While everyone at Facebook HQ should be celebrating the company launching its stock, the lawyers are busy facing down a new $15 billion dollar lawsuit. A total of 21 lawsuits from around the country have now been combined into one massive class action lawsuit with a value of $15 billion. According to Bloomberg, the paperwork

The FBI wants to revamp a 1994 telephone wire-tapping law to include modern web-based tech chat and communication services, says CNET. CALEA, or the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, originally compelled telephone companies to modify or design their equipment and services to allow for surveillance of suspects in federal investigations. It was tweaked in

Google has agreed to pay a $25,000 fine levied against it by the FCC earlier this month after the government entity said it was impeding in its data collection investigation. “Misconduct of this nature threatens to compromise the commission’s ability to effectively investigate possible violations of the Communications Act and the commission’s rules,” an FCC dated

The controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act otherwise known as CISPA (HR 3523) passed through the House of Representatives Thursday by a vote of 248 to 168. The bill now moves on to the Senate, where it needs a simple majority to make it to President Obama’s desk to be signed into law. Given that

Whenever something much-anticipated finally lands, some sort of issue or scandal always pops up shortly afterward. And Google Drive is no exception. Some people are taking huge issue with a particular nugget in the Terms of Service: It seems to indicate that, if you use the service to upload files, you’re giving the Mountain View

Google has just launched Account Activity, a new feature designed to give people access to all sorts of interesting stats about their Google usage. The company emails a secure link that directs users to a password-protected page that contains a variety of historical data. You can peep who your most emailed contact was, whether your

Path took a lot of heat in February when it was revealed by a programmer that the company was automatically uploading each user’s iPhone address book without permission. That, in turn, resulted in Congress deciding to probe Apple over its privacy practices. Path quickly deleted all of the private information and apologized for the debacle,

Privacy may be a hot-button topic, with service providers tweaking their settings and terms regularly, but some organizations have figured out how to get around it. And they’re doing it, says MSNBC, with some pretty unbelievable and invasive practices. Maryland’s Department of Corrections used to ask for actual usernames and passwords. It ceased after an

New York Senator Chuck Schumer has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate reports that suggest Apple and Google’s mobile operating systems are automatically uploading contacts and photos from phones without a user’s consent. Apple changed its privacy policies last month after a hacker discovered that an application called “Path” was secretly uploading its user’s

Privacy’s a tricky thing, especially these days. From smartphones that reportedly track you to Facebook and Google’s near-constantly changing policies, balancing companies’ need for valuable, usable data against individuals’ right to privacy seems like a never-ending battle. The latest development in this area comes from The White House, which recently unveiled a sort of consumer

Google is skirting around all kinds of privacy settings, it appears. Last week, it was revealed that Google and other mobile advertising firms were using a bit of code and a cookie to secretly track the browsing habits of iPhone users. Microsoft wrote in a blog post Monday that Google is also secretly routing itself

Commerce Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee Chair G.K. Butterfield and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman recently sent a letter to Apple probing the company in regards to privacy concerns. The legislators are worried about Apple’s willingness to allow the social network Path to automatically upload a user’s entire address book to its servers

I don’t why I’m surprised: We’ve seen pet owners inject GPS trackers on little Fidos all over the country. So was tagging humans really going to be far behind? (Thank goodness for small favors — at least these aren’t physically implanted.) Footwear company Aetrex has teamed up with GTX Corp., integrating the latter’s GPS technology

Discovering that user-activity logging program Carrier IQ might be loaded on your phone is like finding out there’s a peeping tom in your neighborhood: You want to find out if your house was on the scumbag’s route or not. Well, if you have a rooted Android phone, you can do just that, thanks to a

While the Carrier IQ debacle continues to dig its own hole more furiously than a rabid groundhog, Apple is the first critter to pop its head up from the soil and clear itself…for the most part. Apple released a statement today indicating that the company had infused versions of iOS with Carrier IQ software in

It’s no secret that our data and usage behavior on our phones are eminently loggable. But its another thing entirely to see it in action. That’s just what we get to do, though, thanks to one crafty Android dev. Renowned developer Trevor Eckhart has recorded a vid that shows the workings of some hidden software

A settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook now requires the site to let you know when it changes privacy settings, and have you opt-in before those changes can take effect on your account. The site is also subject to privacy audits every 2 years until 2031. “Facebook is obligated to keep the promises

So much for the stereotype about kids and their lack of concern for online privacy. Turns out, more than half are actually pretty discerning regarding what they post about themselves, says Pew Internet & American Life Project. According to its new report, as many as 55 percent of young people are selective about they share

Perhaps you never caught the TV show Rubicon before AMC yanked it off the air. I actually enjoyed its brain-teasing, intellectual twists and turns — not that I fully understood everything, but this world of intrigue was still fascinating. In this place, innocuous-looking public messages were never what they seemed, and the idea that such

Let me preface the forthcoming statement with this: I live in Korea, and the 4S has not yet reached our shores. That being said, I like what I’ve seen from Siri. I also like the functionality that my Android phone offers. The reviews that I’ve seen from the majority of people who have used Siri

Privacy concerns have long played out all over the media, with some users freaked out about sharing their likes, dislikes, location and other information. This, however, takes that theme to a whole new level: There’s a website called Take This Lollipop that lets you create your own scary vid starring a Facebook stalker who hunts

Apparently, there was a little extra something in HTC’s recent Gingerbread update (v 2.3.4) for the Sensation and EVO 3D. A user over at InfectedROM was checking out the Carrier IQ (CIQ) – which usually just sends some harmless data to the carriers about the device – when he spotted an interesting nugget in the

Gaming communities, sites and forums have started the process of protest and boycotting EA’s Origin service. And, no, this time it’s not related to which games EA is pulling off of Steam and hosting on their marketplace. Instead, one user read over the terms of service when they downloaded and were about to install Origin.

The Facebook Contacts controversy came to a head this week, leaving many to wonder what else the social networking site might be storing without users’ knowledge. Weigh in on the items you think the site is tracking in the poll below and/or weigh in below, if there’s something else not on the list. What Else

A shocking bit of Facebook news hit the rumor mills this week, when it was discovered that the social site was saving mobile users’ contact lists. There was surprise, disbelief, horror and outrage, prompting numerous articles and a backlash of user reactions from all over the web. But is this as big a deal as