November 24, 2010

U.K ENDS GOOGLE STREET VIEW PROBE AS DATA DELETED

The UK’s information commissioner has said that wi-fi data accidentally collected by Google’s Street View cars will be deleted “as soon as possible.” Deputy information commissioner David Smith told the BBC that there would be no further enquiries into the matter.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/o7VHb (Source: BBC News)


EU LAW ON INTERNET TRACKING FACES OBSTACLES

Europe’s effort to regulate online “cookies” is crumbling, exposing how tough it is to curb the practice of tracking Internet users’ movements on the Web. Seeking to be a leader in protecting online privacy, the European Union last year passed a law requiring companies to obtain consent from Web users when tracking files such as cookies are placed on users’ computers, but Internet companies, advertisers, lawmakers, privacy advocates and EU member nations can’t agree on the law’s meaning.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/9icvA (Source: The Wall Street Journal)

November 20, 2010

CHINESE WOMAN GETS 1- YEAR SENTENCE FOR TWEET

A Chinese woman was sentenced to one year in a labor camp after she forwarded a satirical microblog message that urged recipients to attack the Japanese pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, human rights groupsTwitter said. The woman, Cheng Jianping, 46, was accused of “disturbing social order” for resending a message from her fiancĂ© that mocked young nationalists who held anti-Japanese rallies in several cities last month.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/1lsXD (Source: The New York Times)

November 19, 2010

DEFENSE SECRETARY WARNS OF "HUGE" CYBER THREAT

The United States faces a major threat in the future from cyber technologies that will require civil-military coordination to shield networks from attack, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. “I think there is a huge future threat. And there is a considerable current threat,” Gates told The Wall Street Journal CEO Council.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/jV1J8 (Source: Reuters)


PRIVACY QUESTIONS RAISED ABOUT FACEBOOK MESSAGING

After Facebook’s struggle with one privacy issue after another this year, some in the industry are raising privacy questions about Facebook’s new messaging system. As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the new system at a press conference, he never touched on how the company plans on keeping users’ messages private and secure.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/3s6SZ (Source: Computerworld)

November 15, 2010

POPE BENEDICT'S VIEW OF THE INTERNET RISK

Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday warned that the Internet does not make people more humane but instead risks increasing a "sense of solitude and disorientation" among "numbed" young people.

"A large number of young people... establish forms of communication that to do not increase humaneness but instead risk increasing a sense of solitude and disorientation," Benedict told a Vatican conference on culture.

Read the article

November 13, 2010

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WHITE HOUSE TO PUSH FOR INTERNET PRIVACY LAWS

The Obama Administration is preparing a stepped-up approach to policing Internet privacy that calls for new laws and the creation of a new position to oversee the effort, according to people familiar with the situation. The strategy is expected to be unveiled in a report being issued by the U.S. Commerce Department in coming weeks, these people said.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/rTQQw (Source: The Wall Street Journal)


November 12, 2010

COMPANY ACCUSED OF ILLEGAL FIRING FOR FACEBOOK POST

In what labor officials and lawyers view as a ground-breaking case involving workers and social media, the National Labor Relations Board has accused a company of illegally firing an employee after she criticized her supervisor on her Facebook page. This is the first case in which the labor board has stepped in to argue that workers’ criticisms of their bosses or companies on a social networking site are generally a protected activity and that employers would be violating the law by punishing workers for such statements.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/hyPXK (Source: The New York Times)


November 5, 2010

BRITISH OFFICIALS SAY GOOGLE BREACHED PRIVACY LAWS

British data protection officials said that Google had committed a “significant breach” of privacy laws when its Street View mapping service gathered e-mail messages, computer passwords and other personal information without the owners’ knowledge. Yet Google managed to avoid a fine, with the Information Commissioner’s Office accepting a promise from the company that it would take steps to avoid repeating what it has described as an inadvertent error.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/DrCao (Source: The New York Times)


November 4, 2010

JUDGE APPROVES $8.5 MILLION GOOGLE BUZZ PRIVACY SETTLEMENT

Google said that a settlement for a class action suit by Gmail users over privacy violations related to Google Buzz has been granted preliminary approval by a federal district court judge. The settlement, proposed in September, calls for Google to pay $8.5 million toward a fund for organizations focusing on Internet privacy policy or education.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/1PinD (Source: ZDNet)

November 3, 2010

BRITISH OFFICIALS REOPEN PROBE OF GOOGLE STREET VIEW

British officials said that they would re-open an investigation into Wi-Fi data collected by Google’s Street View cars after the search engine giant admitted that it captured entire e-mails, URLs, and passwords. “We will be making enquires to see whether this information relates to the data inadvertently captured in the U.K., before deciding on the necessary course of action, including a consideration of the need to use our enforcement powers,” the Information Commissioner’s Office said in a statement.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/YFKwW (Source: PC Magazine)