Facebook is officially a public company as of Friday morning shortly after 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and what better way to celebrate the milestone than with a fresh privacy lawsuit? Led by Stewarts Law and Bartimus, Frickleton, Robertson & Gorny, a class action lawsuit has been filed in San Jose, California alleging that Facebook unlawfully continued to track users’ Web browsing after they logged out of the service. The suit seeks more than $15 billion in damages. “This is not just a damages...

The United States Senate has already passed a bill that would require data-recording “black boxes” to be equipped on every vehicle for the 2015 model year, and the House is also expected to approve the bill. The primary function of the black boxes, which are known as Electronic Data Recorders (EDRs), would be to “capture and store data related to motor vehicle safety,” and access to the EDR’s information is only through an “interoperable data access port.” Interestingly enough, EDRs are already ...

The United States Federal Trade Commission will fine Google for its breach of Apple’s Safari web browser security, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The Internet giant is currently negotiating with the Commission over an acceptable fine, which could amount to tens of millions of dollars. The fine would be the first time the FTC has ever punished a company for violating Internet privacy safeguards. Google in February was found to be bypassing the privacy settings of millions of unknowing Safari users by usin...

Nicholas Merrill’s crowd-funded Internet Service Provider raised more than $43,000 in donations in less than 24 hours, CNET reported on Thursday. “I had no idea that the crowd funding would take off as much as it has in such a short time,” Merrill told the news source. “I hope that people will continue to spread the word and help Calyx reach its funding goal so this plan can come to fruition sooner rather than later.” Merrill’s new company, The Calyx Institute, aims to be ...

Nicholas Merrill, formerly the head of a New York-based Internet Service Provider that fought the FBI and DOJ in court over the constitutionality of the Patriot Act and won, plans to launch a new non-profit, crowd-funded ISP that will make its users’ privacy a central focus. “I have a bit of a track record of fighting for the right to privacy on the Internet, and I have a plan to radically transform the way the Telecommunications industry works,” Merrill said. His new company, The Calyx Inst...

A teacher’s aide at an elementary school was fired last year for refusing to give her Facebook login credentials to her supervisors, ZDNet reported on Sunday. In April 2011, Kimberly Hester signed on to Facebook while she was not at work and jokingly posted a picture of a co-worker’s pants around her ankles, with the caption “Thinking of you.” A parent and Facebook friend saw Hester’s photo and complained to the school. A few days later, the superintendent reportedly requested three time...

The world’s two largest credit card processors have notified U.S. banks of a potential security breach that may affect more than 10 million cardholders, Reuters reported on Friday. MasterCard and Visa have said that the issue was the result of a third-party vendor and not their own internal systems. MasterCard said it has taken the proper steps by alerting law enforcement officials and hiring an independent data-security organization to review the possible breach. “MasterCard is concerned whenever...

“Don’t be evil” is an unofficial motto first uttered by a Google executive during a meeting years ago, and while it started as a playful slogan Google used to jab at its rivals, the three little words have come back to haunt the company on countless occasions. The press and users alike often resurrect the credo when discussing the company’s mission to collect as much information about its users as possible, thus allowing it to target advertising more effectively for its clients. Not al...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that mobile applications that integrate advertisements pose privacy and a security risks. The team conducted a study that examined 100,000 apps from the Google Play market and noticed that more than half contained “ad libraries,” while 297 of the apps included “aggressive ad libraries” that could download and run code from remote servers. Researchers also found that more than 48,000 of the apps that were examined could track l...

It has been just over three months since the Carrier IQ “spygate” epidemic engulfed the mobile world. As smartphones and tablets become more powerful, consumers are becoming even more concerned with their mobile privacy as numerous smartphones have been found to track users’ locations, phone calls, text messages and even which websites they visit. While the companies that used Carrier IQ’s tracking software claimed it was for diagnostic purposes, the service was promptly removed fr...

Last month it was discovered that the popular social network Path was uploading entire address books — including email addresses, names and phone numbers — to its external servers. Path’s actions were a direct violation of Apple’s terms of agreement, and the Cupertino-based company was apparently not happy. Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek reported on Thursday that Path co-founder Dave Morin was hauled into Apple’s headquarters and grilled by CEO Tim Cook and other executives on the matter. Ap...

Charles Schumer, a Democratic Senator from New York, has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Apple and Google over reports that applications on both mobile platforms can steal private photos and contacts, and export them to external servers, Reuters reported on Sunday. “These uses go well beyond what a reasonable user understands himself to be consenting to when he allows an app to access data on the phone for purposes of the app’s functionality,” Schumer said in a letter to th...

In what can only be described as yet another set back for Google’s privacy battle, Gmail users are accusing the search giant of accessing their contact lists and sending spam emails to contacts with non-Gmail email addresses. “STOP IT!,” an irate user wrote on Google’s support forums. “At no point did I say it was ok for Google to send email messages to my non-GMail contacts recommending they sign up for GMail.” The user, posting to Google’s forum under the name MrChe...

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that due to a permission loophole, third party app developers could access an iPhone’s photo gallery app. The paper is now reporting that Google’s Android operating system suffers from a similar security hole. Unlike the iPhone however, which requires an app to have permission to access location data, an Android device that has permission to access the Internet can copy photos to a remote server without notice. “We can confirm that there is no special ...