Privacy

Three Google executives were handed suspended six month prison sentences by a Milan court on Wednesday for privacy law violations relating to a video posted on Google Video showing the bullying of a handicapped boy.

An insurance expert told the Britain's Telegraph newspaper that using location-centric mobile social services like Google Buzz, Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare could raise your home insurance premiums, or even result in the denial of insurance claims.

Despite the changes that Google has made to Buzz following negative reaction to the service, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission charging the search giant with violating user privacy.

Google apologized on Saturday, saying it has made several changes to its new social-networking application Buzz to allay privacy concerns.

Internet provider iiNet cannot be held responsible if its users choose to breach copyright laws by downloading movies, a Federal Court judge in Sydney has found.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created an on-line tool that details the wealth of information a Web browser reveals, which can pose privacy concerns when used to profile users.

The TOR Project is advising users to upgrade to a new version of the software following a hack that compromised three of its servers.

Microsoft announced plans to cut the length of time it stores IP addresses of Web searchers using its Bing search engine from 18 months to six in a bid to improve its privacy track record.

Google is pushing for the creation of an E.U. group to look at security and privacy policy, the company's top privacy lawyer, Peter Fleischer, said Tuesday.

China said Thursday that foreign Internet companies are welcome to operate in the country in accordance with local laws, after Google defied authorities by saying it will end censorship on its Chinese search engine.

A coordinated hacking campaign targeting Google, Adobe Systems and more than 30 other companies raises serious concerns, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday.

Google and other enterprises still face a bleak computer security landscape that makes their companies vulnerable to hackers, whether they do business in China or not, analysts say.

Ten privacy and consumer groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), filed a complaint Thursday with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, saying that Facebook's newly revamped privacy settings are deceptive and unfair.

Following through on plans announced a few months ago, Facebook is rolling out changes on Wednesday to its privacy settings intended to make them simpler to adjust and understand by its 350 million end users.

Here's how privacy went the way of the dinosaur, how we let it happen and how we might be able to get some of it back

A U.K. lawyer is claiming victory on Tuesday after a court-ordered injunction delivered over Twitter has stopped his antagonist from impersonating him on the microblogging service.

For the first time, a U.K. court delivered an injunction over Twitter on Thursday, a groundbreaking embrace of technology by a traditionally slow-moving legal system.

There are significant differences between state and federal privacy legislation. CIOs who deal with government agencies or other public sector organisations must determine the privacy laws applicable to them – and how best to accommodate them.

Many of the sites you visit regularly and think are secure are laden with data-stealing malware. Here are seven reasons why, and advice on how to protect your systems

Facebook will enhance its social-networking site's privacy features over the next 12 months as a result of a set of recommendations from the Canadian government.

On Facebook, the struggle to figure out who owns and accesses our data remains years away from any resolution - if we ever reach one. Yesterday, Facebook announced that it would act to shore up some privacy concerns that were voiced a month ago by Jennifer Stoddart, the privacy commissioner of Canada.

What kind of information do you have on your business card? Company name? Check. Your name and title? Check. Business address? Check. Mobile work phone number? Wait a minute.

False positives and faulty readers are common criticism of biometric security systems. But with the right plan, can they be practical in your security portfolio?

She had me at hello ... or just about. Our conversation had barely started when privacy activist Betty Ostergren interrupted me to say that she had found my full name, address, Social Security number and a digital image of my signature on the Web.

As Cyber Monday approaches, research suggests a majority of workers will use their work computer to shop this holiday season. But despite the continued growth in online shopping, employees and business still don't understand the risk.

Business travelers will soon need to carry the name of their corporate lawyer in addition to their passport when traveling to the United States, and they may need to bring with them a different business laptop as well. This is because US Customs can search and confiscate your laptop without any prior cause, according to policies that have been posted online since a Ninth US Circuit Court ruling in April.

The final installment in a series of articles about generational differences and security. Part one looked at managing workers in different age groups. Part two examined the types of security concerns that are most commonly associated with different generations in the general workforce. This article provides recruiting and retention advice for security employees.

Whether you were born in the swinging sixties or are part of the slacker generation, some security experts say generational social influences can give you bad habits and make you an office liability.

The Convention on Cybercrime is the work of the Council of Europe and is aimed at facilitating international cooperation in the investigation and prosecution of computer crimes. Since the Convention came into being in 2001, the COE has been working to address the growing international concern over the threats posed by hacking and other computer-related crimes.

Howard Schmidt today is the CEO of R&H Security Consulting. However, he's better known around the world for working in the White House for 31 years. A former White House security adviser, he was appointed by President Bush as Special Adviser for Cyberspace Security just three months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

David Holtsman, former CTO of Network Solutions, discusses September 11, the role of the Chief Privacy Officer and other hot-button privacy issues.

Security expert Gadi Evron has plenty of experience helping governments fight cyber attacks. In this column, he offers a roadmap companies can use to prevent computer espionage.

The proliferation and popularity of collaborative Web 2.0 sites – there are around 250,000 new registrations to Facebook everyday – has changed the threat landscape and the way businesses need to think about security. Each year, newer technologies and weapons are being unleashed to leave Web users surprised, annoyed and at greater risk.‘Whaling’ or ‘spear phishing’, is one such threat and refers to phishing scams which specifically target high-worth individuals.

Harrison Ford is ticked off again. But not because the bad guys have hijacked Air Force One or kidnapped his wife from a Paris hotel room; this time they've swiped his identity to break into the bank where he works and steal millions of dollars.

Companies are not embracing encryption as a way to protect sensitive data. According to Ponemon Institute's 2005 National Encryption Survey, only 4.2 percent of companies responding to our survey say their organizations have an enterprisewide encryption plan.

Within the next 10 years the convergence of multiple technologies will thrust people into a world where nothing is secret

I spent a very interesting hour with Phil Libin, president of CoreStreet, learning about the company's method for providing "massively scalable validation products for identity management and access control" - that's how CoreStreet describes its business. First, though, we had to get over a couple of semantic hurdles which points up one of the things slowing down the convergence of pure security products with pure identity management tools.