for fear that both are in violation of German and European laws.
(MORE: Don’t Blame Social Media for Social …
We all know Facebook is an easy privacy punching bag. The social network has a tendency to tinker with our personal data, and deservedly lands in hot water now and then with paranoid users, pundits and politicians.
But the latest episode in Facebook’s ongoing privacy drama has little to do with Facebook itself. Researchers at Carnegie …
Worried about your online privacy, and the simplicity with which your life can be uncovered from one stray thread of social media? If not, maybe you should be. British journalist Joanna Geary—a web development editor at the London Times—demonstrated just how easy it is to track down information about strangers online during a …
The Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 was approved Thursday in the U.S. House of Representatives, and will force internet service providers (ISPs) to keep logs of their customers for up to one year for police review.
CNET reports that the bill is intended to crack down on child pornography, and will include …
Has anything gone from “That’s dumb!” to “Ooh, I wish I could get in…” to “Hey! This is cool!” as quickly as Google+ has?
It’s like a hot new nightclub opened in town, and everyone’s waiting to get in—but you’re not really a party person, so you’re at home playing on the internet sorting your contacts into Google+ Circles. You …
