Internet, Privacy Violation | featured news

In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person's social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around.

On Thursday, Google's much-discussed new privacy policy goes into effect.

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.

Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission are nearing a settlement over deceptive practices related to several Facebook features, including its privacy settings, according to two people briefed on the settlement.

A federal judge ruled that Twitter must give information to the Justice Department about three of its account holders who are under investigation for their links to WikiLeaks.

Facebook’s use of software that enables it to track users’ online activity after they log off of the social-networking site came under scrutiny in Washington this week, with lawmakers and consumer advocacy groups demanding a federal investigation.

Users and privacy advocates have expressed concerns about Facebook’s planned redesign, the way the change will affect third-party apps and the network’s general approach to privacy. Third-party apps will be fully integrated into a user’s profile page, with updates about activity on each app. That means that users won’t actively click to share updates from apps — the apps will add that information to a user’s page automatically.

A hearing later this week will point the lens on Apple, Google, and Facebook's mobile privacy policies. This follows last week's hearing about the same topic.

Google Inc. has acknowledged that it trespassed when it took a photo of a Pittsburgh-area house for its Street View service, but will pay only $1 in damages to a couple who sued....

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