Privacy, User Data | featured news

Google recently announced it was unifying its privacy policies and would be sharing the data it collects about users between all of its products, starting March 1st. That means your web searches and sites you visit will be combined with other Google products like Google Plus and YouTube. If you'd rather avoid that, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reminds us you can remove your Google search history and stop it from being recorded.

Google’s announcement that it is sharing more user data across its services has already raised the hackles of privacy advocates, technology writers and at least one national data-protection agency.

Facebook has settled a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission that the social networking giant deceived consumers by promising privacy protections while it shared and made user data more public, according to the FTC.

A document obtained by the ACLU shows for the first time how the four largest cellphone companies in the U.S. treat data about their subscribers' calls, text messages, Web surfing and approximate locations.

U.S. prosecutors have launched a criminal probe into whether eBay Inc employees misappropriated confidential information from classified ad service Craigslist, according to a copy of a grand jury subpoena obtained by Reuters.

South Korean police raided Google's Seoul office as part of an investigation into whether the U.S. search giant's local unit has been illegally collecting individuals' private location data.

Sony has taken its SOE multiplayer system offline as part of the ongoing investigation into the PlayStation Network hack.

Sony's No. 2 exec, Kazuo Hirai, will brief media on Sunday about a huge security breach of its PlayStation Network, the first time an executive of the Japanese electronics giant will publicly address the case, which could prompt global legal actions.

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