Hot on the heels of the furor over Apple’s location databases, personal navigation device giant TomTom is in trouble for selling speed data to police. But both companies have shown how technology firms are too quick to dismiss the worries of their customers. Read more »
Ted Morgan, CEO of Skyhook Wireless, said with all the attention on location data and privacy concerns, it’s important for mobile companies to come clean now, rather than face a backlash from users or worse, government intervention. Read more »
A variety of bills are being debated in Washington now that would create some new rules for how to handle data and privacy in the digital ag… Read more at paidContent »
Any company getting attention over privacy issues these days can quickly expect the lawsuits to follow. Just two days after the iPhone’s tra… Read more at paidContent »
Facebook has rolled out several updates to its Groups feature today, heeding users’ requests for more control over what they share with whom. More than 50 million groups have been created in the past six months, making Groups one of Facebook’s fastest-growing products ever. Read more »
Steve Jobs has allegedly issued one of his typically terse email replies regarding the location tracking database that resides unencrypted on all iOS devices, according to MacRumors. The email told a concerned user that Apple doesn’t track location info, but that its competition does. Read more »
Is it because it’s tucked away in an “advanced” menu that users don’t know about? Or is it because most users simply aren’t that bothered by… Read more at paidContent »
The iPhone tracking scandal has been a revelation to most, and has made national news. But the fact that iPhones can be used to collect huge… Read more at paidContent »
Sen. Al Franken may be after answers from Steve Jobs, but last year, Congressmen Edward J. Markey and Joe Barton asked similar questions and got an answer from Apple SVP and General Counsel Bruce Sewell. That letter answers some of Franken’s questions regarding iOS location info. Read more »
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) wants to know why Apple’s iPhone collects and stores device location data in an unencrypted file. Franken penned a two-page letter asking nine questions of Apple CEO Steve Jobs in response to yesterday’s news regarding the “consolidated.db” file. Read more »
Developers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden recently discovered that your iPhone or 3G-capable iPad has been regularly recording your device’s location since the introduction of iOS 4. All of the data regarding your device’s whereabouts during the past year is easily accessible using a simple app. Read more »
Last week, the bipartisan Kerry-McCain bill proposed legislation on a Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights that would put the FTC in charge of policing the online collection, sharing and use of personal information. That has far-reaching implications for the online media business. Read more »
The possibility of Europe-wide restrictions on the tracking cookies used by online advertisers had some up in arms. But the threat has been dispelled — at least in Britain, where the government suggests that browsers rather than websites should offer users better ways to stay private. Read more »
The first quarter of 2011 saw plenty of competition between various web companies — and some heated tension, too. Content farms generated the most debate, with Demand Media’s IPO attracting attention and controversy and Google making a major change to its ranking algorithm. Facebook, meanwhile, maintained its heavyweight status online, but this time the social network’s impact was centered on social search, unified communications and comment systems. And Facebook’s ongoing dominance raised the question, Is there room for more than one social network? If niche networks like Quora and Color are any indication, the answer is “yes.” Additional companies mentioned in this report include Twitter, Groupon, Microsoft, LinkedIn and MySpace. To see the full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Next month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is convening a meeting of the world’s most powerful politicians and the leaders of the Internet’s most important companies. Together they’ll discuss the future of the online world. Should we be happy? Or is it cause for concern? Read more »
New iPhone app Guardly is all about location sharing. It basically constitutes the app’s main selling feature, since without it, it’s arguably just an auto-dialer. So how did location services go from being a privacy boogeyman to a highly sought-after feature in just two years? Read more »
French officials have sent Internet companies into a frenzy with a new requirement that all web services must keep detailed files on all their users — including passwords, addresses and activity — for government purposes. Time to cancel that trip to Paris? Read more »
In what could be a larger push by the federal government to stem the sharing of personal online information, a federal grand jury has served internet radio provider Pandora with a subpoena looking into the practices of information sharing on mobile apps. Read more »
The culture clash between American and European privacy cultures has been bubbling away for some time, but now European lawmakers have given the clearest signal yet to America’s Internet companies that they will be forced to abide by new, stricter privacy regulations. Read more »
Data marketplaces add value when they combine facts drawn from different data sets. However, as new products are created to accomplish this, the relationship between suppliers, the original data and those who download or buy it changes, with trust becoming a critical part of that relationship. Read more »
Author Jeff Jarvis this morning told a conference of privacy advocates something many of them probably didn’t want to hear: that society needs more protection for what he calls “publicness,” and less focus on locking down our personal information or prosecuting companies that use that data. Read more »
The U.S. grid regulator (FERC) issued a report on the state of the U.S. smart meter and demand response markets, laying out a few tidbits for the industry to keep an eye on, like protecting consumer data privacy and using the Internet to connect variable pricing. Read more »
We are all concerned about online privacy, but not enough to do much about it, according to a new survey. Which raises the question: browsers like Firefox, Chrome and IE9 are adding support for a “Do Not Track” feature, but will anyone actually use it? Read more »
With the federal government pushing for better Do Not Track tools for online users, browser makers are stepping up with solutions aimed at helping users avoid behavioral targeting. But it’s more of a symbolic act at this point that won’t mean a huge change in privacy. Read more »
Just three days after introducing a new feature that allows users to share their mobile phone number and address with applications and third-party websites, Facebook said late last night that it is suspending the change as it works to clarify the permission process. Read more »
Facebook has quietly announced to application developers that third-party apps will be able to access the addresses and mobile phone numbers of Facebook users. The easiest way to avoid making postal addresses and mobile phone numbers available is to not include them in your Facebook profile. Read more »
Imagine what the police could find out about you if they had the ability to search your phone and all it contains, from your browser and photo history to your Foursquare check-ins. Police in California now have the right to do this — without a warrant. Read more »
Earlier, we reported that some apps in the iOS App Store were reporting information, including address, age, gender and unique device identifiers to third parties without a user’s knowledge. Now, Apple and several app makers are being sued for the perceived breaches. Read more »
The Wall Street Journal recently tested 101 iPhone and Android apps and found that more than half transmitted the phone’s unique device ID to third-party companies without users’ awareness or consent. The results raise a rather hefty question: Can the mobile app industry police itself and ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
No set of fearless year-end predictions would be complete without setting expectations for what won’t happen in the coming year. Social media won’t replace search, nor will a single, dominant social media platform emerge. Meanwhile, will the government finally solve the privacy puzzle surrounding social media? ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Many of your iPhone apps may be sharing much more of your data with other companies than you might suspect, according to a new report. Among the info being passed along is your user name, location, age, gender and phone’s unique device identifier. Read more »
The always-unpredictable mobile space enters 2011 at a particularly dynamic time. Carriers are now bringing 4G networks online, even as their definitions of “4G” vary. Meanwhile, mobile data consumption is exploding and the FCC trying to settle on policies both to regulate the industry and to ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Kindsight’s efforts to pair deep packet inspection for PC security with targeted behavioral ads will serve as a good test to see how well it can utilize the controversial DPI technology and make it attractive to consumers concerned about maintaining their privacy. Read more »
A collection of data miners and tracking companies is creating a one-stop shop for consumers to see how ads are targeting them and how they can opt-out if they choose. The move is a preemptive attempt to head off a possible “Do Not Track” registry. Read more »
The FTC has released a draft report that says online advertisers and publishers have been too slow to adopt appropriate privacy rules, and recommends a “do not track” mechanism built into web browsers. But the agency admits new laws would be required for such a move. Read more »
Aside from Red Hat buying Makara, the other big cloud news has to be Wikileaks using Amazon to host its Cablegate repository. The Wikileaks data aspect leads to two other interesting items today: Geostellar’s clean-energy analysis tool and Aster Data partnering to combine analytics and visualization. Read more »
If you were searching the Internet for information on heart disease, would you find it helpful to see an ad for medication, or would you see that as an invasion of privacy? That’s the question at the core of a privacy complaint launched by advocacy groups. Read more »
Wireless carriers, which have been sitting on a largely untouched goldmine of data, may be poised to start tapping into their mother lode. Chris Dixon of recommendation and personalization site Hunch said he’s meeting with operators looking at deploying Hunch for recommendations and personalization. Read more »
The EU is currently proposing laws that would require web site and service owners to delete individuals’ personal information from their records. The new laws aim to uphold a person’s “right to be forgotten.” How do you feel about your right to be forgotten? Read more »
Kik is a cross-platform chat application that has gone from zero users to almost 2 million in three weeks. But some users aren’t happy with the way the company has achieved that viral growth, and Kik’s CEO says it is changing the way the app works. Read more »
