News

2010

June

08

• Financial abuses of deadbeat parents. For parents who've wrecked their own credit rating, cashing in on junior's clean financial history is increasingly tempting. Children make easy targets for identity thieves because they don't use their own credit and likely wouldn't…

07

• 'Scareware' ads proliferate across Internet. Court records show to the penny how much software company Innovative Marketing banked by getting computer users to pay for fake anti-virus programs: $163,167,539.95. Before its demise, the Ukraine-based company employed hundreds of workers collaborating…

06

• Who's checking your credit report?. Dear Liz: As part of our mortgage refinance, my wife and I were provided copies of our credit reports and scores by the credit union making our loan. Our scores are great, ranging from 777…

03

• Frequent flier has rough landing on TSA watch list. Sean Kelly is no terrorist, but for years he was treated like one at airports. For unknown reasons, the Geneva resident landed several years ago on the federal government's "selectee list" — a secret database…

01

• Yahoo to turn to social networking. Yahoo plans to announce Tuesday that it is jumping into social networking by using its massive population of e-mail subscribers as a base for sharing information on the Web. Over the next few weeks, its…

May

31

• When online gripes are met with a lawsuit. After a towing company hauled Justin Kurtz’s car from his apartment complex parking lot, despite his permit to park there, Mr. Kurtz, 21, a college student in Kalamazoo, Mich., went to the Internet for revenge.…

• Web start-ups making deals for customer data. As concern increases in Washington about the amount of private data online, and as big sites like Facebook draw criticism that they collect consumers’ information in a stealthy manner, many Web start-ups are pursuing a…

30

• IRS wants a cut of online sales on eBay, Craigslist. Many people think of online auction sites, such as eBay and Craigslist, as virtual garage sales - a convenient way to clean out cluttered closets and attics stuffed with old clothes, books and knickknacks inherited…

27

• Google balks at turning over data to regulators. Google has balked at requests from regulators to surrender Internet data and e-mails it collected from unsecured home wireless networks, saying it needed time to resolve legal issues. In Germany, Google said it was not…

• Facebook revamps privacy settings. Facebook's founder presented new one-click options Wednesday to help subscribers protect their privacy, responding to a torrent of complaints that it had become far too hard to determine and control levels of protection. In a…

26

• Consumer Action responds to Facebook’s new privacy settings. Consumer Action responded to Facebook’s announced changes to its privacy settings, which the company says will make it simpler and easier for users to control exactly who sees their information and how they share posted…

• Facebook's very public privacy debate. Public responses to the recent debate about Facebook privacy.

25

• Facebook fixing privacy tools. Facebook facing a backlash among a growing faction of its users, plans to soon simplify its privacy tools. The disclosure, which came in an opinion piece by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is the company's first…

24

• Companies required to defend against identity theft. With identity fraud on the increase, the federal government is stepping up efforts to make sure businesses are on the alert — especially financial institutions and other companies that issue credit cards. The government says…

• Study points to health law's penalties. About one-third of employers subject to major requirements of the new health care law may face tax penalties because they offer health insurance that could be considered unaffordable to some employees, a new study says.…

• Rivals seize on privacy troubles of Facebook. t sounds like a kamikaze mission: an upstart with a meager number of users and no capital squaring off against Facebook, a social networking juggernaut with more than 400 million members and a $15 billion…

23

• Documents you need to save or purge while getting organized. Save it or toss it? It's a question we face whenever confronted with canceled checks, utility bills, ATM and credit card receipts, 401(k) statements — that mound of paper taking over our homes. If you're…

22

• In online networks, privacy has no price tag. On the newest social networking Web sites, you are what you buy: ilona spent $6.41 at Chipotle. AshleyMarie got 1 song from iTunes for $1.29 ("Can't Be Tamed" by Miley Cyrus). suchitagarwal spent $464.44 at…

21

• Google, Sony want to change how we watch with Web TV. Google has conquered Web search. Now it wants to bring the Web to high-definition television. With Google TV coming in the fall, the Silicon Valley giant hopes to succeed in an area where many —…

20

• Groups spar over black boxes in cars. A proposal to equip all new cars with "black boxes" to record crash data has emerged as a key point of dispute between the industry and safety groups as Congress weighs an expansive auto safety…