Craig Timberg reports: The maker of the popular Firefox browser is moving ahead with plans to block the most common forms of Internet tracking, allowing hundreds of millions of users to eventually limit who watches their movements across the Web, company officials said Wednesday. Firefox made the decision despite intense resistance from advertising groups, which…
Category: Business
Big Brother alert: Cameras in the cable box to monitor TV viewers
Cheryl K. Chumley reports: It hardly gets more Orwellian than this. New technology would allow cable companies to peer directly into television watchers’ homes and monitor viewing habits and reactions to product advertisements. The technology would come via the cable box, and at least one lawmaker on Capitol Hill is standing in opposition. Mass. Democratic Rep….
Google challenges U.S. gag order, citing First Amendment
Craig Timberg reports: Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it’s forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, is the latest…
Yahoo discloses user data requests from US law enforcement agencies
John Ribeiro reports: Yahoo has received between 12,000 to 13,000 requests for user data from law enforcement agencies in the U.S. between Dec. 1 and May 31 this year, the company said Monday. The most common of these requests concerned fraud, homicides, kidnappings, and other criminal investigations, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and General Counsel Ron…