Torrent Search Engin

Privacy on the Web

Twitter settled with the Federal Trade Commission in March over allegations that serious lapses in the company's data security allowed hackers to obtain unauthorized administrative control of Twitter, including both access to non-public user information and tweets that consumers had designated as private, and the ability to send out phony tweets from any account. Twitter will be barred for 20 years from misleading consumers about the extent to which it protects the security, privacy and confidentiality of nonpublic consumer information, including the measures it takes to prevent unauthorized access to nonpublic information and honor the privacy choices made by consumers. The company also must establish and maintain a comprehensive information security program, which will be assessed by an independent auditor every other year for 10 years.

Facebook in December 2009 said it is ending its controversial advertising program called Beacon in which the social media company shared online purchases with a user's network of friends. The announcement was part of a proposed settlement to a class action suit filed in 2007 against Facebook by users who said the service violated their privacy. In its proposed settlement, Facebook said it would set up a $9.5 million fund for a nonprofit foundation that will support online safety and privacy. How did it work? If you bought a movie ticket on Fandango, for example, that purchase would be collected for behavioral advertising unless a user opted out of that program. That information would also be broadcast to a your friends on the social networking site.

Last year Google came under fire after it disclosed that its Street Vew cars collected passwords, e-mails and other personal information wirelessly while taking photos for the maps application. In March of this year, Google received its first ever fine for improperly gathering and storing data for Street View when it was penalized by France's privacy watchdog.

Microsoft's Bing search engine has been under scrutiny for privacy issues. The European Union in May 2010 told Microsoft, Google and Yahoo that their search engines don't comply with European privacy laws and told them to prove they are making user information anonymous. Federal Trade Commission Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch in a speech in February 2011 said he is "not yet prepared to fully embrace the newly proposed do-not-track mechanisms offered by Microsoft" and its rival Google. He said he is "concerned that these larger enterprises may use their technology — under the guise of privacy protection — to erect barriers to entry by which they can protect themselves from competition that may constrain their market power.

Internet Piracy 102

Maximum PC

Cancel Cable, How Internet Pirates Get Free Stuff

Searcher, the magazine for database professionals

Handbook of Peer-To-Peer Networking