Statement from Facebook General Counsel Ted Ullyot: As Mark said last week, we strongly encourage all governments to be much more transparent about all programs aimed at keeping the public safe. In the past, we have questioned the value of releasing a transparency report that, because of exactly these types of government restrictions on disclosure,…
Category: Business
Cloud computing user privacy in serious need of reform, scholars say
Phil Ciciora writes: When Web surfers sign up for a new online service or download a Web application for their smartphone or tablet, the service typically requires them to click a seemingly innocuous box and accept the company’s terms of service and privacy policy. But agreeing to terms without reading them beforehand can adversely affect…
Another Government-Info-Broker Inquiry Is Underway
Kate Kaye reports: Amid an escalating data-collection scandal within the Obama administration, the investigative arm of Congress is conducting a study of data brokers. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., commissioned the study of information resellers by the Government Accountability Office, the non-partisan research and investigative arm of Congress. The GAO confirmed the study, to be completed in late…
How Regulators Enticed Verizon to Sell Out Customers to the NSA
Ira Stoll reports: Verizon, the phone company whose disclosure of customer data to the federal government is at the center of the furor over cooperation by technology companies with top-secret national security programs, has offered a precise, clear, but little-noticed public explanation of why it did what it did. The Verizon explanation is not in…