“It’s not a level playing field,” says Tim Libert, becoming animated as he shifts in his seat in his sparse home office in Sunnyvale, glancing between hulking monitors and clicking around on his desktop. “In fact it’s the furthest fucking thing from a level playing field.” The thing that is …
Read More »DuckDuckGo Is Taking Its Privacy Fight to Data Brokers
For more than a decade, DuckDuckGo has rallied against Google’s extensive online tracking. Now the privacy-focused web search and browser company has another target in its sights: the sprawling, messy web of data brokers that collect and sell your data every single day. Today, DuckDuckGo is launching a new browser-based …
Read More »A Breakthrough Online Privacy Proposal Hits Congress
Congress may be closer than ever to passing a comprehensive data privacy framework after key House and Senate committee leaders released a new proposal on Sunday. The bipartisan proposal, titled the American Privacy Rights Act, or APRA, would limit the types of consumer data that companies can collect, retain, and …
Read More »The Incognito Mode Myth Has Fully Unraveled
If you still hold any notion that Google Chrome’s “Incognito mode” is a good way to protect your privacy online, now’s a good time to stop. Google has agreed to delete “billions of data records” the company collected while users browsed the web using Incognito mode, according to documents filed …
Read More »Jeffrey Epstein’s Island Visitors Exposed by Data Broker
Nearly 200 mobile devices of people who visited Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious “pedophile island” in the years prior to his death left an invisible trail of data pointing back to their own homes and offices. Maps of these visitations generated by a troubled international data broker with defense industry ties, discovered …
Read More »The DOJ Puts Apple's iMessage Encryption in the Antitrust Crosshairs
For well over a decade, Apple has been praised by privacy advocates for its decision in 2011 to end-to-end encrypt iMessage, securing users' communications on the default texting app for all its devices so thoroughly that even Apple itself can't read their messages. This was years before WhatsApp switched on …
Read More »Some of the Most Popular Websites Share Your Data With Over 1,500 Companies
Everywhere you go online, you’re being tracked. Almost every time you visit a website, trackers gather data about your browsing and funnel it back into targeted advertising systems, which build up detailed profiles about your interests and make big profits in the process. In some places, you’re tracked more than …
Read More »Glassdoor Wants to Know Your Real Name
Using Glassdoor, the site famous for candid employee reviews that break through corporate facades, is less anonymous than it used to be. In July last year, the company added new social features integrated from Fishbowl, an app for work-related discussions acquired in 2021. Glassdoor has also changed its sign-up process …
Read More »Reddit’s Sale of User Data for AI Training Draws FTC Inquiry
Reddit said ahead of its IPO next week that licensing user posts to Google and others for AI projects could bring in $203 million of revenue over the next few years. The community-driven platform was forced to disclose Friday that US regulators already have questions about that new line of …
Read More »Biden Bans Rival Nations From Buying Sensitive US Data—Good Luck
US president Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Wednesday aimed at preventing a handful of countries, including China, North Korea, and Russia, from purchasing sensitive information about Americans through commercial data brokers in the United States. Administration officials say categories of sensitive data, including personal identifiers, precise location …
Read More »