internet privacy

It's easier than ever for con artists to swipe your sensitive financial information -- and then use it to decide if you're a good target for a scam. But the war isn't lost: Consider these easy strategies to protect yourself.

Recently, companies have begun to ask potential employees to hand over their Facebook passwords, and the backlash has been loud, widespread and angry. Too bad we hardly have any online privacy left to save.

Google has agreed to a privacy program -- including independent audits, but no monetary fees -- to settle Federal Trade Commission privacy charges around its Buzz service. Consumer protection groups say the deal isn't strong enough to lead to widespread change.

The Obama administration has called for a "privacy bill of rights" to protect consumer privacy on the Internet. The Commerce Department released an 88-page report that also proposed a Privacy Policy Office to coordinate online privacy issues, The Wall Street Journal said. Consumer concern about...

Microsoft (MSFT) is adding extra privacy controls to Internet Explorer to limit the amount of information that users disclose while surfing the Web. The new Microsoft feature will allow users to create a list of sites that they want to block from tracking them, The Associated Press said. The...

Mozilla Corp., the maker of the Firefox Internet browser, is considering creating a do-not-track mechanism to offer users more privacy. Web browsers are caught in the cross fire between regulators seeking to protect user privacy and online advertisers who want more information on users'...

Mark Zuckerberg released an open letter to Facebook users that promised to keep information private by making it simpler to do so. Zuckerberg also said that Facebook, originally created for college students to find one another, has grown exponentially and that its current regional networks are...

What do you suppose happens with the info on the forms you fill out to gain access to a web site? How about the record of purchases made with your grocery store loyalty card? Why would anyone want a record of your cable television viewing habits? These questions are at the core of Joseph Turow's...

Greg Conti's new book "Googling Security" (Addison Wesley Press) is an eye-opener for anyone blasé about the amount of personal information we share about ourselves over the internet. The author, an instructor on computer science at West Point, explores the dimensions of the data pool that...