Google Requests More Transparency to Dispel PRISM

Google’s chief legal officer addressed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller contesting recent media reports regarding the breadth of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs and requesting that his company be allowed to publish more national securit...

Reputation.com Notifies Customers of Network Attack

A company known for burying bad information to improve its customers’ online images let everyone know this week its network was hacked. Reputation.com sent e-mails to thousands of customers in more than 100 countries to let them know of the attack. In a message sent earlier this week, the company...

EFF Evaluates Internet Companies on Privacy, Transparency

Internet companies are making it a standard practice to publish transparency reports and advocate for users’ privacy concerns with law enforcement and legislators. And while some do it well, there’s plenty of room for improvement among ISPs such as AT&T and Verizon, and large companies such as...

Google Transparency Report Requests Up to Remove Information

Google has released a new Transparency Report, this time pointing out sharp increases in the number of government requests from Brazil and Russia it received to remove content from Google-branded websites. This is the seventh time the Mountain View-based company has released the report that...

California Considers Pushing Data Disclosure Envelope Again

California, which set the standard for data breach notifications nationwide, is again seeking to set a precedent by becoming the first state in the nation to require companies upon request disclose to California consumers the data they’ve collected and to whom it was shared during the past year...

Transparency Reports Should Be Standard Practice

With less than three full months gone in 2013, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft all have admitted publicly to serious security breaches, something that would have seemed like an elaborate practical joke just a couple of years ago. But the times and the climate have changed, and if you needed more...

Microsoft Transparency Report Shows Company Supplied User Content in 2.2% of Cases

Microsoft received more than 11,000 requests for user information or content data from law enforcement agencies in the United States last year and supplied some user content in more than 1,500 of those cases. Overall, the company received more than 70,000 requests from law enforcement agencies...

Google For First Time Reports FBI Non-Warrant Requests for User Data

Google today revealed – if in vague terms – it last year received less than 1,000 “national Security letters” from federal authorities seeking financial and communications data on up to almost 2,000 individuals. The disclosure of such government requests marks a first for a major Internet service...

Twitter Complied with 69% of US Government Requests for Account Data

Government requests for user account information made to Twitter pale in comparison to the number made to Google, but nonetheless, the number is on the rise according to Twitter’s Transparency Report, released today. Twitter’s report said government requests are generally made in conjunction with...

Google Complied With 88 Percent of U.S. User Data Requests

Google received more than 8,000 requests for user data from the U.S. government in the second half of 2012, and nearly all of them were the result of a subpoena or search warrant. The number of those requests that the company complied with by producing some or all of the data in question is still...

Philippine court suspends Anti Cybercrime law

The Philippine Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended implementation of Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act for 120 days, while it decides whether certain provisions violate civil liberties. The law, signed last month, aims to combat Internet crimes such as hacking, identity theft,...

Julian Assange - The most Fuckable Man on the Planet

Julian Assange made a speech today from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and I felt a primal urge brought on by the fact that this man, in all his manly glory, has stuck his proverbial neck out for the essence of life. Truth and Justice. He is a handsome and articulate man, fightin...

Q&A: Adrian Stone of the BlackBerry Security Team

LAS VEGAS–Here’s something that you might not know about RIM: it has a rather large security response and research team. The maker of the BlackBerry phones–once the must-have fashion accessory for executives and Barack Obama–historically has been almost silent on the way that it handles product...

Anonymous Hackers shut down website of Colombia Justice Ministry

Anonymous Hackers shut down website of Colombia Justice Ministry Anonymous hackers shut down the websites of Colombia's Justice Ministry website on Friday evening. The website was back online Saturday morning. Also, The website of Cambio Radical, the political party of Interior Minister German...

Facebook Open to Comments on Proposed Privacy Policy Changes

Facebook today announced proposed changes to its privacy policy that may better explain how it uses cookies and how long it retains your data, which is: “as long as necessary.” In addition, it wants the option to use your data for advertising on third-party Web sites. In a message called “Enhanci...

Yahoo to Implement Do Not Track

Yahoo has decided that it’s now time to start implementing a Do Not Track system across its various Web properties. The company is one of the last large Web content providers to officially commit to using a DNT technology, and Yahoo said that it plans to have the system implemented by early summe...

FTC Privacy Framework Pushes for Do Not Track, Closer Inspection of Data Brokers

The Federal Trade Commission has issued a new report on consumer privacy and online tracking and among the recommendations the commission makes is that data brokers make themselves known to consumers and be open and transparent about the data they collect on consumers. The FTC also says that...

White House Lays Out Privacy Agenda

The Obama administration today unveiled a new consumer-privacy plan designed to help better protect users’ rights online, including a privacy “bill of rights” that spells out exactly what consumers should expect from the companies they work with online. In conjunction with this new initiative,...

Twenty Something Asks Facebook For His File And Gets It – All 1,200 Pages

Be careful of what you ask for. That’s a lesson that Max Schrems of Vienna, Austria, learned the hard way when he sent a formal request to Facebook citing European law and asking for a copy of every piece of personal information that the world’s largest social network had collected on him. After ...

Facebook Fixes Complaint Feature Abused To Bypass Photo Privacy, Zuckerberg Among Victims

Facebook has fixed a critical flaw in a user feedback feature that allowed any user to access private photos posted in other users accounts. Before it was fixed, the flaw was used to hack the account of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and post photos online. The social network responded quickly afte...