An industry group of internet service providers has branded Firefox browser maker Mozilla an “internet villain” for supporting a DNS security standard. The U.K.’s Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA), the trade group for U.K. internet service providers, nominated the browser maker for its proposed effort to roll out the security feature, which they say will Read more about Internet group brands Mozilla ‘internet villain’ for supporting DNS privacy feature which may also allow users access to porn in the UK, make it hard for the great filter there to see where everyone is surfing[…]

Before Google, Facebook and Amazon, tech dominance was known by a single name: Microsoft. And no product was more dominant than Microsoft’s web browser, Internet Explorer. The company’s browser was the gateway to the internet for about 95 percent of users in the early 2000s, which helped land Microsoft at the center of a major Read more about Privacy-first browsers look to take the shine off Google’s Chrome[…]

Google and other tech companies have been under fire recently for a variety of issues, including failing to protect user data, failing to disclose how data is collected and used and failing to police the content posted to their services. […] n May, I wrote up something weird I spotted on Google’s account management page. Read more about Google Gmail purchase history can’t be deleted[…]

Almost a third (30%) of the world’s top virtual private network (VPN) providers are secretly owned by six Chinese companies, according to a study by privacy and security research firm VPNpro. The study shows that the top 97 VPNs are run by just 23 parent companies, many of which are based in countries with lax Read more about Top VPNs secretly owned by Chinese firms[…]

Slack is one of many Silicon Valley unicorns going public this year, but it’s the only one that has admitted it is at risk for nation-state attacks. In the S-1 forms filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Uber, Lyft, Pinterest and Snapchat addressed threats that could lower the price of their stock — including Read more about What if All Your Slack Chats Were Leaked?[…]

A former patient at the University of Chicago Medical Center is suing UChicago, the medical center, and Google, accusing them of violating the privacy rights of patients at UChicago Medicine through the sharing of patient records containing identifiable information. The class action lawsuit, filed by Matt Dinerstein in the Northern District of Illinois on Wednesday, claims Read more about UChicago and Google Sued in Federal Class Action Suit for Patient Data Sharing between 2009 – 2016[…]

Next time you use Amazon Alexa to message a friend or order a pizza, know that the record could be stored indefinitely, even if you ask to delete it. In May, Delaware Senator Chris Coons sent Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos a letter asking why Amazon keeps transcripts of voices captured by Echo devices, citing privacy Read more about Amazon Confirms It Keeps Alexa Transcripts You Can’t Delete[…]

The authority on personal data has reprimanded the ING Bank over plans to use payment data for advertising. The authority has told other banks to examine their policies for direct marketing. ING Bank recently changed their privacy statement, stating that the bank will use payment data for direct marketing offers. As an example they said Read more about Dutch ING Bank wants to use customer payment data for direct marketing, privacy watchdog says NO! whilst Dutch Gov wants more banking data sharing with everyone![…]

Superhuman is one of the most talked about new apps in Silicon Valley. Why? The product — a $30 per month email app for power users hoping for greater productivity— is a good alternative to many popular and stale email apps, nearly everyone who has used it says so. Even better is the company’s publicity Read more about Silicon Valley’s Hottest Email App Superhuman sends emails that track you and your location without your knowledge[…]

The New York Times reported today that guards working the border with Krygyzstan in the Xinjiang region have insisted on putting an app called Fengcai on the Android devices of visitors – including tourists, journalists, and other foreigners. The Android app is said to harvest details from the handset ranging from text messages and call Read more about We are shocked to learn that China, an oppressive surveillance state, injects spyware into visitors’ phones[…]

According to tech statistics website Built With, more than 650,000 websites are already using reCaptcha v3; overall, there are at least 4.5 million websites use reCaptcha, including 25% of the top 10,000 sites. Google is also now testing an enterprise version of reCaptcha v3, where Google creates a customized reCaptcha for enterprises that are looking Read more about Google’s new reCaptcha forces page admins to put it on EVERY page so Google can track you everywhere[…]

If you notice the ads being served to you are eerily similar to stuff you were just browsing online, it’s not all in your head, and it’s the insidious truth of existing online without installing a bunch of browser extensions. But there’s now a tool that, while comically absurd in execution, can stick it to Read more about Mozilla Has a New Tool for Tricking Advertisers Into Believing You’re Filthy Rich[…]

You open your browser to look at the Web. Do you know who is looking back at you? Over a recent week of Web surfing, I peered under the hood of Google Chrome and found it brought along a few thousand friends. Shopping, news and even government sites quietly tagged my browser to let ad Read more about Chrome is the biggest snoop of all on your computer or cell phone – so switch browser before there is no alternative any more[…]

Graduate student Dan Salmon has released online seven million Venmo transfers, scraped from the social payment biz in recent months, to call attention to the privacy risks of public transaction data. Venmo, for the uninitiated, is an app that allows friends to pay each other money for stuff. El Reg‘s Bay Area vultures primarily use Read more about FYI: Your Venmo transfers with those edgy emojis aren’t private by default. And someone’s put 7m of them into a public DB[…]

For The New York Times, Kevin Litman-Navarro plotted the length and readability of privacy policies for large companies: To see exactly how inscrutable they have become, I analyzed the length and readability of privacy policies from nearly 150 popular websites and apps. Facebook’s privacy policy, for example, takes around 18 minutes to read in its Read more about Readability of privacy policies for big tech companies visualised[…]

Spain’s data protection agency has fined La Liga, the nation’s top professional soccer league, 250,000 euros ($283,000 USD) for using the league’s phone app to spy on its fans. With millions of downloads, the app was reportedly being used to surveil bars in an effort to catch establishments playing matches on television without a license. Read more about Popular Soccer App Spied on Fans Through Phone Microphone to Catch Bars Pirating Game Streams[…]

Tinder users in Russia may now have to decide whether the perks of dating apps outweigh a disconcerting invasion of privacy. Russian authorities are now requiring that the dating app hand over a wealth of intimate user data, including private messages, if and when it asks for them. Tinder is the fourth dating app in Read more about The Russian Government Now Requires Tinder to Hand Over People’s Sexts[…]

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) in cars such as automatic braking systems, systems that detect the state of the road, if there is anything in your blind spot and navigation systems will be sharing their data with European countries, car manufacturers and presumably insurers under the cloak of making driving safer. I’m sure it will, Read more about EU countries and car manufacturers, navigation systems will share information between everyone[…]

Apple has been hit with a class-action complaint in the US accusing the iGiant of playing fast and loose with the privacy of its customers. The lawsuit [PDF], filed this month in a northern California federal district court, claims the Cupertino music giant gathers data from iTunes – including people’s music purchase history and personal Read more about Apple’s privacy schtick is just an act, say folks suing the iGiant: iTunes ‘purchase histories sold’ to highest bidders[…]

A newly revealed patent application filed by Amazon is raising privacy concerns over an envisaged upgrade to the company’s smart speaker systems. This change would mean that, by default, the devices end up listening to and recording everything you say in their presence. Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant system that runs on the company’s Echo series Read more about Newly Released Amazon Patent Shows Just How Much Creepier Alexa Can Get[…]

Bose Corp spies on its wireless headphone customers by using an app that tracks the music, podcasts and other audio they listen to, and violates their privacy rights by selling the information without permission, a lawsuit charged. The complaint filed on Tuesday by Kyle Zak in federal court in Chicago seeks an injunction to stop Read more about Bose headphones spy on listeners, sell that information on without consent or knowledge: lawsuit[…]

A confidential Facebook document reviewed by The Intercept shows that the social network courts carriers, along with phone makers — some 100 different companies in 50 countries — by offering the use of even more surveillance data, pulled straight from your smartphone by Facebook itself. Offered to select Facebook partners, the data includes not just Read more about Phone makers and carriers receive your location data, friends and more that Facebook pulls from your phone[…]

During RTB, personal data such as what you read online, what you watch, your location, your sexual orientation, etc is sent to a whole slew of advertisers so they can select you as an object to show their adverts do. This, together with other profiling information sent, can be used to build up a long Read more about Bits of Freedom cries to halt the shocking personal data sent out to everyone using Real Time Bidding advertising[…]