Ring, the Amazon-owned maker of smart-home doorbells and web-enabled security cameras, is changing its privacy settings two weeks after a study showed the company shares customers’ personal information with Facebook, Google and other parties without users’ consent. The change will let Ring users block the company from sharing most, but not all, of their data. Read more about Ring doorbells to change privacy settings after study showed it shared personal information with Facebook and Google[…]

Facebook is tightening its rules around the use of raw, device-level data used for measuring ad campaigns that Facebook shares with an elite group of advertising technology partners. As first spotted by AdAge, the company recently tweaked the terms of service that apply to its “advanced mobile measurement partner” program, which advertisers tap into to track the Read more about Facebook Cuts Off Some Mobile tracking Ad Data With Advertising Partners, should have done this long long ago[…]

An iPhone app built by controversial facial recognition startup Clearview AI has been blocked by Apple, effectively banning the app from use. Apple confirmed to TechCrunch that the startup “violated” the terms of its enterprise developer program. The app allows its users — which the company claims it serves only law enforcement officers — to Read more about Apple has blocked Clearview AI’s iPhone app for violating its rules[…]

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk calls this function Sentry Mode. I also call it Chaperone Mode and Snitch Mode. I’ve been writing recently about how we don’t drive cars, we drive computers. But this experience opened my eyes. I love that my car recorded a hit-and-run on my behalf. Yet I’m scared we’re not ready Read more about Your car records a lot of things you don’t know about – including you.[…]

The shift, prompted by Britain’s exit from the EU, will leave the sensitive personal information of tens of millions with less protection and within easier reach of British law enforcement. The change was described to Reuters by three people familiar with its plans. Google intends to require its British users to acknowledge new terms of Read more about Google users in UK to lose EU data protection, get US non-protection[…]

The nation’s largest financial data broker, Yodlee, holds extensive and supposedly anonymized banking and credit card transaction histories on millions of Americans. Internal documents obtained by Motherboard, however, appear to indicate that Yodlee clients could potentially de-anonymize those records by simply downloading a giant text file and poking around in it for a while. According Read more about Firm Tracking Purchase, Transaction Histories of Millions Not Really Anonymizing Them[…]

The US state of Maine is violating internet broadband providers’ free speech by forcing them to ask for their customers’ permission to sell their browser history, according to a new lawsuit. The case was brought this month by four telco industry groups in response to a new state-level law aimed at providing Maine residents with Read more about Forcing us to get consent before selling browser histories violates our free speech, US ISPs claim[…]

Seeking to improve its pisspoor customer service rating, UK telecoms giant Vodafone has clarified just how much information it slurps from customer networks. You might want to rename those servers, m’kay? The updates are rather extensive and were noted by customers after a headsup-type email arrived from the telco. One offending paragraph gives Vodafone an Read more about Vodafone: Yes, we slurp data on customers’ network setups, but we do it for their own good. No, you can’t opt out.[…]

You probably don’t realize just how many devices in your home or workplace are not only capable of eavesdropping on all your conversations but are specifically designed to. Smartphones, tablets, computers, smartwatches, smart speakers, even voice-activated appliances that have access to smart assistants like Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant feature built-in microphones that are constantly Read more about This Bracelet Prevents Smart Speakers From Spying on You[…]

The popular Edison email app, which is in the top 100 productivity apps on the Apple app store, scrapes users’ email inboxes and sells products based off that information to clients in the finance, travel, and e-Commerce sectors. The contents of Edison users’ inboxes are of particular interest to companies who can buy the data Read more about How Big Companies Spy on Your Emails[…]

Based on the findings, more than 20 consumer and civil society organisations in Europe and from different parts of the world are urging their authorities to investigate the practices of the online advertising industry. The report uncovers how every time we use apps, hundreds of shadowy entities are receiving personal data about our interests, habits, Read more about The advertising industry is systematically breaking the law says Norweigan consumer council[…]

On Tuesday, the Czech data protection authority announced an investigation into antivirus company Avast, which was harvesting the browsing history of over 100 million users and then selling products based on that data to a slew of different companies including Google, Microsoft, and Home Depot. The move comes after a joint Motherboard and PCMag investigation Read more about Data Protection Authority Investigates Avast for Selling Users’ Browsing and Maps History[…]

When you visit any website, its owner will know where you click, what you type, and how you move your mouse. That’s how websites work: In order to perform actions based on user input, they have to know what that input is. On its own, that information isn’t all that useful, but many websites today Read more about Almost Every Website You Visit Records Exactly How Your Mouse Moves[…]

The American Civil Liberties Union plans to fight newly revealed practices by the Department of Homeland Security which used commercially available cell phone location data to track suspected illegal immigrants. “DHS should not be accessing our location information without a warrant, regardless whether they obtain it by paying or for free. The failure to get Read more about US gov buys all US cell phone location data, wants to use it for deportations[…]

In a perfect world, every new computer with Windows 10 on it—or every new installation of Windows 10—would arrive free of annoying applications and other bloatware that few people need. (Sorry, Candy Crush Saga.) It would also be free of annoying advertising. While that’s not to say that Microsoft is dropping big banners for Coke Read more about How to Remove Windows 10’s Annoying Ads Masquerading as ‘Suggestions’[…]

Wacom’s official tablet drivers leak to the manufacturer the names of every application opened, and when, on the computers they are connected to. Software engineer Robert Heaton made this discovery after noticing his drawing board’s fine-print included a privacy policy that gave Wacom permission to, effectively, snoop on him. Looking deeper, he found that the Read more about Wacom tablet drivers phone home with names, times of every app opened on your computer[…]

In a new privacy-related fuckup, Google told users today that it might’ve accidentally imported your personal photos into another Google user’s account. Whoopsie! First flagged by Duo Security CTO Jon Oberheide, Google seems to be emailing users who plugged into the company’s native Takeout app to backup their videos, warning that a bug resulted in Read more about Google’s Takeout App Leaked Videos To Unrelated Users[…]

Dasha Metropolitansky and Kian Attari, two students at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, recently built a tool that combs through vast troves of consumer datasets exposed from breaches for a class paper they’ve yet to publish. “The program takes in a list of personally identifiable information, such as a Read more about Researchers Find ‘Anonymized’ Data Is Even Less Anonymous Than We Thought[…]

There is now a special page in the Firefox browser where users can see what telemetry data Mozilla is collecting from their browser. Accessible by typing about:telemetry in the browser’s URL address bar, this new section is a recent addition to Firefox. The page shows deeply technical information about browser settings, installed add-ons, OS/hardware information, Read more about Firefox now shows what telemetry data it’s collecting about you (if any)[…]

When it comes to ways to learn about your DNA, Promethease’s service seemed like one of the safest. They promised anonymity, and to delete your report after 45 days. But now that MyHeritage has bought the company, users are being notified that their DNA data is now on MyHeritage. Wait, what? It turns out that Read more about Don’t use online DNA tests! If You Ever Used Promethease, Your DNA Data Might Be on MyHeritage – and so will your family’s[…]

A very questionable facial recognition tool being offered to law enforcement was recently exposed by Kashmir Hill for the New York Times. Clearview — created by a developer previously best known for an app that let people put Trump’s “hair” on their own photos — is being pitched to law enforcement agencies as a better Read more about Social media scrapers Clearview Lied About Its Crime-Solving Power In Pitches To Law Enforcement Agencies[…]