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Privacy Police

By Jessica Roy 6/25/12 1:56pm

Privacy Police

Gotcha! (Photo: In the Capital)

Facebook Changes Everyone’s Email Addresses Without Their Permission

You know the old adage, “With great power comes great responsibility?” Well, to quote a storied tech reporter, “Hahahahhaha lol,” apparently that doesn’t apply to Facebook. Fuck responsibility, y’all!

On Friday, Facebook changed the email address for all users from whatever they had listed to a mysterious @facebook.com email address. Since this reporter never selected a Facebook email address, that meant that ours appeared as a string of random numbers @facebook.com, which wasn’t going to be very helpful if anyone wanted to contacted us. “The only way to kill Gmail is to mess with everyone’s contact info!” said someone at Facebook, apparently. Read More

By Jessica Roy 6/19/12 1:59pm

Privacy Police

"Uh uh, Google." (Photo: Blogger)

Senator Schumer Greatly Alarmed by Google’s Ability to Spy on New York’s Sunbathers

Sassy hand-gesturer and potentially technophobic New York Senator Charles Schumer has some serious concerns about the privacy of New Yorkers’ backyards. In a letter to Google and Apple published yesterday on his website, the Senator concern-trolled the tech companies over their 3D map technology, which uses fly-over cameras to construct the images.

“Barbequing or sunbathing in your backyard shouldn’t be a public event,” said Senator Schumer in a statement while presumably wearing a “Kiss the cook!” apron and brandishing a six-pack of hot dogs. “People should be free from the worry of some high-tech peeping Tom technology violating one’s privacy when in your own home.” Read More

By Jessica Roy 6/01/12 12:39pm

Privacy Police

Mr. Lynch (blogs.technet.com)

Microsoft’s Surprising Move to Protect User Privacy

We’re pretty sure that the vast majority of Betabeat users not only don’t use Internet Explorer, but also passionately despise it. But we’ll give props when props are due, and despite Microsoft’s one out of four star rating from the EFF on privacy, the company now appears to be taking a stronger stand on the issue.

Microsoft announced on its blog yesterday that Mozilla’s Do Not Track feature would be automatically implemented within all copies of Internet Explorer 10. The move, Microsoft says, will empower users to make more informed decisions about the way third parties handle their data. Read More

By Jessica Roy 6/01/12 11:10am

Privacy Police

(eff.org)

Sonic.net, Twitter Top EFF’s List of Companies With Best Privacy Policies

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is continuing its fight for the rights of Internet users with its recently published annual study of the privacy policies of top Internet companies. The EFF ranked 18 major Internet companies based on four standards: their openness with data demands, transparency regarding government requests, whether or not they fight in court for users’ privacy requests and whether or not they do so in Congress. Read More

By Jessica Roy 5/17/12 11:31am

Privacy Police

(Photo: Scott Beale, Laughing Squid)

Twitter Now Supports Mozilla’s ‘Do Not Track’ Privacy Feature

The Mozilla Foundation has been working hard to combat privacy issues spotlighted by sites like Facebook, which aggressively tracks and saves user data. Recently, Mozilla announced a “Do Not Track” feature that can be deployed through the Firefox browser that better protects your information. According to the Do Not Track site, “When the feature is enabled, Firefox will tell advertising networks and other websites and applications that you want to opt-out of tracking for purposes like behavioral advertising.” Read More

By Jessica Roy 5/03/12 7:42am

Privacy Police

Hang in there just like that kitten on the poster, Mr. Zuckerberg. (flickr.com/gpaumier)

New Consumer Reports Study Says Facebook Users are Cranking Up Their Privacy Settings, Finally [UPDATED]

Remember the halcyon days of Facebook, when no one was concerned with who might peep their drunken pictures and angsty missives, and discussions of privacy settings were met with a mix of dismissiveness and apathy? Those days are quickly becoming a thing of the past, at least according to a new study from Consumer Reports, that states that more than a quarter of Facebook users lie on their profiles to protect their privacy.

Writes the New York Times, “About a fourth of respondents said they lied: They chose to ‘alter personally identifiable information’ such as their dates of birth…A majority of those who were asked what steps they took to protect their privacy said they tweaked their privacy settings to control who can access their profile page.”

But not to worry, apparently one in four users still have publicly available Walls and photos, which means your days of stalking defriended exes probably aren’t over just yet. Read More

By Steve Huff 3/04/12 11:24pm

Privacy Police

Sen. Charles Schumer

Sen. Charles Schumer Sics the F.T.C. on Apple and Android

Well-known foe of fun and fan of probes Senator Charles Schumer has asked the Federal Trade Commission (F.T.C.) to examine claims Apple and Android can spy on your application data. The Senator’s request was made public Sunday. In it he referenced recent reports that certain smart phone and tablet applications can look at user photos and upload contacts to Apple and Google servers. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 10/13/11 3:58pm

Privacy Police

Careful about entering your real name, leaf people.

Etsy Changes Its Privacy Policy and Pivots Towards Real Names [Updated]

“Your friends at Etsy” sent out an email this afternoon alerting Etsy community members now “over 10 million strong!” to some notable changes in its privacy policy.

Guess they were hoping transparency would help them avoid the same PR debacle that happened when an opt-out feature in the Feedback System inadvertently made some users’ purchases, including artisanal dildos, searchable under their real name. In response to the media, Etsy decided to make all purchase and feedback private by default in March, but users alleged that prior to the policy change, the company shut down Etsy forums complaining of the same glitch.

Today’s notification directs users to two separate blog posts, one on changes to the privacy policy and one about Etsy’s new policy of showing real names, if they are provided, rather than usernames. Read More

10/03/11 10:23am

Privacy Police

The Hex Bandits Handywork

New Website, ‘Rank NYU’, Rates Coeds, Reveals Private Facebook Pictures

Do you remember that part at the beginning of The Social Network where a young and naïve Mark Zuckerberg created Facemash, a site where Harvard kids could choose between two different female students based on who was hotter? Well someone finally figured out how to replicate the hack with our own universities.

Over the summer, some hackers called the Hex Bandits created Rank NYU. Visitors can choose between two female NYU students, effectively ranking them. The Bandits told Betabeat that critics could use a sense of humor.

“We knew this site would piss some people off, but we don’t have any bad intentions,” they said. “Believe it or not we actually went through a lot of effort to make it as nice as possible.” Read More