News

2012

January

12

• Google personalized search changes set off uproar. It didn't take long for some to push back after Google widened its search-engine results this week. Twitter lambasted the changes as "bad" for consumers and Web publishers. Meanwhile, a privacy watchdog group is threatening…

• 'Hactivists' decried as new breed of censor. Global affairs website Stratfor relaunched Wednesday, three weeks after hacktivists put it in the dark. The Statfor caper serves notice about a troublesome new strain of unpredictable censorship arising on the Internet, Stratfor CEO George…

11

• Cyberattacks likely to escalate this year. Cyberattacks fueled by ideological ire are likely to escalate this year and continue to bedevil corporations and governments, while putting innocent consumers at risk. That follows a surge of so-called hacktivist attacks in 2011 instigated…

06

• New virus raids your bank account - but you won't notice. The best way to protect yourself from an online financial scam is to diligently check your bank accounts. At least, until now. Israeli-based Security firm Trusteer has found an elaborate new computer virus that not…

05

• Obama appoints Cordray to head consumer watchdog bureau. In a bold act of political defiance, President Obama installed Richard Cordray as head of a new consumer watchdog agency Wednesday, bypassing Republican opposition in the Senate that derailed his nomination last month. Obama cast…

04

• Consumer Action applauds President Obama for CFPB recess appointment. Consumer Action is proud to see President Obama stand up to an obstructionist Senate today and appoint former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray director of the CFPB while the Senate is in recess. "With a…

• Hackers reveal personal data of 860,000 Stratfor subscribers. A computer hacking group has revealed email addresses and other personal data from former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, and hundreds of U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and military officials…

02

• New 'geofencing' apps offer deals and services. Geofencing creates a digital perimeter around a location -- which could be a building, school or entire city -- that enables merchants or others to become aware when a person's cellphone crosses an electronic boundary.…

01

• Consumer protection made big gains in 2011. The last year was a remarkable one for consumer protection. Among the wins: A new watchdog agency opened for business, regulators cracked down on a controversial merger and a major bank retreated from a dubious…

2011

December

31

• Anonymous exposes 75,000 credit card numbers. Hacker collective Anonymous has just dumped 200 GB of names, email addresses and passwords for around 860,000 Stratfor users. Anonymous also exposed credit card numbers for 75,000 paying customers of Stratfor. Stratfor, a security think…

30

• Consumer Action INSIDER – January 2012. In our first issue of the INSIDER for the New Year, we review our latest efforts in the various coalitions to which we belong. We cover the CFPB's latest meeting concerning financial education for the military community, and what to do when the "talent agency" says you're beautiful enough for prime time? These and other stories in our latest edition of the INSIDER.

29

• Cloud storage sites by Amazon, others compared. If you've ever had your laptop stolen, watched your toddler baptize your PC with Pepsi, or had your MacBook come to a cold, dead stop, you know that the digital memories we store on our…

28

• Your cell phone is out of your control. Here's the takeaway from the Carrier IQ fiasco: Mobile phone owners have no clue what data-gathering tools are running on their devices, and little ability to control them. Tiny Carrier IQ's sudden jump into the…

26

• Hacking victims targeted after speaking to media. Victims of a data breach at the security analysis firm Stratfor apparently are being targeted a second time after speaking out about the hacking. Stratfor said on its Facebook page that some individuals who offered…

24

• Logging in with a touch or a phrase. Passwords are a pain to remember. What if a quick wiggle of five fingers on a screen could log you in instead? Or speaking a simple phrase? Neither idea is far-fetched. Computer scientists in Brooklyn…

22

• Facebook agrees to privacy changes in Europe. Facebook has agreed to make several changes to its services to improve transparency and better protect the personal data of its millions of users outside of the U.S., following an in-depth audit of its international…

20

• The Middle-class agenda. Earlier this month, President Obama delivered his first unabashed 2012 campaign speech. Unlike his opponents, Mr. Obama acknowledged the ravages of income equality, the hollowing out of the American middle class. There is no hyperbole…

19

• As patient records are digitized, data breaches are on the rise. One afternoon last spring, Micky Tripathi received a panicked call from an employee. Someone had broken into his car and stolen his briefcase and company laptop along with it. Micky Tripathi runs the Massachusetts eHealth…

• Sprint's decision to stop using carrier IQ. Sprint’s decision to disable Carrier IQ software on its handsets and no longer collect data from the service is good news for people who have privacy concerns, but it also raises questions about how the…

• Consumers will lose $10M to cyber crime this holiday season. Online shopping around the holidays has increased 10 percent since the same time in 2010, to around $30.9 billion dollars spent thus far in the season, according to a report by comScore. Specifically days like…