privacy

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is facing a 20,000 euro ($26,000) fine over the social-networking site's failure to offer German users anonymous accounts.

According to The Guardian, the data protection commissioner of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein has written to Zuckerberg and to Facebook Ireland threatening the fine if Facebook continues to ban anonymous accounts. According to the data protection authority, forcing users to provide their real identities is a breach of German law, under which the country's citizens have the right to use online media services anonymously.

"It is unacceptable that a US portal like … Read more

In mid-December, a good portion of our wired world had a collective cow after Instagram put out a confusing statement about how it planned to treat users' photos. (The company blamed the ensuing uproar on imprecise wording and retreated to its original terms of service.) Oh, we love our photos. Fine. Whatever.

Now compare that uproar with the (relative) sound of silence greeting the five-year extension of extraordinary spying powers handed to the National Security Agency. Even in an age when attention deficit disorder seems to be the default mode, this was something else. In the closing days of 2012, … Read more

Facebook says it has patched a security hole on its New Year's Eve messaging service after an IT student in the U.K. discovered he could easily see other people's private messages.

Student and blogger Jack Jenkins, found that he could view the messages simply by changing the ID number displayed in the message's confirmation URL. The messages would show up as if he were sending the note. He could read the text, see any attached photos, and even delete the message.

According to Jenkins' blog, Facebook took down the service a few hours after he blogged … Read more

Foursquare has begun notifying users of privacy policy updates that will begin making more user information and data public next month.

Beginning January 28, 2013, users' "full names" will be displayed across the check-in service, and venue owners will have increased access to users' check-in data, the company announced in an e-mail sent to users late last night. It also published a document called "Privacy 101" to explain the new changes.

The service currently sometimes shows full names but often displays just users' first name and last initial -- except when looking up friends on the … Read more

This was the year of Internet activism with a sharp political point to it: Protests drove a stake through the heart of a Hollywood-backed digital copyright bill, helped derail a United Nations summit, and contributed to the demise of a proposed data-sharing law.

In 2012, when Internet users and companies flexed their political muscles, they realized they were stronger than they had thought. It amounted to a show of force not seen since the political wrangling over implanting copy-protection technology in PCs a decade ago, or perhaps since those blue ribbons that appeared on Web sites in the mid-1990s in … Read more

Facebook, which began the year with a reputation for caring more about its users than about making a buck, is ending the year with the rollout of yet another way to try to squeeze more money from its members.

This latest money-making effort comes with a revamp of its popular Messages service -- that part of Facebook through which you can message/e-mail your "friends" and, in fact, those who aren't your friends. What's changing -- and a spokesman describes it to CNET as a "small experiment" -- is that Facebook will start charging … Read more

The U.S. Senate has approved legislation to amend a 1988 law that would make it easier for people to share their video-viewing habits online should the Netflix-backed bill win President Obama's signature.

The Senate approved revisions this evening to the Video Privacy Protection Act to allow video rental companies to obtain consent from customers in order to share information about their viewing preferences on social networks. The 24-year-old law was enacted after a newspaper printed the video rental history of Judge Robert H. Bork during his Supreme Court nomination hearings.

Bork died yesterday at age 85, a day … Read more

Facebook began rolling out new tools this evening that it touts as helping users better manage who can see what on the social network.

Note that Facebook is not changing what settings users can pick, except for the option to block profile searches within the social network. The network has already begun phasing out this feature and soon it will be removed from everyone's profiles.

Facebook says these new changes are designed to give users more flexibility with their privacy.

"We believe that the better you understand who can see the things you share, the better your experience … Read more

So, congratulations! Perhaps you're the owner of a new iPad this holiday season. If so, you've come to the right place. Apple's tablet is incredibly easy to use, but there are still plenty of ways to set up and optimize your iPad to take advantage of everything it has to offer. Some of these suggestions may be obvious; others might not.

Regardless, here's what I do when I take a new iPad out of its crisp white box. I think you should do the same. At the least, these tips should help you get on your feet.… Read more