News

2011

September

29

• Facebook's Ticker broadcasts everything you do. Go install streaming music app Spotify on Facebook. Now brace yourself for a flood of comments and quips about your musical tastes -- including the track you fired up just seconds ago. One week after…

• A call for opening up web access at schools. Students at Silver Creek High School in Longmont, Colo., held a “graffiti debate” on censorship on Wednesday: Should schools block Web sites? On sheets of white butcher paper hanging in the library, they wrote lists…

28

• GM's OnStar reverses course on tracking. General Motors' OnStar division announced Tuesday that it has changed course and decided not to collect driving data from customers who have canceled their OnStar subscriptions. OnStar provides a variety of services, including vehicle diagnostics,…

• For hackers, next lock to pick. Hackers have broken into the cellphones of celebrities like Scarlett Johansson and Prince William. But what about the rest of us, who might not have particularly salacious photos or voice messages stored in our phones,…

• Authenticity of Web pages under attack by hackers. The keepers of the Internet have become acutely concerned about their ability to protect the most sensitive personal information such as account logons and credit card numbers. Hackers cracked three companies that work with the…

27

• Privacy advocates oppose Facebook changes. Users and privacy advocates have reservations about Facebook’s planned redesign, the way the change will affect third-party apps and the network’s general approach to privacy. Third-party apps will be fully integrated into a user’s profile…

22

• How to minimize risks of using free public WiFi. It seems you can surf the Internet and check your email from virtually anywhere these days — in coffee shops, hotel lobbies, airport terminals and airplane cabins. More places are making it easier to turn…

• Facebook redesign, new features expected. Facebook has been making a series of changes to its service, adding features and retooling old ones in an effort to stay on top of the social network heap. And the network is expected announce…

19

• Setting boundaries for Internet privacy. Watchful European privacy regulators are wielding increasing influence beyond the Continent’s borders. Last week, they pressed Google, as they had Apple, to change the way it collected data on cellphone locations worldwide. But there is…

• Security software for mobile devices. The prospect of consumers and employees physically losing information-packed mobile devices, or getting them hacked, is driving a red-hot sector of the tech industry: supplying mobile security. Research firm IDC says global spending on mobile…

17

• Google lets wi-fi owners opt out of Registry. BERLIN — Google defused a confrontation with European privacy regulators by announcing on Tuesday that it would give the owners of Wi-Fi routers worldwide the option of removing their devices from a registry Google uses…

16

• Update urged on children’s online privacy. Aiming to catch up with fast-churning technology that touches children’s lives every day, the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday proposed long-awaited changes to regulations covering online privacy for children. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act,…

15

• Less Web tracking means less effective ads. No wonder Internet companies are so anxious about stricter privacy rules. Research by Catherine Tucker, a professor at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, has found that European Union regulations that limit the tracking of…

13

• Consumer Action updates its 'How to Complain' guide. Consumer Action has updated its free and comprehensive publication, How to Complain.

• Reclaiming your life from identity thieves. You can't know how big a hassle it is to have your identity stolen until some scammer enters your life and starts taking over. Michael Kalbs and his wife, Judy Rosen, learned this the hard…

08

• Virtual campus tours give insider's view. When college students begin classes this month, some arrive after getting their acceptance notices on Facebook. Others are using smartphone applications to find out which parking spots are available. And others show up after taking…

06

• Curated Web, courtesy of corporate America. The amount of content and information on the Web expands daily at a staggering rate. This explosion of information has created the need for talented digital curators who are able to filter the very best…

02

• 6 ways your car can spy on you. Thanks to computers, global positioning satellites and various sensors your movements are being tracked.

August

31

• How to avoid getting skimmed by ATM scammers. Seth Rabinowitz recalls the time he used his HSBC ATM card on a Sunday afternoon in São Paulo, Brazil, at an ATM outside a bank that seemed closed, because it was after regular hours. "It…

30

• Net do-not-track option kicks off to criticism. The online advertising industry's version of a do-not-track mechanism officially launched Monday and quickly drew derision from consumer and privacy advocates. The Interactive Advertising Bureau required its members -- a who's who of the online…