Once upon a time, we had a Macy’s credit card, but we seldom used it after I made a concerted effort years ago to eliminate store credit cards to consolidate my bills. I would shop at Macy’s but just not use a store card, even though every cashier encouraged me to use a Macy’s card….
Category: Business
Online marketer tapped browser flaw to see if visitors were pregnant
Dan Goodin reports: An advertising network that served banners on cnn.com, orbitz.com, and 45,000 other sites has settled federal charges that it illegally exploited a decade-old browser flaw that leaks the history of websites users visit. Epic Marketplace used data mined from the history sniffing exploit to assign interests to visitors so the ad network…
Senator Al Franken reintroduces privacy act requiring user consent for location sharing
Eric Engleman of Bloomberg News reports: Smartphones, mobile applications and in-car navigation devices would be required to get permission from consumers before collecting and sharing location data under legislation to be considered by a U.S. Senate committee this week. Senator Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat who introduced the measure last year, released a revised version…
FTC settles charges against Epic Marketplace over “history sniffing” to collect data from consumers
From the FTC’s press release: An online advertising company agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it used “history sniffing” to secretly and illegally gather data from millions of consumers about their interest in sensitive medical and financial issues ranging from fertility and incontinence to debt relief and personal bankruptcy. The FTC settlement order bars…