Verizon Wireless is rewarding long-term customers by tricking them into joining a ‘rewards’ program that A) Feels and works just like those yucky penny auction sites B) let’s Verizon consume and sell immense amounts very sensitive personal information about you. A very strong “boo,” to Verizon. Please stop abusing my [Keep reading]
The floodgates opened on the Right to be Forgotten this weekend, with 12,000 requests landing at search engine giant Google within the first 24 hours of a temporary form being made available. You’ll recall that a European court recently ruled that EU citizens enjoy a Right to be Forgotten, [Keep reading]
How do you think the big computers in the sky see you? Are you “Rural Everlasting” or a “Mobile Mixer?” Are you a “Married Sophisticate,” a “Senior Product Buyer,” a “dog owner,” and “winter activity enthusiast,” “Bible Lifestyle” or an “Affluent Baby Boomer?” Maybe you are “Financially Challenged,” or “Plus [Keep reading]
When you see the word “optional” attached to a new Facebook feature, watch out. And when you see that word in the headline of a blog post announcing the feature, you should really watch out. That means Facebook is so worried whatever this new thing is will spook people that [Keep reading]
It might be the Pandora’s Box of all Pandora’s Boxes. A European Union court has ruled that Google must remove results from its search engine that point to a newspaper post about a Spanish resident’s 1988 auction of his repossessed home. With the ruling, the European Union Court of Justice [Keep reading]
“I think we’re alone now/There doesn’t seem to be anyone around.” You probably already have the tune in your head. It’s a 60s song that sounds like a 50s song that became an 80s hit because…the idea behind it is timeless. When young lovers finally get to steal a moment [Keep reading]
Heartbleed is the latest guts-of-the-Internet calamity that you should know about, but can’t really do much about. In short, the very thing that was designed to keep Internet communications secure — part of the system that puts that little lock next to your web addresses on top of your browser [Keep reading]
If you make a product designed to help people protect their privacy, a shout-out from Edward Snowden is marketing gold. That’s what happened recently for the makers of Ghostery, a free Web browser plugin that shows users which companies are tracking their online habits. The tool, which lists third-party firms collecting [Keep reading]
Friend, brilliant reporter, true believer and now NY Times best-selling author Julia Angwin has a thrilling book out explaining the real-life consequences of privacy erosion, and her own personal journey in escaping Eyes in the Sky. She’s been good enough to provide me with a free excerpt, which I’ve broken [Keep reading]
Would you take out a loan from the company you work for? Plenty of new lenders are betting that you might. But even if you wouldn’t, a new crop of lending products is bound to impact your privacy. The National Consumer Law Center released a report recently called “Big Data: [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan