internet, privacy

Google admits data was accidentally collected

Google admitted in a blog post Friday that external regulators have discovered that e-mails, URLs and passwords were collected and stored in a technical while the vehicles for Google's Street View service were out documenting roadway locations.

MySpace, Apps Leak User Data

MySpace and some popular applications have been transmitting information to outside advertising companies that could be used to identify users, a Journal investigation found.

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Bits: Applications Misused Data, Facebook Acknowledges

A Facebook engineer said that some applications were passing along personal data in a violation of policy.

Google fires engineer in privacy breach

Google confirmed on Tuesday that it fired an employee earlier this year for violating its policies on accessing the accounts of its users.

Plan would ease FBI's access to e-mail data

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

Senh: This is scary. Those guys should not have that kind of power. It's prone to abuse and opens a privacy can of worms.

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As Facebook grows, can it profit?

Social-networking site seeks to leverage user data to boost ad revenue, raising privacy concerns.

Senh: That's the big question, they're growing fast, but can they become profitable. With click-thru rates on social networking sites being so low compared to content sites, can they find another revenue stream? Will targeted advertising work? They've been talking about it forever. We were never really able to make targeted advertising work for Rotten Tomatoes, mainly because the size of that audience becomes so much smaller when you target them. But Facebook is one of the largest sites in the world, so that might not matter. The only problem is MySpace has been trying to figure that out since they were the biggest social networking site in the world, and look where they went.

Twitter settles privacy charges with U.S.

Privately held microblogging service Twitter has agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over charges that it put customers privacy at risk by failing to safeguard their personal information.

Google grabs personal info off Wi-Fi networks

Google says it has inadvertently scooped up snippets of people's online activities broadcast over unprotected Wi-Fi networks during the past four years.

Facebook tries to save face

Facebook's latest modifications make it pretty clear that the company is eager to spread its brand even further across the Web -- and that's left some privacy advocates a little freaked out as they look at the vast amount of personal information that Facebook has on hand.

Facebook Scrambles After Bug Allowed Users To Read Private Chats

This week, Facebook users suddenly found themselves able to monitor the private conversations their friends were having on the site's chat service. TechCrunch's Steve O'Hear reported the bug early this morning. When we attempted to recreate the experiment, we found Facebook's chat feature has been disabled entirely; Facebook explains that chat is "down for maintenance", presumably to fix the hole.

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