online privacy

Google Inc. has settled Federal Trade Commission allegations of deceptive privacy practices by its Buzz social network, including actions that violated its own privacy policy. The proposed settlement requires Google to create a comprehensive privacy program, to be independently audited for the...

The owner of two social networking sites intended for children, FBFkids.com (formerly Facebook for Kids.com), has been reported to the Federal Trade Commission by a self-regulating arm of the children's advertising industry. The Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business...

An advertiser that monitored online activities of consumers even after they'd opted out of its tracking system agreed to stop after settling allegations by the Federal Trade Commission that accused it of deceptive practices. Chitika Inc., which acts as a middleman between websites and advertisers,...

Three credit report resellers whose lax security procedures allowed hackers to steal the credit reports of nearly 2,000 consumers have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they failed to take reasonable steps to protect consumers' personal information against identity theft. In...

A Federal Trade Commission report addressing the protection of consumer privacy online offered a number of recommendations, including the adoption of a "Do Not Track" option for Web browsers. The FTC says the report, Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for...

A maker of child-monitoring software has agreed to stop selling information it gathers about the online behavior of kids. EchoMetrix Inc. of New York agreed to settle with the Federal Trade Commission, which said the company failed to clearly disclose to parents using its web monitoring software...

Echometrix, a leading software company that sells child monitoring programs to parents, crossed the line when it tried to package portions of Internet chats between users it has secretly collected and sell them to third-party advertisers, the New York Attorney General said. New York-based...

Facebook launched its Places geo-location service just Wednesday night. But the Center for Digital Democracy already plans to raise privacy issues about the service with Federal Trade Commission officials this week.

BlackBerry maker RIM reached a deal with Saudi Arabia, averting a ban on its service in the country. The pact gives the nation's government the ability to monitor messages to and from RIM's smartphones.

An online security consultant has compiled information from the profiles of 100 million Facebook users and published it in a database downloadable and searchable by anyone online. Ron Bowes, who blogs at Skull Security, used information that Facebook users had set to "public" and therefore, was...